This is a lava lamp "simulation" I designed using cell automation.
Why? Because all the other ways of animating a lava effect I could find online were either:

• Just moving metaballs up and down with no interaction or
• A full on houdini VFX sim which is not going to run in realtime.

I had a few requirements for it, it needed to:

• Have cold wax collide with hot wax rather than merging with it (the physcial movement of the wax is what makes these lamps cool to watch). It also needs to be sufficiently blobby.
• It has to run in realtime.
• The simulation needs to run indefinitely without getting stuck.

I've more or less got 1 and 2 down but I'm still working on 3.
In it's current state it's not very performant and will chug on mobile. I plan to eventually remake this in 3D and I'll need to write some shader code for it so wish me luck! haha
I think it's pretty cool to just chill and watch, which is why I have it up on the website. Enjoy! :D

Wax Hot Color:
Wax Cold Color:
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