FIREFLIES · a creek in the bamboo
A creek winding through bamboo on a summer night. Its course is two summed sines; both banks are one terrain lifted around that same centre line — a parabolic channel, a rise to the bank top at the water’s edge, then slopes climbing into hills. The water is a true reflection: the moon, the bamboo tops, the paper lantern on the bridge and every firefly shine a second time in it, shimmering under a few sine ripples. Each firefly traces a slow Lissajous loop around its own spot; all share one flash period with their own phase offset — and every forty seconds those offsets gather and scatter again, so the whole valley slowly falls into step, flashes together, then drifts apart. Gusts roll down the valley through the bamboo. Creek, banks, bamboo, bridge and every firefly path are computed in the browser — no models, no textures.
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Every firefly shares one flash period of about two and a half seconds, each with its own phase offset. That offset is scaled by a factor that rises and falls every forty seconds — when it reaches zero, they all flash together. Synchronous fireflies are real; this is not made up.
The mirror is not cut to the creek’s shape: one sheet covers the whole valley, and the banks that rise above it hide it, so it only shows in the channel — however the shoreline bends, nothing has to be computed twice. The mirror also takes the scene fog, or the far water would glow as a hard line through the haze.
With reduced motion preferred, the fireflies rest at their spots without blinking and the bamboo stops swaying; what remains is still a creek you can drag and zoom.
