This was coded with lots of arrays and classes. The particles are emitted from your mouse (like drawing) and they are positively charged. So the + signs repel and the – signs attract. The mouse itself repels when it is not drawing particles. I might add some updates to this later.

If you just hold the mouse down in a fixed spot, you can see the path visualized by a stream of particles. The moment you let go, they burst from your mouse.

Preview:


To view, visit this link:

http://shnitzelkiller.deviantart.com...cles-117543484


Flash player is great, so if you want no lag, just download it. (attached).

EDIT: Fixed a bug where it would lag after a while even if the particles died (arrays still grew and took up cpu).




Or have this alternate trail-leaving version:



NEW!

in this version, the lag bug is fixed completely and the attractors / repellers move.

I like it.

would be cooler if mouse didnt repel, and the particles had a longer lifetime :P

Its cool to make little paterns and stuff, but as soon as you un-click they all go to shit

Ok, I'll give you another download without that, then.

Here, the particles don't die, and the mouse doesn't repel.

Here's an alternate version in which they leave trails and also never die:

http://shnitzelkiller.deviantart.com...-ver-117595222

The second version is just addicting to watch at!

Latest version is awesome!

Ok, here is another idea, how about making a single particle, that has a trail that fades out, and having the mouse attracts strongly.
Then make it so the charges move around, and so they are invisible, so the particle just floats around randomly, but will chase your mouse!

Say, that is a great idea I'm still debugging it... until I am sure there are no more lag bugs, keep waiting. I will try your idea for now.

Edit: After much hair loss, I am quite certain I have fixed the lag bug for good. now I'll try moving those attractors, which should be quite easy. In fact, I think I might be able to make the attractors attract each other... but then you'd just end up with a cluster of chaos.

Edit edit: Yep, they can move. So how do you want them to move? Brownian motion, or just random starting velocity and bouncing off walls? Or user control?

Edit edit edit: Here it is.

This would make a really cool screensaver if you can get it to automatically generate particles at different points to bounce around

Totally awesome still though. favorited on deviantart.

That's how it used to be. i thought it was an improvement to be able to draw them insead :P