Early last week the publisher of Computer Games Magazine informed us that the magazine was going to be shut-down effectively immediately.

Of the big three American PC game publications (PC Gamer, Games for Windows, and Computer Games Magazine), CGM had a long history of covering strategy games in-depth even when they were smaller companies.  It used to be called "Strategy Plus" long ago and that it would cover what we were doing when we were just getting started really helped out a lot.

You could also trust the reviews from CGM. Editor-in-Chief Steve Bauman took no prisoners when it came to reviews which was a pretty scary thing for game developers (such as myself). But as a gamer, I appreciated that I could get the full story from CGM.

I still hold out hope that some other publisher may pick up CGM. But for now, it looks like one of the best PC game publications of all time is gone.  To fellow fans of CGM, we share your pain.  We will miss CGM.

Proposal for new gallery page:

It's simila rto what we have today but organized differnetly.  There is also no right bar in order to leave more room for important data.

What do you think?

Previous WC2K8 discussions:

https://forums.wincustomize.com/?forumid=144&aid=146966 (home page)

With the release of Windows DreamScenes, Microsoft has made animated wallpapers on Windows a practical reality. Windows DreamScenes enables users to play video as their desktop background which, when done correctly can provide spectacular results.

Windows DreamScenes, available only on Windows Vista Ultimate, makes full use of the new DWM's video acceleration to deliver high definition backgrounds that won't slow your computer to a crawl.  The caveat is that the video driver makers need to make sure their drivers are up to snuff which, in some cases, they are not yet. But that is a temporary issue.

Stardock worked with Microsoft on the DreamScenes projects and is responsible for some of the animated wallpapers that will come with the final release of Windows DreamScene as well as producing tools and enhancements that extend the functionality of the animated wallpaper feature.  The best known tool is Stardock DeskScapes. It's ones of the new programs that makes up Stardock's popular Object Desktop suite of desktop enhancement utilities.

The two most anticipated features of Stardock DeskScapes has been the promise of animated wallpapers that can change based on triggered events (time of day, weather, etc.) as well as dynamic animated wallpapers (wallpapers that are generated on the fly as opposed to looping video). 

Ironically, what has probably helped make DeskScapes so popular is that most people creating animated wallpapers choose its format .DREAM instead of releasing their work at .MPEG or .WMV.  The reason? .DREAM files support author information that is displayed in the Desktop Background dialog (including links to the author's website).  Without this, the hard work that artists put in creating these wonderful animated wallpapers would done anonymously.

Dynamic Dreams Become a Reality

In early March 2007, Stardock released DeskScapes 1.01 into beta for Object Desktop users.  It includes two dynamic animated wallpapers to show what is possible.  These dynamic animated wallpapers are called Dynamic Dreams.

The first Dynamic Dream is a floating, bouncing, rotating cube with the Stardock logo on each side.  This is a sample one that will also be included in the upcoming DreamMaker 1.01 SDK to allow others to create their own Dynamic Dreams.  Dynamic Dreams use DeskScapes to do much of the work. They're not like screen savers which are essentially EXEs renamed.  Dynamic Dreams are designed specifically to be animated wallpapers to use as little CPU and resources as possible while delivering stunning visuals. DeskScapes also provides support  for configuration and performance settings.

Stardock's mid-term plan is to also release an editor to make it easier to create Dynamic Dreams that are very easy to create that fall into certain common templates. This way, artists can concentrate on making visually impressive Dynamic Dreams without having to worry about coding or scripting.

Dynamic Dream: Stardock Cube

Stardock Cube floats gently around the screen on a reflective surface

Dynamic Dreams use very little CPU. Their performance is tied to your video card. If your video card is poor, then Dynamic Dreams will perform poorly too visually. Think of them like a video game.  If you're running at 1920x1200 on your desktop, ask yourself if you usually run your video games at 1920x1200 with all the quality options on. But fear not, DeskScapes provides options to control the experience.

Performance Settings for DeskScapes 1.01

My ThinkPad T60 laptop is a pretty decent laptop.  But the running at 1400x1050 is taxing on it.  It's not like I could run Company of Heroes with at that resolution with 4X animation and expect to get 60fps.  So on my laptop, at maximum rating, I'm only using 3% CPU but the cube moves at less than 30fps and windows move slowly because the DWM is being taxed. In other words, it slows down my Windows experience which is unacceptable.    So I try lowering the performance to regular quality.

Same cube at "Regular quality"

I can't actually tell any quality difference between the two versions. But the performance is much better. Now the cube moves smoothly. But windows move with a bit of a lag because the DWM is still taxed.  For me, I won't tolerate any degradation in performance for eye candy.  So I'm going to turn down the performance all the way to best performance.

Same cube at best performance setting but minimum quality

At this setting, it's perfect. But I can tell the cube doesn't look quite as good now. It's not significant but it's there.  I could use some beefy machine for this demo but the point here is to use the lowest common denominator.  If your video card rating is a 3.0, you probably shouldn't be running Aero let alone animated wallpapers.  The point here is to give users a real-world, worst case scenario.

Incidentally, if I run my laptop at 1280x1024 I can run at near the highest quality without any affect. It's just that at 1400x1050 the video card is either not optimized for 3D at that resolution or it's where video memory starts to run out.  But a well designed Dynamic Dream will provide its own options as well and the Stardock cube is no exception:

Dynamic Dreams can have their own configuration

If I shrink the cube a little and slow it down, it performs better.  The other guys here are laughing at me for even running this stuff on a business laptop but again, I just want to stress that this stuff runs pretty well even on lower end hardware if you set it up right.

Dynamic Dream: Desktop Earth

The second Dynamic Dream released is called Desktop Earth. This is available to Object Desktop users for free but it will also be released as a premium Dynamic Dream to users who don't have Object Desktop (it took far too long to develop to give away entirely). 

Desktop Earth Dynamic Dream

Desktop Earth looks at the time of day and time of year and lights the Earth and textures it appropriately. It's March 2007 so you can see snow and such down in Michigan (or as we say to prospective employees -- lies! Michigan never has snow! It's warm!).  As Spring arrives, you will see it gradually changing to being greener as the snow goes north. 

Since I'm in the Eastern Time zone, it automatically defaults to centering there.  If I choose to not have the globe rotate, it will lock overhead and over the course of the day, the shadow of night will slowly creep in until you see the lights come on.

Because I'm boring, I don't even have it rotating on my screen. I just enjoy watching the day pass gradually from above the earth.

By the time I go to bed my desktop looks like this:

The change is extremely gradual -- rendered in real time.

Now if I choose to have the globe spinning, I can set how fast it rotates so that I can see the whole world. The lighting of the world is still based on the time of day and time of year. But instead of looking over one part of the world, your desktop is orbiting the earth.

The earth at around 1:57pm EST in March 2007.

The quality settings really matter on this one because the Earth texture is extremely high resolution.  We wanted something that would look good even at 2500x1600 type resolutions.  But if you're running at a lower resolution, there's no need to use such a huge texture.

Even at the lowest settings, it looks really good and performs well at the highest resolution with less than 1% CPU use.

Availability

You can get this right now if you have Windows Vista Ultimate Edition and Windows DreamScenes installed IF you have Object Desktop.  Stardock is releasing DeskScapes 1.01 first on Object Desktop and later to the general public.  The Desktop Earth Dynamic Dream is free for Object Desktop users and is part of the content download.

When you buy Object Desktop you get Stardock Central which makes it easy to download and manage the programs that come with Object Desktop such as DeskScapes.

DeskScapes 1.01 should be available to the general public by the end of March at http://dream.wincustomize.com and on its home page https://www.stardock.com/products/deskscapes

If you have any questions, ask here, we're around.

DeskScapes 1.01
Requires: Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows DreamScenes (and Stardock Object Desktop to get it early)

Update: DeskScapes 1.01 is generally available! Visit http://dream.wincustomize.com to download the latest version.

A new beta of Stardock DeskScapes is available for Object Desktop users. It supports (and includes) two dynamic animated wallpapers (Dynamic Dreams). That is, animated wallpaper that is generated on the fly as opposed to a looping video. 

The advantage of Dynamic Dreams is that less CPU use is involved and users can control the experience through a performance setting which lets users choose between quality and speed (similar to the kinds of settings in a PC game). The better your video card, the higher the resolution you can run Dynamic Dreams at maximum quality.

Note the low CPU usage. Screenshot taken on a ThinkPad T60 laptop

Once DeskScapes 1.01 completes its beta cycle on Object Desktop, it will be released to the general public.  Object Desktop users will be receiving some premium Dynamic Dream content as part of their subscription to ObjectDesktop.net.

An SDK will follow shortly to allow third-parties to create their own Dynamic Dreams. DeskScapes 1.01 will also include a triggered based Dream (where the animated wallpaper changes based on time of day or other conditions). 

Stardock will be also updating DreamMaker to v1.01 which will support dynamic dreams and include the Dynamic Dreams SDK shortly after 1.01 is generally available. 

A guided tour of DeskScapes 1.01 will be available tomorrow.

Slashdot has an interesting article up regarding the Viacom vs. YouTube lawsuit.

On the one hand, Viacom's copyrighted content is showing up on YouTube.  On the other hand, YouTube is complying with the DMCA law that puts the burden on the copyright holder to notify the host of copyrighted material.

So who's right?  It's a very tricky situation.

YouTube videos are relatively low quality and the duration is strictly limited (I don't think you could upload a 20 minute video for instance).

But on the other hand, let's be realistic, how many people here are sick of seeing companies get rich on the "build a massive user base at any cost" business model? I know I am.  Napster "pioneered" this technique by making a pretty obvious program that most developers (including us) had thought of but didn't make it because of the potential for copyright violations.

YouTube didn't become massivley popular because of people uploading home videos. They got popular because people uploaded snippets of TV shows and movies and grew from there.  I don't know if "fair use" can be applied there. 

And if YouTube wanted to stop copyrighted content from showing up, they could either moderate what is uploaded or have some in-between system such as moderate content that gets marked with a red flag when uploaded (like "Simpsons" being in the title) or do that combined with a user verification system (i.e. if you're a known user with a verified identity, your content gets less scrutiny).

Such techniques won't eliminate copyright violations -- we moderate and stuff gets passed us and there is probably plenty of things that are on the edge of "fair use" here.  But they would at least show a reasonable effort. 

My personal opinion is that YouTube does have some liability here. I think a reasonable jury would conclude that the reason YouTube became worth billions of dollars was because they turned a blind eye to copyright violation in order to build the massive user base they needed to become worth billions.  It's easy to build a huge user base if you're giving away other people's stuff.

WinCustomize, being a skinning site -- distributing people's copyrighted material with permission -- can emphathize with YouTube's situation. Which is why I don't have a lot of sympathy for them.  The idea of letting people upload videos to share is kind of a "well Duh" idea.  The hard part is keeping pirated videos off. YouTube got rich by just looking the other way.  Each day no WinCustomize, we reject dozens of entries because they blatantly violate copyright (and like I said, things slip by or things get marked as "fair use", we're aware of the "glass house" thing but at least we are trying here which puts us at an infinite disadvantage compared to sites that have no moderation at all).

What's your opinion?

Stardock released WindowBlinds 5.5 today.  WindowBlinds is a program that enables users to customize the look and feel of the graphical user interface of Microsoft Windows.  By applying "skins", WindowBlinds can change title bars, borders, push buttons, scroll bars, the taskbar, the Start menu and virtually every element of the Windows environment.  Thousands of different skins exist and can be created using a free program called SkinStudio.

WindowBlinds 5.5 is a major update in that it is the first program to allow users to change the look and feel of Windows Vista.  Thanks to a new technology called "SmartSkinning", WindowBlinds allows skins created for Windows XP to be used to skin Windows Vista.  WindowBlinds 5.5 then transforms the skin, on-the-fly, to conform to the new user interface conventions of Windows Vista to give it a distinctly Windows Vista look and feel.  Users of  .msstyles files on Windows XP can use SkinStudio to convert their favorite .msstyles to WindowBlinds 5.5 to run natively on Windows Vista.

For Windows Vista users, WindowBlinds 5.5 makes use of the new hardware accelerated Desktop Window Manager (DWM) to ensure the highest level of performance.   WindowBlinds 5.5 also skins the client controls of "non theme aware" programs on both Windows XP and Windows Vista so that users get a consistent look and feel across all their applications.

WindowBlinds has over 12 million downloads at CNET's Download.com and is, by far, the most popular desktop enhancement program of all time. It has also been licensed by companies looking to deliver their own branded looks to the desktop including Microsoft, Nintendo, ATI, nVidia, Ziff-Davis, Blizzard, and more.

Stardock has also begun work on WindowBlinds 6 which will provide a host of native features to Windows Vista such as custom blur effects, Sidebar skinning, glass toolbar skinning, and some new features that Stardock is keeping under wraps.  Users who purchased WindowBlinds 5 after February 1st will receive WindowBlinds 6 free. A beta of WindowBlinds 6 will be available for registered users shortly.

Users can download WindowBlinds 5.5 directly from the newly re-designed WindowBlinds.net website.  The enhanced registered version is $19.95 or can be purchased as part of Object Desktop, Stardock's flagship suite of desktop enhancement programs which includes IconPackager, DesktopX, ObjectBar, DeskScapes, LogonStudio Vista, and more.

WindowBlinds 5.5
Requires: Windows XP, 2003, or 32-bit Windows Vista (64-bit support coming shortly)

 http://www.windowblinds.net

Screenshots:

As some of you know, the main goal of WC2K7 was to rebuild the backend of the site to be more robust and much faster.  The actual look of the site was basically the existing site with a new skin.

So the next step is to start comign up with how we would like the pages to work.  We would like to get your input on some of this.

Below is a diagram of the home page:

So the top would continue to have the logo and the button bar (exept forums changed to community but we'll get more to that later).

But rather than giant news items spread out on the site, the news items would intead focus on displaying just the headling and a description with the user clicking on the link if they're interested. This would free up room to display more things.

Under that would be highlighted articles.  We would probably merge posts and articles to be the same thing with user ratings causing them to float to the top (so questions for support woudl stick in the help area whereas someone writing about skinnign woudl likely float up).

Over on the right we would use the new space to display more things. The boxes represent thumbnails. How many woudl be displayed depends on the resolution the user is viewing the site with.

But youw oudl get a good run-down at a galnce of what's been going on on the site.

At the bottom, The Popular Galleries woudl be displayed like you see keywords on some sites. It woudl be based on the popularity of the given gallery rather than WinCustomize choosing (annoiting) which galleries are to be displayed.

The Gallery page (gallery.wincustomize.com) woudl instead become the place where users would browse through the galleries in detail which we'll get to in one of the next posts on this subject.

My feeling is that this is a cleaner, more effective way to view the home page than what we currently have.

Thoughts?

GameSpy has awarded Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar as their Game of the month!

From the article:

At the heart of Dark Avatar are five new strategic mechanics that radically rework the game. They include "planetary environments" (which make about half the planets impossible to colonize at the beginning of the game without researching the proper technology), random asteroid fields that provide extra industrial resources, and new spy units that can be placed on enemy planets that shut down certain tiles. Each race also has a new "super ability" and there are new "mega-events" that can turn the game around on a dime. These are more than mere bullet points; the five elements work together to completely re-invent a title that GalCiv fans thought they knew. The Dark Avatar experience is deeper and richer without being noticeably more complex.
 

We are very excited and appreciate GameSpy's kind words about Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar. When we set out to make an expansion pack to Galactic Civilizations II we wanted to create something that really altered the game play while retaining the features that made the game good in the first place.  We hope players are pleased with the results and are glad to see that the on-line reviews of the game have been so positive thus far.

Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar is available directly from GalCiv2.com (via TotalGaming.net) or you can purchase Galactic Civilizations II: Gold Edition at retail which includes the entire game (Dark Avatar and the original) integrated together.

Thank you GameSpy for the honor. Check out the full article which includes Final Fantasy and Virtua Fighter as runner-ups.

We're extremely pleased to hear how much people seem to like the expansion pack (Dark Avatar) to Galactic Civilizations II. We're also glad that reviews have been so positive (average review score is about 4.75 stars out of 5).  But we're not finished yet! Tell us how we can make the game better for you.

For those of you who are new to buying Stardock software, the product you purchase is just the beginning of what you get. Stardock updates it software based on customer feedback.

In the case of Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar we are lookoing for suggestions and feature requests that players would like to see in a free update.

Mind you, these can't be massive new features (i.e. "Multiplayer" or "Fleet combat") but rather little things that you think would make the game more enjoyable for you and others. Tweaks, new options, new features, improvements, etc.

Let us know what you'd like us to do. We are at your disposal!