portfolio of
D. Ruckson

Neural Network Critter

Press 'A' to switch between evolve and run modes.

This sketch uses an evolutionary algorithm to refine the neural network which drives the critter. The fitness of a creature is the number of food particles eaten after 1000 ticks.

As inputs, the critter receives the distance from each of its antennae (dark red circles) to the closest food particle. It outputs 2 values, one indicating the desired turning force, and one indicating the desired forward force.

Bus-Tops Fluid

This is my submission for the Bus-Tops contest.

Based on Jos Stam's 2003 GDC paper "Real-time fluid dynamics for games".

Fluid Particles 3D

This is a merge of my fluid and bubbles projects.

Mouse move -- Pan
Left click + mouse move -- Move fluid
Right click -- Zoom

Fluid Particles

Move your mouse to stir the particles.

Fluid

This sketch is a representation of the velocity field of an incompressible fluid. The bright regions indicate the faster moving sections of the flow.

Bokeh Tester

This sketch simulates Bokeh for a variety of aperture shapes. The blurred images are convolutions of original images and aperture shape images.

Noise Bubbles

Central Limit Histogram

This is a demonstration of the Central Limit Theorem. I created this test after reading this chapter on random noise generation:
http://www.dspguide.com/ch2/6.htm

Perlin Bubbles

This sketch demonstrates how to override the ZObject class to visualize 3D particle effects.

Perlin Painting

This sketch uses Perlin noise and simulated brush strokes to generate a painting. It's worth letting it run until most of the white parts of the canvas are covered.

Perlin Noise Drawing

This sketch was inspired by Nat Sarkissian's "Visualizing Perlin Noise" sketch, which you can find here:
http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=6707

The technique led to my "Perlin Painting" sketch, which you can see here:
http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=49576

Bubbles 3

Left Click -- Zoom In
Right Click -- Zoom Out
Mouse Move -- Change Perspective

This is the final installment in my Bubbles series. Because of the dependence on the controlP5 library, I had to upload it as an applet. For my most recent HTML5 Canvas version, check out my Bubbles 2 sketch here:
http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=49296

Bubbles 2

Left Click -- Zoom In
Right Click -- Zoom Out
Mouse Move -- Change Perspective

This sketch has been updated! View the newest version here:
http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=49386

This sketch came out of some experimentation I did with parallax scrolling. I came up with my own radial blur system, though I have since found other projects using similar techniques. If you're interested in finding out more about the evolution of this project, an earlier version can be found here:
http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=49284

Sling Prototype

Hold mouse -- Start swinging the sling
Release mouse -- Release the sling

This is a prototype for a sling control scheme I was thinking about. It proved to be very difficult to use reliably.