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Oolite screensaver

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:28 am
by another_commander
Thanks to all kind people who posted screens in the Screenshots thread, we now have the Oolite Screensaver version 1.3 for Windows. It is a slide show consisting of the screens posted so far, plus a few more that were never posted anywhere. As long as screens are getting added to the Screenshots thread, this could grow to higher version numbers.

The screensaver is set to put up its screens stretched to fit the user screen. Because of this, some may appear somewhat distorted, if your resolution is not the same aspect ratio as the original shot. Hopefully this will not be a serious issue.

To make it play, just put the OoliteShow.scr file in your Windows\System32 folder and select it from the Display Properties dialog, Screensaver tab.

I hope you will enjoy the show. Link to download is
Edit: New version 1.3, with latest screenshots including the upcoming v1.73 ones, featuring Griff's normalmapped ships (1.2 of the screensaver met the fate of the Cobra MkII: Never went past prototype stage ;-) ):
http://www.box.net/shared/ocm8smbrjx

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 2:47 pm
by DaddyHoggy
I may have to boot up my XP partition just to have a look! :)

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:05 pm
by Frame
nice, kind a pixelated for me though, but nice...

Running vista 32 bit, ATI 2600 hd XT

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 6:36 am
by Wolfwood
I think the pixelation is more due to the fact that the original images are stretched to fill the desktop than about the quality of your graphics card.

The reason being that most people resized their screenshots into a smaller format before they posted them to the screenshots thread. Then, stretched to larger size, they naturally appear pixelated.

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:23 am
by JensAyton
If anyone wants a similar screen saver on a Mac:
  • Stick some pictures in a folder.
  • Open System Preferences.
  • Open Desktop & Screen Saver and select the Screen Saver tab.
  • Select “Choose Folder…” in the list on the left and select your folder.
If you have an iTunes library and Leopard, use the Mosiac mode to have it assemble Oolite screen shots out of photos of your family. :-)

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 1:00 pm
by Thargoid
And to come full circle, you can do the same "pictures in a folder screensaver" trick on a PC, by making such a folder, then going to

control panel > display > screensaver tab and then selecting the My Pictures Screensaver.

Within it's settings you point it at the folder to use (by default the "My Pictures" folder of the logged-on account), and also settings like frequency of change, whether it stretches to fill the screen etc etc.

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:36 pm
by another_commander
New version of the screensaver available for download. See top post.

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 12:22 pm
by another_commander
Yet another new version of the screensaver is now up for download. See top post.

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 4:39 pm
by Diziet Sma
Absolutely, utterly, utterly, awesome screensaver! Thanks so much to all concerned! Well done!

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 8:39 pm
by Cmdr Wyvern
DaddyHoggy wrote:
I may have to boot up my XP partition just to have a look! :)
It'll run under WINE, DH. 8)

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:22 pm
by DaddyHoggy
Finally downloaded this last night and put it on my work laptop - How many images are there? I know it's random but I seem to see some of the shots over and over again...

Any plans to do another version to include some of Simon B's ships?

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:26 pm
by Diziet Sma
There are 163 images in the screensaver.. unfortunately the randomiser algorithm used in the screensaver code tends to be not so random, leading to lots of repeats..

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:42 pm
by another_commander
DaddyHoggy: For Simon's ships, all you guys need to do is put nice screenshots of them in the related thread and they will be included in a future version.

Regarding the randomiser, I can make it so that no images repeat, but this means that each image will be shown exactly once every howmany images exist in the collection at a given time. I really prefer it randomised even if it means that sometimes you will see repetitions. If you let it run for a long time, you will eventually see everything there is inside.