Terminal scenes

See it move

A few scenes recorded at 80 by 24 in Zacess Deep Contrast Dark. The animation starts paused when your device asks for reduced motion.

The original scenes

Ten scenes that run on their own and also show while a build passes. 10 scenes.

• 

  Fish of several sizes, bubbles, seaweed, a boat on the surface and, now and then, a whale crossing the deep water

  Reduced motion: Everything swims at half speed and fewer bubbles rise

• 

  Drops at two depths, ripples where they land and a distant bolt of lightning every few seconds at most

  Reduced motion: No lightning at all, slower rain

• 

  Flakes at two depths drifting down and settling into a bank along the bottom

  Reduced motion: Slower snow

• 

  Stars that brighten and fade slowly, a crescent moon and, now and then, a slow shooting star

  Reduced motion: Stars take twice as long to change, shooting stars are rarer and slower

• 

  Columns of characters falling in the theme's syntax colours, each with a bright head

  Reduced motion: Columns fall at most three rows a second and their characters are never swapped

• 

  A dark meadow with lights that wander and pulse slowly

  Reduced motion: Slower, longer pulses and slower wandering

• 

  Slow waves of colour across the top of a starry sky over a mountain ridge

  Reduced motion: The waves move at half speed

• 

  Flames whose rows take a new shape one at a time, each at most once every 0.6 seconds, embers that rise and a steady glow on the ground

  Reduced motion: Each row changes at most once every 1.5 seconds, fewer and slower embers

• 

  A calm sea to the horizon under a sun, with gulls crossing the sky

  Reduced motion: Slower swell and slower wing beats

• 

  The Zacess mark drifting slowly and bouncing gently off the edges

  Reduced motion: It drifts at half speed

Fail scenes

Slow, serious scenes that read as something gone wrong without ever flashing, shaking or spinning. 13 scenes.

• 

  Twice the rain of rain, slanting in a strong wind under two rows of cloud, with a bolt of lightning every 5 to 9 seconds at most and never in the first five

  Reduced motion: No lightning at all, slower rain

• 

  A street where the water rises slowly past the doors and holds with a gentle swell, debris drifting along the surface and a warning sign going under

  Reduced motion: The water rises, swells and drifts at half speed and the drizzle is halved

• 

  A cargo ship on a grey sea that settles by the bow over a minute as its waterline creeps up past the portholes, then rolls gently while a lifebuoy drifts away

  Reduced motion: It lists, rolls and drifts at half speed

• 

  Riveted steel plates where rust creeps out from the rivets cell by cell to half the wall, darkening as it ages, with slow drips

  Reduced motion: Rust spreads and drips at half speed and each stage takes twice as long

• 

  Cables hanging from a patch panel that slowly wander, cross and knot into a swaying snarl with a warning tag

  Reduced motion: The cables tangle and sway at half speed

• 

  Potted plants on a sunny sill whose stems droop over, leaves dry and fall onto the sill and soil cracks

  Reduced motion: The plants wilt, sway and drop leaves at half speed

• 

  A road with signs, lamps and pines where a fog bank rolls in and the signs fade from view, glimpsed through gaps

  Reduced motion: The fog rolls in and drifts at half speed

• 

  A bridge over a flowing river with its middle span gone, girders hanging, the fallen span in the water, a barrier, a warning sign and a waiting car

  Reduced motion: The river and clouds move at half speed and fragments fall half as often

• 

  A cracked pipe dripping into a bucket that fills over a minute and then overflows into a puddle that spreads and holds, with a sinking pressure gauge and a wet floor sign

  Reduced motion: Drips come half as often and fall at half speed

• 

  A night skyline whose lit windows go dark one at a time beside a snapped power line, leaving a few candles and windows on their own power

  Reduced motion: The windows go dark at half the rate and the clouds drift at half speed

• 

  Cars queued bumper to bumper before a stop line, cones and a signal stuck on red, with exhaust puffs drifting up

  Reduced motion: Cars roll in at half speed and puffs come half as often

• 

  A cliff edge crumbling into the sea, stones tumbling and splashing and a fence left hanging over the drop until the face reaches harder rock

  Reduced motion: Pieces break away half as often and fall at half speed

• 

  Cracked earth spreading edge by edge under a heavy sun, a dry riverbed whose last puddle shrinks away, a withered tree and drifting dust

  Reduced motion: The cracks spread and the puddle dries at half the rate

Make it yours

• A settings file

  zacess-scenes config init writes scenes.toml with every option explained: your pass and fail scenes, rotation, motion level, sound set, volume, quiet hours and notifications.

  [scenes]
  theme = "deep-contrast-dark"
  pass = ["koi-pond", "lanterns", "tea"]
  fail = ["flood", "fog"]
  rotation = "shuffle"
  motion = "calm"
  
  [sound]
  set = "marimba"
  volume = 40
  quiet_hours = "22:00-07:00"
  
  [notifications]
  enabled = true

• Your own scenes in Lua

  zacess-scenes scene new <name> writes a starter scene. Scenes draw with theme roles rather than colours, so they stay readable in every theme. They run in a sandbox with no file or network access.

  return {
    name = "drift",
    kind = "pass",
    summary = "A small wave drifting across the screen",
    captions = { "Calm water, clean build." },
    frame = function(ctx)
      local x = math.floor((ctx.time * 4 * ctx.speed) % ctx.width)
      put(x, math.floor(ctx.height / 2), "~~~", "accent")
    end,
  }

  The Lua scene reference

• Snapshots

  zacess-scenes snapshot <scene> renders a still as an SVG, the way every picture on this page was made. zacess-scenes list shows every scene and sound set.