The particles will react to your touches, and the orientation of the phone. Swirl them around; toss them against the edges of the screen. Watch them fall towards the ground or float towards the sky. Flip a switch and they will swarm towards your finger. There are tons of different combinations. There will be something for everybody!

Thank you for looking, and supporting quality unique software. It's our pleasure to continue developing Pulsar, as well as more fun and funky interactive visual programs in the near future.

Controls

-Launch the program, and touch the "Start" button on the title screen. Pulsar will randomly load one of the five stored preset patches.

-Double tap the screen to bring up the settings panel. Fifteen sliders and two buttons appear for total control over parameters.

The Sliders

• Type : Change which image is used for the sprites. Currently there are 57 varieties, from symbols to stars to fighter jets. There are two "Type" sliders, each controlling half of the total particles.
• Gravity : Control the effect of real-world gravity. When turned up (to the right), the particles will fall toward the floor. When turned down (to the left), the particles will float upwards away from the floor. No matter which way you orient the phone, the particles will respond. When in the middle, the particles will not use the accelerometer sensors at all.
• Explosiveness : How fast the particles fly when they are created.
• Spin : How much the particles can rotate over their lifespan. (When the Orient button is activated, the spin control is disabled.)
• Particle Count : Increase or decrease the overall number of particles.
• Size : Control the overall size range of the particles. This refers to their size when they are formed.
• Lifespan : How long the particles live. Should they burn out quickly, or continue to fly around for a while?
• Growth : Make the particles grow large (slider to the right), or shrink (slider to the left). Or leave the slider in the middle, and they will stay the same size as when they are formed.
• Edge Behavior : This slider controls what the particles do when they hit the edge of the screen. The possibilities are: A-Bounce off the edges. B-Wrap around to the other side of the screen. C-Stall (come instantly to a stop). D-Just fly off the screen.
• Palette : Select from 85 unique color combinations.
• Trails : When all the way to the left, the particles leave no trails. In the middle, they leave a trail that fades away. When all the way to the right, the trail will stay forever.
• Color Mode : 4 possible settings. A-Particles recieve random color from the current palette. B-Particle color changes as the size changes. C-Color determined by the particle's angle. D-Color determined by type.
• Blend mode : Determines how the particles are visually blended with existing particles. There are five different settings here. A-No blending. B-Additive Blend (brighten). C-Darkening Blend. D-Desaturate Blend (less color). E-Inverse Blend (negative colors).
• Background Color : Select one of over 300 possible background colors.

Also on this settings page are two buttons. The "Done" button will take you back to the program. The other button takes you to the second page of settings.

There are two more particle controls on the second page:

• Orient : Tells the particles to orient their angle towards the direction they are moving. When this is enabled, the particles will point in the direction they are flying, like an airplane. Disabled, the particles will spin around as determined by the "Spin" control on the previous page.
• Attract : When enabled, the particles will be attracted to your finger, instead of flying away from your finger. This can make some cool swarming and flocking effects.

On the second page of the settings panel, you can load and save your creations into 5 preset slots. These come pre-loaded with some of our favorites.

When you find a combination of settings you like, simply press one of the five "Save" buttons, and your current patch is instantly saved in that slot. To recall your patch, just hit the load button and the program is instantly back at your cool patch.

While on the main program screen, there are two randomization functions available.

• Randomize all controls : Touch with one finger. Then, while continuing to hold that finger down, touch another finger to the screen. This will randomize all parameters, for a totally unique patch! Continue to randomize until you find a combination you like.
• Full auto mode : By simultaneously touching with two fingers at the exact same time, the program goes into "full auto mode". In this mode, Pulsar will randomize one parameter per second, keeping the display in an ever-changing state. When in full auto mode, a tiny "A" appears in the corner of the screen, to remind you that it is activated. To leave full-auto mode, repeat the "two fingers at once" touch.

Pulsar is designed with the idea of exploration in mind. There is no particular goal or result to achieve, other than the enjoyment of tweaking parameters to make something that looks cool.

There really isn't much that can go wrong with Pulsar. It is heavily tested to use as little memory as possible, and shouldn't have any possibility of crashing. There are however certain times when problems can arise.

• Accelerometer doesn't respond (particles don't react to real-world gravity) : For whatever reason, the iPhone can sometimes lose contact with its accelerometer sensor. In hundreds and hundreds of test runs, I have only seen this once. Restart your phone to fix.
• Program exits unexpectedly : Like any iPhone app, Pulsar needs a certain amount of memory to run. Sometimes the iPhone memory can become fragmented or used up, especially if the phone has been turned on for long periods of time. Restart the phone to flush the memory. In fact, this is good practice for the phone anyway, and will probably help many other application that seem to quit unexpectedly.
• Application sometimes has a low framerate : Some settings of Pulsar may result in slight slowdown of the phone. We decided that was okay, because we want YOU to have total control to really push the processor if you want. Similarly, some settings may result in a totally black, or white screen. Some settings may be totally ugly or totally rad, just like the possibilities on a music synthesizer. The beauty is that YOU decide which is which!
• Got a suggestion on how Pulsar can be enhanced or improved? Hit us up at: spacefillingcurve@gmail.com