DeskScapes Gallery Updated for DeskScapes 8

Friday, February 01, 2013 by Island Dog | Discussion: WinCustomize News

With the release of the first beta of DeskScapes 8 for Object Desktop subscribers, we have also been working and updating the DeskScapes gallery here on WinCustomize.

Along with some back-end improvements, we have also added a filter to where you can see only Windows 8 ready animated wallpapers. 

On the Dream upload page, we also now detect if your upload is Windows 8 ready, and will display a proper badge on the skin page if so.

Remember:

When using video in your dream, please use WMV or AVI files. Windows 8 no longer includes an MPEG2 decoder without the Windows Media Center addon pack. This means most users of Windows 8 may not be able to use your dream if it includes MPEG2 video. MPEG4 dreams in AVI format (NOT MPEG 4 part 10/h.264) should work fine.


14 Reply 7 Referrals
CarGuy1
Reply #1 Friday, February 01, 2013 1:50 PM

Wouldn't it have been easier to include a MPG2 codec with DesScapes 8? Requiring the use of AVI or WMV makes the CPU usage double in most cases.

Without MPG2, I doubt I will be creating or uploading any dreams in the future. It's for sure I'm not going to re-encode my entire Gallery.

Also, in the past you had to install your own MPG2 codec to run dreams. Why change this requirement now?


Neil Banfield
Reply #2 Friday, February 01, 2013 1:52 PM

CarGuy1
reply 1
Wouldn't it have been easier to include a MPG2 codec with DesScapes8? Requireing the use of AVI or WMV makes the CPU usage double in most cases.

Without MPG2, I doubt I will be creating or uploading any dreams in the future. It's for sure I'm not going to re-encode my entire Gallery.

MPEG2 decoders require patent licensing which is excessively expensive for a product like DeskScapes.

MPEG4 in AVI format (XVID style) is a better choice if you want to support Windows 8.

An alternative is to look into hybrid dreams.  They don't rely on any decoders and are typically low cpu.  Chaninja has some wonderful examples on the site.


Oleander
Reply #3 Saturday, February 02, 2013 5:17 AM

Could some kind soul here (I understand if Stardock can't) please provide a link to a product that does provide MPEG-2 support under Win8?

I've already forked out for an update for my PowerDVD 11 just to find out that didn't help.

The Microsoft addon is payware as of yesterday (and apparently doesn't help either http://goo.gl/it9y9).

So instead of dumping a lot more money just to find out what doesn't work....


rlphwshr
Reply #4 Saturday, February 02, 2013 2:57 PM

Hallo!

Here in germany the windows media center is now available for 9.95€ isn`t too bad I think!

I instaled it when it was for free! All mpeg2 videos and dreams work fine in deskscapes 8


GILBERTRATCHET
Reply #5 Saturday, February 02, 2013 3:01 PM

So am I to understand that my windows 8 pro media center addition will be ok with all dreams. All good so far for me.


Roloccolor
Reply #6 Saturday, February 02, 2013 3:18 PM

I currently use Chaninja´s Plasturd Dream and the resource overview shows that deskscapes8 is runnning with 0,3mb 
If that is accurate its amazing. Still i cant see how that is possible.

Neil Banfield
reply 2

Quoting CarGuy1, reply 1Wouldn't it have been easier to include a MPG2 codec with DesScapes8? Requireing the use of AVI or WMV makes the CPU usage double in most cases.

Without MPG2, I doubt I will be creating or uploading any dreams in the future. It's for sure I'm not going to re-encode my entire Gallery.

MPEG2 decoders require patent licensing which is excessively expensive for a product like DeskScapes.

MPEG4 in AVI format (XVID style) is a better choice if you want to support Windows 8.

An alternative is to look into hybrid dreams.  They don't rely on any decoders and are typically low cpu.  Chaninja has some wonderful examples on the site.


So all uploads not having these codecs will be rejected in future uploads?


 


Neil Banfield
Reply #7 Saturday, February 02, 2013 3:49 PM

Roloccolor
reply 7
I currently use Chaninja´s Plasturd Dream and the resource overview shows that deskscapes8 is runnning with 0,3mb 
If that is accurate its amazing. Still i cant see how that is possible.
Quoting Neil Banfield, reply 2
Quoting CarGuy1, reply 1Wouldn't it have been easier to include a MPG2 codec with DesScapes8? Requireing the use of AVI or WMV makes the CPU usage double in most cases.

Without MPG2, I doubt I will be creating or uploading any dreams in the future. It's for sure I'm not going to re-encode my entire Gallery.

MPEG2 decoders require patent licensing which is excessively expensive for a product like DeskScapes.

MPEG4 in AVI format (XVID style) is a better choice if you want to support Windows 8.

An alternative is to look into hybrid dreams.  They don't rely on any decoders and are typically low cpu.  Chaninja has some wonderful examples on the site.

So all uploads not having these codecs will be rejected in future uploads?


 

No we will allow them but they will not be marked as compatible with Windows 8 to avoid disappointment.

Regarding the cpu and memory, you would need to look to explorer.exe  Hybrid dreams are efficient, but we have yet to get them to use 0.3MB!  They basically use size of NWA files on HD + some bits needed by the rendering engine.


DaveRI
Reply #8 Saturday, February 02, 2013 4:00 PM

Neil Banfield
reply 7
Hybrid dreams are efficient, but we have yet to get them to use 0.3MB!

Maybe some of the usage remains buried in the explorer process?


Neil Banfield
Reply #9 Saturday, February 02, 2013 4:03 PM

DaveRI
reply 9
Quoting Neil Banfield, reply 7Hybrid dreams are efficient, but we have yet to get them to use 0.3MB!

Maybe some of the usage remains buried in the explorer process?

All of the usage is in the explorer process.  Deskscapes.exe / Deskscapes64.exe is there for one purpose only and thats to start DeskScapes.


TwoWolves
Reply #10 Sunday, February 03, 2013 11:35 AM

I have a 2560x1440 WQHD monitor and unfortunately most of the video based dreams look pretty awful on it (not the creator's fault), the simple fact that most HD video editors stop at 1080p is the problem.

 

Deskscapes is a great program but thanks to the march of technology it may be time to look at other ways of approaching how content is created for it.

 

I have some ideas that I'm working on now and I'll let you know how they are progressing when I have made some reasonable progress.


Roloccolor
Reply #11 Sunday, February 03, 2013 3:24 PM

 

DaveRIreply 9Quoting Neil Banfield, reply 7Hybrid dreams are efficient, but we have yet to get them to use 0.3MB!Maybe some of the usage remains buried in the explorer process? All of the usage is in the explorer process.  Deskscapes.exe / Deskscapes64.exe is there for one purpose only and thats to start DeskScapes.


yeah tested it its about 36,8 mb when running but thats ok...still less than my chrome lol
just have seen you wrote x64 i dont have a x64 exe in the taskmanager mine is x32 and im on win8 pro x64
dont know if thats meant to be this way 

 


Neil Banfield
Reply #12 Sunday, February 03, 2013 5:51 PM

TwoWolves
reply 11
I have a 2560x1440 WQHD monitor and unfortunately most of the video based dreams look pretty awful on it (not the creator's fault), the simple fact that most HD video editors stop at 1080p is the problem.

 

Deskscapes is a great program but thanks to the march of technology it may be time to look at other ways of approaching how content is created for it.

 

I have some ideas that I'm working on now and I'll let you know how they are progressing when I have made some reasonable progress.

Hybrid or dynamic dreams are perfectly happy with higher resolutions, though with hybrid dreams the author will decide on the virtual resolution used and most of them will be 1920x1200 I suspect as that is a reasonable choice.  While there are some people with 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 resolution monitors, they are exceptionally rare.

Dynamic dreams should be limited only by the textures they were created with.

Video encoding tools almost certainly will be limited to 1080p and anything above that will start to use considerably more cpu to play as consumer hardware will stop providing hardware acceleration for videos above 1080p resolution.


TwoWolves
Reply #13 Monday, February 04, 2013 4:56 AM

I have a question: What happened to the random wallpaper option?

I can't find it.


Kinger
Reply #14 Thursday, February 07, 2013 3:46 AM

I gota say so far as a user I really like the interface.


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