Week 3: Fireworks?

Concept
For this project, I wanted to create something that felt alive and ever-changing. I’ve always been fascinated by fireworks and how they burst into these beautiful, fleeting patterns. So, I thought, why not bring that magic to the screen? That’s how I came up with this particle system where colorful dots zoom around and then explode into tiny fragments. It’s like having a never-ending fireworks show right on your computer!  The overall concept is to create a dynamic, self-sustaining system of particles that move, expire, and regenerate. Each particle has its own lifecycle, moving across the screen before exploding into smaller particles. This creates a constantly evolving visual experience that’s mesmerizing to watch.

Code snippet
The part of the code I’m most excited about is the explosion effect. It was tricky to get right, but when it finally worked, it felt amazing. Here’s the snippet with comments:

explode() {
  this.alive = false;
  for (let i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
    // Create 20 small particles for explosion effect
    this.explosionParticles.push({
      x: this.x,
      y: this.y,
      // Random x, y velocity and random size 
      vx: random(-2, 2),
      vy: random(-2, 2),
      size: random(1, 5),
    });
  }
}

This bit of code is where the magic happens. When a particle’s time is up, it bursts into 20 smaller particles, each with its own direction and size. It’s simple, but it creates this really cool effect of explosion.

Challenges
Getting the explosion effect to look good was probably the biggest challenge. At first, the explosions looked too uniform and boring. I had to play around with the random velocities and sizes to make them more interesting. Another tricky part was managing the lifecycle of particles and their explosions. I had to be careful about when to remove particles from the system to avoid memory leaks.

Sketch

Reflection and ideas for future improvements
Reflecting on this project, I have to admit it was really challenging from the get-go. Coming up with a creative idea was a struggle, as it often is for me. I spent a lot of time just staring at a blank screen, trying to think of something interesting and visually pleasant. Even after I finally settled on the exploding particles concept, making it look good was another hurdle. At first, it just looked like a bunch of circles moving randomly around the screen – nothing special. I had to really push myself to refine the visuals and add the explosion effect to make it more engaging.

Looking ahead, I’d like to explore and create more different explosion patterns. Maybe some particles could spiral out, or form shapes like hearts or stars when they explode.