HOWTO: Use your webcam feed as a wallpaper using Xwinwrap.

[easybake]

This tutorial will show you how you can use your webcam feed as your wallpaper (For people who constantly need to look at themselves).
This will NOT make you lose the functionality of icons, conkys, screenlets, or docks.

From this_To This!
*If you are clever enough and have time to do some tinkering, jdong pointed out that you could use this same idea to create a transparent display effect*

1. Check Requirements:

This will only work with Compiz-Fusion enabled as your Window Manager. Click Here for installation instructions.
NOTE: This won't require any special settings in CompizConfig Settings Manager.

This will also require Mplayer being installed. Click Here for installation instructions.


This also requires an already working webcam.

2. Download Xwinwrap.

Installation Option 1

Open Accessories>Terminal
Enter the following codes:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libx11-dev x11proto-xext-dev libxrender-dev libxext-dev cvs

cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xapps co xwinwrap

cd xwinwrap

make

sudo cp xwinwrap /usr/bin

Installation Option 2

Go to this URL. http://www.getdeb.net/app/xwinwrap

Select the option that fits your system.

Click Download Xwinwrap

A download popup should appear.

Select the option Open with GDebi Package Installer (default)

Click OK

The rest of the installation is automated.[/quote]

You have now successfully installed Xwinwrap.

3. Test it out.

In Terminal

cd

xwinwrap -ni -o 0.20 -fs -s -sp -st -b -nf -- mplayer -wid  WID -quiet -fps 15 tv://

If you want a Mirror effect add this to the end of the line above

 -vf mirror

NOTICE: When you close the terminal window it will stop Xwinwrap.



4. Create an easy way to start/stop this effect.

In Teminal

gedit toggle

Paste this in your text editor

#!/bin/sh

# click to start, click to stop
if pidof xwinwrap ; then
 killall xwinwrap
 else
 exec xwinwrap -ni -o 0.20 -fs -s -sp -st -b -nf -- mplayer -wid  WID -quiet -fps 15 tv:// 
fi

NOTE: If you want the Mirror effect, after "tv://" , on the same line add:

 -vf mirror

Save and close.

You now need to make the script executable.

In Terminal

sudo chmod a+x toggle

5. Create A Launcher:

Right Click on either the desktop or on your panel.
For Desktop select (create Launcher)
For Panel select (click Add To Panel)+(Custom Application Launcher)

For Name input anything.
For Command input

./toggle

You can leave the comment section blank.
Click Ok.

You're done!
-----------------------------------------------------

Dissecting the Xwinwrap code.

xwinwrap -ni -o 0.20 -fs -s -sp -st -b -nf -- mplayer -wid  WID -quiet -fps 15 tv://

-ni means No Input
-o 0.20 is the Opacity setting from 0 to 1
-fs means FullScreen
-s means Sticky(its on all workspaces)
-sp means Skip Pager (window won't appear in pager)
-st means Skip Taskbar (window won't appear in taskbar)
-b means Below
-nf means No Focus
-wid creates a window id
--mplayer means mplayer
-fps 15 means 15 Frames Per Second
tv:// tells mplayer to use the default video input device.
-vf mirror means video filter Mirror.

Feel free to change any of these if you want it to act differently.
More filters and effects can be found by opening Terminal and typing

man mplayer

-----------------------------------------------------

Problems you may run into.

If you have another video input device hooked up to your computer you have to tell mplayer which one to use. The tv:// command alone selects the default device. Ace214 pointed out that you would have to use

-tv device=/dev/video1

*change the path to where the webcam device is located if not /dev/video1*

Other programs can't use the webcam simultaneously. I suggest turning Off the program before you use other programs.

Suspend-To-Ram won't work while your webcam is on. I suggest turning Off the program when you don't want it in use. You could also add the line killall xwinwrap to /etc/acpi/sleep.sh Which would kill the process before suspending to ram. You can also add the line killall xwinwrap to /etc/acip/hibernate.sh if you have problems suspending to the hard drive.

This apparently only works using the X11 driver in Mplayer. Other drivers tend to not be capable for handling due to the lack of indirect rendering on some Intel cards.

Got to give credit to The Warlock, gaminggeek, Valdi, and cammin for pointing out problems

-----------------------------------------------------

(For more info on Xwinwrap click Here or Here)

Credit for the original idea Here and Here

[easybake]

Let me know if you have any ideas on what to add/change.

[melchiorre]

Wonderful howto, thank you

[easybake]

Wonderful howto, thank you

thanks

[Eastisle]

Great How-To, what exactly is that running on the top right of your desktop?

[easybake]

Great How-To, what exactly is that running on the top right of your desktop?

Thanks. Thats just Pidgin with a Screenlet with a Transparent Theme.

[Prometheum]

First off, thanks for the awesome howto!

However, I've found a slight problem: When the song changes in Rhythmbox, the popup that comes up is invisible under the webcam feed. It'll be visible if I use gnome-do to show the notification before I start the feed (using the toggle script), but if I start it afterwards, it doesn't show anything.

Any ideas as to what this might be, fixes, etc.?

[easybake]

First off, thanks for the awesome howto!

However, I've found a slight problem: When the song changes in Rhythmbox, the popup that comes up is invisible under the webcam feed. It'll be visible if I use gnome-do to show the notification before I start the feed (using the toggle script), but if I start it afterwards, it doesn't show anything.

Any ideas as to what this might be, fixes, etc.?

Thanks. I believe that problem is because Rhythmbox won't show that little popup window if you have any window set to fullscreen.

(It's actually a good feature because it would be kind of annoying if that popup showed up while watching a full screen video or playing a game)


Here's a fix for it. You have to edit the line in the Toggle Script.

In Terminal

gedit toggle

remove the entry

 -fs

and replace it with

-g 1280x1024

(edit that line to fit your screen resolution)

You end up having a title bar to deal with.

Save and Close.

If you close Xwinwrap with the title bar you have to click the toggle button again to retain use of your webcam.

[ace214]

I can't get this to work correctly. I can only get it to work when the opacity is set to 1. Otherwise, it just darkens my background picture. I haven't tested it with a webcam- I've been using movie files in mplayer with the same settings, but it should still work...

Any ideas?

UPDATE: If I install xserver-xgl, it works but it completely takes over my CPU. I was using the mesa driver before... I tried using the X11 driver in mplayer, but there are multiple ones, and some freeze my session.
Also some screensavers, like glmatrix, only work properly with xgl installed on my box. So perhaps this is a bug of the mesa driver or xwinwrap not working properly with each other??

[easybake]

I can't get this to work correctly. I can only get it to work when the opacity is set to 1. Otherwise, it just darkens my background picture. I haven't tested it with a webcam- I've been using movie files in mplayer with the same settings, but it should still work...

Any ideas?

UPDATE: If I install xserver-xgl, it works but it completely takes over my CPU. I was using the mesa driver before... I tried using the X11 driver in mplayer, but there are multiple ones, and some freeze my session.
Also some screensavers, like glmatrix, only work properly with xgl installed on my box. So perhaps this is a bug of the mesa driver or xwinwrap not working properly with each other??

Definitely sounds like a driver problem. I've heard of people having problems on some intel based cards where indirect rendering isn't supported. So you might be out of luck. gaminggeek pointed out that you still might be able to use the opengl mplayer plugin. But I'm not sure if that will help your situation.

SideNote: if you wanted to test out your webcam just with mplayer you can use this in terminal

mplayer -fps 15 tv://