Nautilus desktop Shell-animation

[Jason Brock <sho ev1 net>]

I thinking about making alot of Gnome eye-candy features for 2.0
release.  I have run across many problems trying to get information.  I
was wondering if the Nautilus Desktop Shell (background, icons) can do
other things accept drawing a background image from a file. 

What widget is Nautilus background shell based on? 
(ex: Gnome canvas, drawing area or their own)

Can it have the ability to draw some sort of simple animation?  

I guess the animation could come from SVG graphics or 3d graphics.  It
would be nice to at least have this flexibility. Other people, like
myself could write the files for it to render. Or I could do this if
anyone is interested in including this into Gnome, but I would need
alittle help. I am already in the process of making a new desk guide
applet that is 3d. I am old to Gnome and Linux, but new to programming
gtk+. I have devhelp, found many resources, use these mailing list, but
can't seem to get my questions answered.

Please Give me feedback... I have an itch and need to scratch it...

Thank you,
Jason Brock
sho ev1 net