Halloween Scenes projects a looping animation or video against a solid black background — wandering spirits, glowing watching eyes, a jack-o'-lantern, a zombie at the glass, or a Victorian phantom. Point it at a wall, window, or reflective setup and the black surroundings keep the projector's light limited to the image itself.
Before you start
- A projector or a screen you can point at a surface. A wall, sheet, window, or scrim all work; the effect fills a 16:9 rectangle and leaves everything else black.
- A dark room. This is a light source with no ambient-light compensation — competing room light washes out the scene and makes the black background look gray.
- A heads-up if children or unsuspecting guests will see Zombie at the Glass first. Its description warns of a sudden scare and breaking-glass imagery.
- Suitable projection material for a floating illusion. A Pepper's Ghost rig or a translucent scrim, not just open air — the effect only outputs the picture.
Set it up
- Connect your projector (or the display you're using) and open Halloween Scenes on it.
- Choose a scene from the Scene menu: Wandering Spirits, Watching Eyes, Jack-o'-Lantern Séance, Zombie at the Glass, or Phantom Portrait.
- Select Play Fullscreen.
- Use Scale, Horizontal position, and Vertical position to fit the image to your surface, and Mirror horizontally or Flip vertically if your projector throw or reflection setup needs it.
- Dim the room and set Brightness for the surface. It dims only the scene; the black around it stays black at every setting.
- For Zombie at the Glass or Phantom Portrait, turn on Scene sound and set Volume.
You'll know it worked when the scene fills your surface edge to edge with black everywhere else, and — if you turned on Scene sound — the audio plays in sync with the video.
To leave fullscreen, press Escape or move your mouse and select Exit Fullscreen. The controls fade out after five seconds without mouse movement, same as everywhere else on the site.
What each control does
| Control | Range | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Brightness | 0–100 | Overall output. Goes all the way to 0, where the display is solid black. |
| Scene | 5 options | Which animation or video plays: three live animations, two video loops. Hidden while Play is set to Play all or Shuffle. |
| Play | One scene, Play all, Shuffle | Whether one scene loops or the effect moves through every scene by itself. |
| Animated scene length | 15–300 s | How long each of the three animations runs before the next scene. Shown with Play all or Shuffle. |
| Film plays | 1–5 | How many times Zombie at the Glass or Phantom Portrait plays before the next scene. Shown with Play all or Shuffle. |
| Scale | 25–200% | Size of the projected image. Smaller to fit inside a frame, larger to fill a bigger surface. |
| Horizontal position | -50% to 50% | Shifts the image left or right without changing its size. |
| Vertical position | -50% to 50% | Shifts the image up or down without changing its size. |
| Mirror horizontally | on/off | Flips the image left-right — for rear projection or a mirrored reflection setup. |
| Flip vertically | on/off | Flips the image top-bottom — for an inverted reflection setup. |
| Scene sound | on/off | Plays the video's own soundtrack. Only affects Zombie at the Glass and Phantom Portrait. |
| Volume | 0–100% | Loudness of the scene's soundtrack. Only appears once Scene sound is on. |
Play, Animated scene length, and Film plays sit under Playback. Scale, position, and the two flip controls sit together under Placement; Scene sound and Volume sit under Sound.
Play all and shuffle
Set Play to Play all and the effect runs all five scenes in the order of the Scene menu, then starts again. Shuffle plays all five in a random order, then reshuffles. It never plays the same scene twice in a row. Between scenes, the picture fades to black and the next scene fades in over about a second.
- Animated scene length sets how long Wandering Spirits, Watching Eyes, and Jack-o'-Lantern Séance each stay up, from 15 seconds to 5 minutes. The default is 60 seconds.
- Film plays sets how many times Zombie at the Glass and Phantom Portrait each run before the next scene. The default is 2, and each video is about 20 seconds long.
- The panel shows Now playing with the current scene's name. It sits in the panel rather than on the projected image.
- Every cycle includes Zombie at the Glass, sudden scare and breaking glass included. If that scene isn't right for your audience, stay on One scene and pick scenes yourself.
- Scene sound follows the playlist: with it on, the two videos play their soundtracks and the animations stay silent.
- The playlist starts from whatever scene was on screen. Set Play back to One scene and the scene you picked in the Scene menu returns.
At the defaults, one full cycle of all five scenes takes about four and a half minutes.
Common setups
- Wall projection for a party. Wandering Spirits or Watching Eyes, Scale 100, Brightness 70–90, room lights off. The animation reads clearly at normal size from across a room.
- Floating ghost illusion on a scrim or mesh. Phantom Portrait or Wandering Spirits, Scale adjusted to your material's size, Mirror horizontally on if your reflection setup flips the image. Keep Brightness lower than a direct wall projection — reflective and translucent material shows hot spots faster than a flat wall.
- Window facing the street. Watching Eyes or Jack-o'-Lantern Séance, Scale and Horizontal/Vertical position tuned to center inside the window frame, Mirror horizontally on if you're rear-projecting onto film or a sheet from inside, so the image reads the right way round from the street.
- A jump-scare moment at the door. Zombie at the Glass, Scene sound on, Volume 40–60. Warn anyone answering the door in advance — the scare is sudden and includes breaking-glass imagery.
Troubleshooting
A message reading "Playback was blocked" appears in the panel. Your browser blocked audio from starting without a click first. Switch Scene sound off, then on again — the control's own description recommends this — or leave the scene silent.
A message reading "The scene video could not load" appears, and Zombie at the Glass or Phantom Portrait shows nothing. The video failed to load in this browser session. Choose one of the three animated scenes instead, which don't depend on a video file, or reload the page and pick the video scene again. With Play all or Shuffle running, the effect moves to the next scene after a few seconds by itself.
A message reading "This scene needs WebGL" appears on an animated scene. Wandering Spirits, Watching Eyes, and Jack-o'-Lantern Séance render with WebGL; something in this browser has it disabled. Turn on hardware acceleration in your browser's settings and reload, or switch to Zombie at the Glass or Phantom Portrait in the meantime, since those are plain video.
A message reading "The graphics connection was lost" appears mid-scene. The browser's graphics context dropped, usually from another demanding tab or a driver hiccup. Reload the page to restart the scene.
The black background looks gray instead of black once it's projected. The effect outputs solid black around the scene at any Brightness, so lowering Brightness won't change it. The gray is the projector's own black level plus any ambient light landing on the surface. Dim the room further, keep other light sources out of the projector's throw, and try the projector's eco or low-lamp mode.
My Scale, position, and sound settings are back to default after a reload. Nothing on this effect is saved between reloads. Leave the tab open between uses instead of reloading, or note down the values that worked for your setup.
Next steps
For a sudden strobe moment instead of a video jump scare, see Strobe Light. For an ambient dark-room background between scares, try Matrix Rain.