Another short test: Isosurfaces and Metaballs
It basically needs a high-res display to look good, but why not trying to do something with it on 16x16 leds…
Read more about the idea behind: https://www.gamedev.net/articles/programming/graphics/exploring-metaballs-and-isosurfaces-in-2d-r2556
Rough test code: https://gist.github.com/StefanPetrick/170fbf141390fafb9c0c76b8a0d34e54
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPm9YURsOk0&feature=youtu.be
Seems like metaballs would be a cool way to model a lava lamp. The FastLED Noise demos did this to some degree, but the metaball concept seems to encourage the attraction of the “blobs”.
Pure “noise lava” as the disadvantage that there are always bubbles appearing from / disappearing into nothing.
But your idea would work well: Have 2 layers of noise moving at different speeds. Constrain the mapping so that there are only some moving dots left. Take this dots as the coordinates for the metaballs. I´ve to admit that this is far beyond my coding skills. But it would certainly work and look good if someone had the skill and time to implement it. @James_Callahan
Sorry, I just realized what I coded here are no real metaballs - it´s just an isosurface representing the disstance of the 3 moving dots to any single pixel…more work in progress…