Last week I mentioned that I had a few improvements to make to Loxodromes. Here’s a video with the new changes; try to see if you can spot them when compared against last week’s video:

Finished? Here are the changes:

• Loxodromes are now thickest in the middle, and taper at both ends, rather than tapering from full with at one end to zero at the other.

• Due to the previous change, the audio pulses now start in the middle of each loxodrome, and spread out to both ends simultaneously. Consequently, the visual impact of the pulse is largest right when it starts, as each mirrored copy is right next to each other. As the copies travel down each end of the loxodrome, they get thinner, and a gap appears between them, reducing the visual impact. The net effect cuts down a lot on perceived delay between the audio and the visuals.

• The particles have lower initial velocity, and their upwards acceleration is slower. This keeps the particles in the shape of the ribbon for a little bit longer, which gives a neat highlight effect. The slower acceleration and velocity also makes it seem a bit more like smoke.

I’m pretty happy with the appearance of the loxodromes, at least for the moment. What I’m still playing around with is the behavior of the particles. My goal is for the particles to behave similarly to smoke, but I have no idea if that’s feasible or not. We’ll see!