Wallpaper Engine News

Hey everyone, today we're releasing Wallpaper Engine 1.5. With this update we are introducing some important changes to how resolution tags are handled and we're bringing a brand new effect to the wallpaper editor. Aside from that, we have made various minor improvements to the app and ironed out a few bugs.

[h2]New Effect: Iris Movement[/h2]
We have created a new effect called Iris Movement, which allows wallpaper creators to create realistic eye movements with relative ease. Multiple effects can also be stacked to create synchronized eye and head movements, such as shown in the example below:



A similar effect was already possible to achieve with the use of tweaked versions of the Shake effect, however, this new effect simplifies the process significantly and makes this type of effect much more easy to use for casual users.

Detailed documentation and a quick-start guide on how to achieve the effect as shown in the preview image above can be found on our designer documentation website.

[h2]Wallpaper Resolution Recommendations[/h2]
This update also contains some significant changes on how we handle resolutions on new projects and a new resolution suggestion feature.

[h3]Automatic Image Resizing and Cropping[/h3]
When importing a new image into the editor that does not match any real screen resolution, Wallpaper Engine will now automatically suggest to crop and resize the image for you to the optimal resolution. Overly large images have a negative impact on the performance of wallpapers and they are tagged as Other Resolution which is not particularly helpful when looking for wallpapers.

This feature especially useful and convenient for casual and new users of the app who are more likely to import images with resolutions that do not match any real resolutions For example, if importing an image with a resolution of 6000 x 4000 pixels will cause Wallpaper Engine to suggest to resize it to 3840x2160 which is what is commonly found on many 4K UHD displays. This ensures the wallpaper is tagged properly and can also significantly improve performance.

On an image sized 1920 x 1285, Wallpaper Engine will not suggest to crop it to Full HD.

This update also introduces a new Editor Settings menu where you can disable the automatic resizing of wallpaper images if you are regularly importing larger images on purpose (for example, for parallax effects or similar). The new editor settings also offer a way to turn off autosaving for most actions if you just quickly want to test something in the editor.

[h3]New Dynamic Resolution Tag[/h3]
Some wallpaper types such as 3D scenes, web and application wallpapers tend to dynamically scale on any resolution. Previously they have been categorized as Other resolution which meant they would be grouped together with improperly sized wallpapers. To differentiate these wallpapers better, we are now introducing a dynamic resolution tag that is enabled by default. In the near future, we will automatically change the tags on all relevant wallpapers from our end. However, in the long run this will be a significant improvement to the resolution tags and make it easier to find high-quality submissions that scale well across all screen resolutions.

[h3]Automatic Resolution Filter Suggestions[/h3]
Another feature we have added is a new automatic resolution filter suggestion. In the Resolution filter section, you will now find a new button that opens a new Resolution Settings menu. When enabling the Recommended option, Wallpaper Engine will automatically select and store resolutions that make sense for your screen setup.



We hope this feature will make it easier to find wallpapers that match a specific screen setup. We found that many users tend to only set the exact resolution of their screen in the resolution settings while it may make sense to slightly expand this list. For example, a 2560x1440 screen will usually also work really well with 3440x1440 wallpapers, so it makes sense to enable both options in these cases. We built a large list of sensible resolution recommendations so that you can turn them on at the click of a button. Of course all of this is optional, you can ignore this feature entirely and stay in full control over your filter settings just like before if you wish to do so.

Other than that, we have improved various little things around the app, such as the restructured settings menu, a new ultra quality performance preset and the ability to select a source display when using the display clone functionality:


[h2]Additions / Changes[/h2]

• Added new eye movement effect for animating the iris of a character.
  
• Added automatic crop & resize when importing an image for a new scene wallpaper.
  
• Added editor options menu to allow disabling auto saving and automatic image resizing.
  
• Added new resolution tag options and grouping.
  
• Redesigned the advanced material settings button on individual layers.
  
• Added new dynamic resolution tag for 3D and web wallpapers.
  
• Added new UI quality/performance options to disable GIFs to improve performance.
  
• Made wallpaper settings copy between monitors when the copy/swap menu is used.
  
• Restructured the Wallpaper Engine settings to make them easier to navigate.
  
• Added support for Workshop presets on scene wallpapers.
  
• Added preview image option to general project settings and improved refreshing behavior of preview image.
  
• Improved menu for property bindings to separate removal of scripts, animations and user properties better.
  
• Added keyframe update button when auto keying is disabled.
  
• Added hotkeys to toggle auto-keying in timeline animations.
  
• Added option to specify source display for wallpaper cloning across multiple screens.
  
• Added copy wallpaper URL button to browser.
  
• Added ultra quality preset with post-processing set to ultra and FPS set to 30 by default.
  
• Added new config backup system that keeps backups of the config for the last 7 days of use.
  
• Added more hotkeys to change the brush size, hardness and opacity on the fly.
  
• Added brush hotkey preview to easily see the hardness and opacity while changing it with the hotkeys.
  
• Made brush sizes editable and changed brush size restriction to 9999 when editing or using hotkeys.
  
• Added rotation controls for X and Y axes to puppet warp animation gizmo.
  
• Updated various libraries used by Wallpaper Engine to improve performance and stability.
  
• Added Farsi language, community translated by Behnam Ka, thank you!
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed cursor DPI scaling when windows are dragged between screens of different DPI.
  
• Fixed cursor flickering when it's changed to pointer or text cursor.
  
• Fixed script properties on certain object properties not saving correctly.
  
• Fixed audio processing flag in wallpapers not being saved correctly.
  
• Fixed bone z ordering not always working correctly.
  
• Fixed sound playback in scene wallpapers not stopping or playing correctly when controlled from scripts in certain situations.
  
• Fixed animation panel popping up in the center if log and assets window were closed before.
  
• Fixed high memory consumption when particle systems are used that spawn thousands of child system objects each frame.
  
• Fixed crash when puppets are used with too many bones and effects on the same layer.
  
• Fixed fonts not being uploaded when engine.registerAsset is used.
  
• Fixed font import not showing .otf files.
  
• Fixed particle instance control points not being deleted when control point is changed to follow the cursor instead of using a fixed position.
  
• Fixed various languages never being pre-selected as default language during the initial setup screen.
  

[h2]Hotfix 1.5.42 Changelog[/h2]

• Fixed color options resetting on video wallpapers.
  
• Fixed failing preset publishing for wallpapers tagged with "dynamic resolution".
  
• Added notification system for Steam server downtimes.
  
• Added missing translations, especially for certain Steam errors.
  

[h2]Support Notes[/h2]

If you have any questions or issues with the update, please have a look at our help site as it covers the most common issues with application:

[h2]help.wallpaperengine.io[/h2]

Hey everyone, today we are releasing a small update to fix some issues and add a few minor improvements to the app.

[h2]User Interface Improvements[/h2]
As part of this update, we have made various small changes around the user interface to make it more approachable. One thing we are doing is to highlight the Approved tag a little more by moving it to the top of the filters sidebar. On the Installed tab, you will now also find a new My Favorites button to find your installed favorite wallpapers more quickly:



The top of the Wallpaper Engine user interface will now also show the currently installed version and will inform users if they are using the beta. This serves as an easy reminder if you have enabled the beta in the past and forgotten about it and make it easier for verify the currently running version of the app.

In the Steam Workshop search, whenever you type multiple words, a new option for exact phrase matching will appear. Valve has made some changes to the Steam Workshop search in the past and it returns much more relevant results than it used to, but in rare cases it might still be useful if you want to look for something very specific and want to get rid of unrelated wallpapers that might show up in your search.

We have also added a new Brightness option to the LED plugin for Razer Chroma and Corsair iCUE so that you can lower the brightness of your LED hardware if you find it a little bit too bright for you.

[h2]Other Fixes[/h2]

This update also fixes a few issues that were reported to us in the last few weeks, including a crash issue introduced with the last update that could occur when running multiple playlists across multiple screens.

You can read the entire changelog below for the full list of addition, improvements and fixes:


[h2]Additions / Changes[/h2]

• Moved approved filter to the top of the filter sidebar.
  
• Added "My favorites" filter to the top of the filter sidebar in the "Installed" tab.
  
• Added LED brightness option.
  
• Extended winter seasonal theme and discover tab recommendations to the end of January.
  
• Added parallax options to 3D models in 2D scenes.
  
• Added version info to window title.
  
• Added "exact match" option to search field when multiple words are typed into the Workshop search.
  
• Added "Playlist" prefix for playlists in recent list.
  
• Added automatic scheme coloring for static wallpapers.
  
• Added ability to log SceneScript debug code into file by setting the log level to "Verbose".
  
• Added shake/flow map painting brush to paint in a fixed direction.
  
• Added new design for navigation header in the editor.
  
• Added links for "audio disabled in display settings" warning text to make it easier to find the unmute button.
  
• Update Steamworks API to 1.50.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed rare crash when multiple scene wallpapers are in multiple playlists across multiple screens 🤯.
  
• Fixed mouse event click collision for layers with parallax.
  
• Fixed recent wallpaper list showing deleted wallpapers.
  
• Fixed sprite sheet time going beyond next frame duration.
  
• More workarounds for Monaco code editor freezing the entire application.
  
• Fixed Steam Workshop error when searching for a single quotation mark.
  
• Fixed download percentage of pending wallpapers being wrong when subscribing from Steam.
  
• Removed DirectX 2010 SDK files.
  
• Fixed HDR bloom when a timeline animation or SceneScript is attached to its properties.
  

• Fixed occasional crashes when static wallpapers are in a playlist.
  

Hey everyone,

today we are releasing Wallpaper Engine 1.4 with a ton of new features, various improvements and bug fixes. On top of that, we are launching our new designer documentation website, which provides in-depth guides for the Wallpaper Engine Editor and should make wallpaper creation much more accessible to newcomers and existing users alike.



The first major new feature we are introducing is Puppet Warping. With the new puppet warp feature, Wallpaper Engine can analyze the geometry of imported character cutouts (and even character sheets). Wallpaper Engine allows you to define the skeleton and the limbs of your character and then apply complex animations to them. This is a multi-step process that opens up completely new ways to animate characters and we are very much looking forward to seeing what users will do with this new feature:



Puppet Warping even includes physics simulations for objects and advanced users are even able to create interactive wallpaper elements with it, like the following jelly which can be grabbed by the mouse cursor:



Puppet Warping is usually reserved for complex professional applications. We have adapted it for Wallpaper Engine while trying to make it as accessible as possible and created a set of in-depth tutorials on it. If you are interested in giving a try, please have a look at our new tutorial series:

Puppet Warp Tutorials (Only in English for now)



We have also added a completely new key-frame based timeline animation system to the editor. This new system is used in puppet warp animations but we have also enabled it to work with all properties in the editor. This allows you to configure effects to change over time, you can also move, resize and turn elements across the screen on a predefined interval.



In the example preview above, you can also see the new Refraction effect freezing over a window with a timeline animation. The new refraction effect is especially well-suited to simulate frozen glass or similar surface patterns - just in time for the winter season!

Just like with Puppet Warping, we have created a series of extensive tutorials for the new timeline animation system that you can find on our new documentation website:

Timeline Animation Tutorials (Only in English for now)



Another new feature is HDR Bloom that allows for more advanced light glow effects on wallpaper elements. The effect is especially visible when bright and dark objects meet. We have updated the existing Razer Bedroom wallpaper to support HDR Bloom. If you would like to give it a try, set Post-Processing to the new Ultra setting which is turned off by default for now:



HDR Bloom is a new option in the editor scene options, if you would like to learn more about how to use it in your own wallpapers, please have a look at our new bloom tutorial:

Bloom HDR Tutorial (Only in English for now)



We have added a few new customization options to all Scene and Video wallpapers. You can now choose more alignment options, including a Free Alignment option, which gives you the ability to freely position a wallpaper on your screen and zoom it in and out as needed.

Additionally, we have implemented another popular feature request to give you the ability to change the brightness, contrast and saturation. On top of that, we have added a hue shift functionality which allows you to completely change the colors of any wallpaper if they don't happen to fully match your taste.

You can find these options on the right-hand side when selecting any installed Scene or Video wallpaper:



In the video clip above you may have spotted another new feature: Clicking on any slider value in the wallpaper settings will now allow you to manually type in a value - this was also another popular request that we have implemented.



We continue to overhaul the user interface to make it easier to use and also improve the look and feel. You can now see followed users and favorite wallpapers in the Discover tab by clicking on the new buttons in the top section.

We have also created a new download animation and added a blur effect to all pop-up windows. If you don't like these effects or if they cause any technical issues for you, you can turn them off in the General tab of the Wallpaper Engine settings. When hardware acceleration for the user interface is turned off, they are also automatically turned off to make the interface more performant.


The Wallpaper Engine editor has become very capable and includes many functions also found in professional applications. For this reason we have worked hard to create a new documentation website which we are finally revealing today:

[h2]docs.wallpaperengine.io[/h2]

The website is still a work in progress and still missing a few important tutorials. However, all new features have been fully documented and we have also already created a new Getting started with your first wallpaper guide that is a great way to get started with all the basics of creating your fist animated wallpaper with Wallpaper Engine.

The new website offers multiple advantages to us over using Steam or an external wiki: Since we have full control over the website, we can structure tutorials the way we like them, incorporate a large number of helpful video clips and even create translations which will make the Wallpaper Engine editor more accessible in the long run.

The documentation for HTML-based Web wallpapers is already done, while we will likely finish the documentation for image-based Scene wallpapers in January 2021. Once we are done with the documentation, we will start translating the website into other languages, so if your English is not the greatest, be sure to check back later or simply give machine-translation a try!

We highly value your right to privacy: Neither the Wallpaper Engine app or our website utilize any user tracking at all. For this reason, we absolutely rely on personal user feedback. If you think any of the tutorials are unclear or if you have a suggestion for a future tutorial topic, we're happy to hear from you, just post on our forums or send us an email. Any constructive feedback, be it positive or negative, is very much appreciated and we will incorporate it into future updates of the website and the app.

[h2]Wrapping up 2020[/h2]

Last but not least, we wish all of our users that celebrate any of the ongoing or upcoming festivities around the world happy holidays and we wish everyone a happy new year. We know there are more important things going on in the world than an app for animated wallpapers, but we hope you will like the features we have added with this update and hope that it will inspire people to try out some of the new or existing features of the Wallpaper Engine editor.

We personally will take off some time to spend Christmas with our families starting the 21st of December. Should you run into any technical issues over the Christmas holidays, we would like to apologize in advance and ask you to check out our Troubleshooting & FAQ website first - it really covers all regular issues in great detail and most problems can be solved easily with the help of it. If you cannot solve these issues on your own, just write us an email or come by our forums in January and we will be happy to help you out as we usually do.


[h2]Additions / Changes[/h2]

• Added timeline animation system for properties.
  
• Added puppet warp deformation and animation system.
  
• Added HDR bloom rendering.
  
• Added new "Ultra" post-processing option to enable HDR bloom, it's disabled by default for now.
  
• Added script access to texture, property and puppet warp animations.
  
• Added refraction effect.
  
• Added precision option to user property sliders.
  
• Added order input to sort user properties a bit more easily.
  
• Added direct user property editing in wallpaper browser by clicking on the label.
  
• Added general colorization options to scene and video wallpapers.
  
• Added animations to wallpaper download progress (can be turned off by disabling the new UI effects option).
  
• Added background blur modals in UI similar to Windows 10 transparency effects (can be turned off by disabling the new UI effects option).
  
• Added additional UI hardware acceleration option to toggle it on again after it was disabled with the third Steam launch option.
  
• Improved keyword behavior in Workshop tab.
  
• Added designer documentation button to editor startup screen.
  
• Replaced help overlay with new section in file menu.
  
• Various minor user interface improvements in the app and the first-time setup.
  
• Added image layer preview image to properties in editor.
  
• Improved general input responsiveness of editor by making FPS limiter more lax when input is sent.
  
• Added new 'center' and 'free' alignment options to videos and scenes (renamed old 'center' alignment to 'fill').
  
• Made image import dialog simpler with texture format guide.
  
• Improved quality of mass-imported static image wallpapers.
  
• Added setTimeout/setInterval functions to engine in SceneScript.
  
• Changed particle systems to immediately turn invisible when a user property toggles them off.
  
• Fixed per-wallpaper LED effects option not being applied on start up sometimes.
  
• Added automatic VRAM stop option that turns Wallpaper Engine off when your VRAM becomes exhausted (experimental, disabled by default).
  
• Reduced rare issue where wallpapers reload or flicker after booting with the high-priority automatic startup.
  
• Added CTRL / Shift hotkeys to brush editor to change size/opacity of brush more easily while editing.
  
• Added Shift hotkey to increase camera movement in editor.
  
• Added new "followed content" section to Discover tab where a list with new wallpapers from followed authors is shown too.
  
• Added background blending option for god rays and shine, when they are used on transparent images to improve blending behavior.
  
• Moved camera paths into dynamic window that is hidden by default (open it from edit -> camera paths).
  
• Added a connection overlay while Wallpaper Engine is blocked by Steam to confirm the initial connection.
  
• Updated Steamworks SDK to 1.50.
  
• Updated FreeType and Harfbuzz libraries to implement security updates.
  
• Added time rollover to scene wallpapers to fix animations breaking after weeks of uninterrupted use.
  
• Completely removed DirectX 9 and OpenGL in favor of DirectX 11.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed FPS limiter inaccuracies over 60 FPS - 144 FPS were previously only 120 FPS, now they really are 144 FPS.
  
• Fixed x-ray effect to work even when it's not the last effect.
  
• Fixed color picker on multi-monitor systems sometimes not working right.
  
• Fixed DPI scaling of title bar covering buttons on high DPI.
  
• Updated iCUE SDK to 3.0.361 and fixed LED count on multiple devices of the same class.
  
• Fixed scale gizmo in editor to maintain aspect ratio of scale.
  
• Fixed texture stats in editor to not take certain dynamic buffers into account.
  
• Fixed CEF global muting not being applied.
  
• Attempted to fix brush panel sometimes not appearing.
  
• Fixed combo box property not saving with a default value unless the creator chose one.
  
• Fixed bug in transparency cropping that turned some images invisible.
  
• Fixed audio stream being opened by OS even when wallpapers are globally muted.
  
• Fixed move wallpapers menu not showing all folders.
  
• Fixed nextWallpaper command line not being applied to all playlists.
  
• Fixed playlist images not showing on certain file paths.
  

• Fixed DirectX crashes on some systems.
  
• Renamed internal colorization properties to avoid conflicts with existing wallpapers.
  
• Fixed scene audio response not disabling when there are multiple wallpapers with audio response.
  
• Reverted Steamworks to previous release until we can verify compatibility further.
  
• Fixed problems with image compression when updating an existing wallpaper.
  
• Fixed crash when a puppet warp with one bone was created.
  
• Fixed tray icon not appearing on some systems.
  
• Fixed issue where some wallpapers would not be displayed correctly.
  
• Fixed yellow-black checkerboxes appearing when update is not fully installed.
  

• Fixed various issues with static image wallpapers.
  
• Fixed issues with disappearing elements in the editor.
  
• Improved puppet warp bone index sorting.
  
• Fixed border on "Fill" alignment on Windows 7.
  
• Updated to Valve's latest preview image URL scheme to fix some broken preview images.
  
• Fixed issue where sprite sheets where disabled when HDR was enabled.
  
• Optimized particle loading by reducing JSON copies.
  
• Fixed Refraction effect causing errors on wallpaper upload.
  
• Improved texture animation timer precision.
  

[h2]Support Notes[/h2]

If you have any questions or issues with the update, please have a look at our help site as it covers the most common issues with application:

[h2]help.wallpaperengine.io[/h2]

Should you run into any issues with the update or Wallpaper Engine in general, you can always write us on our Steam Discussion board and we'll gladly help you out. If you run into any issues or bugs, please post on our forums rather than commenting on the news as it's difficult to provide support in the news comment section. Please keep in mind that we will take a few days off during the Christmas days.

[h2]Nvidia drivers 460.79[/h2]
Some Nvidia users have reported crashes at startup with the 460.79 drivers ("Cyberpunk 2077 Release Drivers"). If you are using these drivers and Wallpaper Engine crashes at startup mentioning an issue caused by the Nvidia drivers, please revert back to the previous stable drivers.

[h2]High CPU Usage with Razer Synapse Installed[/h2]
There is a rare bug which can cause extremely high CPU usage when Razer Synapse is installed which appears to have started since the most recent update to Razer Synapse. If you have recently started noticing high CPU usage and have Razer Synapse installed, turn Wallpaper Engine off and reinstall Razer Synapse, afterwards restart your computer and see if the issue persists. In that case, turn off the LED Plugin in the Wallpaper Engine settings for the time being.

Hey everyone,

today we're releasing a maintenance update with a few feature additions and user interface improvements and bug fixes.

[h2]Mass Import of Static Images[/h2]

One feature that has been regularly requested by some users over the years is the ability to mass import images without adding animations to them. We have now added the ability to do this so that you can add your private image collection to your playlist without having to go through the Wallpaper Engine editor. Keep in mind that this is only possible for local image files, you cannot mass-publish static wallpapers on the Workshop. We never intended Wallpaper Engine to run images without animations but if you really want to, you can now incorporate private images into a playlist of yours, for example.

The easiest way this can be achieved is to dragging and dropping images into the Installed tab where you are now given the choice to open an image with the editor or to just add it to Wallpaper Engine in its original state.



[h2]New Brush User Interface[/h2]

As part of some exciting upcoming new features in a future release, we have slightly improved the brush tools and given added preview of how changing each option changes the behavior of the brush. The changes highlight some of the lesser known brush features better, such as the different brush types on flow maps:

Using a spin type brush on a water flow map allows for circular movement to be created easily.


[h2]Additions / Changes[/h2]

• Added possibility to mass-import static images.
  
• Added new brush types for flow maps in the editor.
  
• Added a 2 GB file size limit for video wallpapers published on the Workshop and 1 GB for all types besides videos.
  

[h2]Improvements[/h2]

• Redesigned brush panel in the editor.
  
• Improved drag and drop user interface for new wallpapers.
  
• Added new labels for the Settings and Display settings buttons, removed redundant editor button.
  
• Redesigned "Open Wallpaper" button to account for new static wallpaper feature.
  
• Added video wallpaper validation to editor to prevent broken uploads.
  
• Crashes in Razer Synapse will now automatically disable the LED plugin when safe start is enabled.
  
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed diagnostics tool not saving a log file.
  
• Fixed a rare decoding error with GIF files.
  
• Fixed user interface being broken for a very small number of users.
  
• Fixed particle instance properties disconnecting from editor on refresh.
  
• Fixed a bug in our "unofficial Steam re-download fixer tool" that caused it to not work for some users.
  

[h2]Support Notes[/h2]

If you have any questions or issues with the update, please have a look at our help site as it covers the most common issues with application:

[h2]help.wallpaperengine.io[/h2]

Should you run into any issues with the update or Wallpaper Engine in general, you can always write us on our Steam Discussion board and we'll gladly help you out. If you run into any issues or bugs, please post on our forums rather than commenting on the news as it's difficult to provide support in the news comment section.

[h3]Razer Synapse Crashes[/h3]
The latest Razer Synapse update causes Wallpaper Engine to crash at startup when the high-priority startup option is enabled in the Wallpaper Engine settings. On some systems, it also causes crashes when the computer wakes up from hibernation. It is not an issue with your computer and technically not an issue in Wallpaper Engine. We have informed Razer about this and they are currently urgently working on a Razer Synapse fix which is to be expected to be released later this month.

For the time being, most users can fix it by disabling the high priority option for the automatic startup of Wallpaper Engine and instead rely on the normal priority startup only.

Alternatively, you can also disable the "iCUE and Chroma SDK" plugin in the Wallpaper Engine settings if the first attempt does not fix the issue for you.

You can try re-enabling it after the next Razer Synapse update.