Is there a patterned paisley screensaver?

Paisley layers, from the night pack in Screensavers by Zaweba, builds dark paisley and floral motifs over each other, one after another. Each motif covers about a quarter of the screen and arrives in a different way: inked then flooded, unfurling, block-printed, swirling in, dripping, flipping tiles or as kaleidoscope wedges. You set the building speed, how much each one covers, the dark colour palette and whether older layers sink back.

It's a screensaver for anyone who likes textiles, wallpaper or pattern design. Rather than one pattern sitting still, you watch a whole surface being built up layer on layer.

The ways a motif arrives

The variety of entrances is what makes Paisley layers worth watching. An inked motif draws its outline first and then floods with colour. An unfurling one opens like a frond. Block-printed motifs stamp down as if from a carved block. Swirling ones spin into place, dripping ones run, flipping tiles turn over one by one, and kaleidoscope wedges assemble from mirrored slices.

Because each motif covers only part of the screen, several build up around each other, and the surface slowly turns into something rich and layered.

Coverage, palette and sinking layers

How much each covers runs from 10 to 40 per cent of the screen. At 10 per cent motifs are small and you see many of them; at 40 per cent each is a bold statement. Building speed sets how quickly each motif assembles.

The palette is dark, in keeping with the night pack. The setting for older layers sinking back lets earlier motifs fade into the background as new ones arrive, which keeps the newest pattern clear and stops the screen from becoming a muddle. Turn it off and the layers stay vivid and pile up, which looks more like a crowded pinboard of printed samples.

Running it as your screensaver

Open Screensavers by Zaweba and choose Paisley layers. The live preview beside the settings follows them, so you can see how coverage and speed change the feel. Press Preview full screen to watch it build at full size, then press Use this screensaver. It's built into your Windows profile, which needs no administrator rights, and Windows' Screen Saver Settings opens for you to select it and set the wait time.

When you want a change, adjust it in the manager. Settings are read every time the screensaver starts.

Pattern on a big screen

On wide setups the several monitors setting offers one on each monitor, one across all of them, or only the main monitor with the others black. Stretched across two screens, the motifs build into something like a length of printed fabric.

It's also a good companion for Growing foliage and Difference clouds, the other slow, generative screensavers in the night pack. Tick them together and use Install several, and the PC picks one of them at random each time it goes idle.

Original by design

Every motif is drawn by Zaweba's own code. None of it is scanned from historic textiles or copied from a pattern book, so what you see is made fresh as it runs. The whole pack runs offline as free software under the EULA, with no adverts or account.