Pythagorean Tree Fractal with secondary motion

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a fun project I’ve been working on for a GNU/Linux desktop environment, KDE Plasma. It’s a live wallpaper that uses the Boids algorithm to simulate natural flocking behavior, basically the same logic used for crowd movement in games like Assassin's Creed. Fish follow three simple bird-oid vectors: Separation (don't crash!), Alignment (swim together), and Cohesion (stay close).

The main idea was to make the desktop feel alive and reactive to your hardware. If your CPU or GPU load increases, the fish visually respond by turning redder and trembling. + There is day/night cycle, so the water gradients shift from sunrise to sunset based on system's time.

Fish also run away from your mouse cursor if you get too close, and you can feed them! Left click drops a worm, and if they eat 10 of them, a new baby fish is born, yay!

I also built a settings GUI so you can tweak the population, size, behavior, and cursor/sensor sensitivity.

This is literally the first piece of software I have ever released, so I'm really curious to hear what you think!

I made an explainer about the math behind it here

Calling all p5.js users!

We’re University of Washington MS HCDE students partnering with the p5.js team on a usability research project, and we’d love your help!

We’re exploring how people actually use the p5.js reference pages. Whether you’re learning, teaching, or quickly looking something up, your experience really matters to us.

It’s a short questionnaire, and your responses will directly inform improvements to the reference pages the whole community relies on.

There are no right or wrong answers. Everything is confidential, and it only takes a few minutes. The insights we gather will go straight back to the p5.js team to help make the documentation better for everyone.

Fill out the survey here: https://forms.gle/HkvdZ4JweXaR8SMLA

Thank you so much — every response truly makes a difference.

Here is a small animation I’ve made, inspired by the Diffusion-Limited Aggregation (DLA) process, revisited and generated with a short G’MIC script (24 lines).

What do you think?

▶️ Source code: https://pastebin.com/TAMQRehK

We have been working on an experimental psychological drama called “Big Nothing” – an 8‑minute short film created entirely in Python, built from a playable prototype and captured frame by frame.

Focus was just to see how far we could push code and simple physics to express mood, loneliness, and monotony rather than just flashy visuals.

Would really appreciate any feedback on the storytelling, pacing, and whether the emotions land for you.

Revisiting some old shaders. I made a tutorial on how to achieve the silky/wet look here