OpenGl Slime Simulation

A physarum slime mold simulation written in C++, that makes use of modern (core 4.5+) OpenGL features.

Inspirations

Originally inspired by a video of SebLague's project Slime-Simulation, this is a very similar project, that substitutes of C# and DirectX for C++ and OpenGl.

Additional credit goes to Jeff Jones, who, I believe, inspired most of these projects with his article (available here) on pattern formation and evolution in physarum simulations.

Also Sage Jenson's variation of this project and it's helpful write up, which can be found here.

Project file breakdown

lib - contains all of the dependencies for compiling main.cpp.
presets - contains different value presets for different program output.
shaders - contains GLSL code shaders that are used at run-time.
glfw3.dll - dynamically linked lib that is required at run-time.
main.cpp - main code file.

Compiling this project

If you don't want to compile this project yourself pre-compiled binaries can be found in the releases page.

Requirements:

lib folder with all of it's contents in compile directory.
glfw3.dll, and main.cpp files in compile directory.
Preferred compiler.

I have tested out compiling this project using g++ in a Windows 10 environment, if you are on a similar environment you can use a simple one-liner from the main.cpp file directory:

g++ main.cpp lib/glad/src/glad.c lib/glfw-WIN32/lib-mingw-w64/libglfw3dll.a -Ilib/glfw-WIN32/include -Ilib/glad/include -o main.exe

If you are not using g++ you will have to compile the code according to your compilers specs. When compiling you have to link against lib/glad/src/glad.c and lib/glfw-WIN32/lib-mingw-w64/libglfw3dll.a, and get their respective include paths right, which are lib/glfw-WIN32/include and lib/glad/include.

Running this project

If you have successfully compiled this project or have downloaded the .exe file you can try running it. Use the following command for it:

./main.exe [presetName]

presetName being the preset file title without the .json file extension.

Technical requirements:

A somewhat recent GPU that can support OpenGL 4.5 core version or later.
Depending on simulation size, enough ram so that the particles can be loaded.

Requirements:

main.exe or differently named main executable file.
presets folder with at least 1 preset.
shaders folder with all of it's contents.
glfw3.dll file.

All of these files should be in the same directory as the executable.

Presets and their use

Preset files are simple .json files, which can be found in the presets folder. They store variable settings, that are used for simulation execution. When running the program the only required argument is preset file name. I recommend using the defaults for the first few runs, then, I encourage you to try changing some values and seeing what changes.

Settings: