GLSLife

2009.01.31 in code

Hey! Following Robb's recent blog post about an implementation of Life as a GLSL shader, I now present to you a Mac OS X screensaver in the same style (using his shader and the original GPULife source).

Screensaver Source

Comments (legacy)

Tim

Watching it near stability is half the fun. Just when you think you are there, a little glider thing comes along and messes up some order somewhere else. It doesn't become uninteresting as fast as you would think.

If you must inject cells, can I suggest adding in gliders? It seems more "natural" that way.

Tim

Sure, sure. But it reaches /actual/, complete stability very quickly. It's not clear why. Adding in gliders is a good idea - I'll do that, too :-D

Tim

Yeahhhh I don't know much about screensaver stuff, I might add options like that at some point. However, you do realize that if it doesn't add more cells, it /will/ die (to a completely stable state) after a (rather short) while? Maybe coming up with a better way to do it would be better. I should look at Robb's...

Rainbow background should be an option, I agree. Next "release", perhaps!

Should make framerate an option too (it /can/ go faster, and it would be nice if it could be slower). And Robb likes scaling (so that each cell is 2 square pixels), etc.

I'll put it in bzr and work on stuff tomorrow or Sunday.

Tim

The trails really add a lot. Its a great screensaver.

But, I don't like the way it randomly adds in more cells. You should have that be an option. And the rainbow background should be an option too.