u/335i_lyfe

Hey r/SideProject. I've been a Wallpaper Engine user on PC for years, and when I switched to a Mac there was no way to bring my wallpapers with me, so I built one. Vivid Walls runs real Wallpaper Engine scene files natively on macOS. Wallpaper Engine is one of the most popular apps on Steam and never shipped a Mac version.

Where it is today: audio reactive scenes react to whatever your Mac is playing, wallpapers with music widgets show live Now Playing album art from Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube, and the app is now localized in nine languages.

Solo project. There's a free Windows companion that scans your Steam library and transfers everything to your Mac over your local network, no account or cloud required.

$9.99 one-time on the Mac App Store (no monthly subscription). Site and demo videos: https://vividwalls.app App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vivid-walls-live-wallpapers/id6761993729?mt=12

Happy to answer questions.

Hey r/macapps,

I just shipped my first Mac App Store app and figured this sub would be a good place to share it!

Vivid Walls runs real Wallpaper Engine scene files natively on macOS. Not video conversions of them, the actual scene format, rendering on Apple Silicon via Metal (using MoltenVK to translate the Vulkan calls under the hood).

Quick context on why I built it: I've been a Wallpaper Engine user on PC for years and built up a library of a few hundred scenes. When I started using a Mac, I went looking for the macOS version of wallpaper engine so I could use my wallpapers on this platform.

Current existing Mac apps either don't support scenes or just record them as video, which loses all the per-scene settings and runtime behavior.

So I spent the last several months figuring out how to render the actual scene format on macOS. There's a free Windows companion app you grab separately from vividwalls.app. Install it on your PC, it scans your Steam library, and transfers everything to your Mac over your local network. No cloud or account required, the two devices just need to be connected to the same wifi network.

Handles most scenes correctly but not 100%, some shader constructs and SceneScript edge cases still need work. I'm patching them as people report issues.

$9.99 one-time on the Mac App Store. The companion windows app is free.

Happy to answer questions or take feedback. Especially interested in hearing if any specific wallpapers don't render right, drop the Workshop link and I'll look at it.

App store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vivid-walls-live-wallpapers/id6761993729?mt=12