Garrett MaceFeb 16
blinry

I was wondering what would happen if you played Newton Wars (aka Gravitational Combat), but had a full visualization showing you which target/planet you would hit when shooting in that direction with that force!

So I wrote a #glsl shader to figure that out, and it's really pretty! 

This is how it works: If you hover over a red pixel in the diagram, you can be sure you'll hit the red planet! The lightness is how soon you'll hit it.

Feb 13 at 5:31pmWeb
Show threadblinryFeb 13
Here's a similar diagram for where a particle would end up if you just drop it at that point!
Show threadblinryFeb 13
And here's a version of the Newton Wars setup with moving planets, as suggested by @RedGlow!
Show threadDaniel BohrerFeb 13
@blinry woah, cool! Is this as fast as your GPU can render it in real time?
Show threadRedGlowFeb 13
@blinry hypnotic O_O there's something really '70s about it!
Show threadMoss (the τεχie) <(fsm)>{{Feb 13

@blinry
This has strong #theexpanse vibes.

@RedGlow

Show threadJak2k 🏳️‍🌈Feb 14
@blinry What if you do that with relativistic formulas and very high speeds?
Show threadTom LoweFeb 16
@blinry @RedGlow if you reduce the size of the planets it'll probably look more and more complicated. Rather like with magnets: https://fractalfoundation.org/OFCA/magpendattractor.jpg
Show threadewhacFeb 26
@blinry @RedGlow @jwz, call your office... :-)
Show threadchebraFeb 13
@blinry I'm quite sure you know it, but for anyone who doesn't, this coloring technique is the same principle behind the iconic Mandelbrot fractal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9BK--OxZpY
The meaning within the Mandelbrot set

YouTube
Show threadRedGlowFeb 13
@blinry very cool idea and beautiful to see! would love to see what happens to the image as you move the planets :D. chaotic systems are really great :O
Show threadbornachFeb 13
@blinry
Now do that with a spinning banana and gorillas on each planet
Show threadJohn BreenFeb 13
@blinry One day back in about 1995, I was bored and decided to write a small DOS program to render VGA graphics for a planet orbiting a sun.
Rather than simply plotting a circle and rasterizing it over time, I wrote an actual Newtonian physics equation solver for the gravitational pull, and chose mass and distance and angular velocity for the bodies.
I basically tuned the params by binary chop and intuition until I had it semi-stable for a minute, and declared victory !
Show threadGrant_HFeb 13
@blinry the dotted line is the path of the force/ particle?
Show threadblinryFeb 13
@grant_h Of the particle, yup!