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Nathan Fennel

Realistic Murmuration

Thousands of starlings over a reservoir at golden hour — rendered live on your GPU with raymarched volumetric clouds, a twilight atmosphere, and reflective water

Murmuration — At the Reservoir
Live

A real-time GPU rendering: volumetric clouds, twilight atmosphere, reflective water, and a three-dimensional flock of 1,500 starlings. Watch for the falcon — the flock folds and scatters when it dives.

Auto quality: Ultra · ~60 fps — adjusts itself to keep motion smooth

Classic 2D simulator

How this is rendered

  • Clouds: raymarched 3D fractal noise with sun light-marching, Beer's law absorption, and forward scattering
  • Sky: an analytic twilight atmosphere — drag the sun below the horizon and stars fade in
  • Water: a planar reflection with rippled normals, Fresnel blending, and sun glitter
  • Flock: a true 3D boid simulation — each starling tracks about seven nearest neighbours, the way real ones do