research
camillerouxart, 'Drop the pigment. Let it decide.' (JavaScript + GLSL)
Post by Camille Roux - Generative artist (@camillerouxart), 2026-10-24
What it is, and who made it
Four stills of a real-time pigment simulation: coloured rivulets branch, bead and ring across a gridded paper-coloured ground.
Parts, layer by layer
- Ground: warm paper with a faint grid; palette leads #e5d6bc, #e0d2b8 (M).
- Streams: branching rivulets in blue, red, orange, green, with beads along them and closed rings (O).
- Edges: granular dark rims and lighter interiors (O).
- Measures: spectral slope β 2.64, edge softness 4.55 (M).
- Fluid reading: viscosity, surface tension, diffusion; additive pigment; tide lines and bubbles; processes advection, growth, sedimentation, bleed.
The framework behind it
Capillary flow on paper: pigment moves along wet paths, the path branches, surface tension pinches the stream into beads, and the drying edge leaves a darker line. 'Let it decide' names the method: set the laws and the drop, not the outcome.
The same idea in distant fields
- Viscous fingering in Hele-Shaw cells.
- River networks and leaf venation.
- Lichtenberg figures (branching discharge).
- Wicking in fabric.
Dual edge
Generative pigment flows are easy to mass-produce as decoration; the value is in the laws and the setting. Credit the author's method if we show the idea publicly.
Measured
Image 1
- #e5d6bc 44%
- #e0d2b8 40%
- #4d4f5e 5%
- #c2baa4 5%
- #7e919a 4%
- #c68851 3%
- Mean saturation
- 0.202
- Contrast
- 0.608
- Edge density
- 0.039
- Dominant wavelength
- 0.028
- Edge softness
- 4.55
Image 2
- #dad4c6 50%
- #d4cec3 28%
- #414e7e 8%
- #7284a8 6%
- #bea2aa 5%
- #d44450 3%
- Mean saturation
- 0.16
- Contrast
- 0.612
- Edge density
- 0.058
- Dominant wavelength
- 0.032
- Edge softness
- 3.91
Image 3
- #d9d4c7 69%
- #cbccbb 13%
- #b17f38 5%
- #2b6699 5%
- #cbaf70 4%
- #7eaaaf 4%
- Mean saturation
- 0.17
- Contrast
- 0.563
- Edge density
- 0.04
- Dominant wavelength
- 0.0938
- Edge softness
- 5.48
Image 4
- #eaddcd 42%
- #e6d9c8 38%
- #dd5731 8%
- #d08e72 5%
- #70504a 4%
- #dfb9a1 4%
- Mean saturation
- 0.208
- Contrast
- 0.608
- Edge density
- 0.042
- Dominant wavelength
- 0.0801
- Edge softness
- 4.02
Concepts
- absorbency
- advection
- air
- bleed
- blob cloud form
- chance order
- checking as craft
- city architecture
- code
- colour temperature
- diffusion
- dispersion
- edge softness
- field
- grain texture
- grid
- growth branching
- law coffee ring
- law diffusion
- line hatching
- mixing
- network graph
- noise as signal
- paper
- path stroke
- pigment
- plant
- ring orbit
- saturation hue
- sedimentation
- surface tension
- tessellation
- thread textile
- time as material
- viscosity
- water