Strange attractors guide

Three looks

Each picture below was made in Strange attractors. The table under each one is the whole recipe; everything not listed stays as the page opens. The shapes turn and grow all the time, so yours will differ in the angle and the detail.

Pick the attractor first: picking one sets Distance and Step size (dt), so change those after.

Halvorsen by age

One glowing yellow-white line that loops three times around a centre, wrapped in an orange haze, on a dark ground — The Halvorsen attractor in Age colours, with a light glow.

Halvorsen folds into three loops around a middle. In Age colours the newest part of the path is the brightest and older parts turn darker and redder, so you can see which way the path is going. Here the loops lie close together and the glow adds them up, so the line burns yellow-white inside an orange haze.

Setting	Value
Attractor	Halvorsen
Max points	20000
Distance	45
Steps per frame	100
Point size	0.5
Color	Age
Bloom strength	0.15

Raise Bloom strength and the knot turns into a soft ball of light.

Chen in one colour

A long, thin diagonal shape of stacked violet loops of dots on a dark ground — The Chen attractor in a single violet, with a short trail.

From this angle, Chen is a long, thin shape of stacked loops. One colour and a short trail of 10,000 points leave the loops thin enough to see apart.

Setting	Value
Attractor	Chen
Max points	10000
Distance	120
Steps per frame	60
Point size	0.5
Color	Solid
Color	#7a5bff
Bloom strength	0.2

Raise Max points and the middle fills in until it turns white.

Rossler, drifting

Rings of cyan and blue dots circling a bright white centre, with a few strands streaming off to the lower right and scattered green, blue and orange squares drifting away, on a dark ground — The Rossler attractor in Velocity colours while its parameters drift.

Rossler is a flat spiral with one loop that leaps out and folds back. With Drift the parameters on, its constants keep changing, so each new loop takes a slightly different path.

The fastest parts of the path, where it leaps out, are drawn in warmer colours.

Setting	Value
Attractor	Rossler
Max points	30000
Distance	85
Steps per frame	60
Point size	0.5
Bloom strength	0.2
Drift the parameters	On
Speed	0.5

Turn Drift the parameters off and the shape settles where the drift left it.