Hello everyone, today we are happy to announce that we will soon be releasing a free Android version of Wallpaper Engine. On top of that, we are also releasing Wallpaper Engine 1.7 today which brings a new set of features including video-based textures and support for web wallpapers with video livestreams.


In the past few months, we have developed an Android app of Wallpaper Engine that offers support for dynamic scene and video wallpapers. The Wallpaper Engine companion app will be available for free to everyone, users of Wallpaper Engine on Windows will be able to share their wallpaper collection wirelessly with their Android phones and tablets. We developed an easy way to securely transfer your Workshop wallpapers to your mobile devices. Since accessing the Workshop is not possible on Android, the Windows version of Wallpaper Engine will serve as a hub to take your wallpapers on the go.

Just like the Windows app, the Android app will also not contain any sort of hidden costs or advertisements and it will also not collect any personal data - we consider the app a free add-on for existing Wallpaper Engine users.

Developing the new Android app was quite an intensive undertaking. However, when it came to porting Wallpaper Engine to any new additional platforms, it was the most rational platform to add next due the huge user base of Android around the globe. The work we have done to support Android will also benefit any future potential ports to other platforms, though Android was still comparatively simple compared to other operating systems. If you are hoping to see Wallpaper Engine on other platforms in the future, please be patient, it is simply not possible for us to port Wallpaper Engine to every single platform at once since it is a tremendous amount of work to do so.


We have prepared a small preview of what Wallpaper Engine looks like on Android. The feature set is very extensive and just like Wallpaper Engine for Windows, the wallpapers are fully dynamic and allow for a great level of user customization. You can also configure a wallpaper playlist, set an FPS limit and configure other battery-saving features and import local videos and GIFs straight into the app.

Wallpapers created in the Wallpaper Engine editor will first be converted into a mobile-compatible format before being sent to your phone. The process is pretty straight-forward for end-users but a more extensive description of this will follow at the time of the release.

Check out the following previews of the Android app:





Accessing the Steam Workshop from mobile devices is not possible since this is not supported by Steam. However, we developed a convenient way to allow you to transfer compatible wallpapers from your desktop computer to your mobile device with ease, as long as both devices are using the same local network connection.

Since this has never been done before on Steam, we require all content creators to agree to our addendum to the Steam Workshop agreement before their content can be transferred to mobile devices, otherwise Wallpaper Engine will not allow users to transfer their wallpapers.

If you have uploaded any wallpapers to Wallpaper Engine, please review and accept the addendum to the Steam Workshop Agreement for Wallpaper Engine here so that your users can use your wallpapers on Android once the app has been released:

• View in web browser: Workshop Agreement
  
• [url]View in Steam: Workshop Agreement

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The Android version of Wallpaper Engine will likely be available on various app stores in late November, though an accurate estimate is difficult to make - make sure to keep an eye on our Steam update news for more information in the future. The Android app is already in a stable state, but we still have to do some final testing and prepare the release on various app stores. The app will support devices running Android 8.1 or newer.

It is also important to us that a large number of content creators review and accept our addendum to the Steam Workshop Agreement before the app is available so that users can choose from a large selection of Android-compatible wallpapers. If you are a content creator, be sure to review the Workshop Agreement, see the section above for more information. If you are a user and want to make sure your favorite content creator is aware of the upcoming Android release, share the link to this news with them or send them a link to our help website which also explains this in more detail:

• https://help.wallpaperengine.io/mobile/workshop

Aside from Android, we have also been working on another update for Wallpaper Engine on Windows. With Wallpaper Engine 1.7, we are adding video texture support for Scene wallpapers and a new Livestream Mode, among other new features and bug fixes.


Up until now, the Wallpaper Engine editor only supported static image as a basis for all imported materials. We have now created a way that users can import .mp4 video files as image layers in the editor and they can used just like any other image layer, meaning effects can be applied to them and other assets may be placed over them, allowing for video-based wallpapers to become just as interactive and dynamic as static wallpapers previously. We recommend using H.264 compression for the best compatibility across systems.

You can also use video files as base textures of your wallpaper, to do this, click on "Use a Template" in the editor welcome window, select "2D Scene" and configure the resolution of your video file. Then simply drag and drop your video file into the new project and it will be added as a new image layer in your project.


A relatively specific feature request in the past was to support setting web livestreams as wallpapers. Due to license issues, this is not easily possible and required us to implement a whole new web framework solely to enable livestream video formats for websites. To access the new Livestream Mode, click on "Open Wallpaper" in the lower left corner of Wallpaper Engine, then select "Open from URL".

You can now enable the new "Use Livestream Mode" option for URLs with livestreams in them. The first time you access this feature, Wallpaper Engine will install the new Microsoft's Edge WebView browser which is automatically maintained by Microsoft and includes support for the required video formats. It's also somewhat limited in its Wallpaper Engine functions, so we only recommend using it if you specifically want to set a livestream as a wallpaper. Specifically, there is no keyboard input and using the mouse for input requires hiding the icons first with the built-in hotkey.

The full changelog for Wallpaper Engine 1.7 can be found here:

• Added Workshop EULA to prepare the Wallpaper Engine Android release.
  
• Added video texture support for scenes.
  
• Added LiveStream Mode to "Open URL" dialog which uses Edge WebView to support video streams.
  
• Added option to sync static lock-screen image & static Windows wallpaper with live wallpaper.
  
• Added audio recording icon to application rule program list.
  
• Added new option to only show editor performance stats when needed.
  
• Added support for custom titles to local wallpapers.
  
• Added JPEG rotation EXIF support so JPEG files get rotated pre-import.
  
• Editor update project.json of web wallpapers every time apply is used to ensure audio responsiveness works more reliably while developing.
  
• Added safety measure to avoid crashes with video files when the playback rate cannot be properly read from video files.

• Fixed wallpapers not muting when screensaver is active.
  
• Fixed screensaver playlists not being editable properly.
  
• Fixed screensavers also changing Windows theme colors.
  
• Fixed local preview images not being cropped.
  
• Fixed lighting settings not being editable after previewing.
  
• Fixed unsubscribed items not disappearing.
  
• Fixed user interface crash if Steam was extremely out-of-date.
  
• Fixed undo functionality in editor in combination with the light height slider.
  
• Fixed undo/redo getting stuck when going too fast.
  
• Fixed UI without hardware acceleration not disabling effects.
  
• Fixed asset updating.
  
• Fixed preset update system to account for new Steam behavior.
  
• Fixed effect copy/paste using selected item instead of right clicked item.
  
• Fixed scene audio playback not playing again if wallpaper is paused at the same time a song finishes.
  
• Fixed wrong user properties being applied to cloned wallpapers in screensaver mode without DWM live image copy.

• Fixed black screen after screensaver if Wallpaper Engine is only used for screensavers and not wallpapers.
  
• Screensavers now do not override the lock-screen image and Windows wallpaper even if the options for this are enabled.
  
• Fixed some log entries being generated regarding "missing files".

Hello everyone, this is mainly a maintenance update which introduces a few minor improvements and mainly fixes a few issues that were reported to us after the previous Wallpaper Engine 1.6 release.

You can find the full changelog here:

• Added Dota / Counter-Strike Collection highlight
  
• Improved normal map generator.

• Added workaround for flickering wallpaper when native mouse input is disabled.
  
• Fixed playlist not skipping missing wallpapers.
  
• Fixed intro wallpaper playback not being reliable when the timer is too short.
  
• Improved playlist state persistence.
  
• Improved puppet warp sheet generation speed.

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 Wallpaper Engine:

Hey everyone,

Wallpaper Engine 1.6 adds a couple of cool features for users and wallpaper creators alike. Wallpaper Engine now allows you to use your wallpapers as screensavers, introduces real-time lighting and reflections on 2D images, comes with a brand new mini mode and allows you to set a wallpaper that plays only once as an intro wallpaper when you start your computer.

Wallpaper Engine 1.6 introduces real-time lighting and reflections to 2D scene wallpapers which can have a major impact on the visual quality of wallpapers and can really bring images to life. The underlying technology relies on physically based rendering (PBR) to make this feature as performance-friendly and easy to use as possible.



The lights are rendered in real-time and can also dynamically move around the wallpaper. See the following example where we have attached a light source to the mouse pointer:



All of this also comes with a brand new normal map generator that we created so that anyone could create normal maps for their images with relative ease. Normal maps are commonly found in video games and allow flat surfaces (such as 2D images that most people use in Wallpaper Engine) to be perceived as if they are 3D.

If you want to learn how to utilize these features for your own wallpapers, be sure to check out our designer documentation. We have created a couple of guides on lighting and reflection which you can use to get started with your own ideas:

• Real-time Lighting & Reflections

Another cool feature we added is a new functionality that we call foreground separation. It allows you to cut out a character or object from the foreground of your image and then dynamically fill the space behind it. This makes animating characters much easier as it makes them their own separate layer so that you will not have to worry about character effects and animations having an unintended effect on your background image.

See the following slideshow that shows the original image and the separated images that we created from it (filled-in background and foreground character):



If you would like to make use of foreground separation for your own wallpapers, you can learn more about how to use it on our designer documentation website here:

• Foreground Separation

You can also take this one step further and use our new character sheet creation functionality which allows you to cut your character into different pieces that you can then use for a very clean puppet warp animation. If you are interested in learning more about this, we have also prepared a tutorial for that here:

• Character Sheet Creation

Wallpaper Engine 1.6 introduces a new way to use your wallpapers: You can now configure them as a Windows screensaver with proper multi-screen support. You can either choose your screensaver to be exactly the same as your actively running wallpapers or configure a completely new setup just for your screensavers.



You will now find that the Installed tab comes with two sub-menus, one for configuring wallpapers and one for configuring your screensaver. Once you click on the screensaver option, you will be asked to install the Wallpaper Engine screensaver module, which you can then enable as your current screensaver in Windows.

For more infos, see our help page here:

• Screensavers with Wallpaper Engine

Previously, Wallpaper Engine had an opacity slider at the bottom of the window that you could use to lower the opacity of the window. Initially we thought this would be a good way to help users to configure their wallpapers while making sure the window would not obstruct the view on the wallpaper. However, the slider was often moved by accident and was a common reason for support requests as users were confused as to why the UI was transparent for them.

We have now abandoned the old opacity functionality in favor of a brand new mini mode. You can enable the mini mode by pressing the double-arrow button in the upper right corner of the Wallpaper Engine window, pressing F10 will also toggle between mini mode and normal mode. This allows you to keep the user interface as minimal as possible while configuring your wallpaper.



A common yet relatively minor feature request we received was the ability to configure an intro wallpaper. You can now set up a playlist and then enable the First wallpaper played at startup only option, this will play the first wallpaper of a given playlist only once after the app starts. This is especially cool if you have a specific startup video wallpaper or similar that you would like to see whenever your system boots up.

As always, we have done a lot of smaller fixes and improvements, you can find the full changelog here to get a complete picture of what's new in Wallpaper Engine 1.6:

• Added screensaver support.
  
• Added real-time lighting and reflections for wallpapers.
  
• Added mini mode for Wallpaper Engine window.
  
• Removed browse window opacity slider because it caused a lot of confusion and has been superseded by mini mode.
  
• Created "intro wallpaper" functionality for playlists that allows setting an intro wallpaper that is only played once at startup.
  
• Playlist states will now persist through restarts.
  
• Added color options to all web type wallpapers.
  
• Added back/forward folder navigation to browser and editor with system backwards/forwards buttons (commonly found as mouse button).
  
• Added dynamic texture reduction option to improve performance on laptops or PCs with low GPU bandwidth.
  
• Added openProfile command-line function.
  
• Redesigned video preview button.
  
• Enabled multi-select functionality in Workshop and Discover tab.
  
• Added Shift/CTRL keys to reduce rotation/scale amount on certain gizmos for more precise adjustments.
  
• Replaced file system library with native library.
  
• Improved age rating table to make it easier understand. Rules have not changed.
  
• Renamed "Questionable" age rating tag to "Partial Nudity" to make it easier to understand. Rules have not changed.
  
• Simplified Steam status to reduce confusion.
  
• Changed iris effect to distort over opacity mask rather than fade.
  
• Added more icons to tray menu options.
  
• Added new Shell API monitor identification option which should be the best in theory.
  
• Changed Traditional Chinese font to Microsoft JhengHei UI.
  
• Updated CUE SDK to 3.0.378 and fixed various issues with the new Corsair iCUE 4.
  
• Updated CEF & V8 libraries.

• Added physically based rendering (PBR) in the form of image layer lighting and reflections.
  
• Added customizable normal map generator.
  
• Added visibility option to lights.
  
• Added foreground separation functionality.
  
• Added character sheet creation functionality.
  
• Added support for image editing in editor through external programs like Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.NET. Click here to learn more.
  
• Added "Unlisted" visibility option to wallpaper publishing screen.
  
• Added paint brush for blurring the painted areas.
  
• Added HDR iteration control to limit bloom spread with HDR bloom.
  
• Reduced pulse effect noise speed.
  
• Updated missing texture and missing render target preview images in editor.
  
• Added undo/redo buttons to editor toolbar.
  
• Improved texture compilation results for PNGs and mip-maps to reduce artifacts.

• Added a fix for some scenarios that would cause the audio to turn off when switching audio devices on the fly, mainly in combination with USB / Bluetooth audio devices.
  
• Fixed web wallpapers not muting per monitor when switching between web wallpapers.
  
• Prevented invalid playlists with just one wallpaper from being saved.
  
• Fixed "audio responsive" tag showing up in the genre tags.

• Fixed several script sound playback control issues.
  
• Fixed camera paths panel getting stuck when stored as a floating panel.
  
• Fixed script animation events not being sent to other scripts on a layer.
  
• Fixed editor crash during run preview when pressing DEL on preview window.
  
• Fixed "all" and "none" filter selection buttons in asset browser not working.
  
• Fixed flag template wallpapers being marked as having "no animation"
  
• Fixed crashes related to puppet warp editing.

• Fixed missing particles on half-installed update state.
  
• Fixed broken wallpapers with parallax in screensaver mode.
  
• Playlist state is now properly deleted when the app is uninstalled.
  
• Wallpaper engine now pauses all wallpapers any screensaver is enabled.
  
• Fixed mini mode button being visible when opening the app maximized from tray.
  
• Fixed presets not auto subbing base wallpaper.
  
• Fixed yellow border on texture import.
  
• Fixed normal map auto-cropping behavior.
  
• Screensavers now correctly load the currently playing wallpapers from a playlist.
  
• Fixed Scene version warning not showing for Scene wallpapers when Wallpaper Engine version is outdated.
  
• Fixed various audio muting issues on web wallpapers.
  
• Fixed various issues related to .webm wallpapers.
  
• Improved paint behavior when switching paint masks quickly.
  
• Fixed paint brush crash when switching masks quickly.

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 Wallpaper Engine:

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.

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.

This update also contains some significant changes on how we handle resolutions on new projects and a new resolution suggestion feature.

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.

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.

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:

• 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!

• 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.

• 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.

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:

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

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.


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:

• 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.

• 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:


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.


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.

• 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.

• 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.

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:


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.

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.

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.


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.




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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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:


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.

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.

Hey everyone,

we have just released Wallpaper Engine 1.3.75 which brings a number of improvements to the application and the editor and contains some important bug fixes.

One of the changes we want to highlight is the new anime filter we have added to the application. Right now, about one quarter of wallpapers on Wallpaper Engine is anime. It was always possible to filter this out using the tag filters but this seems to not have been clear enough for a lot of users which is why we have created a simple way to hide this type of content. One issue of the past was also that that some similar categories such as MMD (Miku-Miku Dance) were also often overlooked, the new anime filter takes this into account and hides these other categories as well.

New users will now be asked if they would like to see or hide anime content when visiting the Workshop tab for the first time. For existing users, this option will be automatically checked depending on if the Anime filter is turned off or on the first time you use the app after installing the update. You can always access this by using the "Filter Settings" button in the filter sidebar as shown in the short video clip below.

From our testing this greatly reduces the amount of anime content even though it's certainly not perfect. If you use the Show Anime option, Wallpaper Engine will be just like it was before and nothing will change for you at all.

Your choice will also be remembered even when using the Reset Filters button, as we think it's important your preferences will be saved over a longer period of time. You can always just temporarily enable the anime tags again if you would like to take a peek into the anime sections after all.

If you come across content that is not tagged correctly, you can actually use the report functionality in the application to suggest a new tag, this helps to keep the Wallpaper Engine Workshop organized.

Constructive feedback is, as always, greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind that Wallpaper Engine caters to a global audience and we always try our best to find compromises to make different user groups happy which is not always easy, especially as we are partially limited by Steam itself.



We have made a few quality-of-life improvements in the Wallpaper Engine editor. One new feature is the ability to share SceneScript code snippets in the Workshop, which allows for easier sharing of more complex scripts with users and should help to make SceneScript more accessible to users who lack the knowledge to create scripts themselves.

In addition to that, we have reworked the foliage sway effect which now allows for more realistic wind sway effects on elements like trees and clothing. Due to popular demand, we have also added the ability to add up to 6 blend textures to the Blend effect. With some clever SceneScript usage, this allows for easier "time of day" wallpapers to be created in the future, we expect to see some cool implementations of this and will also prepare a tutorial for this in the near future.

Stay tuned for more updates in the future, we plan to add some very exciting new features to the Wallpaper Engine editor with the next major update.

You can find the complete changelog with all changes and bug fixes below:

• Created simple Anime filter interface in Workshop tab
  
• Added SceneScript asset sharing in Workshop
  
• Added multiple blend textures to blend effect to make it easier to create background images depending on the time of day
  
• Added zoom amount to scene options (which can be used in combination with SceneScript)

• Improved per pixel foliage sway effect
  
• Increased max brush size to 2000 to make it easier to paint effects on 4K wallpapers
  
• Added automatic highlighting of log tab when a script error occurs in the editor
  
• Made user property key field editable while creating new user properties
  
• Excluded .git directories on file import for web wallpapers
  
• Changed scene templates to allow transformation of base layer
  
• Improved asset publishing warning text
  
• Updated Corsair CUE SDK to 3.0.355.0 for extended iCUE hardware support
  
• Translation updates. New complete community translations for Slovenian (Thanks Aljaž!)

• Fixed rare issue where Scene wallpapers would be shown as gray backgrounds on the 64 Bit version of Wallpaper Engine
  
• Fixed wallpaper window creation when multiple scene wallpapers are used ("failed to create scene window" bug)
  
• Fixed media overlay showing when using web wallpapers
  
• Fixed pause function stopping sound playback rather than pausing it
  
• Fixed crash with invalid font files
  
• Disabled video in-memory feature on 32-Bit version if video files are so large that it will likely lead to crashes on 32-bit (>512MB)

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:


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.

Hey everyone,

we're happy to release Wallpaper Engine 1.3. The update brings a large number of new features, performance improvements and various bug fixes.


One of the update highlights is the new ability to flip Scene wallpapers. You can now click on the Flip button in the properties list of your Scene wallpapers and it will flip the wallpaper horizontally. This was a common feature request and may be useful if you feel like a wallpaper might suite your room better in a flipped state or if you are using multiple monitors and want to use the same wallpaper twice, facing different directions. Keep in mind that due to technical limitations, this is only possible for Scene wallpapers.


(Swimming Pool Car wallpaper by 孟婆干杯)



We have extended the Application rules of Wallpaper Engine so that it's now possible to open a wallpaper, a playlist or a complete multi-monitor profile when a certain .exe is launched on your system. This lets you choose the right wallpapers for what you are doing at a given time. For example, this allows you to automatically open an audio visualizer whenever you launch your favorite music player or switch to a less distracting wallpaper on your secondary monitor whenever you launch a certain game.

This option can be found as part of the Application Rules, keep in mind that for multi-monitor setups, you need to assign a profile to an executable which defines which wallpapers are visible on which screen.



This update improves the ability to configure multi-monitor setups and adds some quality-of-life improvements to these types of setups. We have reworked the multi-monitor setup and added a mute button to each monitor (speaker icon in the lower left corner of each screen). This effectively lets users choose a main monitor responsible for playing audio rather than wallpapers across all monitors producing sound at the same time.



Users of Razer Chroma and Corsair iCUE hardware are now also able to choose a monitor within the LED plugin which is responsible for the colors sent to their hardware. Previously the main monitor was forced to be responsible here though this may not have always been what users wanted.

Another change we have made is that Scene wallpapers with a parallax effect are now limited to the constraints of the screen they are on. Previously, if you had moved your mouse across multiple monitors, wallpapers with a parallax effect would often break. We think this change will increase the popularity of wallpapers with parallax effects on multi-monitor setups.



A frequent request we have received over the years was to add the blocking of individual authors. One issue with this is that Steam does not support this kind of functionality but due to the demand for this, we have now implemented a local blocking functionality in Wallpaper Engine. You can now right-click on a wallpaper to block its author, which will always move all wallpapers to the bottom of the search results page and darken them. It's not possible for us to remove authors from the results altogether but this should be a good compromise. The following screenshot shows a row of blocked wallpapers at the bottom:


Be sure to check out historyk's wallpapers rather than blocking them as in the screenshot above! :eaglegag:



As with the previous updates, we have made improvements all throughout the user interface of Wallpaper Engine. The most noticeable change of this update is the revised wallpaper info section on the right-hand side which has been cleaned up and modernized according to some user feedback we have received.



Other user interface changes include a new page selection when clicking on the "..." button in the pagination in the wallpaper search and a new rotary control for certain effects in the editor that use a direction. We have also improved the playlist section for users with very long playlists by adding the ability to scroll through it while hovering over the corners with the mouse and support for scrolling with the mouse wheel through the playlist.

This release also contains significant updates to the translations of some languages which we hope improves the usability for users with limited English skills.


Starting this update, we're phasing out DirectX 9 and OpenGL. They were implemented early-on in the development of Wallpaper Engine but were never intended to be a primary feature as DirectX 10 & 11 are superior in every way (DirectX 10 has been part of the minimal system requirements for Wallpaper Engine since the beginning). Since DirectX 9 and OpenGL are rather buggy and do have some issues with rendering wallpapers properly, we have decided to fully remove them. This will only affect a small number of users who have manually enabled either of them through an advanced option in the settings. Starting this update, users will be unable to select these options in the settings and in a follow-up update we will be removing both interfaces from the application altogether.

We have also updated various libraries that Wallpaper Engine uses which brought along some measurable performance improvements for certain wallpaper elements. We have also updated CEF (the basis for web-based wallpapers) to its latest version now. This means you can now use the latest web-features in your wallpapers and this solves quite a few bugs related to web wallpapers. One downside is that you will now not be able to use Flash as part of your wallpapers anymore, though this should only affect a handful of people at best. With this new CEF update automatic muting of web wallpapers is now possible and web wallpapers will not steal focus anymore when they're used in a playlist.

If, for some reason, you are one of the few people who really need OpenGL, DirectX 9 or Flash for your wallpapers, we have now created a permanent Wallpaper Engine 1.2 release that can be enabled in the Steam properties of Wallpaper Engine. This way you can use Wallpaper Engine 1.2 with these deprecated features forever, though we officially do not support it anymore and recommend everyone to let Steam update Wallpaper Engine as usual.

• Added flipping to scene wallpapers.
  
• Added easier-to-use foliage sway effect.
  
• Added auto muting to web wallpapers.
  
• Added new rotary control for certain effects in the editor that use a direction.
  
• Added hover auto scroll and mouse wheel support to playlist.
  
• Added mute per monitor button in monitor selection.
  
• Added LED source monitor selection.
  
• Added plugin delay loading to fix startup issues with Razer/Corsair utilities.
  
• Added user block list to fade and ignore wallpapers by selected users.
  
• Added pagination page selection when clicking on "..." button in pagination.
  
• Added view all projects button to editor welcome dialog.
  
• Added search filter to open project in editor.
  
• Added dark skin and LED options to initial welcome dialog.
  
• Added load wallpaper rules for application rules.
  
• Added black tray icon for Win10 light theme.

• Updated to new C++ version to improve particle simulation CPU usage.
  
• Updated new CEF version 4103
  
• Updated FreeImage, harfbuzz and freetype libraries.
  
• Removed DirectX 9 and OpenGL options unless they were already selected - they will be completely removed soon!
  
• Improved video switching by hiding the window to avoid black flashes.
  
• Experimental support for high-contrast mode on Windows 10 and no requirement for animation-in-windows option of Windows.
  
• Improved wallpaper details UI and title bar.
  
• Improved high-priority reliability (you need to toggle this off and on to take advantage of it).
  
• Improved fade animation by blocking it until the new wallpaper has loaded.
  
• Improved and largely updated translations for many languages.

• Fixed rare issue with rating sorting in installed tab
  
• Fixed invalid particle system crash.
  
• Fixed local wallpapers rarely not loading.
  
• Fixed certain playlist settings only being available for timer based playlists.
  
• Fixed parallax on multi monitor to break wallpapers when mouse goes out of the viewport.
  
• Fixed web wallpapers stealing focus on load.
  
• Fixed corrupt colors in UI due to old CEF version.
  
• Fixed wrong time zones on web wallpapers in some regions of Brazil and Russia due to old CEF version.
  
• Fixed voting and fav buttons in editor browser.
  
• Fixed text layer composition with effects copying background with wrong offset.

• Fixed Wallpaper Engine settings being unusable if Windows font scaling is enabled

• Fixed an issue with Web wallpapers not pausing
  
• Fixed an issue with Razer LED hardware not working for Web wallpapers
  
• Fixed video loops not working under certain conditions

• Added splitting support to LED monitor detection.
  
• Fixed video audio being muted in editor.
  
• Made favorite icon color a bit lighter.
  
• Added direct show codec pack detection to diagnostics.
  
• Fixed sounds not staying muted in editor.
  
• Fixed volume slider spamming SceneScript change events.
  
• Disabled UWP font-scaling that was introduced as part of CEF update.

• Fixed issue with CORS headers in web wallpapers
  
• Fixed rare crash in application rules
  
• Fixed scene run time not resetting per wallpaper.
  
• Improved video looping under certain conditions
  
• Improved monitor selection modal user interface slightly
  
• Fixed VHS opacity mask
  
• Added unique cache locations for each monitor, each UI window, play in window and editor preview/snapshot.
  
• Added apply wallpaper error handling if background program is in different state than UI.
  
• Added additional LED and monitor restore events to session unlock.
  
• Disabled context menu in web pop up view.

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:


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.

• Added effect copying for single effects and all effects on a layer.
  
• Added script properties to count down preset for easier use.
  
• Added better error message when Steam subscription limit of 15k is hit.
  
• Fixed playlist scroll bar disappearing on some languages when the resolution is too small.
  
• Fixed update not re-starting as x64 (will only work *after* this update).
  
• Fixed pagination in asset browser.
  
• Fixed thumbnails not rebuilding if source file is newer.
  
• Fixed font rendering sometimes showing messed up characters.
  
• Fixed imported masks not being editable and being reset on paint.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hey all,

after the creator's update, we are releasing a smaller patch today to fix some issues and improve the performance of the user interface.

We have added a thumbnail cache to the browser of Wallpaper Engine which can improve performance quite a lot if you have a lot of wallpapers with large thumbnail images. When opening the browser for the first time, it will have to generate all thumbnails from scratch, so it may perform poorly for a minute on some systems but the performance will improve drastically afterwards.

The last update caused some issues for users that have used some unusual characters in their Windows user name or in the installation path of Steam or a game library. This caused issues with the instant wallpaper cache and the loading of the Wallpaper Engine config file. If you have had this issue, this patch will fix that - but unfortunately you will have to go through the issue one more time as Wallpaper Engine and Steam will fix any broken paths. This process may take up to a minute because Steam can be slow to respond on some systems affected by this issue. This does not require any downloading of files, you just need to wait for Steam to respond to Wallpaper Engine which can take up to a minute.

• Fixed issue with unusual paths / user names.
  
• Added preview image performance cache.
  
• Improved Water Flow effect.
  
• Fixed approved trophies not showing up in asset browser.
  
• Changed default asset browser sorting to top rated.
  
• Fixed local wallpapers without preview not showing no preview image anymore.
  
• Fixed gif/jpg extension issue when importing previews.
  
• Added automatic cropping and resizing of imported project previews.
  
• Added alert to asset publish modal to further try and reduce wrong uploads.
  
• Fixed user votes not being returned to UI.
  
• Added viewport options to particle editor.
  
• Forced layers from asset packs to be visible on import and unlocked.
  
• Fixed help menu being disabled.
  
• Translation updates.

• If Wallpaper Engine is turned off while playing PUBG, Rainbow Six or other games with the BattlEye anti-cheat, it is due to an issue in BattlEye itself which causes it to terminate Wallpaper Engine when Nvidia's low-latency mode is enabled on your systems. On some systems, this does not seem to be easily fixable, you should contact BattlEye support directly.
  
• If you have any issues, please have a look at our FAQ which covers the most frequent support requests we receive: https://help.wallpaperengine.io/