I’ve been sitting on this one for a few years. Mind you, for most of that time I thought I had lost it amongst my many backups and migrations from machine to machine.
This is a Quartz Composer… um… composition that I put together back when Quartz Composer was only new. Today I fired it up under Leopard’s newer shinier Quartz Composer and it still seems to work. I played with it for a minute or two and then added a couple of extra settings for people to play with.
Click “Read More” to see some screen-shots and videos showing what various tweaks to these settings can do.
Standard Soup
These are the default settings. Just a general swirling soup of psychedelic stars.
| Changing Dot Color | On |
|---|---|
| Changing Randomly | On |
| Proximity | 20 |
| Spin | On |
| Tail Density | 40 |
| Scale | 3 |
| Rush | 0 |
| Looseness | 0.5 |
Lonely Noodle
A lonely minimal star.
| Changing Dot Color | Off |
|---|---|
| Changing Randomly | Off |
| Proximity | 11 |
| Spin | Off |
| Tail Density | 1 |
| Scale | 10 |
| Rush | 0.025 |
| Looseness | 0 |
Neon Streamers
Long curly streams of neon light. Fluro colours, how fashionable.
| Changing Dot Color | On |
|---|---|
| Changing Randomly | On |
| Proximity | 0 |
| Spin | Off |
| Tail Density | 800 |
| Scale | 10 |
| Rush | 0 |
| Looseness | 0 |
Meteor Storm
Sitting in the eye of a meteor shower.
| Changing Dot Color | On |
|---|---|
| Changing Randomly | Off |
| Proximity | 40 |
| Spin | On |
| Tail Density | 400 |
| Scale | 5 |
| Rush | 0 |
| Looseness | 4 |
Eat your heart out Moire X
A new Moire for the naughties. Here’s one for the nostalgic.
| Changing Dot Color | On |
|---|---|
| Changing Randomly | Off |
| Proximity | 17 |
| Spin | Off |
| Tail Density | 200 |
| Scale | 0.5 |
| Rush | 0 |
| Looseness | 0 |
Floater
Ahem… not that sort of floater.
| Changing Dot Color | On |
|---|---|
| Changing Randomly | Off |
| Proximity | 10 |
| Spin | Off |
| Tail Density | 20 |
| Scale | 7 |
| Rush | -0.025 |
| Looseness | 0.01 |
Disco Inferno
One of my favourites. A more intermittent pattern of waves reminiscent of an illuminated dance floor.
| Changing Dot Color | On |
|---|---|
| Changing Randomly | On |
| Proximity | 40 |
| Spin | Off |
| Tail Density | 200 |
| Scale | 0.5 |
| Rush | 0 |
| Looseness | 0 |
Slippery Slides
Mmmm, nice.
| Changing Dot Color | On |
|---|---|
| Changing Randomly | On |
| Proximity | 20 |
| Spin | On |
| Tail Density | 400 |
| Scale | 0.5 |
| Rush | -0.25 |
| Looseness | 0 |
The file already!
StarSoup.qtz.zip – 30KB.
To edit the file you will need the Quartz Composer application which is part of Apple’s Developer Tools.
You can also run it as a screen saver. Just drop it into /Library/Screen Savers/. Then you can play with the settings in the System Preferences. “Star Soup” will appear in the screen savers area under “Other”.
Running Windows or Linux? No soup for you!
License
GNU Public License version 2 (GPLv2).
Let me know if you do anything interesting with it.
Enjoy the soup!
8 Comments
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nice very nice job.! the best screen…
It doesn’t work on
iMac OS X 10.5.2
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
It won’t open in Quartz Composer either. Just spins out.
So what has this got to do with a WordPress mug?
@jack
Fear not, I have another WordPress Mug update in the works.
@Jimi
Try re-downloading the file. This happened to me once too while I was tinkering with it. Re-copying the file from the original fixed it.
dear sammy,
I very much enjoyed watching your disco dot soup thingy. What a soothing distraction from packing for my trip to Victoria
Being a neo ludite pc chick sadly, no soup for me
I don;t understand most of what is being discued on your “page” but I do like the pretty lights.
micaela x
Wow, this is cool. This is like the Helios screensaver, except 200 times as sleek.
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[...] obsessive, I was using Quartz Composer screensavers from http://www.quartzcompositions.com/ and “Star Soup” – Quartz Composer screen saver for Mac OS X The Unlettered Gentleman I also have a few that I modified… swapped out images for live video from the iSight, etc. [...]