🖥️

Desktop app

Bubbles is a wallpaper for Windows. The live preview works best on desktop — but you can still download it and install it with Lively Wallpaper.

Controls
General
Speed 1.000
Shape
Density 0.500
0.5 = most blobs  ·  0 or 1 = empty
Thickness 0.003
Slide to max for filled blobs
Quality
GPU HEAVY
Interior Brightness 0.150
Only active in Uniform mode
scroll
Origin

A wallpaper with a history.

Bubbles started as a personal project and quietly evolved over two years — shaped by hand, iterated with every tool available, and refined into something genuinely worth sharing.

~ 2024 — The beginning

Written from scratch by hand. The core idea: a WebGL noise shader that draws smooth organic blob shapes as a live wallpaper for Lively.

2024 — First iteration

ChatGPT helped push the shader further — better noise, smoother curves, the first pass at configurable properties.

2025 — Refinement

Gemini joined the process. The property system got cleaner, the effect more controllable. The gap between "cool demo" and "real wallpaper" started closing.

2026 — The uniform thickness problem

Claude cracked the hardest part: truly uniform line width. By computing the noise gradient in pixel space, the border now stays consistent everywhere — no more thin pinches on tight curves. This page exists because of that conversation.

Getting started

Up and running in seconds.

No setup, no dependencies. Just download and drop.

01

Grab the latest release

Head to github.com/toomcis/Bubbles → Releases and download Bubbles.zip.

02

Open Lively Wallpaper

If you don't have it yet, grab Lively Wallpaper — it's free and open source.

03

Drag and drop

Drag Bubbles.zip straight into the Lively window. No extracting needed.

04

Customize to your heart's content

Use Lively's settings panel or tune your settings here first using the live preview above, then hit Share settings to copy the exact values.

Reference

Every knob, explained.

All properties are accessible from Lively's built-in settings panel once the wallpaper is installed.

Speed

How fast the blobs animate. 0 freezes them completely. Higher values give a more energetic, fluid feel.

Line Color

Color of the blob outlines or fill. Works with anything — try pastels against a dark background.

Background Color

The empty space between blobs. Pair with Line Color for contrast, or go subtle with similar tones.

Density

Controls how many blobs appear. 0.5 is the densest. Moving toward 0 or 1 thins them out — think of it as tuning a frequency.

Thickness

Width of the line band. Slide to maximum to switch into filled mode — solid blobs instead of outlines.

Uniform Line Width GPU HEAVY

Computes pixel-accurate border width so lines stay consistent everywhere — no thin pinches on tight curves. Uses extra GPU per frame.

Interior Brightness

Only active in Uniform mode. Controls how bright blob interiors are. 0 = background color, 1 = line color.