If you want to breathe new life into a boring old desktop screen, Wallpaper Engine is the way to do it. The application allows you to create animated wallpapers, which you can provide with tons of visual and audio effects, to transform your boring desktop into an interactive wonderland.
But you want more. You want to create an interactive wallpaper that is also audio responsive, meaning that the wallpaper will react based on the audio signals that you have configured in Wallpaper Engine. This article will tell you everything you need to know.
Step 1: Create or edit your wallpaper
Hopefully the first step is the easiest: create the wallpaper you want to respond to audio or edit an existing wallpaper. Either should be an easy task for someone familiar with Wallpaper Engine. But if you’re new to the app, follow these steps to create a basic wallpaper:
- Open Wallpaper Engine to see the “Welcome” pop-up window.
- Drag an image from your device and drop it onto the “Create Wallpaper” button.
Wallpaper Engine then opens the editing screen, through which you can add effects and play with your imported image.
If you already imported an image and want to edit it, the “Welcome” popup also helps you. Click “Edit Recent Wallpaper” and select the file whose audio you want to make responsive.
Step 2: Add your audio effects
Next, you need to add the “Shake” effect mentioned above:
- Check the right side of the screen to search and click “Effects.”
- Select “+Add” from the “Effects” menu.
- Navigate to “Animate” and select “Shake.”
Note that you’ll find other animated effects in the “Animate” menu, each of which you can use instead of “Shake” if you prefer. Other examples include “Pulse”, which makes the image go up and down, and “Blur”, which is great for blurring two parts of an image. Shake does what it says on the tin: it shakes the selected part of the image.
It’s also worth noting that you’re not limited to the preset effects that Wallpaper Engine offers. The Community Workshop has many user-created effects that you can download using the “Add Asset” button on the left side of the screen.
Step 3: Turn on audio feedback
You have your effect enabled, but it is not yet ready to respond to audio inputs. You can do this through the “Combos” menu in Wallpaper Engine.
- Find and select “Combos”, which is located on the right side of the screen.
- Choose “Audio Response.”
- Select between “Center”, “Left” and “Right” responses, which dictate where the audio response will occur on your wallpaper.
You may have other options to modify here, depending on the effect you choose. For example, the “Pulse” effect has a “Pulse Color” option, which changes the color of the pulse when activated.
Step 4: Select unstable areas
With audio feedback enabled, your next task is to determine which parts of your wallpaper respond to the audio signal. With the “Shake” effect, this means selecting areas that shake when relevant audio is played.
Use Wallpaper Engine’s paint function to mark the required areas:
- Navigate to “Textures” on the right side of the screen and look for “Opacity Mask.”
- Choose “Paint” under “Opacity Mask” to open a new window.
- Select the features you would like your brush to have in the new window.
- “Hardness” and “Opacity” are usually best for audio responsive wallpapers.
- Exit the window and use the brush icon to paint over the areas you want to apply the chosen effect to.
- Select “Show Mask” at any point to highlight the areas you’ve painted.
Of course, errors can occur when painting digitally. A mouse swipe could cause you to paint over an area you don’t want to apply the effect to. Solving that problem requires total opacity.
- Open your brush characteristics window and set “Amount” to 0.
- Increase the “Opacity” to 100.
- Paint over any area of the image whose effect you want to remove.
Step 5: Play some music
Next, a quick test.
You want to see how your wallpaper responds to the music you play on your desktop. Open your music app of choice and play a track. You should see your wallpaper responding to the beat, with the areas you painted in Step 4 shaking along with the music.
If you don’t see your effect in action, check the “Show Mask” setting. Disable it if it is currently enabled because an enabled skin prevents its effect from working properly.
Step 6: Modify your effect’s response to pitch
At this point, your wallpaper responds to every aspect of the music you’re playing. Low, mid and high ranges cause jitter (or whatever effect you’ve chosen), making the wallpaper overly reactive and distracting.
Fortunately, you can modify the audio responsiveness so that your effect only activates when you play specific frequencies.
- Navigate to “Shader,” which you’ll find on the left side of the screen.
- Go to “Audio Limits” to modify the tones your wallpaper responds to.
You’ll find a pitch range slider in the “Audio Limits” menu. Setting the range between 0.2 and 0.5 means that your wallpaper only responds to high-pitched noises. Between 0.6 and 0.8 creates responses for medium tones, and between 0.8 and 1 creates responses for low tones.
Step 7: Modify the strength of your effect
You have the tone settings just the way you want them, but the effect doesn’t work the way you imagined. It can be too weak, making it barely visible when audio is playing, or so loud that it seems like the entire screen is shaking with the beat.
Wallpaper Engine also allows you to adjust the intensity of your effect via the “Shadow” menu:
- Select “Shader” from the menu on the left side of the screen.
- Navigate to “Audio Amount.”
- Tweak the settings and see how it affects your wallpaper, repeating these steps until you’re happy with the strength of the effect.
Step 8: Save and Apply
You have a custom wallpaper that responds to music and other audio. All that’s left is to apply it to your desktop:
- Go to the “File” menu and click “Save” to save your wallpaper.
- Staying in the “File” menu, select “Apply Wallpaper”.
Your wallpaper should appear as your desktop background. Try playing a tune and it should react like it did when you had it open in Wallpaper Engine.
Designer wallpapers that dance
The more interactive elements you add to your desktop wallpaper, the more interesting it will be when playing music. And here’s a useful note: you can repeat these steps with different effects for the same wallpaper, which means you’ll end up with a wallpaper that responds in multiple ways to the audio. For example, you could have part of the wallpaper that shakes in low pitches and another part that pulses when pitch goes up.
Have you ever made your wallpaper audio responsive with Wallpaper Engine? If so, did you use any of the tips and tricks in this article? Tell us in the comments p below.
