Mystify, In A Box Screensaver
The Mystify, In A Box screensaver bounces polygon vertices inside a cube and draws a fading history of their shapes, so the trail crosses over and behind itself. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.
How the Mystify, In A Box 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 — generated in the browser and rendered 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
Two polygons, each with four vertices moving independently and reflecting off the walls of a cube. The last 26 shapes of each are kept and drawn with decreasing opacity, and because they exist in a volume, older shapes pass behind newer ones as the camera orbits. On a flat canvas the trail can only ever be drawn on top of itself.
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
- What is different from the original Mystify?
- The original bounced vertices around a rectangle and layered the trail flat. Here the vertices bounce in a cube and the trail has depth, so the ribbon can occlude itself — which is the one thing the flat version can never do.
- Why two shapes?
- The Windows original ran two polygons in different colours and the interplay between them is most of the effect. This keeps that, seeding the second colour a fixed distance around the wheel from the first.
- 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.