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• 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!

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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

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Hey all,

this patch implements an experimental backup Workshop system to deal with the periodic Workshop server outages on Valve's end.

I'm hoping that this update will mitigate the server outages that keep happening but at this time I cannot fathom how things will play out. Sooner or later Steam's servers will go offline again for a day and then I can observe whether their downtime will cause the usual confusion or if this solution will help a bit.

I'm now maintaining a limited copy of the various Workshop lists on my server:



Wallpaper Engine will fall back to this list when Steam's servers are unreachable again. After showing the usual error dialog once, you will see an alert that you are now browsing a backup instead of Steam:



So this is what the backup can do, it provides you with access to the global Workshop listings while Steam is broken. But there are a number of things it cannot do and will not be able to do for technical and legal reasons.

• It cannot subscribe/unsubscribe.
  
• It cannot authenticate your Steam account.
  
• It cannot provide you with the actual wallpaper files to download.
  
• It cannot backup a list of your subscriptions if Steam fails to provide that (you have a local backup though).
  
• It cannot backup more than 50.000 items. This is a restriction Valve put on their systems.

The last times the outages happened, all of the above functions were still intact in Steam. Only access to the lists usually doesn't work - which is exactly what the backup server is meant to be able to provide now in such a situation.

So hopefully the next time Valve's servers break, you will be able to get a list from the backup server and then subscribe/download wallpapers from Steam in tandem, that is the idea anyway.

• The local wallpaper cache is now instantly loaded, then Steam's query merged on top. This should allow quicker access to subscribed wallpapers when opening the browser.
  
• The Workshop lists are now limited to 1000 pages because Steam doesn't allow access to more. This is why it had been showing the 'Limit exceeded' error when you tried to load the last page.
  
• Scenes can now use sliders and checkboxes in the browser (also via shader uniforms only for now).

Full changelog

• Fixed auto scrolling in editor being activated during wallpaper updates when it shouldn't.

• Added query fallback system with custom server.
  
• Added precision/step properties to sliders in project.json so you can enable fractions.
  
• Added instant loading of Workshop cache when opening the browser.

• Limited page count to 1000 due to internal limits in Steam.

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Hey all,

This patch brings some improvements for advanced web wallpapers that have a lot of settings and allow importing custom images and videos. You can now share your own presets including all imported files on Workshop directly, which makes it really easy for everyone else to check out your setup.

Anyone who wishes to use a Workshop preset also needs to be subscribed to the dependent wallpaper - Wallpaper Engine will prompt you about this and subscribe the dependent wallpaper automatically:



When you unsubscribe the dependent wallpaper, Wallpaper Engine will also warn you that all Workshop presets will now be unsubscribed:



A preset can be published from the properties menu on the right. The property functions have been moved down to the bottom and web wallpapers now also have buttons to browse and publish presets:



The publish process is similar to publishing from the editor, the only difference is, that no project is created and saved this time. But you can still save and load presets locally on your PC right there in the browser like before.

You can browse all presets easily by either right clicking a web wallpaper and choosing 'browse presets' or using the button with the same label on the right next to the properties. The Workshop browser will now clearly show this and you can go back by clicking the 'X' next to the alert:



You can also use a new filter option to only browse presets for all web wallpapers:



Wallpapers in the playlist will now allow you to assign a preset to them by right clicking and then choosing a local preset you created from the list. Workshop presets are downloaded as genuine wallpapers so those will have a separate icon and you can add them to the playlist as well.



I am currently waiting for missing translations for some languages to be fully completed and then I am looking to remove the Early Access flag at the soonest possible time. The next feature that will be added is most likely the ability to publish and share single assets for scenes on the Workshop for other scene creators to use in their wallpapers. Think custom particles or image layers that can be imported easily from the Workshop.

That may happen right after leaving Early Access since creating a new trailer and updating the store page will take a good chunk of time away from development on any new features.

Here are some wallpapers that are very suitable for presets, check them out and share your own setup on Workshop!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=786782443
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1081733658
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=812677029
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=893418273


Full changelog

• Added Workshop support for presets.
  
• Added preset overrides in playlist.
  
• Added localization for Workshop publish steps.
  
• Added nicer search text reset button.
  
• Added preset Workshop browser options and tags.
  
• Added new property controls to bottom of propery list.

• Fixed random time seed for playlists.
  
• Fixed no anim warning showing on templates.
  
• Fixed particle system crash when child system uses box emitter and is requested to stop emitting.

• Made Steam error show up when query is expected to return *something* yet Steam returns nothing at all and says everything is ok, while in reality Steam's servers are yet again in meltdown mode.
  
• Reordered Workshop query lists based on Steam preference.
  
• Made wallpapers unpause when user changes the wallpaper.
  
• More obvious file missing error for users who move the files around after installation.

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Hey all,

This patch adds support for global hotkeys and basic wallpaper profiles.

You can assign hotkeys to a number of playback and general functions or to switch to specific wallpapers and playlists. Most hotkeys are configured in the settings window:



Every hotkey needs to use one or multile modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt, Shift) and a usual key in combination to work.



To assign hotkeys to specific wallpapers, playlists or profiles, you need to right click a wallpaper in the browser or save a playlist/profile with a hotkey:





If you have multiple monitors, you can now save and load the entire wallpaper configuration to a 'profile' in the monitor menu:



Then they can be restored from there, via a hotkey or also via the tray menu:



You can now also choose to disable the application warning per downloaded wallpaper in the dialog that pops up every time an application wallpaper is chosen:



Full changelog

• Added hotkey system.
  
• Added hotkeys for existing playback/window/general features.
  
• Added user hotkeys to select wallpapers/playlists/profiles.
  
• Added icon hide/show via hotkey.
  
• Added audio recordiing on/off via hotkey.
  
• Added layout profiles save/load to monitor menu.
  
• Added checkbox to disable application warning per wallpaper.

• Improved crash message text if it's not possible to easily figure out which application caused the crash.
  
• Fixed video framework not falling back to LAV if MF had an error twice.
  
• Fixed crash when a corrupted material file could not be read from drive.

• Changed playlist to advance even if the window is kept open except for the time of day mode, because that is impossible. Leaving the window open is still a bad idea because the window is more expensive to display than the wallpapers themselves. To make Steam track hours after launching, use the start parameter -steamtrackhours in Steam instead.

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Hey all,

This update adds a number of playlist features like a 'time of day' mode and fixes a few general issues.

You can now assign wallpapers to a specific time, change the playlist mode to 'time of day' to get started.



By default, all wallpapers will be mapped equally across the day, but you can drag the start or end of an interval to lock them to a specific time, then an orange bar will appear and show you the time it's locked to.



You can also add the same wallpaper to a playlist multiple times now and specify a custom time interval for the timer as well:



All saved playlists are available from the tray menu now for instant access. They will be applied to all monitors if you have multiple.



If you're using the 'stop' playback option and a playlist, it should now fall back to the previously selected wallpaper instead of always picking a new one every time.

Since weeks now, a faulty Steam update causes Steam to freeze when Workshop downloads complete while Wallpaper Engine's browser is open. I am aware of this and so is Valve. Only Valve can fix this. This problem is inside Steam.

Full changelog

• Added notice about how Steam deletes files after unsub with a delay.
  
• Added support for custom playlist time.
  
• Made it possible to freeze playlist and only manually advance it.
  
• Added saved playlists item to tray menu.
  
• Added Windows networkthrottlekey to setup because MS won't fix Windows any time soon.
  
• Added NPOT support to particle shader.
  
• Added playlist time of day option.
  
• Made it possible to have the same wallpaper multiple times in a playlist.

• Fixed focus pause all not saving.
  
• Disabled wallpaper drag/drop unless mouse button 1 is used.
  
• Fixed playlist crashing when it's only containing invalid wallpapers.
  
• Fixed playlist changing wallpaper after stop was applied.
  
• Disabled shift/ctrl select on workshop tabs since it's not supported there.
  
• Disabled playlist update while browser is open so that the time of day playlists don't constantly revert the selected wallpaper.
  
• Fixed Workshop advertise blink not resetting as soon as it should.
  
• Fixed saved playlist settings also being modified when changing them live on a monitor.

• Added Razer Switchblade FPS detection since it's yet another hook that crashes everything.
  
• Disabled webm Workshop import because people kept uploading expensive videos and we get spammed with complaints about their CPU performance. There is just no hardware acceleration for this available so now it's gone until Google adds that. You can still use them locally of course, just not upload them.
  
• Improved mdmp crash message information about the countless hooks crashing WE.

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Hey all,

this patch makes it possible to create custom wallpaper playback rules per application and adds more effects to the editor.

You can now define custom playback behavior for any specific application in various situations. These take priority over the automatic maximized/fullscreen/audio rules.



For example, if you want to use 'Stop' for fullscreen games, but not for your browser, you may add a rule for your browser to make Wallpaper Engine keep playing the wallpapers while your browser is fullscreen, but otherwise stop them while playing:



You can also register screen recording programs to ignore them in Wallpaper Engine's audio detection. This allows you for example to keep Nvidia Instant Replay enabled on the desktop but also let Wallpaper Engine properly mute automatically while other applications are playing audio:



The 2D editor has a new multi gizmo that combines position, rotation and size of an object into one and it's now possible to edit particle control points directly on the wallpaper:



Four new effects have been added as well:



Lightning discharge example: https://streamable.com/ofhq2

There is also a new 'playback rate' option on the right for each particle. This allows you to slow down the rate at which the entire particle is simulated just like in the wallpaper browser:



Each wallpaper that has parallax allows enabling and disabling the mouse parallax effect now:



The next big content patch will bring a number of playlist features, you can check them out on the roadmap already. This should include time based playlists, probably one of the most requested features right now.

Full changelog

• Added application rules.
  
• Added particle emitter option to only emit one particle max per frame.
  
• Made playlist automatically skip missing wallpapers instead of showing an empty screen.
  
• Added option to choose whether wallpapers should unpause during Aero Peek/alt tab.
  
• Added focus per monitor option as the new default pause for focus (to be consistent with everything else).
  
• Added more preset effects.
  
• Added playback rate particle instance option.
  
• Added control point gizmo and option to particle instances.
  
• Added a multi gizmo as a new default 2D gizmo.
  
• Added mouse parallax option to browser for wallpapers with mouse parallax.

• Fixed web wallpaper pseudo random generator not being seeded.
  
• Fixed sprite sheet frame multiplier not being normalized on dx9/ogl.
  
• Fixed scene wallpapers jumping in time when unpausing.
  
• Fixed property presets overwriting meta information of properties (i.e. breaks image loading).
  
• Fixed CEF shutdown freeze when any blocking Windows function is used at a similar time (i.e. editor preview visibility changes).
  
• Fixed pagination when text filter is used.
  
• Fixed partial translations resetting selected language when loaded too early with a workaround.
  
• Potentially fixed a wallpaper resize issue when size changes are triggered too quickly and Windows starts blocking.
  
• Fixed filter warning not showing up for approved/audio responsive.
  
• Fixed fade window not joining the desktop icons correctly on some multi monitor configurations.
  
• Fixed unsub on Workshop tabs also deselecting the wallpaper.
  
• Fixed sound with 'loop' option only playing one sound forever instead of all sounds that were added.

• Trying to update Boost Filesystem again without wreaking Havoc through exceptions.
  
• Changed tray icon to use the win7 icon on win10 because it is otherwise invisible in the task manager.
  
• Changed both Discover and Workshop tabs to show a popover since both are important and new users should see them.

I reverted the updates for the 'Boost' library since the new version was apparently causing the browser to crash. Make sure to restart Steam and run Wallpaper Engine over Steam once to get this fix if you were having this issue.



Hey all,

a new update for Wallpaper Engine has been released that adds new effect presets and a few new particle options and components. CEF received yet another update to work around some AMD and Intel driver issues and a few general fixes have been added as well.

A number of new effect presets and variations from this update can now be used right off the bat in the editor:



The dust motes and vapor effects have subtle mouse interaction as well: https://streamable.com/cktz1

Magic effects can be combined to build complex animations: https://streamable.com/m3clq

There are also some new particle components that can be used by advanced users. These include two new particle renderers, rope and rope trail, and two new initializers, map sequence around control point and map sequence between control points. All particle renderers also have support for new 'fixed' and 'upright' orientations now.

All layers in a wallpaper can now have their transforms locked and the first imported image (usually the background image) is locked by default. This mainly helps new users avoid moving the background image by accident, since that usually ruins the wallpaper - you will end up with an empty/grey border on some side. Particles also got a visibility property now.



There is also new content on scene optimization available on the wiki: https://wallpaper-engine.wikia.com/wiki/Tutorial_Scene_Optimization This info is quite advanced, so nobody is expected to take it into account. But for those who are interested, this might be useful when you are looking to further optimize your wallpaper.

CEF has been updated again, however, this update does not include any official Chromium or CEF changes from Google. Instead, I have made custom changes to Chromium to avoid various driver crashes from AMD and Intel, any crashes related to 'amdvlk32.dll' or 'igvk32.dll' should be gone now after this update. Make sure the update is actually applied by restarting Wallpaper Engine over Steam if you experienced those.

It seems both AMD and Intel have released some drivers in 2017 with Vulkan integration that crash merely by asking them whether Vulkan is supported. We have also informed Google about this and they already worked on improving their detection and avoidance of the affected broken driver versions in Chromium officially. Another fix would be to update the driver and get a working one (released in/after December 2017).

Full changelog

• Added more particle presets.
  
• Added rope particle renderers.
  
• Added new particle orientation options.
  
• Added wrappers for pen and touch input, they should be treated better now although nothing advanced like pressure is supported.
  
• Added shift click selection to browser.
  
• Added option for small wallpaper icons.
  
• Added layer transform locking.
  
• Added particle visibility property.
  
• Added DXT3/1 compression.
  
• Added project close button to editor file menu.

• Disabled Vulkan info collection in Chromium completely.
  
• Fixed Chromium nullptr exception in browser process while handling mouse events when there is no render process running.
  
• Fixed remote session state not being read when the program starts.
  
• Fixed CTRL+A not selecting across pages.
  
• Fixed editor shutdown crash when Steam queries were made from wallpaper browser process.
  
• Fixed some alignment issues with SSE intrinsics.
  
• Fixed texture previews not working when there are unicode characters in the path.
  
• Fixed texture previews not working on compiled textures.
  
• Fixed entire playlist getting deleted if the currently visible wallpaper on a monitor is unsubscribed/removed.

• Updated Boost library. Reverted because it seemed to cause crashes.