Designer r34 Release Notes

r34.1 - Camera tracking and localisation

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Full (Pro) build: 450
Starter build: 451
Released: September 9th 2026

Designer r34.1 adds OpenTrackIO camera tracking and a refreshed Japanese translation of the Designer interface, along with a Captury MoCap driver and improvements to IP-VFC and OmniCal.

Improvements

• DSOF-32669 - Added OpenTrackIO camera tracking. Designer can now receive camera position, rotation and lens data from any OpenTrackIO-compatible source over multicast, including segmented packets and full transform handling.
• DSOF-33253 - Added a Japanese translation of the Designer interface, selected from the Language menu in d3manager and applied to both d3manager and Designer.
• DSOF-32244 - Added a Captury MoCap driver, so Captury skeleton tracking can drive Designer content.
• DSOF-9640 - Added transport shortcuts to jump to the previous and next keyframe.
• DSOF-21440 - Test pattern labels can now be resized, so identifiers stay readable on large or high-resolution surfaces.
• DSOF-32414 - IP-VFC Ethernet link status is now shown in the UI, so you can see at a glance whether a port has a live connection.
• DSOF-32956 - When applying feeds with VFC ports in Auto timing mode, Designer now matches every Auto output to the timing mode already in use elsewhere where bandwidth allows, rather than choosing one per output. Mixed timings across outputs could previously cause genlock to fail. The timing chosen for each output is logged to the console when feeds are applied.
• DSOF-33159 - Session configuration errors are now more helpful and reported in the license violation overlay, rather than only in the console.
• DSOF-32926 - RenderStream workload logging can now be quickly enabled and disabled. Each Unreal Engine asset has a logging level in its settings — Off, Default or Verbose — which is remembered per asset, so you can capture workload detail only when you need it instead of editing the engine config and relaunching the project.
• DSOF-33093 - OmniCal now uses a more accurate method for pose averaging, improving calibration consistency.
• DSOF-33179 - The legacy GPU pool option has been removed. The current GPU pool has been the default for some time and is the only option now.
• DSOF-10018 & DSOF-33361 - The Proof of Play report now includes the video version number and the active note.
• DSOF-32134 - The Expression Variables Device can now be searched and filtered.

Fixes

• DSOF-33019 - OmniCal will now keep a projection surface aligned to its parent object when that parent has moved between capture and alignment. The parent’s pose is recorded during capture and used when the alignment is applied, so a tracked or automated screen no longer jumps to its absolute capture position. Where the parent moves too far during capture, OmniCal now warns that the images cannot be used.
• DSOF-32955 - VFC cards that fail to initialise will no longer overwrite the configuration saved for them in the project. Designer now keeps the card type whenever it can be read from the device, and distinguishes in the feed view between a card that failed to initialise — which can be reset in place — and a communication error, which needs a restart.
• DSOF-33055 - Designer will now report genlock as active on GX 3 hardware whenever NVIDIA reports the external sync signal and frame lock pulse as present, rather than only updating the feed view once it regains focus.
• DSOF-32808 - Bit depth will now be reported correctly in Current Output for an NVIDIA Mosaic surface mapped in Designer on X-range hardware, rather than as 0.
• DSOF-30633 - The enableColourFormat option switch has been removed, and the Colour Format field is now always available in the VFC editor. Its Auto setting uses RGB where the output has the bandwidth for it and YCbCr 4:2:2 where it does not, so 10-bit UHD 60Hz now applies without needing the option switch.
• DSOF-33113 - 1GbE network adapters will now be recognised in the Bandwidth Monitor.
• DSOF-32928 - A long string mapped to a RenderStream parameter will no longer break the workload UI.
• DSOF-32733 - Notch layers with a large number of fields will no longer slow down the interface.
• DSOF-32853 - Position drivers that receive over multicast, including the FreeD and OpenTrackIO drivers, will now establish the connection correctly. A multicast tracking source previously failed to connect at all.
• DSOF-33207 - A static IP address entered for an IP-VFC Ethernet port will now be kept, rather than resetting to 0.0.0.0 as soon as it is entered. This affected IP-VFC firmware 26.2 on VX 4+.
• DSOF-24403 - The Preview button in a VideoClip object’s properties now opens a single preview window however many times it is clicked, rather than one window per click.

r34.0.4 - Hotfixes

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Full (Pro) build: 438
Starter build: 439
Released: September 9th 2026

Items marked with a ● are also included in r32.4.16.

Improvements

• DSOF-33356 - The installer now offers a choice to create the ‘d3 Projects’ and ‘RenderStream Projects’ folder shortcuts on the user’s Desktop. Previously it would always create them.

Fixes

• DSOF-33452 - Notch blocks outside the current transport’s set list are now preloaded, so Designer will no longer freeze when playback first reaches them. Preloading can still be turned off with the notchLazyLoading option switch, in which case blocks continue to load on demand.
• DSOF-33580 - Disabling or enabling a layer by holding D and left-clicking it, or from the layer’s right-click menu, can now be undone with Ctrl+Z. Neither route previously created an undo point, unlike the equivalent Mute toggle.
• DSOF-33396 - Keyframed and arrowed layer fields will now stay in sync across a cluster when the timeline holds, loops or jumps, rather than drifting further out the longer it runs and skewing which media is prefetched.

• DSOF-33137 - Designer will no longer occasionally crash to desktop when a camera-visible SLC-scale screen is deleted.
• DSOF-33393 - Holding and looping video layers will now stay in sync across a cluster, rather than drifting further apart the longer they play.
• DSOF-33470 - A video layer with At Endpoint keyframed from Loop to Pause will now play on after hitting the “Pause” keyframe until it gets to the end of the clip, rather than immediately pausing.
• DSOF-33319 - Dynamic Blend will now correctly update when a tracked skeleton moves the projection surface, rather than leaving blend artefacts behind.
• DSOF-33483 - A failing Python plugin will no longer revert an unrelated edit made by the operator.
• DSOF-32673 - Saving a layer or group to the layer library under a name that already exists will now give a clear warning.
• DSOF-33101 - Designer will now always start correctly when upgrading a project that contains certain Projections from r33.1 to r33.2 and above versions.
• DSOF-33126 - The service and session APIs on a Director or Understudy will now stay responsive under heavy I/O.
• DSOF-33263 - Designer will now more consistently genlock on AMD machines fitted with a mix of SDI and HDMI VFC cards, especially at 29.97Hz and 59.94Hz.
• DSOF-33371 - RenderStream Uncompressed license updating is now more resilient to server-side failure.
• DSOF-33398 - Opening the warp editor or deformation editor will no longer cause an access violation.
• DSOF-33476 - Designer will no longer occasionally crash while shutting down.

r34.0.3 - Hotfixes

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Full (Pro) build: 258249
Starter build: 258250
Released: August 5th 2026

Items marked with a ● are also included in r32.4.15.

Fixes

• DSOF-33324 - Projector warps exported from Designer as Christie Twist (.twistx) files now include a default full-frame mask, so they load and apply correctly in Christie Twist. Previously a stacked projector showed no output, and adding a point in Twist’s mask editor caused Twist to crash. Soft-edge blending continues to be handled inside Designer, so no mask configuration is needed.
• DSOF-33322 - Editing a projector’s warp stack now works correctly. Toggling a warp layer’s enabled state, or adding, removing or renaming a technique, no longer reports an error.
• DSOF-32704 & DSOF-30934 - When a video’s frame rate matches the project refresh rate, Designer now advances to the next video frame when hitting a section break instead of rendering the final frame before the section break twice.
• DSOF-33195 - Pressing Ctrl+D with nothing selected no longer reports a spurious error after a previous duplicate has been undone and the selection cleared.

r34.0.2 - Hotfixes

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Full (Pro) build: 257237
Starter build: 257238
Released: July 29th 2026

Items marked with a ● are also included in r32.4.14.

Fixes

• DSOF-33353 - QSDI VFC cards in quad mode now correctly restore screen configuration after applying feed settings.
• DSOF-33254 & DSOF-30914 - Sources of superfluous logging relating to Notch blocks and the Proof of Play feature have been removed.
• DSOF-33140 - DMX indirection patches can now be removed.
• DSOF-32463 - Keyframes may now be placed close to the start of a layer.
• DSOF-31896 - Designer will no longer intermittently crash to desktop on some machines.
• DSOF-33250 - Diagnostic graphs relating to display management now display correctly in half speed mode.

r34.0.1 - Hotfixes

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Full (Pro) build: 256615
Starter build: 256616
Released: July 22nd 2026

Items marked with a ● are also included in r32.4.13.

Improvements

• DSOF-33316 - CSV projector study exports now include throw ratio, to match PDF exports.

Fixes

• DSOF-33331 - Designer UI translations omitted from version r32.4.10 onwards have been restored.
• DSOF-33257 - RenderStream will no longer occasionally fail claiming a plugin is version ‘r0.0’.
• DSOF-33115 - Texture parameter latency graph will now appear when a new TransportManager is used.
• DSOF-33016 - Mask creation in mrset color calibration will now work with multiple cameras.

r34.0 - Colour, lighting and workflow improvements

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Full (Pro) build: 256372
Starter build: 256373
Released: July 15th 2026

Designer r34.0 is a major release because it changes the default blend mode behaviour. For details on the blend mode behaviour pre and post r34 see Mask Blending. To understand our release naming scheme and what can prompt a major version change, see Designer Release Versioning Conventions. This change will be highlighted in Designer when upgrading a project from a pre-r34 version of Designer.

Designer r34.0 brings a set of colour, lighting and workflow improvements including HDR / non-sRGB GUI support in OCIO colour-managed mode, custom DMX fixture types with new 16-bit monochrome channels, Anchor Layers, and faster remote diagnostics collection along with sequencing and RenderStream stability fixes.

Improvements

• DSOF-27510 - Added support for viewing the GUI on non-sRGB / HDR monitors when working in OCIO colour-managed mode.
• DSOF-7641 - DMX Screens now support custom fixture types built from any combination of supported channels, so you can match arbitrary fixture personalities.
• DSOF-32343 - Added 16-bit monochrome (maximum and weighted-sum) channel types for DMX Screens, so all channel types now support both 8- and 16-bit output.
• DSOF-32714 - Added Anchor Layers: lock a layer’s position on the timeline so it can’t be dragged, while still allowing its parameters to be edited.
• DSOF-28790 - When you insert time before the playhead, the playhead now moves with it so the output stays on the same content.
• DSOF-33087 - Expressions now support string comparison equality and inequality (==, !=) as well as lexicographic ordering (<, >, <=, >=).
• DSOF-32846 - Create System Diagnostics on remote machines can now download each machine’s diagnostic zip straight to a folder you choose, instead of collecting them by hand.
• DSOF-32738 - Added MSAA anti-aliasing options to the 2.5D and Stage Render modules.
• DSOF-30790 - Reduced RenderStream Layer (RSL) latency when texture parameters are in use.
• DSOF-33168 - Genlock gain/loss on NVIDIA GPUs (GX 3 and GX 3+) is now detected automatically and reflected in Designer without a manual refresh.
• DSOF-20229 - Timeline Transport Speed Control (Prerelease) change a track’s playback speed via the Transport Manager, MIDI/OSC/DMX event transports, and the /transport/speed API. Enable it by turning on the enableTransportSpeedControl option in the d3Manager Preview tab (requires a restart).

Fixes

• DSOF-33095 - Designer will no longer report a cascade of errors when rendering the Layer Stack GUI (for example, the 2.5D plate editor).
• DSOF-31154 - Luma matte blend modes will no longer affect the entire layer stack above them.
• DSOF-31741 - Designer will no longer report an error during resource transport.
• DSOF-32969 - Designer will no longer report an error during sequence evaluation.
• DSOF-32705 - RenderStream Layer (RSL) streams will no longer jitter when multiple streams are running.
• DSOF-32532 - The HDMI RGB Full/Limited override is now available as a Video Input Patch Editor setting rather than a hidden option switch.
• DSOF-32674 - Saving a layer to the library will no longer flood the console with “Failed to get bandwidth estimation” warnings.
• DSOF-32868 - Bandwidth estimation for arrow texture parameters will now work when the playhead is outside the layer’s range.