Project 3000

"I love you 3000."

Project 3000 is a custom, terminal-based screensaver and art display engine built in Python. It features a state-machine physics engine that renders "Matrix-style" digital rain that interacts with high-resolution, true-color pixel art. Characters from the Marvel Universe are dynamically assembled by the rain, held on screen to display their database dossier, and then dissolved using sub-cell gravity physics.

Core Features

• Smart Rain Physics: Digital rain actively hunts down missing pixels to construct images organically.
• True-Color Terminal Rendering: Utilizes 256-color SGR escape codes for vibrant, high-fidelity character art.
• Layered Rendering: A Z-index system allows matrix rain to flow behind assembled character art, creating a high-speed parallax effect.
• Dynamic Lore Assembly: Dossier metadata is parsed and rendered as physical components of the character sprite.
• Sub-Cell Dissolve: Characters melt away using float-based gravity calculations for a smooth, dramatic "shatter" effect.
• Playlist Shuffle: A smart queue system ensures every character is displayed sequentially before reshuffling the deck.
• Global Command Access: Wired into your system shell for instant invocation.

Technical Stack

• Language: Python 3
• Library: curses (for terminal UI and high-frequency rendering)
• Terminal: Optimized for Kitty (GPU-accelerated, true-color support)
• Art Processor: chafa (for generating symbol-based terminal assets)

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/r17e8h/3000.git
cd 3000

2. Setup virtual environment:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Global Alias (Linux): Add this to your ~/.bashrc to invoke the screensaver from any directory:

alias marvel="~/Projects/3000/venv/bin/python ~/Projects/3000/marvel.py"

Reload your config: source ~/.bashrc

Controls

• **Space / N**: Skip current character and force immediate assembly of the next hero/villain.
• **Q / ESC**: Exit the screensaver.

Asset Generation

To add new characters to the art/ directory, use chafa to generate the required symbol-based output:

chafa --format=symbols --symbols vhalf --colors 256 -s 90x90 input_image.png > art/new_char.txt

Note: Ensure you strip all background transparency before converting to avoid "ghost box" artifacts.

Database Integration

Prepend your character lore directly to the top of your generated .txt files. The engine automatically parses lines without color escape codes as database entries:

DATABASE: [NAME]
IDENTITY: [TRUE NAME]
STATUS: [ACTIVE/INACTIVE]
THREAT LEVEL: [CLASS]

\x1b[38;5;... (chafa color data follows)

Demo

demo.mp4

Licence

MIT

Developed for Linux terminal environments.