oxiper

Animated terminal wallpapers, oxidized.

cbonsai · asciiquarium · neo · nyancat · aafire, ported faithfully to Rust,
plus thirteen more scenes. One small binary. Nearly no CPU. Your terminal's transparency stays intact.

Gallery · Install · Usage · Screensaver · Customize · Aquarium · Transparency · Performance · Scene options

---

Why oxiper

• The classics, for real. The bonsai is cbonsai's growth engine, call for call. It even uses glibc's rand(), so -o bonsai.seed=42 grows exactly the tree cbonsai -s 42 grows. The aquarium carries all 95 sprites of asciiquarium, verified glyph by glyph against Term::Animation, with sharks that eat fish and hooks that catch them, and then grows into seven biomes with 281 kinds of fish and hundreds more creatures, plants, props and passers-by, drawn by hand in Unicode and all reacting to each other. The rain is neo's droplet model, falling at neo's real speed. Nyan Cat flies with the original twelve frames.
• One binary, eighteen scenes. Mix them into a playlist and give each one its own theme, pace and time on screen. And now and then, when you least expect it, a train or a duck goes by.
• Transparency first. oxiper never paints a background it doesn't have to, so blurred or translucent terminals stay see-through. It even asks your terminal what its background looks like, so fading trails fade into it.
• A real customization engine. A commented TOML config that reloads live while oxiper runs, 23 themes including one that reads your terminal's own palette and one that reads pywal, your own themes, options for every scene, and -o key=value on the command line for all of it.
• A screensaver for your shell. One line in .bashrc, .zshrc or config.fish and it starts after the prompt sits idle, then hands your half-typed command back untouched. It works inside tmux too.
• Built to be left running. No terminal library: raw termios, poll(2) and a diffing renderer that only sends the cells that changed. Scenes tell the loop when their picture will change next, so a grown bonsai costs 0.0 % CPU.

Gallery

bonsai · after cbonsai oxiper -s bonsai	aquarium · after asciiquarium oxiper -s aquarium -o aquarium.biome=reef
neo · after neo oxiper -s neo	nyancat · after nyancat oxiper -s nyancat
fire · after aalib's aafire oxiper -s fire	constellation · drifting stars that link up oxiper -s constellation -t catppuccin
waveform · layered rolling waves oxiper -s waveform -t synthwave	pipes · after pipes.sh oxiper -s pipes
rain · depth, wind, splashes, lightning oxiper -s rain	dvd · will it hit the corner? oxiper -s dvd
boids · flocking, with a hawk oxiper -s boids -t dracula	orrery · Kepler orbits, moons, rings oxiper -s orrery
dog · after tanim oxiper -s dog	shark · four species, day and night oxiper -s shark
fireworks · after tanim oxiper -s fireworks	metaballs · after tanim oxiper -s metaballs -t synthwave
particles · a flow field, or fireworks oxiper -s particles -t rosepine	hollywood · after hollywood oxiper -s hollywood
23 themes · or follow your terminal's palette oxiper list themes

_{Every animation above was recorded by oxiper itself (oxiper record) and rendered with agg; see scripts/gifs.sh.}

Install

With Cargo (a recent stable Rust):

cargo install --git https://github.com/donutinit/oxiper

Prebuilt binaries for Linux (static, x86_64 and aarch64) and macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon) are on the releases page. Unpack and put oxiper anywhere on your PATH.

From source:

git clone https://github.com/donutinit/oxiper && cd oxiper
cargo build --release   # → target/release/oxiper

Runs on Linux and macOS in any terminal that speaks ANSI; the idle screensaver integration is Linux-only for now. Truecolor terminals look best, and 256-color, 16-color and no-color terminals work too (NO_COLOR is honored).

Usage

oxiper                         # every scene, a minute each
oxiper -s bonsai               # just one
oxiper -s neo,fire,aquarium -d 30 --shuffle
oxiper -s neo -t synthwave     # any scene, any theme
oxiper -s bonsai -o bonsai.life=60 -o bonsai.leaves='&,*,@'
oxiper -s pipes -o pipes.style=rounded -o fps=60
oxiper list                    # scenes          · oxiper list themes
oxiper list options neo        # what you can tune

key	action	key	action
← →	previous / next scene	space	pause
↑ ↓	next / previous theme	+ - 0	faster / slower / normal
r	reseed the scene	?	help overlay
q esc	quit		(in --saver mode any key quits)

Leave it running in a spare tmux pane or a borderless terminal on your desktop: that's the wallpaper in oxiper. When the window loses focus it drops to unfocused_fps (10 by default, 0 pauses completely).

Screensaver mode

Add one line to your shell's startup file:

eval "$(oxiper shell-init bash)"   # ~/.bashrc
eval "$(oxiper shell-init zsh)"    # ~/.zshrc
oxiper shell-init fish | source    # ~/.config/fish/config.fish

After idle seconds without typing at the prompt (120 by default), oxiper takes over the screen. Press any key and you're back at your prompt with whatever you'd half-typed still there; the key you pressed is swallowed, not typed. It never interrupts a running program: vim, builds and less are safe.

How it works

shell-init starts one tiny watcher per shell that sleeps almost all the time. It checks the terminal's access time (the kernel updates it whenever the shell reads a keystroke) and whether the shell owns the terminal's foreground.

• zsh and fish can run signal handlers while you type, so the watcher sends them SIGUSR1 and they start oxiper --saver themselves.
• bash can't, so the watcher pauses the shell, borrows the terminal, runs the saver and hands everything back.
• bash inside tmux gets a full-screen tmux popup instead, because tmux would wake a paused shell on its own.

The watcher exits when its shell does. Set the delay with idle under [saver] in the config, or OXIPER_IDLE=60 before the shell-init line.

The [saver] section of the config can override anything for screensaver runs, e.g. shuffle all scenes 30 seconds each:

[saver]
idle = 300
scene = "all"
shuffle = true
duration = 30.0

Make it yours

oxiper config init     # writes ~/.config/oxiper/config.toml, every setting documented
oxiper config check    # catches typos and bad values

The config reloads live: save the file and the running oxiper picks it up. A taste:

scene = ["bonsai", "aquarium", "neo", "constellation"]
duration = 90.0
theme = "rosepine"
fps = 30
background = "transparent"     # or "theme", or "#0b0e14"

[scenes.bonsai]
theme = "classic"              # every scene can have its own theme…
life = 48
leaves = "&,*,❀"
message = "breathe"

[scenes.neo]
theme = "matrix"
pace = 1.4                     # …its own pace…
duration = 30.0                # …and its own time on screen
charset = "katakana+digits"
glitch_pct = 15.0

[scenes.constellation]
link_distance = 14.0

[themes.midnight]              # your own theme, built on top of another
inherit = "tokyonight"
ramp = ["#0b1021", "#1f3b73", "#4f7cff", "#a9c1ff"]   # dark → bright, for gradients
colors = ["#4f7cff", "#ff6ac1", "#5af78e", "#f3f99d"] # accents

Anything in the file can also be set for a single run: -o theme=nord, -o neo.density=2, -o saver.idle=60.

Speed (speed, a scene's pace, --speed, the + and - keys) only changes how fast things move. Clocks keep real time: at a tenth of the speed the aquarium still moves to another biome every five minutes and its day still lasts fifteen, a finished bonsai still waits its wait, and Nyan Cat's counter still counts real seconds.

Themes

classic keeps every scene in the colors of the program it pays homage to (the ports use your terminal's own ANSI palette, exactly like the originals). The rest:

follow your setup	terminal (asks your terminal for its 16 colors, so gradients stay smooth) · wal (reads pywal)
popular schemes	catppuccin · dracula · gruvbox · nord · rosepine · tokyonight · kanagawa · everforest · solarized · onedark · monokai
moods	synthwave · vaporwave · matrix · amber · ember · ocean · forest · sakura · mono

oxiper list themes shows swatches. Press ↑/↓ while it runs to flip through them.

Easter eggs

Every so often (about once an hour, never in the first minute) something crosses the screen over whatever scene is playing, then leaves on its own within 30 seconds:

• sl: the steam locomotive you get for mistyping ls, at sl's own pace. Usually the D51, sometimes the little one or the C51, and once in a while sl's -a accident, with people shouting for help.
• duckpond: the duck from duckpond.sh paddles along a line of water, quacking.

They are not scenes, so they never show up in a playlist. Make them rarer, more frequent, or turn them off:

eggs = "all"          # "none", or a list like "sl"
egg_rate = 1.2        # per hour of playing time; 0 = never

Can't wait? Press E.

The aquarium

biome = "classic" is asciiquarium, exactly, ASCII and all. Every other setting goes further: seven biomes with 281 fish, 93 other creatures, 85 plants and corals, 69 props and 84 passers-by, every one drawn by hand in Unicode (box-drawing lines, block shading, geometric shapes and braille, still plain text, one cell per character), most with several frames of animation, and they all notice each other.

• Seven places. Coral reef, open ocean, kelp forest, the deep sea, rivers and lakes, polar seas and a home tank, each with its own fish, plants, floor props and visitors. The deep sea has no surface: marine snow drifts down instead, and anglerfish light their lures.
• Alive in different ways. Fish swim in schools that keep formation. Others cruise straight, rise and sink, dart in bursts, drift like jellyfish or hover like seahorses, and crabs, lobsters, starfish and snails walk the sand, stopping now and then.
• Everything reacts to everything. Sharks, barracudas and pike hunt smaller fish, and schools scatter and regroup. Shy fish duck behind corals and wrecks, octopuses squirt ink, pufferfish puff up, and jellyfish and lionfish sting whoever brushes them. Clownfish keep to their anemones and morays to their caves. Remoras ride along with whale sharks, groupers and sea lions come over to look at divers, and grazers nibble the plants. Pelicans and gannets plunge in for a fish, trawlers drag nets, anglers lower a line, orcas take a bite, crabs clean up the scraps, and the seaweed sways as fish push through it.
• Day, night and weather. A sun crosses the sky. At night the water dims, the stars come out, nocturnal fish appear and lanternfish and comb jellies glow. A current bends the plants and carries the bubbles, storms roll in now and then with rain and lightning, and dim creatures swim far back behind the plants.
• Something special now and then. Feeding time in the tank, a plankton bloom that brings a whale shark, a ball of sardines swirling until the predators arrive, a long migration, a pod of orcas, and very rarely a legend: a coelacanth, a giant squid, a mermaid.
• Día de Muertos. From October 28 to November 3, cempasúchil petals float on the water, candles flicker on the floor at night, and calavera fish, alebrijes, an ofrenda and a trajinera join in (season = "muertos" brings them any day).
• Never the same twice. Each creature takes its colors from its species' palette, so no two clownfish match. The sea starts in a random biome and moves on every five minutes. The floor changes at once, and the creatures already swimming finish their crossing.
• asciiquarium's cast stays. The shark still eats fish and the hook still catches them. The ship, whale, sea monster, ducks, swan and dolphins pass by alongside submarines, divers, orcas, pirate ships, seagulls and the occasional UFO.
• Clear or painted water. By default the water is your terminal's own background, so a translucent terminal stays see-through. water = "deep" paints the sea instead: a gradient from bright to dark, slow shafts of light and sandy dunes, after the aquarium in tanim.

[scenes.aquarium]
biome = "reef,kelp,deep"           # move between these; "mixed" puts everything together
biome_time = 600                   # seconds in each place
species = "-krill-swarm"           # leave some out, or name the only ones you want
decor = "sunken-galleon,treasure-chest"
visitors = "-ufo"
day_length = 1800                  # a slower day; 0 keeps it day
events = 2                         # something special twice as often
interactions = false               # everyone minds their own business
water = "deep"                     # paint the sea instead of showing your background

oxiper list species names every fish, critter, plant, prop and visitor, and the biomes each one belongs to.

Transparency

Most terminal toys paint every cell black, which turns a blurred, translucent terminal into a flat rectangle. oxiper is built the other way around:

• Empty cells are drawn with the terminal's default background (SGR 49), so whatever your terminal shows through (wallpaper, blur, opacity) keeps showing through.
• Pixel-art scenes (fire, nyan cat) use half blocks. A cell with only one lit half sets just a foreground color, so the other half stays transparent.
• Trails don't fade "to black". At start-up oxiper asks the terminal for its real background color (OSC 11) and fades toward that, so trails dissolve into your background, light or dark. Override it with bg_hint.
• strict_transparency = true goes all the way: no background color is ever emitted, not even inside two-colored half blocks.
• Prefer a solid backdrop? background = "theme" or background = "#101018".

Performance

oxiper is meant to run all day, so the frame loop is careful:

• Diffing renderer. Each frame is compared to the last one and only changed cells are sent, with the shortest cursor moves and only the color/attribute parameters that differ.
• Synchronized updates (DEC mode 2026): terminals that support them never show half a frame.
• Sleeps when nothing changes. Scenes report when their picture changes next, so a finished bonsai or a 90 ms nyancat frame doesn't burn the frames in between.
• No terminal library. Raw termios, poll(2), a small escape parser and SIGWINCH: nothing between oxiper and the TTY, and a closed terminal is noticed at once.
• No allocation per frame in the renderer or in the scenes; 256-step gradient tables are precomputed in OKLab.

CPU and memory against the originals, each in a 120×40 tmux pane for 15 s (Linux 7.2, Fedora 44; oxiper at its default 30 fps):

scene	original	oxiper
bonsai (live, infinite)	cbonsai: 0.1 % · 3.3 MB	0.07 % · 3.9 MB
aquarium	asciiquarium: 7.1 % · 11.7 MB	0.9 % · 8.5 MB
neo	neo: 2.3 % · 5.6 MB	1.3 % · 3.9 MB
nyancat	nyancat: 0.3 % · 1.9 MB	0.27 % · 4.1 MB

Per-frame cost of every scene at 200×60 (oxiper bench, release build):

scene	simulate + draw (µs)	diff + encode (µs)	bytes / frame	cells changed
bonsai	6	71	22	0.0%
aquarium	31	130	1840	2.1%
neo	56	125	4154	1.6%
nyancat	62	112	1942	2.4%
dog	415	330	22318	8.3%
shark	431	426	54179	17.8%
fire	137	428	159136	48.6%
fireworks	188	117	8712	2.8%
constellation	155	144	20705	7.8%
waveform	112	115	11271	7.2%
pipes	45	158	253	0.1%
rain	21	140	25643	12.7%
dvd	5	73	398	0.4%
boids	280	114	8375	3.6%
orrery	81	125	7942	3.1%
particles	421	393	109235	42.4%
metaballs	415	542	194936	50.9%
hollywood	45	114	5742	11.1%

_{Intel i7-9700KF, one core. Even the busiest scenes stay under 1 ms per frame at 30 fps, i.e. under 3 % of one core.}

Scene options

Every option goes under [scenes.<name>] in the config, or on the command line as -o <name>.<option>=<value>. Every scene also accepts theme, pace (a time multiplier) and duration, which override the global settings while that scene plays.

bonsai — a bonsai tree grows branch by branch, after cbonsai

Aliases: cbonsai

option	default
life	32	Life; higher -> more growth, 0-200 (cbonsai -L)
multiplier	5	Branch multiplier; higher -> more branching, 1-20 (-M)
base	1	Pot to grow in: 1 or 2, 0 for none (-b)
leaves	"&"	Comma-separated strings chosen at random for leaves (-c)
message	""	Message shown in a box next to the tree, empty for none (-m)
step	0.03	Seconds per growth step in live mode (-t)
wait	4.0	Seconds a finished tree stays before the next one grows (-w)
live	true	Show each step of growth; false shows the grown tree at once (-l)
infinite	true	Keep growing new trees (-i)
colors	""	Dark leaves, dark wood, light leaves, light wood, e.g. "2,3,10,11" (-k); empty = the theme's
geometry	""	Put the pot at "ROW,COL" (-g); empty = centered at the bottom
seed	0	Seed of the first tree, the same tree as cbonsai -s (0 = random)

aquarium — asciiquarium, and then some: hundreds of species in seven biomes

Aliases: asciiquarium, fish

option	default
fish	1.0	Fish density; 1 is the original's one fish per 350 cells of water
seaweed	1.0	Plant density; 1 is the original's one seaweed per 15 columns
biome	"random"	random, mixed (all at once), classic (exactly asciiquarium), or some of reef, ocean, kelp, deep, fresh, arctic, tank, comma separated
biome_time	300.0	Seconds before the sea moves on to another biome; 0 stays
species	""	Only these species, anywhere (comma separated; -name leaves one out). oxiper list species names them
plants	""	Only these plants (comma separated; -name leaves one out)
decor	"auto"	Props on the floor: auto (the biome's), none, or names (comma separated; -name leaves one out)
visitors	""	Only these passers-by (comma separated; -name leaves one out)
schools	true	Schooling fish swim in groups
floor	true	Sand and pebbles along the bottom (not in classic)
water	"clear"	clear (the terminal's own background shows through) or deep (the sea painted: a gradient, slow rays of light, sandy dunes; not in classic)
snow	true	Marine snow drifting down in the deep sea
interactions	true	Everything reacts to everything: predators hunt, prey flees or hides, birds dive, nets and lines catch fish, cleaners ride along (not in classic)
day_length	900.0	Seconds for a whole day and night; 0 is always day (not in classic)
depth	0.3	Share of creatures swimming far back, dim and behind the plants
current	1.0	Strength of the current that sways plants and carries bubbles; 0 is still water
weather	true	Storms now and then: wind, rain and lightning over the water
events	1.0	How often something special happens (feeding time, a bait ball, a rare sighting...); 0 never
season	"auto"	auto (by the date), none, or muertos (Día de Muertos)
castle	true	Show the castle (in classic and in the tank)
random_objects	true	Send ships, whales, sharks, divers, submarines, birds... one at a time
bubbles	true	Fish blow bubbles
speed	1.0	Pace relative to the original (motion only: the biome's stay, days and events keep real time)
smooth	true	Move continuously; false steps at the original 10 frames per second
waves	false	Let the water surface drift (it is still in the original)

neo — digital rain from the Matrix, after neo

Aliases: matrix, cmatrix

option	default
charset	"auto"	ascii, extended, english, digits, punc, binary, hex, katakana, greek, cyrillic, arabic, hebrew, devanagari, braille or runic; join with '+' (auto: extended, or only chars when given)
chars	""	Your own characters to rain (added to charset when that is set too)
colors	"auto"	green, green2, green3, gold, yellow, orange, red, blue, cyan, purple, pink, pink2, rainbow, vaporwave, gray, one color, or a dark-to-bright list "#hex,#hex,..." (auto: green under classic, the theme ramp otherwise)
speed	8.0	Scroll speed in characters per second, as neo -S
density	1.0	Droplet density, as neo -d
async	false	Give every column its own speed, as neo -a
glitch	true	Let characters glitch (false = neo --noglitch)
glitch_pct	10.0	Percentage of screen cells that glitch, as neo -G
glitch_ms	"300,400"	Milliseconds between glitches as "min,max", as neo -g
linger_ms	"1,3000"	How long stopped droplets linger as "min,max" milliseconds, as neo -l
shading	"auto"	random (neo -M 0) or distance from the head (-M 1); auto: random with neo's colors, distance with the theme ramp
bold	1	0 = never bold, 1 = random, 2 = always, as neo -b
message	""	A message the rain reveals in the middle of the screen, as neo -m
rip_pct	33.33333	Percentage of droplets that die early, as neo -r
short_pct	50.0	Percentage of shortened droplets, as neo --shortpct
max_dpc	3	Maximum droplets per column (1-3), as neo --maxdpc

nyancat — the poptart cat flies through space, after nyancat

Aliases: nyan

option	default
background	false	Paint nyancat's blue sky (the theme background under other themes) instead of keeping the terminal's
counter	true	Show "You have nyaned for N seconds!" on the bottom line
scale	0	Half-block pixels per cat pixel (0 = fit the terminal; 2 is nyancat's own size)
delay_ms	90	Milliseconds per animation frame, as nyancat -d
palette	"rgb"	nyancat's colors under classic: rgb (its truecolor table) or 256 (its xterm-256 table)

dog — a dog runs, naps and chases butterflies in a meadow, after tanim

Aliases: meadow

option	default
speed	1.0	Pace of the dog, the clouds and the grass (the day keeps real time)
day	180	Real seconds for a full day, from dawn through night to dawn (10-86400)
zoom	2	How close the camera is to the dog, 0 (whole meadow) to 6
butterflies	true	Let butterflies pass by by day for the dog to chase
sky	true	Paint the sky; off leaves it see-through above the hills

shark — a shark patrols the open sea, hunting through the day and night

Aliases: sharks

option	default
speed	1.0	Pace of the shark, the fish and the sea (the day keeps real time)
day	180	Real seconds for a full day, from dawn through night to dawn (10-86400)
zoom	2	How close the camera is to the shark, 0 (the whole sea) to 6
kind	"great-white"	great-white, hammerhead, tiger, whale-shark, or random
fish	1.0	How many fish swim in schools; 0 for none
rays	true	Shafts of light from the surface and caustics on the sand
water	true	Paint the water; off leaves it see-through around the sea life

fire — a roaring fire, after aalib's aafire

Aliases: aafire

option	default
style	"blocks"	blocks (smooth half-block pixels) or ascii (aalib characters)
intensity	1.0	Fuel: how hot and dense the flames burn (0.2-2)
height	0.8	How high the flames reach, relative to the screen (1 = aafire)
wind	0.0	Sideways lean, -2 (left) to 2 (right), with gentle gusts
cooling	0.5	Turbulent cooling that breaks flames into tongues (0 = pure aafire)
sparks	true	Embers drifting up from the flame tips

fireworks — rockets bursting into colorful sparks over a city, after tanim

Aliases: rockets

option	default
speed	1.0	How fast everything moves (0.1-4)
rate	1.0	How often rockets launch, 0 = never (0-5)
skyline	true	Draw the city with its lit windows
stars	true	Faint stars in the night sky
sky	false	Paint the night sky instead of leaving it transparent

constellation — drifting stars that link up when close

Aliases: stars

option	default
density	1.0	Star density multiplier (the count scales with the screen area)
link_distance	11.0	Stars closer than this many cells get linked
speed	1.0	Drift speed multiplier
twinkle	1.0	Twinkle strength (0 = steady stars)
shooting_stars	4.0	Shooting stars per minute (0 = none)
max_links	3	Most lines per star, nearest first (0 = no lines)

waveform — layered waves rolling across the screen

Aliases: wave, waves

option	default
style	"lines"	lines, filled (dithered area under each wave), dots, or mirror
layers	5	How many waves (1-12)
amplitude	1.0	Wave height, relative to the screen
frequency	1.0	How many crests fit on the screen (relative)
speed	1.0	How fast the waves roll
thickness	1	Line thickness in braille dots (1-4)
noise	1.0	Slow organic wobble on top of the sines (0 = pure sines)

pipes — pipes snake and turn until the screen is full (after pipes.sh)

Aliases: pipes.sh

option	default
count	0	Pipes growing at once (0 = scale with the screen)
straightness	13	Turn with probability 1/straightness at every step, like pipes.sh -s
style	"heavy"	Piece set: heavy, rounded, light, double, ascii, slash, dots, beads, railway, knobby, or pipes.sh -t 0-9; 'light,double' mixes, 'all' uses every set, 'c' + 16 characters is a custom set
limit	-1	Clear the screen after this many pieces, like pipes.sh -r (0 = never, -1 = about one screenful; never when fading)
speed	24.0	Segments per second for each pipe
colors	true	Give every pipe its own color (false = one color, like pipes.sh -C)
fade	false	Let old segments fade away instead of piling up
random_start	true	Start pipes at random places and directions (pipes.sh -R); false starts them all in the middle, going up
keep	false	Keep color and piece set when wrapping around an edge (pipes.sh -K)
bold	true	Draw pieces in bold like pipes.sh (false = pipes.sh -B)

rain — rainfall in layers, with gusty wind, splashes and lightning

option	default
intensity	1.0	How hard it rains (drop count also scales with the screen)
wind	0.2	Steady wind: negative blows left, positive right (1 = columns move one per row)
gusts	0.3	How far the wind wanders from its steady value, slowly
layers	3	Depth layers (1-6): near drops are bright, long and fast, far ones dim and slow
splashes	true	Splash where drops hit the bottom row
puddle	false	Draw a puddle line along the bottom with ripples spreading from splashes
lightning	0.5	Lightning strikes per minute on average (0 = off)
lightning_bg	false	Light up the cell backgrounds during a flash (paints backgrounds)
speed	1.0	Fall speed multiplier

dvd — the bouncing logo, hoping to hit a corner

Aliases: bounce

option	default
text	""	Bounce this text in a block font instead of the DVD logo
speed	5.0	Rows per second (columns move twice as fast, for a 45° path)
count	1	How many logos bounce around
corner_assist	false	Quietly nudge the path now and then so corners actually happen
counter	true	Show how many corners were hit

boids — a flock that steers by separation, alignment and cohesion

Aliases: flock

option	default
count	110	Boids on a 100x30 screen; scales with the area
separation	1.0	How strongly boids keep their distance
alignment	1.0	How strongly boids match their neighbors' heading
cohesion	1.0	How strongly boids move toward their neighbors
speed	1.0	Flying speed multiplier
vision	10.0	How far a boid sees, in cells
predator	true	A hawk that hunts the flock
trails	6	Trail length in steps (0 = none)
style	"arrows"	arrows (8-way heading glyphs) or dots (braille points)
color	"flock"	Color by flock or by heading
bounce	false	Turn away from the edges instead of wrapping around

orrery — planets and moons orbiting a sun

Aliases: planets, solar

option	default
planets	8	How many planets (1-9; fewer when the screen is small)
speed	1.0	Orbital speed multiplier
orbits	true	Show the dotted orbit paths
trails	true	Short fading trails behind the planets
belt	true	Asteroid belt between the rocky planets and the giants
moons	true	Moons around some planets
tilt	0.5	Orbit flattening for a 3/4 view (1 = straight from above)

particles — particles riding a slowly changing flow field

Aliases: flow

option	default
mode	"flow"	flow (a swirling flow field), fireworks or fountain
count	400	Particles on a 100x30 screen (scaled by the screen area)
speed	1.0	How fast particles move
scale	1.0	Flow noise scale: higher means smaller, busier swirls
trail	1.0	Trail persistence (multiplies each mode's trail length)
color_by	"angle"	Flow coloring: angle (direction) or speed
fireworks_rate	1.2	Rockets per second per 100 columns (fireworks mode)
gravity	1.0	Gravity for fireworks and fountain

metaballs — glossy blobs merging like drops of gel, after tanim

Aliases: blobs, gel

option	default
speed	1.0	How fast the blobs drift
blobs	0	Number of blobs (1-16, 0 = a random 5-8)
size	1.0	Blob size multiplier (0.4-2.5)
background	false	Paint a dark backdrop instead of the terminal's own

hollywood — a Hollywood hacker screen full of technobabble, after hollywood

Aliases: hacker, technobabble

option	default
speed	1.0	Motion pace of the widgets
panes	6	Most panes on screen at once (3 to 12)
reshuffle	15.0	Average seconds between layout changes (real time)
babble	7	How much technobabble, 0 (plain logs) to 10 (maximum)

Other commands

oxiper record demo.cast -s aquarium --size 100x30 --seconds 10   # asciicast; play with asciinema
oxiper snap -s bonsai --size 80x24 --at 20 [--ansi]             # one frame, as text
oxiper bench --size 200x60                                       # µs per frame for every scene
oxiper list species                                              # everything the aquarium can show
oxiper completions zsh > ~/.zfunc/_oxiper                        # bash, zsh, fish, elvish, powershell

Writing a new scene is one file; see docs/SCENES.md.

Credits

oxiper stands on the shoulders of these wonderful programs:

• cbonsai by John Allbritten (GPL-3.0): the bonsai engine is a port of it.
• asciiquarium by Kirk Baucom, art mostly by Joan Stark (GPL-2.0-or-later): code and art ported.
• neo by Stewart Reive (GPL-3.0-or-later): the digital rain is a port of its droplet model.
• nyancat by K. Lange (NCSA): frames and palette, with its notice kept in frames.rs.
• aafire from AA-lib by Jan Hubička, Kamil Toman and others (LGPL): the fire algorithm.
• pipes.sh (MIT): pipe pieces and behavior.
• drift by phlx0 (MIT): inspiration for several ambient scenes and for idle activation.
• tanim by Santiago Sánchez (MIT): the dog, fireworks and metaballs scenes are adapted from it, and its aquarium inspired the painted water.
• sl by Toyoda Masashi: the locomotives of the sl easter egg, under its own license, whose notice is kept in sl.rs.
• duckpond.sh by Gavi Sobell (GPL-3.0): the duck.
• hollywood by Dustin Kirkland (Apache-2.0): the idea and the widgets of the hollywood scene, rebuilt natively with far more technobabble.
• Craig Reynolds, for boids.

License

oxiper is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 only (GPL-3.0-only), which the cbonsai, asciiquarium and neo ports allow.