Animated Wallpaper

Animated wallpaper is a subcategory of computer desktop wallpaper where there is actual movement within the image. These animated scenes use both 2D and 3D computer graphics to create motion and spatial relationships between the objects and environment. Online, you can find a number of sources offering animated wallpaper for purchase and download.

The precursor to today’s computer wallpaper emerged in the 1970s when Xerox and Apple experimented with patterns to help distinguish a computer’s background from its application windows. When personal-computer color monitors were introduced, the creativity behind computer wallpapers seemed to explode. Today, with the ability to also select almost any image or pattern as wallpaper, the options are endless.

Typically, computer wallpapers are two-dimensional. Original animated wallpapers employed 2D graphics. To create movement, programmers display an image on the computer screen and then replace it with one that is slightly different. A repeat of this process over and again would create the illusion of movement – the same as with motion pictures. Animated wallpapers use the same principles as stop-motion animation.

Also used today, however, are 3D models. In 3D animation, objects have the ability to move within three-dimensional space. Basically, a 3D graphic goes through a three-step process: Modeling, layout and animation, and rendering. The final step of rendering takes the 3D object of step one and the spatial settings of step two and creates or renders the image.

In 3D animation, the differences in frames captured by 2D animation are automatically calculated by the computer. The process is called tweening or morphing and takes place before the model and frames are rendered. Rendering is like the stamp.

Regardless whether it uses 2D or 3D graphics, animated wallpaper is a program and needs to be uploaded onto a computer. Unlike static computer wallpaper, it will run as an application and could impact computer performance.