Creating a spherical flow field with Perlin noise

In this recipe we will learn how to use Perlin noise with a spherical flow field and animate objects in an organic way around a sphere.

We will animate our objects using spherical coordinates and then transform them into Cartesian coordinates in order to draw them.

Getting ready

Add the necessary files to use Perlin noise and draw with OpenGL:

#include "cinder/gl/gl.h"
#include "cinder/Perlin.h"
#include "cinder/Rand.h"

Add the following useful using statements:

using namespace ci;
using namespace ci::app;
using namespace std;

How to do it…

We will create the Follower objects that move organically in a spherical flow field. Perform the following steps to do so:

1. We will start by creating a Follower class representing an object that will follow the spherical flow field.

   Add the following code snippet before the application's class declaration:

   class Follower{
   public:
   Follower(){
    theta = 0.0f;
    phi = 0.0f;
   }
   void moveTo( const Vec3f& target ){
    prevPos...