A Guided Tour of Stardock DeskScapes
Animated Wallpaper software for Windows Vista that can enhance Windows DreamScene
Tuesday, February 13, 2007 by Frogboy | Discussion: DeskScapes
Microsoft released Windows Vista with a whole new graphics engine that is 3D accelerated. Because of that, all kinds of cool visual effects become possible. One obvious thing that became possible for Microsoft to do was to allow users to optionally have animated wallpaper.
Now, like normal (1 frame) wallpaper, animated wallpaper could be pretty obnoxious. But if done right, it would simply take static wallpaper to the next logical step.
So Microsoft developed a new feature for Windows Vista Ultimate Extra called Windows DreamScene. When it came time to get tools and content, they came to Stardock. Stardock's graphics design team (Stardock Design) for the animated wallpaper and our desktop enhancement team for the tools.
This is where Stardock DeskScapes comes in. We developed Stardock DeskScapes to extend Windows DreamScene in certain very important areas:
Feature | Windows DreamScene | Stardock DeskScapes |
Plays .MPEG and .WMV content as wallpaper | ||
Plays .DREAM content as wallpaper | ||
Supports Triggers for changing animated wallpaper | ||
Supports Dynamic (non-video) content | ||
Supports author credit in dialog | ||
Is Extensible | ||
Requires | Windows Vista Ultimate | Windows DreamScene |
Price | FREE (with Windows Vista Ultimate) | FREE (for users of Windows Vista Ultimate) |
To be clear: Stardock DeskScapes extends Windows DreamScene. It isn't a replacement for it. You have to have Windows DreamScene installed first to use Stardock DeskScapes.
Taking Windows DreamScene one step further -- Stardock DeskScapes
As we developed the animated wallpapers for Microsoft we became very experienced in how to make it so that it was subtle and use less CPU (there video encoding and then there is video encoding). We also came up with our own wish list of things we felt users would want. For example:
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A good animated wallpaper is a lot of work. How do authors get credit? If I spend 3 weeks making a good animated wallpaper, I want users to know I made it and be able to visit me to get more.
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How do users know if a given .WMV or .MPEG was even meant to be an animated wallpaper? If users have to sift through hundreds of animated raccoons and children playing baseball to find something they'd actually want as their wallpaper, the whole concept could die quickly.
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Looping high-definition video content looks great. But what about dynamic content? You know, fish swimming, wallpaper that changes based on weather or time of day, or randomly. Or heck, how about having a high-definition video feed from a tropical island so that I can pretend it's not snowing outside.
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How about having triggers? So even if I'm not up to making a dynamic wallpaper, I could still have 2 or 3 or more videos that are switched to based on certain condition (triggers) being met. Imagine an animated wallpaper that's a city scene in the morning, afternoon, and night that switches based on time of day?
DeskScapes Enhancement #1: Authors getting credit
DeskScapes allows author information to be displayed and that info can be linked to your website.
The first thing about DeskScapes -- there is no program to run. Once it's installed, your regular Windows wallpaper manager in Vista is simply extended to support .DREAM files. You don't have to do anything else.
When you click on a .Dream file, the title and author information comes up.
By contrast, Windows DreamScene on its own, as cool as it is, doesn't display author info. So no one knows who created the cool animated Aurora default in Windows DreamScene (Stardock Design created it incidentally)
DeskScapes Enhancement #2: Dynamic Wallpaper
This image is being rotated on the fly in 3D in total smoothness
World rotates in real-time (which is very slowly actually)
Modern video games generally don't use pre-rendered video anymore. That's because modern video cards have the horse power to do amazing things. Most reviewers haven't talked much about this but the Windows Vista desktop IS A 3D SURFACE. It simply looks like previous versions of Windows. It's as if they took the Quake 3 engine and made the game look like Windows. Seriously.
That means you can do some pretty cool stuff with it...such as dynamic animated wallpapers.
My screenshot here is pretty lame but we've got earth rotating, snow/rain (based on weather -- there's probably a sunny one but we're in Michigan) ones, fish swimming, lava lamps, etc. All are in various states of development. Obviously, it does take more work to make a good looking dynamic wallpaper but the results can be really cool. As they get finished, we'll be releasing them.
DeskScapes Enhancement #3: Triggers
Based on time of day your wallpaper can change.
Triggers are another way of saying that if a certain condition is met, then do something. Stardock DeskScapes lets .DREAM files have triggers. For instance, IF time is morning, then play wallpaper A, IF Time is afternoon, play wallpaper B and so forth. It's not that huge of a thing but something that wasn't hard to do that we think enriches the experience.
Summary
Probably the key thing that Stardock DeskScapes does is extend Windows DreamScene to support the .DREAM format. You don't need DeskScapes to play video (MPEG or WMV) content as your animated wallpaper. But consider this -- which will be easier to find in a year from now to use as your animated wallpaper? Googling .DREAM or Googling WMV?
If it's .DREAM you get all the advantages I mention above plus you know it's designed to be an animated wallpaper. And it costs nothing to create them (use DreamMaker) and nothing for Windows Vista Ultimate users to use them.
We'll be providing additional free content on Dream.WinCustomize.com over the coming weeks, months. Essentially, we created a host of high quality, high definition video content for the Microsoft project and Microsoft chose some to distribute and we kept the rest to distribute.
We hope you have fun with this and that as time goes on, more and more people will come to find that animated wallpapers are pretty nice. While the concept of them isn't new (lots of people/developers have hacked at it for years), the key thing about Windows DreamScene / Stardock DeskScapes is that you get to have your cake and eat it too. When perfected, you'll have it without any performance or usability drawbacks. It'll be like the static wallpapers of the present except with more frames.
So the steps are...
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Get Windows Vista Ultimate
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Download Windows DreamScene
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Download/Install Stardock DeskScapes
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Start enjoying .DREAMs!
Have fun!
Reply #2 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 2:56 AM
Reply #3 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 6:10 AM
For example, my new Dell Dimension C521 came with Windows Vista Home Premium preinstalled. All I have to do to get Ultimate is borrow my mom's credit card, go to Windows Anytime Upgrade, spend around $50-$100 and get a Windows Anytime Upgrade DVD in the mail. Then, use that disc to install Ultimate. Bingo.
Last time I checked on NewEgg.com, the OEM copy of Ultimate was about $199 or something. That's a lot cheaper than spending $400 at BestBuy or wherever.
Reply #4 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 6:43 AM
Also, nice job on the Desktop Aurora.
Reply #5 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 8:08 AM
PS: Nebula is way cool --
Reply #6 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:10 AM
Reply #7 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:49 AM
Can I borrow it too?....
Reply #8 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:00 AM
Reply #9 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:34 AM
Dynamic content/triggers will be added in the near future.
Reply #10 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:37 AM
Will people be invited to sell their best .Dream?
Will a section be created as a premium .Dream section?
Or is it something that will remain completely free?
Sound too good to be true.
Reply #11 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:51 AM
The SWF (Motion Preview) is optional. I just adjusted the page so it does not appear that its a required file. We will have to play with file sizes on what we will allow but for now it has been increased to allow up to 150MB files.
Reply #12 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 11:34 AM
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how Anytime Upgrade works. It's easier than that!
Every version of Windows Vista is on each DVD, regardless of what you bought. Anytime Upgrade is just a way to buy new product keys online. All you have to do is run the Vista installer again, put in the new key, and tell it to upgrade. You don't have to wait for anything to come in the mail, it's "instant".
Reply #13 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 11:43 AM
*IF* you have an installation disc. This may not be the case for those who got Vista pre-installed on an OEM computer.
Reply #14 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 1:16 PM
Windows Vista Ultimate = Windows Business + Windows Home Premium.
You don't buy Windows Vista Ultimate for the Extras, you buy it because you want the corporate features like Remote Desktop server (which I can't live without) as well as Media Center (which I can't live without).
If MS didn't release Extras, I would still get Ultimate.
Reply #15 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 1:24 PM
Reply #16 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 7:53 PM
Yes because as you said yourself it includes things you cant live without aside from Extras...
I can live without it for a while longer.. personally, Im not sure i would even want a changing, moving wallpaper and being a skinner I'll venture a good % of people will be using stock XP for quite a while. I think it just makes sense to skin for the larger % of users until that changes.
Im all for a new OS though, maybe someone will convince me otherwise.
Good Job on the software though Brad, nicely outperforms stock windows features as usual.
yes.. me too please. My Mum has awful credit.
kidding of course.
Reply #17 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:29 PM
Will people be invited to sell their best .Dream?
Will a section be created as a premium .Dream section?
Or is it something that will remain completely free?
Sound too good to be true.
Like all WinCustomize galleries, Masters can choose to sell their content. So I imagine in the long-term you'll see free ones and non-free ones.
Reply #18 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:58 PM
1. Is it possible (and maybe an eventual feature of DesktopX on Vista) to create objects and environments in full 3D, rendered by the WDM, that can interact both with triggers and with user input? I can see some phenomenal possibilities if the whole desktop is an intercative 3D area capable of reacting to conditions and user actions. It would simplify the things that some authors have been trying to accomplish with DesktopX and WindowFX for years, and opens the door to things those self-same authors only dreamed (no pun intended) of before.
2. How smart is the Windows Desktop Manager? Games have optimized performance for years by calculating the things a user can see, and saving clock cycles by not trying to render anything that would be hidden from sight. Is the WDM as smart, freeing up resources by leaving out the things it knows the user can't see?
I bought Ultimate simply for DreamScene and Deskscapes (which is why I cycled between tears and rage when it wasn't available on launch day). Now that the preview is out and I have it installed, I really don't feel the extra $80 was wasted. Just watching it run in the background on my desktop right now makes my mind swim with the possibilities, not to mention admiring what it can do right now.
Nice job! And I can't wait to see what's next!
Reply #19 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:21 PM
Rather than running your apps maximized to full-screen, simply drag the edges to the top, bottom and sides of the screen. It gives you as much workspace, but leaves the glass effect intact. That way, if you're running a subtle .dream like the multi-colored gassy one ("Exotic Plasma" I think it is), there is a very nice, pleasing (calming for me), subtle effect that takes places beneath the glass on the outer edges of the screen. It's very evident (and yet somehow still subtle) beneath the title bar.
I don't know. I just thought it was very cool and thought I'd share it for anyone who hadn't thought to try it.
Reply #20 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:43 PM
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Reply #1 Wednesday, February 14, 2007 2:42 AM
this is nice but ultimate will have to have something more then just animated wallpaper to attract more buyers