Lava Lamp Screensaver_
What is the lava lamp screensaver?
How the effect works
Preset colors
How to use as a screensaver
Keyboard shortcuts
Also try: 3D Pipes
Related searches
Guide — a lava lamp on your screen in five steps
It runs in a browser tab: nothing to install, Escape ends it.Classic, Lagoon, Magma, Toxic, Galaxy or Gold — keys 1–6 switch instantly.
Lamp mode draws the glass vessel; Fill mode lets the wax cover the whole screen. L toggles.
Goo sets how readily blobs merge, Glow adds a soft halo.
Nine wax swatches, multicolour, or any hex colour with the picker.
Click the canvas or press F; Escape returns to the normal view.
Which setting for which look
- Lamp
- the classic tapered glass on a base
- Fill
- edge-to-edge ambient wallpaper
- Goo high
- sticky, liquid wax
- Goo low
- separate round blobs
- Glow
- warm, luminous halo
- 1–6
- presets
- L
- lamp / fill
- F
- fullscreen
- Esc
- exit
How the lava lamp screensaver works
This screensaver recreates a 1960s–70s lava lamp in your browser: coloured wax rises, falls, merges and splits in real time. Below: how the metaball effect works, the presets and modes, the sliders and colours, and running it fullscreen.
What is the lava lamp screensaver?
It is a browser-based recreation of a classic 1960s/70s lava lamp. Coloured blobs of "wax" slowly rise, fall, merge and split inside a glowing lamp. This screensaver simulates that effect in real time using HTML5 Canvas and a metaball technique, so the blobs blend smoothly into each other just like real lava lamp wax — no plugins or downloads needed.
How does the lava lamp effect actually work?
The blobs are rendered using metaballs: each blob contributes to a scalar field, and the screensaver draws the surface where the combined field crosses a threshold. When two blobs come close their fields add together and the surfaces merge into one organic shape, then separate again as they drift apart. A buoyancy model heats blobs at the bottom so they rise, then cools them at the top so they sink, mimicking convection in a real lava lamp.
How do I run this fullscreen as a screensaver?
Click the canvas or press Enter Fullscreen in the sidebar. The animation will fill your entire screen. Move your mouse to reveal the exit button, or press Escape to return to normal view. You can also press F on your keyboard to toggle fullscreen at any time.
What preset modes are available?
Six colour presets: Classic (orange wax in a red lamp), Lagoon (cyan and teal), Magma (hot red and orange), Toxic (radioactive green), Galaxy (purple and pink), and Gold (warm amber). Each combines a wax colour, lamp background, flow speed and blob count. Press keys 1–6 to switch instantly.
What is the difference between Lamp mode and Fill mode?
Lamp mode draws the classic lava lamp silhouette — a tapered glass vessel on a metal base with a cap — and keeps the blobs inside the glass. Fill mode removes the vessel so the blobs cover the entire screen edge to edge, which works best as an ambient fullscreen screensaver or live wallpaper. Press L to toggle between them.
What do the Goo and Glow sliders do?
The Goo slider controls how readily nearby blobs merge — higher values make them stickier and more liquid, lower values keep them as separate rounder blobs. The Glow slider adds a soft bloom/halo around each blob using additive light, giving the lamp a warm, luminous look.
Can I change the colours or use a custom colour?
Yes. Choose from 9 preset wax swatches (green, cyan, red, orange, purple, pink, gold, blue, white), enable multicolor for blobs that drift through several hues, or use the custom colour picker to set any hex colour. Changes apply instantly to the live animation.
Do I need to download or install anything?
No. This lava lamp screensaver runs entirely in your browser using HTML5 Canvas. There is nothing to download or install. It works on any modern browser on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.