Kaleider Rooms

A dimension of depth is provided by the Rooms feature, which exhibits Kaleider patterns in 3D perspectives, tiled across the the walls, ceilings and floors of various Rooms.  Randomly sized Bubbles, which are also coated in Kaleider patterns, can appear within Rooms at random locations.  Room scenes can optionally be split into Dual and Quad Views.  As a Kaleider effect is altered, such as by manual shifting with the mouse, from Wandering movements or via Animate Colors, the results are reflected within the 3D Rooms, often creating the appearance of motion or pulsation.

Keyboard commands are available that allow a viewer to manually navigate through a Room or switch to a different Room.  The Roaming option can be activated to initiate automated movements -- zooming through Rooms, making turns, bouncing off walls, etc.  Bubbles can also be put into motion and can spin.


Pipe Clogged With Bubbles

These Rooms sample shots perhaps give a feel for the 3D effect (click to enlarge).  However, such still images can't really convey the impact and fascination of watching scenes transform and evolve due to Wandering and/or Roaming activity.

Rooms can be constructed in several configurations:

  • Big Room
  • Sphere
  • Corridor
  • Corner Room
  • Narrow Room
  • Torus
  • Small Room
  • Tunnel
  • Skyscraper
  • Pipe
  • Pyramid
  • Carousel

A Room Options screen allows configuration of the display and performance characteristics of Rooms and Roaming.  A Shading option causes the ceiling, walls and floor surfaces to vary slightly in lightness or darkness, perhaps enhancing the realism.

Room scenes can be replicated into double or quadruple partitions.  The Rooms Menu provides Single View, Dual Views and Quad Views choices (or right-click the Rooms button).  With the Dual Views choice, the screen is split into left and right halves, with the right half mirroring the Room scene on the left.  Quad Views divides the screen into 4 symmetrically reflected scenes.  The multiple scenes are continuously updated with any Shifting, Wandering and Roaming activity.  The Room Options screen provides a Views choice that serves as an initial default value.

As might be seen with some of the sample images, it can sometimes create an interesting contrast to have the Kaleider pattern that coats the Bubbles be different from that which is tiled across the other Room surfaces.  This can easily be accomplished by using the Freeze Bubble Patterns or Freeze Room Patterns options to keep either the Bubble or Room patterns stationary while the other is changed.  For example, after a pleasing pattern is found for the Bubbles, Freeze Bubble Patterns can be selected, and then the pattern that covers the ceiling, walls and floor of the Room can be shifted, or a different effect can be rendered, perhaps after switching to a different source image.

Masks and Mandalas can optionally be used with Rooms scenes by setting Apply Masking to Rooms in the Room Options screen.


Dangerous Small Room with Bubbles Skyscraper with Bubbles Fuzzy Waves coating Small Room Gray Sphere Room Carousel Interior Masked Tunnel Room
Corridor Room With Bubbles Outside Sphere Pyramid Interior Moiré Pipe Corridor Right Triangle (Split) Kaleidoscope Densely Tiled Dual Views Torus

It's possible to travel outside the confines of Rooms, into the blackness of space, to view the exterior surfaces of Rooms.  Just keep the CTRL key pressed while navigating with the numeric keypad keys.  Even easier is to set the Allow Moving Through Room Walls option in Room Options so that pressing CTRL isn't necessary.  As an alternative to using the numeric keypad (which can be awkward with laptop style keyboards), the Use Arrow Keys for Navigation option can be set to redefine the usage of Arrow Keys while in Rooms for Room movements.

The Automatic Effects Configuration screen contains options to control the behavior of Rooms and Roaming during Automatic Effects.