About the sketch

A thousand raindrops fall through the window. Each drop has its own thickness and transparency, and the thickness decides where it lands: thicker drops hit the ground a little lower, thinner ones a little higher, so that together they draw the outline of a hill. Where a drop lands it makes a splash whose size follows its thickness, and a new drop starts at the top. Every few seconds, at random, a flash of lightning briefly lights the whole picture.

It is a small study in how a simple set of rules can create the impression of weather and landscape without drawing either of them. The sketch is written in p5.js and runs live in your browser; it is a continuation of an earlier rain simulation with the lightning added.

Related experiments: Visualising Digital Dune Winds and the Moon experiment. More in the archive.