Screensavers

by Asteron

Download Screensaver MegaPack Here

Intro:

While G-Force, Vortex, and MilkDrop are great visualizations for XBMC, XBMC hasn't had any new screensavers in quite a while. Over the last few months I have been working fairly secretly on a trio of screensavers to fix this, with a side goal of finally learning DirectX.

AsterWave

Download AsterWave_v1.0.zip source

Intro:

A field of liquid that deforms realistically to changes in height using actual physics equations. This code is adapted from a project I did for a graphics course in 2000. In beta testing this has garnered a lot of praise and I hope for it to replace cpBlobs as the most popular screensaver.

Features:

• 2 Different variants are included: texture mode and color mode
• Texture mode scans a specified folder for background images allowing easy user customization
• Color mode generates its own background and features an additional effect type
• Many animation effects are implemented including swirls, twirls, rain, boiling, and elastic collisions.
• Effect parameters vary slightly for each run so you will never see quite the same thing twice
• Many effects are tunable in the xml
  

Thanks:

• Pike for his constant criticism and encouragement
• Jyra for his image contribution
• See Readme for full image credits

Screenshots:

BioGenesis

Download BioGenesis_V1.0.zip source

Intro :

An implementation of John Conway's famous "Game of Life" with 3 custom coloring rules. A few basic rules govern which cells will live in the next generation depending on the cells current state and the number of its live neighbors. After initially seeding with random noise, complex structures will soon develop as the system evolves.

While most are common, some stable structures can develop which are exceedingly rare and fun to spot.

Screenshots don't do this much justice as the motion of the system bordering between stability and chaos is what looks interesting.

Features:

• 3 custom coloring rules are implemented each yielding interesting results.
• Colony coloring color cells depending on the color of its 'parent' cells. Competing communities become apparent.
• Lifetime coloring colors a cell depending on how long its been alive. Emphasizes younger chaotic sections over older stable ones.
• Neighbor coloring colors a cell depending on the configuration of its neighbors. This mode will give common stable patterns the same color making rare stable patterns stand out more.
• Many parameters are configurable in the xml.

Thanks:

• John Conway for the initial game.
• My sister (aka Beta tester)

See http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/achim/freq_top_life.html for a listing of object frequencies.

Screenshots:

CrystalMorph

Download CrystalMorph_v1.0.zip Source

Intro:

A 3D fractal smoothly morphs between various shapes and configurations. A fractal's shape is defined by a set of transformations and (for a true fractal) the entire shape is repeated infinite times within it. Of course since the xbox doesn't have infinite memory, the rendering bottoms out after about 5 recursions.

I'm not really happy with the background of this but, meh. I believe this screensaver is the only time I've ever seen a smooth transition between a Sierpinkski Pyramid and a Megner Sponge.

Features:

• Alternates between 2 modes, a transition mode and an animation mode
• Transition mode shfts the fractal between several configurations. Each configuration can be one of a few preset or randomly generated
• Animation mode smoothly varies the parameters of the last shape and produces an organic like twisting/writhing effect
• Colors are chosen (and shifted) for each transformation and a shapes picks up color as it walks down the transformations producing interesting results.

Screenshots: