A free library of living wallpapers, each one designed in code. They loop without a seam, react to your mouse, your music and the time of day, each has its own peaceful music, and they play in any browser (Mac, iPhone, iPad and Chromebook included) or behind your desktop icons through a small Windows app that pauses itself whenever you're busy.
The idea
Wallpaper Engine made living wallpapers popular, but most of what it plays is video or a hidden web browser running all day. Baubra Backdrops goes the other way: every wallpaper is a small program that draws itself on the graphics chip, so it can react to you, follow the clock, loop without a seam, and cost almost nothing.
How it works
Each backdrop is a manifest and one GLSL shader. The same files play on the website through WebGL2 and in the Windows app through wgpu on Direct3D 12, using one shared shader library, so what you try on the site is exactly what lands on your desktop. The app renders each scene at only as many pixels as it needs, pauses for games and covered desktops, and hands still backdrops to Windows as a normal wallpaper.
The hard parts
Windows 11 changed how the desktop is layered, so the app had to find its place behind the icons in both the new and old layouts. Every shader has to satisfy two compilers at once, and a checker tests each one in both, measures its seam and its cost on a 2018 Intel laptop GPU, and rejects anything that jumps when the loop wraps. The biggest surprise was memory: start-up leaves 150 MB behind that the engine never touches again, so the app gives it back and plays in about 10 MB.
What's next
More backdrops, made the same way, and a signed installer so Windows stops warning about a new app.
What I built
- Nineteen backdrops, from an aurora over a mountain lake and a pixel-art farm to a synthwave grid, a ringed gas giant and glowing jellyfish, each a few kilobytes of GLSL with its own settings; the latest ten were designed by an art-director agent writing briefs and a style guide, then built by shader agents and reviewed against it
- A peaceful piece of music for every backdrop, composed in code and looping without a seam (koto, felt piano, lo-fi electric piano, campfire guitar, chiptune and more), with rain, fire and wind as an alternative on some
- Works beyond Windows: the site installs as an app on Chromebooks, iPhones and iPads, plays live on a Mac desktop through Plash, and hands each device a wallpaper sized for its screen
- 60 frames a second at every pixel of the screen, 4K included, with one-pixel analytic edges that stay sharp at any resolution
- Any aspect ratio and size on demand: pictures up to 8K and seamless 60 fps looping videos up to 4K, made in the visitor's own browser with WebCodecs
- A Windows app in Rust that draws behind the desktop icons with Direct3D 12, uses about 10 MB of memory while playing, and stops completely for games, full-screen video and covered desktops
- Still backdrops are handed to Windows as a normal wallpaper, so they cost nothing; after a minute out of sight the app releases everything it was using
- Music reaction from the PC's own sound, a live mouse trail and the real time of day, identical in the browser and the app
- Seamlessly looping videos and pictures to download at desktop, 4K, ultrawide and phone sizes
- Tools that check every loop joins up and measure each scene's cost on a 2018 laptop's graphics chip
Updates
Ten new Baubra Backdrops, from a synthwave grid to glowing jellyfish and a ringed gas giant, each with its own music. Every backdrop now plays at 60 fps at your screen's full resolution, and you can make one in any shape and size, up to 8K.
See them ↗Every Baubra Backdrop now has its own peaceful music, from felt piano to campfire guitar, with rain or fire as an alternative on some. And the backdrops now work on Macs, iPhones, iPads and Chromebooks too.
Listen ↗