Overview
I've designed Whirligig to work as smoothly as possible and hopefully not run into issues during use. However there are times when you may run into problems that need troubleshooting. Here are some guides that hopefully should help you get Whirligig back up and running.
No sound from the Oculus Headphones
Installing LAV Codecs for using with Whirligig
Resetting Whirligig
Problem playing subtitles from other countries that include characters such as these ą ę ś ć ź
Another place to get help is the official Steam Whirligig forum which can be found here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/451650/discussions/
I'm very active on this forum and if you have any questions to ask it's a very good place to start. You can also contact me through the contact part of this Website.
No sound from Oculus Headphones
Whirligig video playback works independently from Unity3D (the engine I make the player in). For this reason unlike a lot of Oculus apps the audio doesn't get automatically switched over to the Oculus headphones. This is easy to do manually though.
To change the audio device so that the audio comes from the headphones instead of the computer speakers simply click on the speaker icon on your taskbar and in the dropdown menu select Headphones(Rift Audio). The audio will then play through the Oculus headphones.
A note from the developer, me. This is something I will be working on to fix. The process is different for each video plugin though so may take time to fully implement. Expect an update addressing this problem in future updates.
Video path support and installing codecs
Whirligig comes with three video path options. These include DirectShow (requires codecs), Media Foundation (Doesn't work on Windows 7) and VLC video Lan. All these options have advantages and disadvantages.
Media Foundation
Media foundation is the default option for playback within Whirligig. It is windows built in codec video support and because of this doesn't require any additional codecs to be installed.
Advantages
A good range built in codecs support.
No additional software required.
Disadvantage
Incompatible with Windows 7 (Whirligig will default to VLC Video lan support)
Video playback isn't as smooth as Directshow.
Some files will play but won't have sound or video.
VLC Video Lan
The VLC Video Lan render path is based on Video LAN Codec (libVLC) and FFmpeg native library. Because of this it can play a large range codec formats (larger than Media foundation) and also support youtube and streaming playback. VLC Video Lan is a good choice but doesn't always playback 4k video very well.
Advantages
Large range of codec support
No additional software required.
Support for Youtube playback.
Disadvantage
Playback performance isn't always that good on high resolution videos.
Jumping around the video doesn't update until the video is played.
Videos sometimes play on load when they should be paused.
DirectShow
Directshow is one of the best ways to playback video files. It has the largest range of support and fastest playback. I would highly recommend this video path option and once you have the codecs installed and working with Whirligig it is unlikely you'll need to use any of the other video paths.
Advantages
Fastest and Smoothest playback.
A very large range of support.
Disadvantage
Requires third party codecs to be installed.
GPU decoding is only available for Nvidia based video cards.
Installing Open-Source DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders
There are several ways to install these on your system but the simplest and in my opinion the safest is to install the LAV directshow filter pack. This is an Open Source set of DirectShow filters that allows you to play all popular video and audio formats without having to install any other codec pack or additional codec or filter.
The installation is pretty simply. Go to the offical LAV Github repository https://github.com/Nevcairiel/LAVFilters/releases download the latest installer.exe and install with the default settings. For a more detailed explanations take a look at the 'We Are Stars' setup guide which can be found here wearestars360.nsccreative.com/setup
Resetting Whirligig to a fresh install
I've done my utmost best to insure that Whirligig doesn't crash and I continue to bug fix as best I can. In saying that there are times when Whirligig might fail, crash or start to run into difficulties.
Examples of reason for issues.
Loading a video or image which causes the player to crash. Whirligig loads the previously viewed media so if that media causes the player to crash then it can cause a loop of the player crashing on each load.
A computer or hardware failure that causes your system to crash. This can introduce a bug into the saved files which then gets loaded each time the player loads that media.
A Whirligig update that introduces a previously unknown issue. This happens mostly when you're using the betas as new features are added there first and without the larger testing process that the default builds get.
What does the reset do?
Whirligig stores the settings for each of your loaded videos so that when you load that video again those settings are restored. These ini files containing the settings are stored in a folder in the Windows roaming folder (often used by Windows programs to store setup information). A way to restore the player back to it's default state is to delete this folder.
There are two ways you can reset the player (delete Whirligig roaming folder). The first and easiest way which is built into Whirligig and the second which requires you to delete the settings folder within the roaming folder manually.
Built in reset
Press ctrl, alt and tap f9 and follow the on screen instructions. This method will move the roaming folder into a backup folder within the roaming folder effectively resetting the player but also allowing you to return the previous settings in you wish to. To return the the previous settings you'll have to navigate the roaming folder and restore them manually.
Manually reseting
If the player crashes on boot then this is the best way to restore the player to a fresh install.
Close Whirligig.
Navigate here :
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming
Find the folder called 'Whirligig' and rename or delete it.
Restart Whirligig.
Problem playing subtitles from other countries that include characters such as these ą ę ś ć ź
If you are using Whirligigs ability to playback accompanying srt subtitle files that contain characters such as ą ę ś ć ź often found in none english subtitles then there is an easy way to get these subtitles working.
An example of the problem.
So instead of seeing subtitles that look like this.
- Takie myœlenie mo¿e ciê zgubiæ.
- Podejmê to ryzyko.
You will see subtitles that look like this.
- Takie my�lenie mo�e ci� zgubi�.
- Podejm� to ryzyko.
This is due to Unity3D (The games engine I make Whirligig in) not supporting special characters such as these ą ę ś ć ź in this text file type. This is easy to get around as all you need to do is convert the srt file to UTF-8 format.
Simply open the srt file in Notpad++,
select Encoding from the menu,
select 'Convert to UTF-8',
select file and hit save.
Now when the subtitles are loaded they should look correct.
You can download Notepad++ from here https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v7.html I also highly recommend Notpad++