Generative Wallpaper idea proposes subtle evolution for your desktop background

By , Published September 3, 2010

Martin 'DoctorMo' Owens posted this very neat demonstration of a generative wallpaper, as proposed/wanted/sought out for Ubuntu 11.04 +.

In the video he shows how he set a .SVG image as his desktop background coupled with a  small python script running in the background to manipulate and continually change aspects of the wallpaper.

The result is something visually pleasing to look at and, with moves being made to introduce functionality along these lines to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal we  be drooling over something very similar on default desktops 6 months from now€¦

Via | DoctorMo.org

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  • http://twitter.com/connorabruce Connor

    Yes, but who has the same desktop picture long enough for them to notice the change?

  • http://www.xnlab.net Xeriab Nabil

    With an automatic animation it will be a great application “Animated SVG” :)

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/44RKEMFIHPAGRRE4I4RILSNYDU FlyC

      that would actually be distracting and a waste of cpu+battery…

      • http://www.xnlab.net Xeriab Nabil

        Yeah :D but its cool

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XQI5WKNJRHKU6UM7RW2VNOR5XY Rebequita

        How much of a waste of CPU would it be? Why not make it so that a) It only changes when you are looking at it and b) It’s an opt-in feature?

  • zekopeko

    Plenty of people don’t change the wallpaper. This would be a really nice and innovative touch to user experience in Ubuntu.

  • schalken

    It’s a neat enough idea, as ideas go, but a shitty wallpaper that moves every night is still a shitty wallpaper.

  • Anonymous

    I really, really, really like this idea of permutations of wallapers. Certainly flares and gradients aren’t the only aspects of a wallpaper you could easily modify and bring life to. I think this could be very interesting in even more crisp designs for wallpapers, and that we could introduce random effects with layering to different kinds of wallpapers.

    Think about it- if it’s an XML-based SVG you can edit, why not have several elements that could be on different layers for depth (including a based color or some elements like a logo or the such). That way, you can have multiple layers and effects that correspond to those layers.

    I think this could be another area to emphasize the badassery of Linux in comparison to OS X and Windows, as we already have so many features not available on other platforms.

    This is nifty.

  • http://orkutcidio.deliriocoletivo.org Peterson Espaçoporto

    Just giving an example of “plenty of people don’t change the wallpaper”: why do you think the “green hills and blue sky” thing is so likely to remind people of windows XP? Not only because it’s default, but because a lot of windows XPs everywhere display this image still as the wallpaper.

  • Saprissa

    Amazing. A desktop wallpaper that changes at a virtually imperceivable pace.

    Maybe someday the whole desktop can shift one pixel to the right each night and then shift one pixel to the left the next night.

    What an “enhanced user experience” that would be!

  • Anonymous

    I like the idea, just looking to the wallpaper you can see if it is a “fresh” or “old” installation. And this is an idea that Windows and Mac do not have. Another point to Ubuntu.

  • Wolvie1986

    CPU and battery, Goodbye

    • http://www.obfuscatepenguin.net/ Marc

      It’s a set of infrequent minor changes to a small text-based file. Not even a ten-year-old PC would consider that demanding.

    • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

      We have so much stuff running in the background nowadays i seriously don’t believe a little Python Script will drag down performance so much it becomes unreasonable.

  • Leds

    Haven’t they got anything better to do?

    • Martin Owens

      Who is they?

      • Anonymous

        i think he means, why would the ubuntu community want this wen tons of bugs need fixing

        • Martin Owens

          Because we (as in the Ubuntu community that fixes bugs) never seem to get a) any money for or b) any thanks for fixing bugs. Only complaints, as if it was the responsibility of volunteers to look after bugs and not user’s responsibility to pay to have them fixed in the first place.

          I’m not exactly motivated and my desktop doesn’t seem to have any bugs at the moment so there is nothing to fix. make sense yet?

          • Anonymous

            I like Ubuntu lots and have no issues with it (except my laptops wifi which has to have the restricted drivers installing whilst connected to the ethernet cable). I think that Ubuntu is being made easier for people but I think people think that its ubuntus fault when they cant get their webcam working easily and so on.

    • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

      No we really don’t, come on, let us have some fun from time to time, it’s not like all of a sudden every other dev stopped fixing bugs and started animating Wallpapers, besides, Maverick is looking pretty stable to me and we’ll ALWAYS have a ton of bugs to fix, so why not get a little distracted from time to time, are the End Users the only ones that are allowed to have fun?

    • Anonymous

      Obviously he is doing something useful!
      Which is more than your whining!

  • Aristotelis

    Imagine a wallpaper with vector shapes such as the Hardy Heron and Intrepid Ibex, slightly moving, either around themselves as not to break the form or dissolving into “space” and then forming the animal again. The movements would be very slow and very subtle as not to attract the eyes and tire the mind during work but give a little hint of life in the desktop.
    IMHO, those two releases had real wallpaper art and the idea of an artistic representation of the animal code name was genius, original, appropriate and simply beautiful. I don’t know why they dropped the project, but I can imagine it was because no one continued it?

    • Herakles

      my heron explodes!
      no, seriously a good idea ;-)

  • http://owaislone.org/ Owais Lone

    Yet another idea to waste CPU cycles.

    • https://launchpad.net/~kingj-linuxmlsts Tuxdot

      Yes, because this will run permanently in the background.

      No, read.

  • http://blastfromthepast.se/ Tommy Brunn

    As I said on Otto’s blog; the idea is neat. It really is. But artistically, it’ll be crap. An abstract wallpaper isn’t (or at least it shouldn’t be) random. So unless they’ve got some amazingly sophisticated programming that can analyze composition and visual flow, the end result of moving elements around randomly will look terrible over time.

    • Bgates

      You mean these wallpapers we are getting now a days are not random? they actually thought about where to put the splotches and sneezes? Wow.

      • http://blastfromthepast.se/ Tommy Brunn

        I’m not entirely sure which is the case with this round’s default wallpaper, hence the “at least it shouldn’t be”. ;)

    • Anonymous

      i think something that changes from day and gets darker at night would be cool

      and a slideshow from folder, is something i miss from kde

    • http://www.reggelizo.blogspot.com norbs

      What if there would be a ranking system?! It would be just as artificial selection. In one day a lot of wallpapers would generate, which forms one population, and every day, just one would survive. Than that one could mutate further. Or for the bravest there can be two survivors and they would be mixed. Then evolving their offspring.

  • http://twitter.com/Nickedynick Nick Stringer

    Not really if it’s only updating once every login.

  • hansioux

    i don’t get it….. but as long as i’ll be able to turn it off, and it won’t impact performance when it is off, then i am fine with it.

  • bstinson

    Might be kind of interesting with an astronomy-based wallpaper. That default wallpaper, however… there isn’t enough candy-coating in the world to make that thing palatable.

  • David

    Ergh….seems pretty silly to me. They should have the KDE and Windows 7 option to change the wallpaper automatically implemented instead.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XQI5WKNJRHKU6UM7RW2VNOR5XY Rebequita

      Don’t they already have it thanks to the space-themed wallpaper collection?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XQI5WKNJRHKU6UM7RW2VNOR5XY Rebequita

      Don’t they already have it thanks to the space-themed wallpaper collection?

  • http://www.obfuscatepenguin.net/ Marc

    There’s a danger that people who don’t know about the effect might be driven slowly crazy.

    • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

      “Mom, i’m serious, my Desktop is MOVING!”

      “Well, see? Ain’t that what i’m always telling you? All these Interwebs will cause some damage one day. Now go take the Trash out…”

  • http://twitter.com/zedalreadytaken Pencho Bogdanov

    Great idea but horrible wallpaper.

  • Bobdole

    All this needs is better transitions.

    Then it’s diamonds.

  • http://twitter.com/louiszwu Michael Powers

    I like the idea, though I did go through a phase, years back, where I had only a sparse, utilitarian setup. It was somewhat necessary back then. Now? Not so much.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XQI5WKNJRHKU6UM7RW2VNOR5XY Rebequita

    Can this be made so that the wallpaper is “animated”?

    • Martin Owens

      Nope, not animated as that would take far too much resources to do right now. Maybe in 5 years.

  • Gerd

    If it moves absolutely randomly, it would mostly shift the blotches one step forward and back. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to add another factor in the equation, like the date or something, so the wallpaper changes continually (but different on each system).

  • http://twitter.com/grejppi Greippi

    Hmm… What would “Crunchy Branch” look like after this kind of treatment?

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