Parallax Wallpaper on Your Desktop

No magic: Vealo takes your wallpaper, draws it 6% larger than the screen and shifts it against the mouse. In real life the far background also moves away from the observer in the opposite direction, and that is what the feeling of depth rests on.

• Any picture and video. Parallax needs no special layered wallpaper. Anything that is on your desktop works: your own picture, video wallpaper, any of the 128 wallpapers included.
• Against the mouse. Move the cursor to the right, and the picture slides slightly to the left. The motion is smoothed, so there are no jerks even with sharp movements.
• Effects run on top. Rain, snow, leaves, glitch and VHS from the same tab sit over the parallax and move together with it.
• Cheap. The graphics card moves a ready-made copy of the picture. At any monitor refresh rate, even 180 Hz, with no gaps at the edges.

The Effects tab, the Parallax row. One toggle.

1. Install Vealo from Steam, open the panel and click the gear, that is the Studio.
2. The Effects tab, the Parallax toggle. The wallpaper comes alive right away, move the mouse across the desktop.
3. The STRENGTH slider: from a barely noticeable breath to a pronounced sweep. Start in the middle.
4. The SMOOTHNESS slider: how lazily the picture catches up with the mouse. More smoothness, a calmer desktop.

Parallax is part of Pro. Like the other locked effects, you can try it: click the toggle and it runs for real on your wallpaper for five seconds.

Parallax lays a copy of the wallpaper over the real desktop. If there were icons on the desktop, the copy would cover them. That is why the effect only works while the icons are tucked away in the Vealo panel. This is the program's main mode anyway: icons at hand in the panel, desktop clean.

• Turn on icon display, and parallax switches itself off. Hide them again, and it comes back, nothing to click.
• Widgets (clock, player, weather and the rest) are not affected: they sit above the layer and stay in place while the picture moves.
• If Wallpaper Engine is running alongside and its wallpaper is in charge, parallax yields to it and does not argue.

A few small things that make the effect convenient, not just pretty.

• Your own choice for each screen. In the SCREEN row pick a monitor and turn parallax on only where you want it. On a second screen full of spreadsheets it serves no purpose.
• Video wallpaper moves too. Parallax works on a clip as well: the video gains depth just like a picture.
• Game mode. As soon as a game or video goes full screen, the layer freezes and hands over the graphics card. Minimize the game, and everything continues.
• Setups with parallax. Ready-made desktops from the Steam Workshop install together with the effect's settings: setups on our site, applied with one click inside Vealo.