Well, if you love this kind of apps and are eager to waste a remarkable amount of your PC resources to enhance the look of your desktop, this is an excellent tool to use (probably the best wallpaper creator on the market), since it can turn any photo of yours into a beautiful animated wallpaper through tons of advanced options (colors, reflection, gradient, saturation etc...). And it provides users with a set of multiple effects as well, such as underwater, water mirror, fire etc...

FREE ALTERNATIVES

http://www.dreamscene.org
http://www.wallcreator.com (==> No installation needed)
http://wallpapers.x3studios.com

As for SCREENSAVERS MAKERS:

http://www.gphotoshow.com/gpshow_free.htm
http://www.instantstorm.com
http://www.goldshell.com/flashforge

Enjoy!!

G i o v a n n i  –  12 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+64)

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I've had this on my pc since it was given away the first time and I've purchased the extension packs.
Pro's- It is really easy to use and fun to play with. It draws attention to your screen and confuses colleagues thinking it's a screen saver that cant be gotten rid of.

Con's - It slows my startup dramatically I have to delay it win patrol.

Paul  –  12 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+34)

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I posted here around two weeks ago when another DP software, Animated Screensaver Maker, was offered. The two programs having the same interface, same tools, same settings (and same bugs!), the only difference being the format of their output (.scr for ASM, .exe for AWM,), my comments and tips about ASM are also valid for AWM. You can find them here:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/animated-screensaver-maker-315/#comments (post 10)

I mentioned little bugs coming and going, version after version, as it often happens for very creative fast developing software with a small team of developers – if not a single one. This time in 3.1.5, if you use the “explosion” animation, some of you will get nothing but a “runtime error” or “wrong format” window when trying to create a wallpaper. They are working on this, and there are plenty of other animations!

P.S. To avoid having the program use to many resources, don’t forget to set the priority to “low” in the settings window.

ouialaraison  –  12 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+30)

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Review of today's GAOTD after testing out on a specific project:

Downloaded and installed on Vista OS without a hitch. No email harvesting. No unwanted add-ons. Kudos to the developer.

GUI: well thought-out and highly intuitive. This is not a 'toy program': there's some very smart coding under the hood.

Test: I work a lot with digital image management software so tend to plunge right in rather than RTFM. If software is good it should at least be accessible for trial-and-error learning. This software is accessible: simply click on File / New Project and then Change Background and that's it, a browser window opens to let you go find the picture you want to animate.

A 16:9 widescreen 1680x1050 2.25MB jpeg was chosen for the test. It's a ground-level shot of a pond with ducks swimming on it. They're watched over by a shire horse at the other side of the water. To the left and right of the horse are shrubs and bushes. The low angle allowed the camera to be level with the nearest duck and to create an image of which one third is water / ducks / horse, two thirds is sky.

What I wanted to see was how dynamic this image could be made to be without it being tarted up to the point of looking absurd. So:

Step 1: Choose Effect. Obviously,Water Mirror. By default, the software set a horizon point across the middle of the image, almost obliterating the ducks / pond / horse / bushes content in the process. The Water Mirror fly-out panel proved itself equal to the task of instant modification and fine tuning: simply moving the Reflection / Horizon slider left or right adjusts the up / down setting.

This panel turned out to be indicative of the impressive amount of control which today's software places in the hands of the user: no less than nine separate controls for this Effect alone, all of 'em meaningful, all of 'em easy to work with. (As a bonus, reversing any action is as fuss free as it gets: just hit the Undo icon in the program's toolbar.)

For this test, I re-set the horizon line to just below the biggest foreground duck, then knocked back the default Green saturation to zero so that the colour in the original image was not displaced. Adjustment of all other controls was simple: every adjustment visually alters the image as you're tinkering with the controls; you can tweak until you're satisfied with the result (or change your mind, hit Undo, and start over.) My final settings were 1024x1024 reflection quality, reflection speed knocked back to about a quarter of velocity, and all other defaults left as is.

The image now 'shimmered' satisfactorily where the effect had been applied. But, because it's a zone effect, the contrast between the static and dynamic was all too apparent. I therefore used the Wave Brush to introduce motion into non-dynamic areas, again, fine-tuning thanks to the plethora of user controls.

That was pretty good. . . but because my ducks weren't all in a row (!) the horizon effect had actually separated one duck from its reflection by a considerable margin. The effect looked frankly awful. I therefore switched to the Water brush and found I could simply apply a liquid effect over that particular duck's reflection and actually remove the reflection entirely. Again, the software's abundance of options and controls made the job quick and easy.

A roster of built-in effects looked promising but after experimenting -- including introducing a cloud of gigantic killer butterflies into the scene -- I simply went for the Leaves 1 option (autumn gold) reduced the pixel size and, again, considerably slowed down the motion to around 20%. I also restricted the number of leaves to five.

Finally. . . I used the Drift brush with a smallish head to add motion to the upper strands of background foliage -- not all of it, just enough to suggest a sense of breeze.

I then saved the project as an executable file (two options for saving are offered: set as wallpaper, or save as an .exe: the latter, I'd suggest, is infinitely preferable) and then in Windows Explorer created a shortcut to that .exe and dropped the shortcut into my Quick Launch bar.

Job done. Total time: 15 minutes -- which, for a first attempt, without reference to any Help assistance, methinks was pretty darn good.

Result? Pretty darn good, too. This software is capable enough to do just about anything to an image, but the secret of successful animation is always less, less, less. Not more. Animation needs to be gentle and un-emphatic. Needs to allow the viewer to suddenly see (in this instance) a ripple here, a slowly spinning leaf there, an almost imperceptible bending of the bushes and shrubs. Not a Force 10 gale.

As for the finished 'project' in action, easy-peasy: I don't want any kind of animation running permanently on my desktop, so it's simply a case of clicking on the QL shortcut icon as and when.

Verdict: I have to disagree entirely with Giovanni's remark about wasting a remarkable amount of computer resources to run this -- going the .exe / QL shortcut route knocks that criticism on the head, and I'm a bit surprised Giovanni seems not to have realised it.

Yes, it's a wallpaper animator, but it's equally a screensaver, but thanks to that .exe means it's a screensaver of a different kind -- not one that hijacks anyone's existing .scr list or even the desktop itself. You animate an image and then choose when to run that animation with a quick click of a Quick Launch shortcut . . . and that's it.

Thoroughly recommended then: this is quality software that has been painstakingly thought out and implemented, one which places in the hands of the user an array of powerful tools that can be used intuitively and remarkably easily. Would that all softweare was like this.

Well done, GAOTD, and well done, Desktop Paints. Happy Christmas to you all.




Result?

MikeR  –  12 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+27)

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@ 18, TK: Before even making this comment, can I just say that I have NO connection with GAOTD and NO connection with today's developer. Truth be told, I came to today's software with no expectation other than that it would waste my time (well: how wrong can one be?)

Anyway. . . I'm very sorry that you're experiencing difficulties with this. I encountered none on Vista x32. As you've tried it on other OS's, I've just been to a neighbour's and DL'd and installed on his Windows XPx32 computer. Result? No problems. At all.

None of this is to gainsay you or your experience: as GOATD regulars know, I constantly bang on about how-the-heck-can-any-developer-KNOW-how-your-computer-is-configured when it comes to the thorny question of so-called Registry Cleaners. Answer: no developer does.
Every individual in the GAOTD community is different and every GAOTD user's computer is different. The parameters decided by a Registry Cleaner developer for one computer have the potential to totally screw up another computer because of its different configuration.

My experience today has been trouble-free and positive on two different computers running two different x32 OS's. There can be but two explanations here: (1) both these computers, operating both these OS's, are such that the software coding 'sees' them as 'standard' set-ups and integrates accordingly. Alternatively: somehow, in some way, the developer has -- psychically -- written this software to work *only* on computers configured the way that mine is, and the way my neighbour's is.

Obviously, the latter is nonsense.

'S not your fault but logic dictates that the "buggy / glitchy behaviour" you're accusing it of may well be a misdirected criticism. After all: you say you tried the screensaver version of this software before and hit a C++ runtime error. Which kind of begs the question. . . are the computers you're using as stable and compatible in their configuration as you might think? It's noticeable to me that you're talking of x64 OSs and I'm having no trouble with x32 OSs. . .

Please note: this comment is not intended in any way as a criticism of your own comment. But I download and test *lots* of software and I have to say that in bar the most rare of cases, any failures that crop up are due to problems at my end. Not at the developer's.

Much to my surprise, because I'm a cynical computer user, I was very impressed with what DesktopPaints has done here. I think it would be a shame if other GOATDers were put off the idea of actually downloading and trying this software because they fear their experience is bound to replicate yours. Chances are, it won't.

I wonder, have you thought of doing what George @ post 20 has done, and actually get in touch with the developer's technical support?

Worth a try, surely, before condemning outright the work of a developer who -- to me at any rate -- really does appear to have invested a helluva lot of thought and time and care in this software. . . and in bringing it to GAOTD today, has actually delivered an unexpected Christmas gift to many a computer user worldwide.

MikeR  –  12 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+12)

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