3D MP3 Media Player Howto and Help

Problems with Direct3D when starting up

Some MMiX.Me users encounter an Exception when starting the application the first time. This may be related to a problem with the Direct3D driver used with the graphics card. To solve this problem, we recommend telling MMiX.Me to use the OpenGL rendering system instead. Please download and install this (very small!) registry file to accomplish this:

Please be aware that some browsers will as a safety precaution not download the file as-is, but either just

  1. display it as text, or
  2. download and save it as a text file.

If 1) happens, then with the text file showing, select File → Save Page As… in your browser and save it, making sure that it ends with .reg otherwise, rename the saved file so it ends with .reg.  (Your Windows must be showing file name endings!) Double-click it to install.

MMiX.Me Quick Guide

Navigation

In general, navigation is done using the mouse.

  • Left click a “music node” to see a high-resolution closeup, with internet search and player options.
  • Double (left) click a node to instantly play, and go to closeup
  • Right click to bring up tracks listing
  • Mouse Wheel to leave a closeup
  • Mouse Wheel to turn the current View Geometry (the movement will be geometry dependent)
  • Left press, then drag mouse, then release to alter camera viewing angle.
  • Write text to apply text filter search.  “Esc” key to leave view filtering.

Replacing Album Art

There are two ways to update album art, manual and automatic.

  • Automatic mode will search the internet (by asking search engines) for images, but only for albums without picture. You click the Settings button (cog wheel in top right corner), select the Player tab, and click “Search For Pictures”.  No other interaction is required from you, and progress can be seen in the top right corner.   If the information gathered for a node is insufficient, a search will not pick any result, so the album will remain pictureless.
  • Manual mode can be reached from the Closeup view. Click on any album to see its closeup. Three new buttons are available: Manual Search, Play Now, Enqueue.  Click Manual Search, and you will be presented with a regular text box and a search suggestion based on what is already known about the album.  Edit the text if you like (omit extra characters like numbers or symbols), and press Enter to start the search.  Shortly you will be presented with a list of discovered pictures, sorted so that the best result is leftmost. Hover thumbnails with the mouse pointer to view them enlarged.  Left click any thumbnail to start using it as your the new album art!

MMiX.Me under Linux

Some experimentalists are running MMiX.Me under Ubuntu Linux.

Expanding our Universe!

MMiX.Me contains several high-quality third-party software libraries. In terms of expandibility and configurability, the three most important libraries are Ogre, CEGUI and Lua. Ogre allows for easy 3D object manipulation, like material effects. CEGUI is in charge of all overlay rendering like windows, buttons and text fields, and Lua is a script language that controls ALL the important goings-on in MMiX.Me. These three libraries all make use of script files that reside on your hard disk. This means that anyone can change lighting effects, material types and object shapes (Ogre), button positions, graphics and behaviour (CEGUI), and general MMiX.Me behaviour (Lua) using nothing but Notepad in Windows.

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