Animated desktop wallpapers with Lively.

Lively is a Free and Open Source Software - FOSS project to bring your desktop to life using animated desktop wallpapers starting with Windows 10.

You can see how this software works on the next video from youtube:

You can see how can be used Blender 3D to create your own animated wallpaper from Polyfjord youtube channel:

Use the scoop to install UFO: Alien Invasion game.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to use the scoop tool to install a game.

First, you need to add the bucket with the games.

C:\>scoop bucket add games
Git is required for buckets. Run 'scoop install git' and try again.
This install need the git, use this command:
C:\>scoop install git
...
Creating shortcut for Git Bash (git-bash.exe)
Creating shortcut for Git GUI (git-gui.exe)
'git' (2.34.1.windows.1) was installed successfully!
Notes
-----
Set Git Credential Manager Core by running: "git config --global credential.helper
manager-core"
Let's try again:
C:\>scoop bucket add games
Checking repo... ok
The games bucket was added successfully.
After install a software you can see it with this command:
C:\>scoop list
Installed apps: ...
With this command you can see all softwares can be install with this tool:
C:\>scoop search a
'games' bucket:
    0ad (0.0.25b)
    actools (0.8.2358.38968)
    adom (3.3.3)
    advanced-genie-editor (2021.3.15)
    amidst (4.7)
    amulet-map-editor (0.8.17)
    angband-dev (4.2.3-249-gbb7ea2dca)
    angband (4.2.0)
    ares (126)
    ark-smart-breeding (0.49.1.0)
    armagetronad (0.2.8.3.5)
    ascii-sector (0.7.2)
    assaultcube (1.2.0.2)
    assetstudio (0.16.8)
    augmentinel (1.3)
    blade-of-agony (c3)
    bombermaaan (1.4.0.627)
    ...

'main' bucket:
    1password-cli (1.12.3)
    abc (1.0.0-beta.3)
    ack (3.5.0)
    acmesharp (0.9.1.326)
    act (0.2.25)
    adb (31.0.3)
    ...
Let's install an old game named: UFO: Alien Invasion.
C:\>scoop install ufoai
Updating Scoop...
Updating 'games' bucket...
Updating 'main' bucket...
Checking repo... ok
The main bucket was added successfully.
Scoop was updated successfully!
Installing 'ufoai' (2.5) [64bit]
The download not works from the first time and with some Enter keys typing I install it:
C:\>scoop install ufoai
WARN  Purging previous failed installation of ufoai.
Uninstalling 'ufoai' ().
'ufoai' was uninstalled.
Installing 'ufoai' (2.5) [64bit]
ufoai-2.5-win32.exe (1.2 GB) [=====>                                            ]  11%
Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
URL https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ufoai/UFO_AI%202.x/2.5/ufoai-2.5-win32.exe#/dl.7z is not valid

C:\>scoop install ufoai
WARN  Purging previous failed installation of ufoai.
Uninstalling 'ufoai' ().
'ufoai' was uninstalled.
Installing 'ufoai' (2.5) [64bit]
ufoai-2.5-win32.exe (1.2 GB) [==================================================] 100%
Checking hash of ufoai-2.5-win32.exe ... ok.
Extracting dl.7z ... done.
Linking ~\scoop\apps\ufoai\current => ~\scoop\apps\ufoai\2.5
Creating shim for 'ufo'.
Creating shim for 'ufoded'.
Creating shim for 'ufo2map'.
Creating shortcut for UFO - Alien Invasion (ufo.exe)
'ufoai' (2.5) was installed successfully!
The last command is to run the game: ufo.exe
You can see my video tutorial with same steps from my youtube channel.

Ubisoft comes with Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla will be available on 10th November, 2020 on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PlayStation®4, the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft Store on Windows PC, as well as on UPLAY+**, Ubisoft’s subscription service, and Stadia.
Pre-order now at www.assassinscreed.com/buy
The intro is simple ...
Ninth century AD. Driven from Norway by endless wars and dwindling resources, a Viking raider, Eivor, leads a clan of Norsemen across the icy North Sea to the rich lands of England’s broken kingdoms. Their mission: establish a new permanent home, no matter the cost. Wars will rage. Kingdoms will fall. This is the age of the Vikings.

Another Ct.js game engine.

This is a game engine build and run with javascrip.
You can used on these operating systems: Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
Download the archive for your operating system and unarchive.
Start the ctjs application.
Into the main window you have some editbox for Name, Author name, Homepage and Version.
This window comes with buttons for play, stop ... many tabs: Settings, Rooms, UI, Sound ...
First, you need to fill the Settings with your Name and all data, and add Actions.
This engine game comes with examples to see how good is.
Let's see a video tutorial from Gamefromscratch user:

GDevelop - game programming tool .

A quick introduction to this online tool comes from the official website , see this:

GDevelop runs on Windows, macOS and most recent Linux distributions.
You can also try it online using Chrome, Firefox or another recent web browser. 
... 
GDevelop is an open-source project.

This is tool can be used on your desktop with most operating systems but also online.
I tested it and it's easy to use and come with default examples and sample.
The result can be used on web or like application.
For Android applications you need to install it on your desktop.

News : Krita preview release: 4.0 Beta 1 .

As you well know :
Krita is a FREE and open source painting tool designed for concept artists, illustrators, matte and texture artists, and the VFX industry. Krita has been in development for over 10 years and has had an explosion in growth recently.
The development team of Krita software come with this new preview release: 4.0 Beta 1 (11 January 2018; 41 days ago).
The team make a great work with this software, all of this with the help the Krita Foundation!
On February 2018 the donations has €1708 and is collected 155 awesome people.
I tested the portable Windows version of this new preview release and workin well.
The splash of this version is the same and I don't test all issues of the working team feedbacks.
I didn't test all the problems of the team's feedback show on webpage.
They say: "We started working on some of these features".
This come with new features but also with this warning:
THE FILE FORMAT FOR VECTOR LAYERS HAS CHANGED. IF YOU SAVE AN IMAGE WITH KRITA 4.0 THAT HAS VECTOR LAYERS, KRITA 3 CANNOT OPEN IT. IF YOU OPEN A KRITA 3 FILE WITH VECTOR LAYERS IN KRITA 4, THE VECTOR LAYERS MIGHT GET MESSED UP. BEFORE WORKING ON SUCH FILES IN KRITA 4, MAKE A BACKUP.
About this new preview release can be read and download it from here.

MEmu - android emulator .

This is another android emulator named MEmu.
I tested with the android version 5.1.1.
The last official released version from official page tell the news about MEmu version 3.6.7.
The main reason I tested the MEmu emulator versus last emulator BlueStacks has some problems with PixelGun game - the multiplayer game.
Is simple to used it , just download the right version of MEmu and add your google account.
The next step for the emulator is to update the google account application and then let you to install your games.
The MEmu 101 contains all-inclusive info about MEmu App Player.
The official youtube channel can be found here.
I like also the splash when is starting the emulator, see the next image:

Free game: SNOW come with winter sports .

If you like winter sports, then this game adds all the qualities necessary to this type of player.
The game can be found on steam at this link.

The Hexels tool creative suite .

The development team tell us about this tool:

Hexels is a creative suite for grid-based painting, animation, and design. The Hexels canvas is a paintable grid of geometric shapes that lets artists create complex designs with the stroke of a brush. It is a new kind of vector workflow, a friendly playground for the beginning artist, and a versatile tool in the hands of a professional.
The price now is the $24.50 and you can read and download it from official website.

The Mischief 2.1.5 - another drawing tool.

This is tool come free and you can use a paid version.
The paid version come with one price $25 more features :  presets, a full color palette, layers, and export to PSD files.
This allows you unlimited freedom to sketch, create and save brushes, hot keys and shortcuts.
You can used with Windows 7/8 and Mac OS X. I tested with Windows 10 and works great.
The output of your project is filename with the extension named .art .
The result of your work can be export like .pdf , .jpeg or .pds files.
The free version I don't see the copy paste option, but you can use export to save your drawing image.
This application come with few feature in the free version.

The MediBang Paint - free drawing and animation software tool.

Today I show you another free drawing tool named: MediBang Paint .
The MediBang Paint is a FREE lightweight digital painting and comic creation software.
This tool comes loaded with brushes, fonts, pre-made backgrounds, and other resources,like :

• Cloud features
• tool for comics 
• materials
• Fonts
• Group Project 
• and Paint Gallery

You can used with your device: PCWin/Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android.
The official youtube channel can be found here.

News: The new released Krita version 3.3.1 .

The Krita development team tell us:

Published    10/11/2017

Today we are releasing Krita 3.3.1, a bugfix release for Krita 3.3.0. This release fixes two important regressions:

Krita would crash if you would restart Krita after closing Krita with the reference images docker set to floating
Krita 3.3.0 could not read .kra backup files or .kra files that were unzipped, then zipped up manually.
Additionally, there are the following fixes and improvements:

Fix a crash when creating a swap file on OSX (Bernhard Liebl).
Merge down does not remove locked layers anymore (Nikita Smirnov)
Various performance improvements, especially for macOS (Bernhard Liebl)
Improve the look and feel of dragging and dropping layers (Bernhard Liebl)
Improve the tooltips in the brush preset selector (Bernhard Liebl)
Fix a memory leak in the color selectors (Boudewijn Rempt)
Fix rotation and tilt when using the Windows Ink api (Alvin Wong)
Don’t allow the fill tool to be used on group layers (Boudewijn Rempt)
Add brightness and contrast sliders for textured brushes (Rad)
Add paste-at-cursor (Dmitry Kazakov)
Improve performance of the cpu canvas (Alvin Wong)
Fix a crash on closing Krita when there is something on the clipboard (Dmitry Kazakov)
Add a button to open a file layer’s image in Krita (Wolthera van Hövell tot Westerflier)

You can read more about this new version of Krita software and download it from here.

The Gimp version 2.9.6 devel .

Today I tested the new devel tool Gimp version 2.9.6 from official website .
For me this graphic tool was stable.
I used version 2.9.6 for windows OS.
I don't test scripts just some of basic features.
Come with a funny install application and a good message for users.
The interface is same but with a dark theme.
The shortcuts keys are the same ( I don't see many changes).
For development option is this GIMP output.
When the application is start show me some errors, so I send all infos to development team.
I used this tool in the past and is great , free , easy to use and with many options.
If you know the interpreting language called Scheme the will love to scripting your Gimp tools.

News: Blender 3D - version 2.79

The Blender 3D is an open source software with a great team.
They tell us about this new released version of Blender 3D:
These are the release notes for Blender 2.79, released September 12th, 2017.

• Denoiser
• PBR Shader
• Shadow Catcher
• Filmic Color Management
• Faster AMD OpenCL
• over 700 bugs fixed
• so much more!

Some features can be found here.
You can also download this 3D software from here.

After you download it, you need to run the install executable for Windows.
If you use a Linux OS then you just run it with: ./blender.
You can the windows of this 3D software tool into the next image:
The next step is to set the Blender 3D from menu: File -> User Preferences ( or use keys Ctr - Alt - U ).
First step:
 - set your CPU or graphic card - GPU into System tab;
 - set your addons to see if works with this version;
 - test all this with a simple example but using all renders: ( Blender, Cycles and Blender Game); 

Some addons I used: ANT Landscape, animation-nodes, blam, blender-light-studio, mira-tools, uvsquares. 
You can find more about this addons blenderartists website.

News: Krita 3.3.0 – first release candidate.

This release come with some improvements and features:

• support for the Windows 8 event API;
• hardware-accelerated display functionality to optionally use Angle on Windows instead of native OpenGL;
• some visual glitches when using hi-dpi screens are fixed
• several new command line options;
• the performance improvements and selections are fixed;
• the system information dialog for bug reports is improved

You can read more about this release here.

The great Rainmeter tool for Windows .

Developers tell us about this open source software:
Rainmeter displays customizable skins, like memory and battery power, RSS feeds and weather forecasts, right on your desktop. Many skins are even functional: they can record your notes and to-do lists, launch your favorite applications, and control your media player - all in a clean, unobtrusive interface that you can rearrange and customize to your liking. Rainmeter is at once an application and a toolkit. You are only limited by your imagination and creativity. 
The last revision was on July 28, 2017.
This software can be found on the official website.
Here's a good example of a 99villages user on his deviantart web page:

The HandBrake for video compression software.

The HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.
The good reasons you’ll love HandBrake:

• convert video from nearly any format 
• is free and Open Source 
• used on multi-Platform :Windows, Mac and Linux;

If you take a look to next screenshot with this software will see how many options have it. From selected size for youtube , gmail and size of display devices to filters and subtitles. Is a very good tool for video compression issue.

Causality - another game for all operating systems.

Causality is a puzzle game about manipulating time, changing the sequence of events and altering the outcome of each level.
You need to help a group of stranded astronauts find a route to safety.
It is logical and not very hard. Can be found  here for Windows, Mac OS X SteamOS and Linux (Ubuntu 12.04+, SteamOS).
With a simple and beautiful graphics it can be played on smaller screen phones.
If you want the Android version then try this link.

News: Inkscape version 0.92 .

About the inkscape development team software tells us:

What is Inkscape?

Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps and web graphics. Inkscape uses the W3C open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) as its native format, and is free and open-source software.

Inkscape has sophisticated drawing tools with capabilities comparable to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Xara Xtreme. It can import and export various file formats, including SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PS and PNG. It has a comprehensive feature set, a simple interface, multi-lingual support and is designed to be extensible; users can customize Inkscape's functionality with add-ons.
The Inkscape project has a growing international user community, and many learning materials exist to help get you started with your creations. Help and support is provided by the community, and there are lots of ways for you to get involved if you want to help improve the Inkscape project.
Inkscape is a member of the Software Freedom Conservancy, a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Contributions to Inkscape are tax deductible in the United States.

This new released was released at  2017-01-01 with this new features:

• Mesh Gradients are now supported.
• Many SVG2 and CSS3 properties are now supported (e.g. paint-order, mix-blend-mode). Not all are available from the GUI.
• The new Object dialog allows to select, label, hide and lock any object in the drawing from a dialog that lists them all
• Selection sets make it possible to 'group' objects together regardless of document structure
• Guides can now be locked to avoid accidental movement
• Several new path effects have been added, among them Envelope/Perspective, Lattice Deformation, Mirror and Rotate Copies
• There are several new extensions (e.g. a seamless pattern extension) and a new filter (colorblindness simulation) included in the release, many old extensions have been updated or got new features
• Spray tool and measure tool received a set of nifty new features
• Interactive smoothing for lines created with the Pencil tool
• BSplines (and more) are available for the Pen tool
• Checkerboard background can be used to more easily see object transparencies

Google Earth VR - virtual reality free.

Google Earth VR lets you explore the world from totally new perspectives in virtual reality. Stroll the streets of Tokyo, soar over the Grand Canyon, or walk around the Eiffel Tower

This is a free virtual reality application. The goal is the 3D space of most known places from world. The application can be found here.

System Requirements - minimum:

• OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 or later, Windows 10
• Processor: Intel i5-6400 equivalent or better
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970, AMD Radeon R9 Fury equivalent or better
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 4 GB available space