...and yet Another Screensaver

r_hyde · Post by **r_hyde** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:08 am

The timing of this is wierd, because Psychophanta just released one of these, but I just completed the first version of my own screensaver. Some of the Linux folks around here might recognize this one - it's my attempt to port an xscreensaver screenhack called 'substrate'. It used to be one of my faves, but since I've been basically windows-bound I've missed it. I haven't quite fully realized the quality of the original, but I feel I'm close enough to share it with you all. I hope you enjoy it!

File:1->Substrate.zip

GeoTrail · Post by **GeoTrail** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:28 am

Very impressive

netmaestro · Post by **netmaestro** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:29 am

Looks very nice! I haven't seen one like this before, so it's new to me but it looks quite good and cpu usage is very low here, mostly under 3%. Thanks for sharing it.

Joakim Christiansen · Post by **Joakim Christiansen** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 6:49 am

Quite nice, would be cool if it would continue a little longer before it starts over, and if you could change things like this in a settings window or something, the speed also.

Kukulkan · Post by **Kukulkan** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:43 am

WHOW! This one is great!

Kukulkan

ebs · Post by **ebs** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:38 pm

Joakim Christiansen wrote:Quite nice, would be cool if it would continue a little longer before it starts over, and if you could change things like this in a settings window or something, the speed also.

Joakim,

You can use the Display Properties -> Screen Saver -> Settings for this.

Regards,
Eric

P.S. r_hyde - VERY nice - Thanks!

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:48 pm

Fascinating!!

Thank you for making me stare at my screen for two hours without getting any work done...

r_hyde · Post by **r_hyde** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:52 pm

Thanks for the comments, guys, I'm glad you like it

I've posted a small update to fix an issue with the restart timer. I noticed a bug where the screensaver would intermittently start over before the prescribed time.

would be cool if it would continue a little longer before it starts over, and if you could change things like this in a settings window or something, the speed also.

As ebs noted, there is a settings dialog where you can adjust the restart interval. Unfortunately, the speed is bound by the number of cycles required for computation of the effect. The larger the raster, the slower the calculation, so the only way I could make it faster would be to lower the resolution. I could make it go slower, though

However, there are a number of other things that I intend to add to the options in the future, such as setting the color palette, wrapping around the screen, "wandering" cracks (curvature changes randomly), displaying only the cracks (no 'watercolor' effect), etc. You can check back here periodically for updates

r_hyde · Post by **r_hyde** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:01 pm

Thank you for making me stare at my screen for two hours without getting any work done...

Hehe, you're quite welcome

Actually, that was a HUGE problem while I was writing this thing - once I got to a certain point it was like 10 minutes of development followed by 30 minutes of staring at the screen

va!n · Post by **va!n** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:10 pm

i dont know where.. but i saw exactly the same and some other little modified examples of this effect about 2 years ago... anyway, nice done

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:33 pm

I can see dead people!

Psychophanta · Post by **Psychophanta** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:49 pm

That's art!
Who needs nowadays a painter?

r_hyde · Post by **r_hyde** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:48 am

Num3, I don't understand

rsts · Post by **rsts** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:57 am

Fascinating.

This is a GOOD one.

My son needs to take a programming course (VB) in high school. Could you share what your formulae are based on?

cheers

r_hyde · Post by **r_hyde** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 2:45 am

rsts, I'm glad you like it! I'm not ready to share my source code yet (though it's likely that I will at some point), but I can recommend that you go to http://complexification.net/gallery/machines/substrate/index.php and check out the applet source code. It's much cleaner than the C source code I ported from, and it makes it easy to understand the maths behind the algorithm.