3D Maze, Walked Screensaver
The 3D Maze, Walked screensaver generates a perfect maze and glides a camera through it in first person, with textured brick walls, a floor, a ceiling and a lamp that travels with you. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.
How the 3D Maze, Walked screensaver works
The saver renders with three.js on your GPU. The library is vendored into this site rather than fetched from a CDN, and is loaded only when a 3D screensaver actually runs.
It reads nothing external — the maze is generated in the browser and the brick texture is drawn to a canvas at startup.
The scene resizes with the window and releases its WebGL context when the saver stops, so shuffle mode and Multi-view can cycle 3D savers without exhausting the browser's context limit.
If WebGL is unavailable the saver says so on screen rather than showing an empty black box.
A worked example
A depth-first search carves a perfect maze — one route between any two points, no loops. A breadth-first pass then finds the longest route through it, and the camera follows that path at walking pace, looking two cells ahead so it turns into corners smoothly instead of snapping. Fog closes off the far end of each corridor, which is what makes the depth readable. When the walk finishes, a new maze is generated.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the scene; Speed changes the pace of both the motion and the camera.
- Add it to a Multi-view grid, though 3D savers are heavier than the 2D ones and a few per screen is plenty.
- Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the maze different every time?
- Yes. It is carved fresh by a randomised depth-first search each run, so the layout and the route through it are never the same twice.
- Why does the wall texture look hand-made?
- Because it is drawn to a canvas when the saver starts, rather than loaded as an image. It keeps the saver self-contained, and the slight irregularity in the brick shading is what stops the corridors looking flat.
- Does this need a special browser or plugin?
- No. It uses WebGL, which every current desktop and mobile browser supports. Nothing is installed and no plugin is required.
- Does it cost anything or need an account?
- No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up.