Rain simulator for pluviophiles

Can you go into more detail about the raindrop "simulation" on the window? I love the idea, but it seems like they larger drops are just moving random distances at random times, clearing a path as they go.

That's a nice first approximation, but it would be cool to put some real dynamics in there. For instance, I noticed they are not "absorbing" droplets as they fall; if a smaller droplet rolls over a bigger drop, the bigger one just disappears. Also, the movement for smaller drops should be initiated when another small drop randomly falls into the surface. This should be a poisson process, and I could be wrong but I feel like that's not what's being used here. Lastly, the distance a drop will roll should depend on how "dry" the path is that it travels, although that one seems pretty hard to simulate!

If you like this sort of thing, don't miss Andrew Plotkin's procedural soundscape generator, Boodler; the one-hour summer storm is particularly epic. (Pocket Storm is also now available as a standalone iThing app.)

It's at http://boodler.org/.

Oh man, as a southerner stuck in California, I cannot tell you how much I miss rain. And especially thunderstorms[1].

(if you want a few recommendations) I love how the drops wipe away the moisture on the "window"; in my experience the droplets won't fall perfectly straight: they get perturbed by the smaller droplets on the window (what they're wiping away). Subsequent drops in the "tracks" left by earlier drops will fall faster, since there aren't any smaller droplets to hold them up. They also speed up as they get bigger, and wind will cause them to move together.

Can I get a thunderstorm?

Also, thank you — I'd long forgotten the name of the song and the artist; I'd been looking for "Primavera" by Ludovico Einaudi [2] for a while now. (another Ludovico Einaudi piece was on the page)

[1] I would have never guessed that a place "couldn't" have thunderstorms; I've been in Silicon Valley for four years now, and there's been barely anything that passes for a thunderstorm. (For anyone in the bay area going "we have thunderstorms, sometimes!"… it isn't the same.)

I've occasionally wondered if people in the south aren't more religious because the weather (the south has thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, the bay area has… lots of sun.) isn't literally putting the fear of God in them.

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmxFAT581T4

I mean in `animateDrops` you check if `timestamp - lastExecutionTime Because of this the motion is jittery, updating at about 1/3 the rate of smooth video and 1/6th the rate our eyes can perceive.

That's why I built Storm Sim. It's in the App Store.

It dynamically generates the audio based on the samples you select and in advanced mode you can adjust the variance, frequency, looping, etc.

I made two huge mistakes based on bad assumptions (it was my first iOS app)

1: that you wouldn't want to edit the storm while it was playing. I have the code working now to do live updates and should be releasing it soon.

2: that people would care more about the audio than a fancy UI since you spend the vast majority of the time listening (not looking). Boy was I wrong! I still haven't gotten a good designer to help me tidy it up.

If you like it don't buy IAP in the free version - you can get the same stuff for $4 cheaper in the paid version.