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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 seven 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, Commando dots, Art Deco rows of fans and Lookout Point twinkling stars in dark mode and waves in light. 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 and Retro Vibes keep their own colours whatever the theme, and you can import your own too. On a first visit, the welcome screen wears one of the built-in themes at random, and the app keeps that theme when you leave it. Once your ROMs are loaded, a visual picker appears once to let you choose another. The documentation follows your selected theme and dark or light appearance too.

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.
Phosphor1 / 8
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.
Classic2 / 8
Black on white, like the C64's own desktop.
GEOS: white on black in dark mode, black on white in light mode.
GEOS3 / 8
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.
Breadbin4 / 8
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 / 8
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 / 8
Gold and jade: ivory type on peacock midnight in dark mode, navy ink on ivory paper in light.
Art Deco: ivory text on deep peacock blue with gilt borders, gold and jade accents in dark mode, navy ink on ivory paper ruled in gilt with gold and jade accents in light mode, rows of fans on the page in both.
Art Deco7 / 8
A pirate's lookout: the night watch under twinkling stars in dark mode, the sea by day in light.
Lookout Point: moonlit lavender text on a starry indigo sky with campfire-amber main buttons in dark mode, indigo ink on twilight lavender with solid indigo main buttons over rows of waves in light mode.
Lookout Point8 / 8

Open the visual picker with THEME in Options ▸ Theme. Choose a card and press APPLY THEME, or KEEP CURRENT to leave your look as it is. Imported themes appear as extra cards with their own colours and a diamond icon.

Choose your look, with eight illustrated theme cards and Keep current and Apply theme buttons.

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": "stars", "size": "medium", "twinkle": true }
  }
}

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. From the side or behind, it swings around the monitor to its screen. Drag or scroll to break out of it.
Toast While achievements are on: drag a sample toast to where toasts should show, and its corner to size them. Click again or press Esc when done.
Trophies While a game with achievements is loaded: shows and hides the trophy HUD.
Fog In Foggy Spotlight on a computer, turns the stage smoke off and on. With it off, the beam shows as a soft cone, as on phones and tablets. It is remembered.
🥽 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. Toasts and the trophy HUD still show. 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 highway toward a banded sun and a city skyline, palms and contoured mountains driving past.
Three views of the Synthwave scene: the C64 setup on a glowing neon grid under a banded Outrun sun, a lit city skyline 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
A theatre spotlight cutting through stage smoke onto a worn studio floor. On a computer, the Fog button turns the smoke off.
Three views of the Foggy Spotlight scene: the setup in a pool of warm light on a worn, scuffed studio floor, stage smoke drifting through the beam and settling low around the machine, the rest of the studio dark.
Foggy 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 1980s teenager's bedroom at night, the C64 on a wooden desk under an amber lamp, a plaid-duvet bed, venetian blinds with stars beyond, posters and a corkboard on patterned wallpaper, a wood-grain TV beside the desk and clutter on the floor.
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.