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Docs / User Guide / Looks and Retro Vibes

Looks and Retro Vibes

Themes and their file format, the Retro Vibes 3D viewer, and recording what you play. Part of the User Guide.

Themes

A theme sets the interface's colours, and can lay a faint pattern on the page behind the panels. Classic is the default, and five more are built in. Each has a pattern of its own: Classic a large, subtle grid, GEOS a dither like its desktop, Breadbin a woven crosshatch, Phosphor scanlines in dark mode and green-bar paper in light, Out Run a finer grid and Commando dots. The gallery below shows each in dark mode on the left and light mode on the right; step through it with Previous and Next. The screen, the CRT looks, the splash and Retro Vibes keep their own colours whatever the theme, and you can import your own too.

The C64's own blue, from the boot screen.
Classic: deep VIC blue in dark mode, white Paper panels with blue text in light mode.
Classic1 / 6
Black on white, like the C64's own desktop.
GEOS: white on black in dark mode, black on white in light mode.
GEOS2 / 6
The machine itself: brown keys in dark mode, the beige case in light.
Breadbin: brown keyboard with cream text and orange accents in dark mode, the beige case outlined in key brown with red and blue accents in light mode.
Breadbin3 / 6
An amber monitor in dark mode, green-bar printer paper in light.
Phosphor: amber on black in dark mode, black ink on white paper ruled in green over a green-bar page in light mode.
Phosphor4 / 6
The sunset over the road: neon night in dark mode, a pink and orange sky in light.
Out Run: a magenta horizon glow over violet night with yellow and cyan accents in dark mode, a pink-to-orange sunset sky with lilac panels and magenta edges in light mode.
Out Run5 / 6
Night road and muzzle flash in dark mode, khaki and olive drab in light.
Commando: sand on dark brown with orange accents in dark mode, khaki outlined in olive drab with muzzle-flash orange accents in light mode.
Commando6 / 6

Pick one with THEME in Options ▸ Theme. IMPORT loads a theme file, which then stays in this browser; REMOVE takes an imported one out again. EXPORT saves the current theme with every colour filled in, so exporting Classic gives you a complete file to start your own from. The one exception is the button colours (see Buttons below): a theme that leaves them out exports without them, so they keep following its other colours as you edit.

A theme file is JSON. Here is the start of one, with Classic's colours; the … lines stand for the rest. A complete file has 155 colours per mode, 137 without the button colours and the pattern ink, but a theme only needs the ones it changes. Export Classic to get the whole file to edit.

{
  "format": "c64ready-theme/2",
  "name": "My theme",
  "author": "optional",
  "modes": {
    "dark": {
      "crt-bg": "#070a1c",
      "ui-bg": "#0b0e24",
      "panel-bg": "#11142e",
      "border": "#2c2f63",
      "control-bg": "#1a1a30",
      "text": "#ccd0ec",
      "dim": "#8e8eb7",
      "accent": "#7471ec",
      "green": "#8fe985",
      "amber": "#e6dd6b",
      "red": "#d76b70",
      …
    },
    "light": {
      "crt-bg": "#e8e9f3",
      "ui-bg": "#f4f5fb",
      "panel-bg": "#ffffff",
      "border": "#cfd2e7",
      "control-bg": "#eef0f8",
      "text": "#23264d",
      "dim": "#53567d",
      "accent": "#4c49c0",
      "green": "#2a7337",
      "amber": "#7a5d00",
      "red": "#b8323b",
      …
    }
  },
  "look": {
    "dark": { "pattern": "grid", "size": "medium" }
  }
}

Retro Vibes

The Retro Vibes 3D scene: a Commodore 64, 1541 drive and 1702 monitor on the desk of a darkened 1980s bedroom, lit by a desk lamp, with venetian blinds and a corkboard on the wall behind.

A full-screen 3D scene of the machine, opened with VIBES.

When Touch Joystick is assigned to a control port, its stick and buttons remain available over the 3D scene.

Control What it does
Drag Rotate the view.
Scroll / pinch Zoom.
Double-click / double-tap Powers the C64 on when it's off, so you can boot the machine without leaving the 3D scene.
🎬 Change the scene.
⛶ Glides the camera to a head-on view that fills the frame with the monitor, a virtual fullscreen. Drag or scroll to break out of it.
🥽 ENTER VR View in VR (shown when a headset or the WebXR emulator is available).
ⓘ model credit Shows attribution for the 3D model.
Cmd+Shift+X / Ctrl+Shift+X Studio mode: hides everything else in this table (the mouse pointer included) and leaves the scene alone with the C64 READY. logo, for screenshots and video. The same keys bring the controls back. It is remembered, so the scene reopens the way you left it.
✕ or Esc Close and return to the emulator.

Scenes

The 🎬 button cycles through five scenes. Each strip in the gallery shows the scene from the default view, up close, and from a low angle; step through them with Previous and Next.

A glowing neon grid under a banded sun and wireframe mountains.
Three views of the Synthwave scene: the C64 setup on a glowing neon grid under a banded Outrun sun and wireframe mountains.
Synthwave1 / 5
A pulsing grid beneath the Milky Way and the occasional meteor.
Three views of the Starry Plain scene: the machine on a dark pulsing grid beneath a blue-violet Milky Way, deep star field and occasional meteor.
Starry Plain2 / 5
One warm spotlight in the dark, the live CRT colouring the floor.
Three views of the Spotlight scene: the setup picked out of pitch darkness by a single warm overhead spotlight, grounded on a matte studio floor while the live CRT softly colours its surroundings.
Spotlight3 / 5
A courtyard by the bay at dusk, a torii gate before the setting sun.
Three views of the IK+ Sunset scene: a stone courtyard by a bay at dusk, a black torii gate rising from the water in front of the setting sun, an autumn maple and a fishing village on the shores.
IK+ Sunset4 / 5
A teenager's bedroom at night, the C64 under an amber lamp.
Three views of the 80s Bedroom scene: a messy 1980s teenager's bedroom at night: the C64 on a faux-wood desk under an amber lamp, a plaid-duvet bed, venetian blinds, taped-up posters and a corkboard, a wood-grain CRT, a boombox and scattered clutter.
80s Bedroom5 / 5

Which model loads is set by 3D MODEL in Options.

Recording

Capture the whole browser window, with sound, to an .mp4 video using the ● RECORD button in Controls, enabled once the machine is powered on. Click it, pick the window (or screen) to share in the browser prompt, and the button becomes ⏹ STOP RECORDING. Press stop and the file downloads as c64ready-<date-and-time>.mp4.