by software artist Scott Draves. You may also follow me on google+ or twitter, buy art, or join me on facebook.

March 06, 2007

New Sheep Packs for Kickstarting the Client

I'm trying dreamhost for serving sheep, and the first experiment is manual download of sheep packs. Download one or more, unzip, and place the mpg files in your cache directory. By default on Windows that's "c:\windows\system32\electricsheep-cache\mpeg", On Mac OS X it's "~/Library/Application Support/ElectricSheep", and on Linux it's "~/.sheep".

Update: bigger and newer megapacks.

Update 2: Sometimes the bandwidth quota is exceeded making the packs unavailable. Fortunately you can bring them back. Posted by spot at March 6, 2007 12:24 PM

Comments
Good idea, this will help a lot a new users overcome the "hump" of having no sheep displayed when they start out. Dreamhost is a little slower than I would have expected though... Very nice :D Posted by: ThomasH at March 6, 2007 12:47 PM
spot is the avatar of awesomeness -- thanks for sharing! Posted by: deborah at March 6, 2007 05:08 PM
blA Posted by: Wisp at March 7, 2007 09:44 AM
rtyrt Posted by: regtrs at March 7, 2007 09:17 PM
damn Posted by: yo at March 12, 2007 04:03 AM
I love fractales Posted by: Luc Martel at March 13, 2007 02:02 PM
These rock! Thank you. Now, any chance we can get some loops, too? These are all edge/transitions, aren't they? Posted by: Mouse at March 14, 2007 03:21 PM
hello Posted by: Audie at March 15, 2007 01:18 AM
thankyou Posted by: lee at March 17, 2007 08:10 AM
ok, im hooked, but I run both Linux and windows based systems, here's my predicament... my windows box allows me the option to choose sleep that I like. which is all and good, but the Linux box doesn't allow me that option. is there an add-on or other that im missing? Posted by: idiot_10_J at March 20, 2007 12:33 AM
@mouse: there are edges too, make sure in your config panel you don't have number of loops set to zero. @idiot_10_J: yes you have to install a patched version of xscreensaver. see the release notes linked from the download page. Posted by: spot at March 20, 2007 12:19 PM
oops i mean the packs have loops too. Posted by: spot at March 20, 2007 12:20 PM
can you combine all the sheep packs, into one pack for easier access? Posted by: MB at March 24, 2007 11:31 AM
Thanks. These go really well with liquid, imo. Posted by: Roy at March 26, 2007 05:48 PM
Hey spot, make your own index.html linking to the zip's, and add "http://coblitz.codeen.org:3125/" before each URL. That would be http://coblitz.codeen.org:3125/http://sheepserver.dreamhosters.com/2170.zip It will cause less network usage, by using CoBlitz; a system similar to CoralCDN (and from PlanetLab too), prepared for large files. Leave the normal URLs too, for people who can't make outbound connections to port 3125. More info at http://codeen.cs.princeton.edu/coblitz/ Posted by: Nicolas at March 27, 2007 02:41 PM
okok i d/l it and i have d/l like 6 of the zip files but it still says please wait and i have unzip them in to the mpeg folder should the be sub folders or should just be the mpeg files Posted by: maddoguk at March 30, 2007 01:15 PM
yes unzip them into the mpeg folder, no sub-folders just the mpgs. Posted by: spot at March 30, 2007 01:53 PM
I have a high resolution 17" screen on my laptop, and am getting a very pixalated graphics in full screen mode, is there a fix for this? Posted by: Alex at April 1, 2007 02:43 PM
just so you know these are low quality mpegs so they may appear pixelated on high quality monitors or to those eagle-eyed people Posted by: netsurf at April 7, 2007 07:52 PM
Will you be posting more Sheep Packs? This has been the only way I've been able to download them. Thanks. Posted by: Gene at April 14, 2007 11:05 PM
ask and ye shall receive: eight new packs are on their way. Posted by: spot at April 14, 2007 11:34 PM
Thank you! Most appreciated. Posted by: Gene at April 15, 2007 04:25 PM
When I go to download the Sheep Packs it says that the folders contain 0 kb and have no files to extract. What happened here? I downloaded one a month or so ago and it worked fine. Posted by: Megan at April 25, 2007 11:21 AM
i don't quite understand. so i've got a sheep pack and it's changed a little since a few days ago...do i just run it whenever i can and it'll start showing real-time sheep eventually? it keeps going through the same few sheep. Posted by: beck. at April 27, 2007 08:36 AM
Does the Electric Sheep in any way follow the rythm of music playing on my comp? Or does the "natural" flow of it just trick my brain into thinking it does? Posted by: marty at April 30, 2007 04:00 PM
Marty, I was thinking the same thing. I concluded that my brain was doing it. But then, the sheep are pretty smart so it could have been the sheep. :) Posted by: logan at May 4, 2007 10:01 PM
Hola Posted by: juanxlink at May 11, 2007 02:45 PM
how do i do this? Posted by: scott bixon at May 11, 2007 06:51 PM
How might one retrieve one's sheep as a bonafide .avi or .mp4 (or something like that)? Posted by: dbfunky at May 16, 2007 12:14 PM
I downloaded this and put it in the folder just fine, but the animations are very short and the don't transition smoothly. Am I missing something? I was amazed by the sample video on the site, but this is just disappointing. Posted by: Logan at May 17, 2007 09:39 AM
I downloaded the electric sheep saver and one of the "sheep packs" but in my application support folder there's no electric sheep folder. I think I'm missing something. Help? Posted by: Salarjak at May 18, 2007 05:31 PM
Excellent Idea.. I get really frustrated the first time i downloaded ES and now it looks pretty usefull from the beggining. Thanks a lot Posted by: reiven at May 18, 2007 07:14 PM
the electric sheep is not in my library Posted by: sam at May 29, 2007 09:08 PM
reminds me of teamsters. if you dont know about that ask sasha shulgin............ Posted by: jc henderson at June 1, 2007 03:51 AM
I dl'ed a pack and am looking for the dir to install into, the one listed on the main page doesn't seem to exist. Posted by: Mike at June 7, 2007 08:12 AM
Whoever thought to put the cache under /windows/system32/ on windows has an unfortunate lack of brain cells. Posted by: Rockoon at June 10, 2007 06:17 AM
random, but does anyone have 81651, or know which sheep pack might have it? i just have a smidgen of it and i wish i had the entire thing thanks! Posted by: chave at July 1, 2007 12:27 PM
wow this sucks! 2 KBit/s for a 100MB file. I have a 7.5 MBit/s connection GET A REAL SERVER! Posted by: brandon at July 12, 2007 02:06 PM
I do not have a clue wat i need 2 do for all this 2 work can some help me PLS..!!!!!!!!!!!! Posted by: JESUS II at July 16, 2007 07:29 PM
yes its great. that was my problem when i first started using the saver. its the best Posted by: Gamil Sawiris at July 27, 2007 10:14 PM
Thanks for making all these packs available, made life so much easier. Just some general notes for people: If you want all the packs, i recommend getting a download manager such as NetVampire, there are many available, then just drag and drop each link into the program and cue them to download one after the other, or 10 at a time if you are lucky enough to have the speed. I don't know if anyone else has tried this, I have a network of pc's here and went 'yeah i want this on all of em' but didnt like the idea of copying the mpg's to each computer, so i dedicated one to be the server, then when it on any other machine i would point to the network location to get the files ie \\computer\drive\sheep and what do you know, it seems to work fine, now all my computers work off the one directory. It great! hope this might help or interest someone. p.s tried to include line breaks in this msg but no luck. Posted by: Daniel at July 31, 2007 06:19 AM
Difficulty using sheep pack "On Mac OS X it's "~/Library/Application Support/ElectricSheep", I don't find a folder named Electric Sheep. Do I need to take the folder I downloaded and unzipped, and rename it to that name? (currently it's called 2439 Also I'm placing this in the library folder at the highest level of the computer, not the users level library. Is this correct? In any case the Electric sheep screen saver can not see the pack I just installed. Mac OSX 10.4.9 Pwbk G4 Thanks! Posted by: wasabi at August 7, 2007 12:28 AM
wasabl, make sure you are in your users Library directory and not the machines Library directory. (that is what the '~' means). Posted by: cingeyedog at August 9, 2007 06:19 AM
I, too, am running OSX. However, I did find the folder in the user's Library directory. After downloading and unzipping the file, I moved it to that location. Nothing was recognized by the screen saver. When I clicked on an individual (.mpg) file, my system said that it is not a valid file--it's a pc file. What gives, any ideas? Posted by: Ellen Thompson at August 15, 2007 10:37 AM
OK, I solved my own problem. Instead of just dragging the folder to the proper place, I dragged the individual files. Voila! How beautiful this is. Thank you for making this available to others. Posted by: Ellen Thompson at August 15, 2007 10:55 AM
i would like to download from electric sheep Posted by: Bev Phillips at August 15, 2007 06:00 PM
Very very beatifull Posted by: Petro at August 18, 2007 03:10 AM
dude this is awesome thanks u for sharing, i thought i was gonna have to wait a couple months for some new visuals.. Posted by: will at August 24, 2007 08:33 PM
Hem I'm french, so my english is not your english. Where I must put the folders (2170, 2171, etc...)? In the folder "D:\electricsheep-cache\mpeg" or in the folder "D:\electricsheep-cache\mpeg\202" with the others folders which have similar name ?? Thanks for help me! Minimus Symplexus. Posted by: Minimus at September 3, 2007 09:29 AM
dude i get 490 to 520 KB/sec on charter pipeline 6mb service. Posted by: Glenn Vandaveer at September 10, 2007 07:56 PM
@Minimus: You want to take all the MPEG files in the folders you're downloading, and put them in your "D:\electricsheep-cache\mpeg" folder directly. That is, when you open "D:\electricsheep-cache\mpeg", you should see a bunch of MPEG files, not numbered folders. Posted by: JAplin at September 11, 2007 04:26 AM
where do you extract the files to on mivrosoft vista?? lz e-mail me i need to know Posted by: Aaron at September 14, 2007 01:30 PM
WARNING: A more paying-attention typa guy would have not made this mistake. My apologies if this seems like a no-brainer: If you are on a Federal computer network, don't try to use Electric Sheep! To them it is a P2P network along the lines with naptster and its ilk, which just doesn't look good, but to the network security goons, this is a big fockkking deal. Don't do it. And Spot, could you make a standalone version which just depends on downloads and does not even attempt to connect to the Net? Then we could load it and our systems would see it as a "benign" program instead of some giant federal security threat. Thanks, I love it! Posted by: Shaymana at September 20, 2007 01:13 PM
@Shaymana Just use windows firewall to block the program's access to the internet. Posted by: Adam at September 23, 2007 10:57 AM
is there such a thing as getting these mpegs in a higher quality? I have seen them in my school computer lab and they are very sharp and i am not getting the same results. What is the deal Posted by: steven walter at September 25, 2007 07:22 PM
@Shaymana: sorry you got in trouble, just turn of bittorrent in the config panel and it will stick to http which is pretty innocuous. and you can turn of http too and then it would be standalone. @steven walter: yes, see hifidreams.com, but it's very expensive. i'm sure your computer lab is getting the same free sheep as you are. but every computer ends up with different subsets of the whole flock, and so play different sheeps, some of which are sharper than others. or could be your screen, who knows? Posted by: spot at September 26, 2007 11:36 PM
Ican't get the electric sheep tp down load I use windows Vista Posted by: Bev Phillips at September 30, 2007 09:27 AM
i'm having problems connecting to the server i've tried to change the ports and everything but i don't know what i'm doing wrong help? Posted by: dredre at October 4, 2007 04:12 AM
I am using mine as a "standalone" version. I have downloaded a few MPEGs and placed them all in the windows\system32\electricsheep-cache\mpeg folder. When I click "Preview" for my screensaver, nothing happens. I am using Windows XP Pro w/ administrator privileges. Posted by: jeff at October 5, 2007 01:43 PM
i downloaded some sheep packs then transfered them into C:\Windows\system32\electricsheep-cache yet the sheep still didn't run when the screen saver started... help me please Posted by: harley at October 8, 2007 03:11 PM
I do not have a clue wat i need 2 do for all this 2 work can some help me PLS..!!!!!!!!!!!! I'v got windows XP, i dnt no wat im doing with the files !?! Posted by: BiggySC at October 20, 2007 07:06 PM
BiggySC: Dude, if you dont get it to work youve probably not followed the instructions correctly. Try again, trial and error is the way to go. And dont spell like a retard, I mean PLS u sound 2 stupid! Posted by: Rymdkakor at October 22, 2007 11:05 AM
The sheep .mpg files go in "c:\windows\system32\electricsheep-cache\mpeg". Don't use any folders inside there, just the actual files. (The download packs have folders inside them; move/copy the files to the mpeg folder.) But leave any folders or other files that are in there, created by the program. Oh, and you might want to greatly expand your cache size; if you don't, many of the files you just copied might go away as fast as you put them there... Posted by: MWPollard at October 29, 2007 10:43 AM
i can't find electric sheep in my aplpication suport folder did i not install the program corectly its runs and i have like 7 sheep Posted by: johnzo at November 9, 2007 02:56 PM
@Johnzo: There is a library/application support folder on the general Mac HD and in your personal user folder. Make sure you're searching in your user folder (should appear under desktop folder in the finder sidebar). If you look there, you should find an electric sheep folder in *that* application support folder. I too only have a few sheep downloaded so far... Now that I've found the folder, I'm going to manually put some sheep in there via the sheep packs. If anybody has any further advice for how to get a Mac to bring in more sheep, let me know (I have azureus but haven't figured out that process yet). Thanks! Posted by: Sorcha at November 12, 2007 06:46 AM
Seems like http://sheepserver.dreamhosters.com/packs is empty.. Posted by: Maako at November 30, 2007 11:30 AM
hey i have had electric sheep on my computer for 5 months now and i fuckin love it but i had a friend of mine bring over one of his friends and he totally deleted and fuck up my sheep so i wus wondering if there is anyway that u can give me a link or something so i can download atll of it over again quickly cuz all the links on ur page rite now are not working thanx alot and i love the sheep Posted by: Keebler at November 30, 2007 12:35 PM
I just d/l sheep.....the first one took 4/5mins..i have hi-speed dsl....then it turned of vista's aero function.....looks good, but I just pulled the plug! Posted by: cloneX at January 17, 2008 04:00 PM
Hmm.. portless (or non-blocked port 80,etc) seems to be the logical for this endevor, no? I have multiple machines and only 1 pinhole to hand out the needed download. OR perhaps they could fabricate a "Sheep Server" that you could cut a hole for and then IT would re-distribute the sheep locally at lightning speeds. My suggestion seems to be more logical than the current implementation. I have 3 machines in my office and NONE can get sheep. Such a shame. Otherwise this is an incredible project!! :) Posted by: KevinMitnick at January 21, 2008 04:44 PM
I am so confused how the fuck do I get these? Posted by: elle at January 27, 2008 06:40 PM
For everyone who doesn't understand what to do I'll try to easily explain it. after you install a sheep pack, unzip it and put all the files into the mpeg folder located at: "c:\windows\system32\electricsheep-cache\mpeg" On vista if you don't know how to get there I'll go step by step. 1.click start 2.click computer 3.click c drive 4.click windows 5.click system 32 6.click electricsheep-cache 7.move all of your files you downloaded into the mpeg folder located there. If you don't see an mpeg folder than simply right click and make one. Now my question if why some of them seem very grainy, and some transitions are slow, whereas in the preview on the site they all seemed very fast and sharp. Also why does it put vista into classic mode whenever the sheep screensaver is selected under personalize, then right after you close it it goes back to normal Posted by: Tyler at February 27, 2008 06:45 AM
I just installed Electric Sheep & downloaded a pack to start with.. But as someone mentionned before, it are all short files without a smooth transition.. Anything to be done about this? My settings are as installed. Posted by: the_gummibear at March 6, 2008 03:04 AM
Just downloaded this awesome stuff and had a question. Where do I find the clinet that allows me to do things like set the cache size. This is shown on the "docs" section of electricsheep.org, but I cannot seem to be able to find this clinet. Could anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks! Posted by: CL at March 8, 2008 05:12 PM
I've got a bunch of mpeg files right in the "c:\windows\system32\electricsheep-cache\mpeg" folder, which I just created myself because it didn't do it automatically, and don't know what to do now. It's not the screensaver, and my computer (windows vista) gives me no option for a personalized screensaver -- it only lets me pick from their options. Posted by: steph at March 9, 2008 04:23 PM
I love these sheep, and can't wait to figure out how to make mine look like the ones i have downloaded :) Posted by: Ty Dupp at March 16, 2008 04:48 PM
Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment Posted by: ahmed salama at April 5, 2008 09:01 AM
This screensaver is awesome, however I have a mac and am having trouble with the sheep packs. The mac is not recognizing the movie files in the packs as pictures and is telling me to add pics to the folder. Has anyone else come across this problem? thanks for any light anyone can shed on this problem Posted by: Chris at April 20, 2008 08:34 PM
wow! im lost in your world. Posted by: chrissi at April 27, 2008 08:42 AM
thanks, the program is pretty awesome. As others mentioned, however, if it is possible in the next version or something, it would be amazing if there was a smooth transition between the sheep. fade, cross dissolve, anything. the abrupt switch over between sheep somewhat detracts from the dream like quality of the images. great work tho, thanks again! oh, and i'm using a mac. the posts about placing the sheep packs in the user library, not the main library were helpful. ty. might want to point that out in the original directions. hope these comments are helpful, not bossy =) Posted by: tad2much at May 13, 2008 06:05 PM
She Hockey! Been a freak for 57 years. Dropped a lot of mind altering stuff. This is the best trip without dropping anything. What a rush. Using S-video to connect to TV and , DUDE, it rocks!!!!! Posted by: Byte Me at June 28, 2008 06:45 PM
ooooo Posted by: pop at July 25, 2008 01:07 PM
ooo Posted by: pop at July 25, 2008 01:08 PM
oooeeeoooahahbingbangwallawallabingbang Posted by: yes at August 11, 2008 08:22 PM
I'd never thought; I ever would have a 12 GB screensaver! Posted by: Nakiel at August 17, 2008 02:27 AM
Welcome to the flock! Posted by: b-chilla at August 24, 2008 08:24 PM
I have all the mpg files in the right folder (~Library/blahblahblah) but it hasnt affected my screensaver. i feel like there should be a lot more sheep now, but there arent! any ideas? Posted by: jaaames at September 12, 2008 12:40 PM
Thank you very much for great ScreenSaver..but very slowly downloading...somebody share this pack on Rapidshare please? Posted by: gokhan at September 14, 2008 12:48 PM
Thank you very much but very slowly downloading now,,,somebody share this packages on Rapidshare please? Thanks & Regards Posted by: gokhan at September 14, 2008 12:49 PM
the screensaver of moi dreams great job and open source too u rock!!! the only prob of note i had somehow another cache dir got started elsewhere on the tree and it ate some space but Ive got gigs and know its there ripe to nuke...love ya;) Posted by: steven at September 19, 2008 06:22 PM
I have windows vista 64 bit, and this just won't work. I had to manuall move the cache folder to the sys32 folder, but my real issue is that ES is not an option when changing screensaver. And when I tell the installer to do it itself, it doesn't do a thing. AFAIK, the screensaver requires an actual screensaver file, and then the mpgs in the cache folder. Where does this screensaver file get installed to, what is it called, and where should it be? Because I have a strong feeling it is not where it should be, otherwise I would at least be able to use electricsheep as a screensaver. Posted by: Mark Wightman at September 23, 2008 03:27 AM
test Posted by: diego at October 4, 2008 06:01 AM
totally confused. there is nothing here to download!!! what am i missing? Posted by: jeffharms at February 23, 2009 11:13 AM
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