Marblemania

Generative form & motion study inspired by marbling techniques like Suminagashi (Japanese style), but also the beautiful shapes and movements of Von Kármán vortices and the space-filling skin patterns of Bornella anguilla (aka the "Circle Packing" nudibranch)...

For this larger parent project of the previously released "Bubblemania" spin-off/giveaway, I was looking to create a piece based on the aesthetics of fluid dynamics, without using any actual fluid simulation algorithms (i.e. Navier-Stokes or flow fields in general). Instead, I focused on re-animating and re-engaging with some of my unfinished soft-body physics experiments, combining them with a multi-layer boid simulation to create hundreds of moving blotches and the vortices moving through them. My hope was that this arrangement would help me to produce something slightly more unusual, with more easily controllable aesthetics. In the end, this approach also allowed me to put several important, but somewhat underused thi.ng libraries to a stress test and prove their approach is sound & scalable. The Art Of Pragmatism...

Like most of my other projects on this platform, Marblemania uses a classic generative simulation system setup: First define the space, parameters, rules, conditions, events, agents, the behavioral & aesthetic framework — then allow the system to evolve over time, constantly applying all defined interactions, constraints and visualize their current state... The piece has over 100 design parameters and interrelations, defined and (painstakingly) refined over several months. Because of the number and complexity of weighted options and their interactions, fx(params) are not enabled for this piece.

I hope the result is as mesmerizing to you as it's been for me! Having stared at these hypnotizing patterns, swirls and animations ten-thousands of times, I like to get lost in them and sometimes even see them with my eyes closed now...

Marblemania is best experienced full-screen (unfortunately, the small static thumbnails are not super representative), but adapts to any screen resolution (even runs pretty smoothly on iPhone 11) and is responsive to touch and/or mouse clicks.

Each minted variation selects 3 themes (from a set of 70) and by default cycles through them, each time deriving new semi-random color choices for each individual shape. Use the key controls below to adjust this behavior.

Keyboard controls

Space : Pause/play animation
1-3 : Select theme (stops auto theme switching)
d : Toggle drops
t : Toggle auto theme switching
x : Export current frame

Made with love & thi.ng/umbrella in 2023. View responsibly :)