Flying Toasters, With Depth Screensaver
The Flying Toasters, With Depth screensaver rebuilds the After Dark flock in three dimensions: chrome toasters with wings that hinge, flying from upper right to lower left, at genuinely different distances from the camera. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.
How the Flying Toasters, With Depth 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 — modelled and rendered in the browser with three.js.
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
Twenty-six objects are spread through a slab of depth about 22 units thick. Because they are at real distances, the near ones cross the frame in about a second while the far ones drift slowly, and the flock reads as a volume rather than a pattern. Wings rotate on a hinge at the body rather than swapping between drawn frames, and roughly a fifth of the flock is toast, which tumbles instead of flapping.
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 this the original artwork?
- No. The toasters are modelled from simple solids — a chrome body, a dark slot, hinged wings — rather than copying After Dark's sprites. It is a tribute to a famous piece of software, not a reproduction of its assets.
- Why does the flock look uneven?
- Because it is. Each object has its own speed and starting distance, so they spread out rather than moving in formation. A regular grid of toasters would look like wallpaper.
- 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.