Wallpaper Engine News

Verification issue while updating Content file locked / Disk write error / Content encrypted Steamworks unavailable


Hey all,

This update brings JavaScript support to scene wallpapers (SceneScript), a new snap layout for the editor and countless general fixes and improvements.


You can now bind scripts to most properties in a scene wallpaper to change their values over time or even create/remove layers at will.



This allows you to build your own logic for animation and interaction of everything. There is also access to the audio response data and the mouse cursor, which you can freely integrate into any animations via scripts now. Check out this sample wallpaper that uses scripting:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1712475860

For example, this script will play a sound that was placed in the scene when its layer is clicked:



You can find the documentation for SceneScript here including a few tutorials that explain sample script snippets like these:
Color shift over time Drag & drop layer Play sound on click ADVANCED: Mario Jump

The code editor that is built into Wallpaper Engine has auto completion (wherever possible) and comes with a few snippets that you can just apply with a click. There is also a new log window where you can easily debug any errors occuring in your scripts by simply clicking on them.




Scenes now support the combo box user property as a binding for the visibility of layers. So instead of having a bunch of checkboxes, you can just make a single combo box for all your options.



Then attach the visibility of a layer to a particular option:



It's also possible to use either a checkbox or the combo box as a binding on the visibility of image effects directly now, so you don't need to create separate layers anymore if you just wanted to let the user toggle an effect on or off.


It's now possible to import models into 2D wallpapers and images and particles into 3D wallpapers. However, certain functions are still incomplete, like the cursor interaction with particles in 3D or perspective rendering for models in 2D wallpapers. Image layers can now optionally render with perspective in 2D wallpapers though and the same will be enabled for models in the future.


All windows in the editor can be moved and resized now and some optional ones can be closed and restored (assets, log, script editor). The layout of all persistent windows will also be saved when you close the editor. Just drag and drop the title card of a panel to snap it into place or to turn it into a floating window.




Wallpaper Engine will finally be able to deal better with audio drivers that augment the Windows audio system, including utilities from Razer, Nahimic, Alienware and more. Razer in particular has actively worked with us to find a workaround for this issue and we have seen greatly improved compatibility with their products already, so a big shout-out to the team at Razer, thanks!

A new recording threshold slider has also been added next to the recording device that allows you to eliminate noise recorded by analog devices like 'Stereo Mix':




GIFs now use a better and much, much faster decoder. They will also show a warning in the editor if their unpacked size is unreasonable for a GIF - you can still use them, but one way or another the performance may be compromised. This new decoder may allow me to implement realtime decoding for GIFs in the future which may be more viable for huge GIFs - a tradeoff between CPU and VRAM usage which you would be able to choose between then.

Also, you can import a sequence of images now by simply selecting multiple images that have the same resolution. They will have the same performance as GIFs later but their quality will be better.


Wallpaper Engine will now figure out if you have it installed twice and it's being started from the wrong location (wrong as in: not where Steam thinks it's installed to). A lot of people seem to move the installation files, because unfortunately Steam always allows this even when a proper uninstall is needed, but doing so will inevitably break the auto start function and cause other random issues. Steam gives Wallpaper Engine no chance of adjusting the auto start automatically, so this can only be fixed in hindsight if the files get moved by Steam.

Now this dialog makes it much easier to reset the auto start to the correct location if you move the files around.



Since this patch introduces a lot of new and complicated features, the next update will likely just focus on bug fixing. After that, you can refer to the roadmap to see more features that are going to be added: https://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/0/1500126447391526102/

Full changelog

• EDITOR
• Added scene JavaScript support via Google V8.
  
• Added custom snap layout system to editor.
  
• Added monaco editor for scripts and later shaders to the editor.
  
• Added user property and script binding to image layer effect visibility.
  
• Added combo boxes and text inputs to scene user properties.
  
• Added image layer perspective rendering checkbox.
  
• Added support for image sequence import of separate files.
  
• Added new, faster GIF decoder.
  
• Added warning about GIFs that are too large and might crash the compiler.
  
• Added nearz/farz/fov options to 3D scenes.
  
• Added effect upgrade warning when new effect files are going to overwrite older effect files.
  
• Improved reflection effect with blending options.
  
• Added single playback mode and start silent flag to sound layer.
  
• Added support for combo user property links to checkboxes/visibility toggle.
  
• Added user property slider for vec component properties.
  
• OTHER
• Added auto start warning if Wallpaper Engine is being started from a different path than Steam installed it to.
  
• Added audio recording workarounds for several audio DLL hooks.
  
• Added an export variable to all binaries to hopefully disable injection of certain OSDs that break everything.
  
• Added dual/triple screen 1440p/2160p tags.
  
• Added dwm dynamnic coloring warning about not reverting when disabled.
  
• Added 'Relevance' Workshop browsing option like on Steam - only visible while entering a text.
  
• Added audio response recording threshold option for users with inputs that constantly produce noise.
  
• Added double installation warning if run path doesn't match Steam install path.
  
• Added support for sprite sheets as animated image layers like GIFs.
  

• Fixed random sounds not playing anymore after first playback without explicit reset.
  
• Fixed image/model import not creating main sub directories if they were deleted.
  
• Fixed audio listener crash on some systems where the driver doesn't behave right according to the Windows API.
  
• Fixed static child particles not being reinstantiated in editor when props get changed.
  
• Fixed playlist ignoring user/session pausing and user stop hotkey.
  
• Fixed paint brush crash after scene reload.
  
• Fixed web input for capital and special characters (hopefully).
  
• Fixed wallpaper clone mode not using largest monitor as source monitor.
  
• Fixed hash signs in local URL wallpapers causing the URL to not open.
  
• Fixed customization tag being added to submissions due to schemecolor references in clear material.
  
• Fixed no animation warning showing up for GIFs.
  
• Fixed lots of effect paint textures not defaulting to a sensible value when starting to paint.
  
• Fixed safe start not activating when there are certain events causing it to refresh on boot.
  

• Improved clone/stretch pause behavior.
  
• Added nvshare to diagnostics to warn about mouse lag.
  
• Updated info about DX9 install path because Valve changed the path.
  
• Disabled broken Steam wallpapers from showing up when they were deleted manually.
  
• Disabled initial Aero and high contrast warning if for whatever reason it still appears to be working.
  
• Changed xray to use more comprehensible size slider (although this makes the math perform worse).
  
• Updated AngularJS used by UI to 1.6 and increased performance by disabling some debug things.
  
• Made web wallpaper logging dependent on global log level setting (to reduce disk writes on buggy wallpapers).
  
• Made all wallpapers that have "R18", "R-18" or "18+" in the name default to 'mature' tag before even prompting the user to choose the right tag.
  
• Added hack to reload monitor configuration after a small delay after sleep/monitor turn on because drivers are buggy and unreliable.
  
• Updated AssImp model importer to most recent version from GitHub.
  
• Updated Steamworks SDK to 1.44.
  

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• Fixed image layers that were set to be sprite sheets before support for sprite sheets was added.
  
• Fixed removal button of camera paths.
  
• Fixed particle instance UI options de-syncing with wallpaper and having no effect anymore.
  
• Forced shader rebuilt after new effect import.
  
• Added option to skip effect upgrade.
  
• Added image sequence duration in filenames.
  
• Added more definitive clone wallpaper management when monitor aspect ratios are incompatible.
  

Steamworks unavailable Verification issue while updating Content file locked / Disk write error / Content encrypted

• Fixed audio response option being inaccessible in particle editor.
  
• Added property linking to particle instance options.
  
• Added preset publishing from existing presets (resolves dependency to root wallpaper).
  
• Added 'Customizable' tag which is automatically set if any custom properties exist.
  

Hey all,

This patch makes it possible to add custom properties like colors, sliders and checkboxes to scene wallpapers and brings a few miscellaneous improvements and fixes.


You can now bind certain properties in the wallpaper editor to 'user properties' that will show up in the browser later, this will allow users to control colors of certain effects or show/hide certain objects in the wallpaper.

Make sure to check out the tutorials for a custom tint color and toggling a particle on and off:
Tint color Particle visibility

Each property that supports this will have a small gear button next to it now that you can use to access a menu and set up the binding:



You can create new user properties there and link them to the effect property:



You can also edit and sort these properties later in the Edit -> Project Settings menu.

These will show up in the browser and everyone can further customize parts of your wallpaper:




Scene wallpapers are uploaded as .pkg files, which means they cannot be edited from Workshop directly. There are several types of compilation and conversion going on, the first conversion being a file archive (.pkg). The Steam user Squee made a web based tool to unpack .pkg files, this makes it possible to open the project in the editor again, make changes and upload it from there: https://wetranslate.thiscould.work/scene.pkg/

However, compiled resources inside the .pkg are not unpacked, like textures or models. I might add a full and official system to unpack .pkg files later, but this can only happen after I'm done adding new features to scenes.


I've added a work-around for Corsair mice so that the LEDs on mice should light up now and all scene wallpapers got a new iCUE effects option right in the wallpaper browser. This option replaces the global iCUE setting for scenes and it only shows up when iCUE has been found up and running.



The 'Apply to all wallpapers' option has radio buttons now so it's possible to choose whether all wallpapers will be affected or only all selected ones.



The hide icon hotkey uses the actual 'Show desktop icons' setting of Windows now instead of using a trick, this makes the web keyboard input more stable. The icon state is persisted after Wallpaper Engine is closed.

Wallpaper Engine will automatically unpause when the Windows 10 start menu is opened in fullscreen, like it unpauses for alt-tab or Aero Peek already.


Full changelog

• Added user property UI editor to project settings.
  
• Added config button to properties that support linking.
  
• Added option to mass update certain properties on all selected wallpapers.
  
• Added shared playlist timer so it's possible to sync playlist properly if they are started at the same time.
  
• Added 'open in editor' button to browser for user projects.
  
• Added visual cue to scene stats if recommended resources are exceeded.
  
• Added iCUE toggle option to scene and web wallpapers in-browser.
  
• Added tint blend option.
  
• Added special visibility button for image effects.
  
• Added automatic unpausing for fullscreen start menu (disable via the existing Aero peek option).
  

• Fixed double slashes in URLs being reduced to single slash.
  
• Fixed CSS bugging out after minimize.
  
• Fixed clip space not being identical between graphics APIs.
  
• Fixed on-screen keyboard not being able to restore focus after alt-tab.
  
• Fixed UI being launched after pinning UI to taskbar by redirecting the task bar command to the main process.
  

• Updated SFML to 2.5.1.
  
• Changed hide icons hotkey to use official Windows hide icons function.
  
• Made filter button more obvious.
  
• Disabled opening of pkg files since they can't be uploaded afterwards and it's just confusing.
  
• Removed 'all documents' from file dialog since opening unsupported formats makes no sense.
  
• Updated GLM.
  
• Changed editor property layout to compensate for new controls.
  

Hey all,

After three years of development, Wallpaper Engine has now officially left Early Access!



The application has changed quite a bit over the years and contains many more features from what I had initially envisioned. Now Wallpaper Engine comes with a full-fledged editor to create animations from images, two video engines, a Chromium integration with custom features, extensive multi-monitor support and playlists with lots of options. I have even created support programs to handle Steam downtimes and detect numerous generic computer problems.

I have set up a simple homepage for Wallpaper Engine as well, check it out here:

www.wallpaperengine.io

The Workshop has become huge! It is now the third biggest Workshop on Steam. Many amazing wallpapers have been submitted and I can't wait to see what all of you will create in the future. A number of new features will be added soon that should allow you to create even more advanced wallpapers.



The store page got updated with a new trailer and screenshots. It has also finally been translated into the following languages: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish.


Wallpaper Engine will continue to get updated with more features just like before. You can check out the roadmap to get an idea about what's coming next.

Cheers!

Steamworks unavailable Verification issue while updating Content file locked / Disk write error / Content encrypted

Hey all,

This patch brings a heap of translation updates and completes a lot of missing strings. We had some proofreading done and filled in the gaps for many languages (Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese-Brazilian, Portuguese-Portugal, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish), more on that here. Once again my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has helped translating Wallpaper Engine since the beginning and helped bringing it to people all over the world!

Note that the latest brand new features won't be fully translated yet, this is the curse of the rapid development and releases I'm doing. I prefer this way of working, however, otherwise I would be many, many months behind the current feature set of Wallpaper Engine.


A few special properties can now be applied to all wallpapers and new wallpapers at once, those include alignment, position, volume, mouse parallax and playback rate. To do this, change them in your current wallpaper to your ideal settings and click on 'Apply to all wallpapers' at the bottom:



Here you can now choose which properties should be applied to all wallpapers and you can optionally restore their initial defaults too. Once you've set this up, all new wallpapers will use these properties as defaults as well and using their reset button will revert to your custom values until you restore the initial defaults again.


I've removed the social icons at the bottom and instead put the opacity slider there. Now it is easier accessible than through the context menu previously.




A new stock wallpaper has been added 'Neon Sunset'. I've released this on Workshop a while ago and since it was well received I've further improved and tweaked it after getting some feedback on it and made it a stock wallpaper now.




Local URLs now have keyboard input, you need to assign a hotkey to hide the desktop icons and hide them, then keyboard input will be send to the wallpaper:



This is very experimental and still a bit glitchy, but better than not having any keyboard input. If I can figure out ways to improve this then I will, but right now this the best that is possible. On Windows 7 this requires the 'block background' option in the settings.


I have decided to disable the item store integration in Wallpaper Engine. All in all it just caused confusion and I couldn't make this work to a level that creators, users and me could really be content with. It gave the false impression on the store that there are no free wallpapers available, the Workshop curated voting page confused countless people trying to download wallpapers because it is the first thing displayed there and people bought items without knowing that they need Wallpaper Engine to use them. Then there is also the issue that I cannot accept video formats due to codec license reasons and that I'm taking a risk with the application format that I can't sustain here either - how would I go about verifying them without having full access to their source code and any dependencies they have - the list goes on.

Many of these things come down to Steam not quite being user-friendly enough and I don't have access to change Steam's website. After putting a lot of thought into this, disabling the item store is the only way to solve these issues for me and finally I did not want Wallpaper Engine to continue to be an application which may incur further costs to its users after the initial purchase.

Past wallpapers that were purchased are - of course - unaffected, the only change is that the store and curation queue are now invisible.


Wallpaper Engine is going to leave Early Access soon, this update is getting things ready for that. I've created a new trailer, updated the store page and also got store page translations and screenshot translations now along with a new homepage for Wallpaper Engine. All that will be set live at the same time the Early Access status is removed. This build has been bumped to version 1.1.0 already, I might release another update if issues pop up or more translation updates come in. Stay tuned!

Since many people have been asking about price changes, I've finally decided that the price won't be changed after leaving Early Access.


Reverted update of FreeImage library because the new version can't save JPEGs to memory.

Full changelog

• Added new stock wallpaper 'Neon Sunset'.
  
• Added instructions to hotkey dialog.
  
• Translation proofreading and UI fitting.
  
• Added experimental keyboard input for URL wallpapers while icons are hidden via the hotkey.
  

• Changed hide icon hotkey to allow for input. You can use this to remove the blue selection box on interactive wallpapers!!!
• Fixed a crash while applying properties to invalid monitor location.
  
• Fixed OpenGL ddy being flipped.
  
• Fixed cursor pos in scene wallpapers that render at half resolution.
  
• Fixed 'next wallpaper' showing up on time of day playlists.
  
• Fixed playlist hotkey action not being limited to selected monitor.
  
• Fixed UI window becoming blank on multi-monitor multi-DPI systems due to Chromium bug.
  
• Fixed static child particles not terminating emission when parent particle is stopped.
  

• Sorted editor wallpapers by title.
  
• Disallowed Shift + X hotkeys.
  
• Allowed FX hotkeys without modifiers.
  
• Registered a few more system keys for the hotkey system.
  
• Updated FreeImage to 3180. Sadly still nothing new and exciting like APNG/WEBP possible.

Hey everyone,

We’ve teamed up with CORSAIR to bring wallpapers to life like never before - with CORSAIR iCUE software integration! We’ve created six brand-new CORSAIR wallpaper designs that work seamlessly with iCUE to bring you a whole new level of customizability! If you have any CORSAIR RGB enabled peripherals or PC components, select a CORSAIR wallpaper and watch as it synchronizes with your hardware’s lighting effects to turn your system itself into a living extension of your desktop background!

• Lighting support for all of CORSAIR’s latest RGB peripherals and components.
  
• Six customizable wallpaper designs created by CORSAIR with lighting support.
  
• Support for eight different lighting effects including Wave, Visor, Pulse, Spiral, and Audio Visualizer.
  
• Control over those effects including color, speed, direction, and positioning.
  
• All CORSAIR Wallpapers include options for use in Multi Monitor setups.
  

Additional Links:

Corsair iCUE FAQ