Falling Stuff 1.0b6 for Mac and Windows

I have a new beta of the Falling Stuff screensaver ready to go for both Mac and Windows. Here's what's new:

• made lines a bit wider, which should help remove jagged edges.
• improved performance on Macs.
• added an experimental, screen-blanking battery saver mode for laptops. If enabled, this'll put the screensaver into a low-power mode when the computer is unplugged. Nothing will get displayed while in low-power mode, but the battery won't be unnecessarily drained either. Plugging the power back in will resume the screensaver. This option is turned off by default and can be turned on in the screensaver's options menu.
• new Windows installer (exciting, I know ;-) )

Regarding the Mac version, I did have a chance to test it out on a preview release of Mac OS X Lion and it ran great!

Basic information on the screensaver, including installation instructions and a list of configurable options, can be found in its docs. Here's a link to an online copy:

• Falling Stuff Documentation

Finally, here are the download links:

• Download Falling Stuff for Windows
• Download Falling Stuff for Mac OS X

I hope y'all enjoy it!

Falling Stuff 1.0b4 for Mac OS X Snow Leopard

After a somewhat lengthy hiatus, I've released Beta 4 of the Falling Stuff screensaver. For now, this is a Mac only release, as the only new feature is that the screensaver has is that it's been updated to work on Snow Leopard.

Download Falling Stuff for Mac OS X

To install:

1. Download and extract the zip file.
   
2. Double-click on the extracted, "Falling Stuff.saver" file. This should open Mac OS X's System Preferences app, which'll ask if you want to install it.
   
3. Choose "Falling Stuff" from the list of screen savers to preview it and/or use it as the main screensaver.
   

Feedback much welcomed! I'm especially curious to know if it runs ok on the computers of others. If so, I may re-release this version as 1.0 final.

Falling Stuff 1.0b3, With Windows Support!

I just finished up a new beta verson of the Falling Stuff screensaver. Here's a list of additions and changes:

• a Windows version is now available! Windows XP or higher is required. To note:
  
  
  
  • an OpenGL compatible video card and drivers are recommended for performance reasons, but isn't explicitly necessary. If you're unsure whether or not your computer supports this, just note that in this version of the screensaver, performance may be a bit slow. It varies from computer to computer. I have a few thoughts on how to go about addressing this, which I'm considering for future releases.
  
  
  • the installer includes an option for the "Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable". This is a will install a set of shared libraries that help run apps written in Visual C++, namely this screensaver. :-)
  
  


• for MacBook users, accelerometer-based gravity can now reverse accelerometer-based gravity along its X axis. Some MacBooks were interpreting a tilt to the right as a tilt to the left, and vice-versa. Enabling this option on these machines should cause gravity to go in the correct direction.


• fixed a bug whereby some fallen objects wouldn't move if accelerometer-based gravity was enabled, and the laptop was tilted in a new direction.


• prevented a bug in ball-dot drawing.

Download Falling Stuff for Mac OS X


Download Falling Stuff for Windows

Falling Stuff 1.0b2

Last summer, during my annual two week vacation, I ended up starting work on a screensaver. It was a remake of an old After Dark screensaver module called Marbles, whereby marbles would fall to the bottom of the screen, only to be met with a set of large pegs. Using a bit of code I had written on a few lazy Sundays before, along with an excellent 2D Physics engine called Box2D, I was able to get a reasonable simulation up and running. It wasn't quite distributable, due to some occasional crashes, some performance issues, etc., so I never released it. Once my vacation ended, development on it slowed way down.

I recently spent a few days finishing up my screensaver project and now have something to show for. I've called it "Falling Stuff", for lack of a better name. For now, it is for MacOS X only, and only for Intel-based Macs at that, although I do have a Windows version pending (which needs polish, among other things). Also note, I have only tested this on OS X 10.5. In theory, it should run on 10.4 though.

The initial release of Falling Stuff, 1.0b2 (beta 1 was only distributed to a few friends) sports the following features:

* Pegs of two shapes
* Marbles of two shapes
* Hot falling action!
* Accelerometer-based gravity for select laptops (most MacBooks, I believe)

Ok, perhaps not much as of yet. :-) I have been thinking of adding some new features, possibly an interactive mode of some sort.

Anyways, here is a quick screenshot:



Falling Stuff 1.0b2 is available for download. If you have an Intel-based Mac, I'd love to hear what you think of it. If you have a Windows-based machine, I hope to have the Windows version out soon, although I doubt accelerometer support will be available for such, unless I can get my hands on some decent code and/or libraries to handle this.

To install, download and extract the zip file, then double click on the "Falling Stuff.saver" file. This should launch System Preferences, which'll ask if you'd like to install it. From there, you can either install it just for yourself, or for all users on the system.

Also, a readme/about file is available as well, which contains some info that wasn't covered in this post.