Up until recently, my nodes simulation had all the nodes colliding with each other with the same force, and each reacting the same way, regardless of size. I've tweaked that a bit now, so a node's size matters when it collides, and so the larger nodes can bully their way around (to some extent) while the smaller ones flit about in between.
It's a little hard to make out in this short GIF, but that's what's happening. Feeling pretty good about these changes!
Oh, and the nodes all look like single-celled organisms now.
Just a quick progress screenshot, showing some minor improvements to this thing.
Now each node draws a line to where it is trying to go, and though you can't see it in the still shot, they all turn much more smoothly towards their goal as they make their way there.
I'm working on finalizing most of the attributes each node will have, as well as how much each can vary to make a node unique. More soon!
I've spent some time working on these colliding nodes some more, and they are better now.
I've tweaked some of the collision variables so that the bumps aren't as harsh, and made them more prone to being pushed around a bit by others.
Each node is a simple state machine right now, where one state is idle (the node appears orange) and the other is actively moving towards a randomly chosen target (the red dots, which are unique to each node).
Oh, and the nodes can bump up against the water surface now too, and leave a little ripple!
Here's another snapshot of the project I'm working on. So far, this is working about as I want - though I left it running for a while just to see what happens, and came back to a massively dropped framerate, so I'm assuming there's something wrong with it.
I've been digging into the actual game-y parts of this project lately... in my notebook.
In the meantime, I've been working on improving my shader skills, and have employed a few of them in the existing parts of this project, which means - you guessed it - another update to my background imagery.
You can't really tell from the GIF, but I'm employing a shader to blur the entire background, since it's not meant to interfere much with the water, which is where the game takes place.
I've also re-worked the clouds once more, adjusting the way the blending works (which is still a procedural surface, created from a few layers of cloud noise adding/multiplying), so it now relies on a shader to blend the alpha, which gives me more control over the thickness and edge definition.
I'd like to add some more functionality to that later, so I can change the cloud coverage on the fly, and maybe add some sort of fakey depth effect. We'll see.
One final note: the speed changes in the simulation shown in the GIF are being done in-game, and not as a post edit. I added a debug button that, when pressed, speeds up virtually everything in the game (save for a few un-pictured elements). I might leave that in as a feature, if it proves useful (and practical to keep) in the final game.
After a couple of days goofing around with this, I think it's in a pretty decent place. It now has dynamic clouds, drawn in 3D, and a moon that has phases!
I might come back and clean things up later, but for now, this is fine. My project doesn't even have anything to do with any of this stuff, it's just for the background!
