Attached is a slightly better version of my balloons node.

I added balloons to my library in a moment of whimsy. But over the years it has proved surprisingly useful. Not just to make balloons, not just to test colors, but also as a torture test for new nodes.

Balloons produces a complex, arbitrarily long list of geometries that contain both closed and open paths, overlapping in random ways, and colored with subtle translucent overlays. So whenever I make a new node that accepts paths or geometries I eventually feed it a bunch of balloons. If the node can chew on that without exploding, it might just make it into my library.

It had one very minor problem that kept annoying me, though. It required a rectangle to serve as a frame for placing the balloons, and if you didn't provide one, it just sat there doing nothing. If I hadn't used it for awhile I forgot this and then was momentarily baffled by its stubborn refusal to do anything. Then, when I uncovered the problem, I had to make a rectangle and attach it. Not a big deal, but it frustrated my expectation for immediate gratification.

So that's the change. No more required rectangle. Now you just specify the the size of the frame (width, height) and its position. And since I provide default values for these settings, and provide default colors if you don't specify your own list, balloons appear as soon as you place the node.

That's it.

The attached demo shows five different ways of generating a list of colors for your balloons. Each method is different and has its advantages, and each method has enough knobs and wheels to create an infinite number of choices - enough to keep you busy for hours on end. Just change the index on the switch node to step through methods 0 to 4 and then fiddle with each one.

Up up and away!

In the attached