Serenity of the Firefly Class

My apologies if you were hoping for an entry on the amazing but canceled-too-early TV show. But if knowing that I am a fan makes you more likely to read this blog post, then that’s awesome. For ICM class, the assignment was to write a program using objects. I designed a sketch with fireflies that dim when they approach your mouse cursor. (Click here if the embedded version doesn’t work for you.)

I am fascinated by randomness as a mathematical concept, and its relationship to the natural world. I used the random() and randomSeed() functions to approximate the the distribution of stars and grass in this scene. I also used the random() function to determine the speed and direction at which each firefly moves. I would have liked to use the actual mathematical model for swarming to determine the movement of the fireflies, but this requires some programming tools (like PVector) that I don’t quite know how to use yet. At some point I would like to redo this sketch with swarming, so it looks more natural.

Here is the main code:

[code lang="java"]Fly[] flies;
 
void setup()
{
  size(650, 650);
   
  flies = new Fly[25];
   
  for(int i=0; i

And this is the code for the Firefly class:

[code lang="java"]
class Fly
{
  float x, y;
  float xSpeed, ySpeed;
   
  color c = color(255, 245, 134);
   
  //constructor
  Fly(int _x, int _y, float _xSpeed, float _ySpeed)
  {
    x = _x;
    y = _y;
    xSpeed = _xSpeed;
    ySpeed = _ySpeed;
  }
   
  void drawFly()
  {
    fill(c);
    ellipse(x, y, 8, 16);
    fill(255, 255, 255, 127);
    ellipse(x+4, y-8, 16, 6);
    ellipse(x-4, y-8, 16, 6);
    fill(0);
    ellipse(x, y-8, 8, 8);
  }
   
  void moveFly()
  {
    x += xSpeed;
    y += ySpeed;
     
    println(frameCount + " " + xSpeed);
     
    if(x > width || x < 0)
    {
      xSpeed *= -1;
    }
     
    if(y > 3*height/4 || y < 50)
    {
      ySpeed *= -1;
    }
     
  }
   
  void dimFly()
  {
    if (dist(x, y, mouseX, mouseY) <=50)
    {
      c = color(126, 120, 3);
    }
    else
    {
      c = color(255, 245, 134);
    }
  }
   
}[/code]