Category: Nature of Code

Midterm project slides link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13r1wf_NEIKu_-h8HkiYReFAtVtd20i-jl1mYi0tkIyk/edit#slide=id.g55106dbcaa_0_47

Assignment link: https://editor.p5js.org/Skye/present/IE8btHsaj

For this week’s assignment, I mainly played around with forces of attractions. At the first place, I wanted to simulate the particles trails around atom. However, at that stage I was not very with the attraction forces as well as all the formulas. So while I was reviewing the class examples, I also found some tutorial online. I found this tutorial very helpful and very much similar to what I wanted to create, so I followed its instructions and tried to build some similar sketch. However, I ran into some problems as the instrumental code is organized in a different way, when I tried compose it by what we learnt in class, it somehow did not work. I spent a lot of time figuring it out and finally created a sketch where the particles are rotating around on central particle. Based on this, I further tried out some interaction. I set a mouse pressed function with which once mouse is pressed, the particles will slightly move apart from original trails and thus create some random patterns (Most of them are in a way very much like daisy flowers for me). 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14MUe64z86mr4gdiMQACXIdw0MqkIuMmnm8qFDVCpqKU/edit?usp=sharing 

When the program started, there will be a large ellipse in the center.

After clicking the mouse, different size ellipses will appear on the canvas at the mouse position. The small ellipses will be attracted by the large ellipse and the attraction is determined by the size of the ellipse.

The ellipses will collide with each other. For the small ellipses, their size will get smaller after each collision. 

Link: https://editor.p5js.org/jz1111/present/m-utJ5G5_

Date: 03.26.2019

For this week’s assignment, I created particles in two environments. My goal is to create a smooth and comforting visual effect with attraction and collision. The particles are affected by stronger friction in the outer environment. They are affected by weaker friction and attraction of the mouse in the inner environment.

The particles are release with a small acceleration, so they are still at first. If multiple particles are generated closely enough, they will fiercely repel each other and make the effect of blasting. The particles repel each other slightly, so they move slowly outwards. Upon collision, the particles will exchange colors, which creates a flickering effect.

Wind is applied when the key board is pressed. The particles are blown upwards.

I wanted to constrain the particles in the environment where they are generated, but I wasn’t able to fix the problem of applying forces and positioning when particles collide with the edge. Interestingly, the visual effect without collision with the edge is more comforting.