didt you take a look at some existing game of life code ?

there are a lot of them out there
http://is.gd/qTXO

NoviceMan wrote on Apr 6^th, 2009, 8:04am:


well, you pretty much have it here:
Quote:


which is simply a case of
int rule = new int[256]; // int is way too big, 1 bit will do

then you can either set 26 (ie 10% of 256) random items to 1
for (i = 0 ; i < 26 ; i++) {
 rule[random(255)] = 1; // index might need to be an integer
}
or go through all the rules and set them randomly with 10% chance
for (i = 0 ; i < 256 ; i++) {
// 1 chance in 10
 if (random(10) < 1) {
   rule[i] = 1;
 } else {
   rule[i] = 0;
}

(might be an idea to have a set list of these initially - easier to debug than something that keeps changing randomly)

now for each iteration new[x][y] = rule[v]; where v is the value of the neighbours.

you don't need your n == 1 || n == 2... condition (which won't work anyway!)

um, there's no equivalent in this scheme for the
"   Each cell with two or three neighbors survives.
For a space that is 'empty' or 'unpopulated'
  Each cell with three neighbors becomes populated. "
rules - the new cell appears to depend solely on the value of its neighbours and its current state doesn't seem to matter.

just do it at the same time as you set the value of next[x][y] (i see you were drawing the same time as you are setting, which is probably faster than looping over the array again)

you can either test next[x][y] and set according to that
if (next[x][y] == 0) {
 set(x,y,color(0));
} else {
 set(x,y,color(255));
}
which is flexible or just
set(x,y,color(next[x][y] * 255));
which is faster, probably.

NB this and the next[i][j] have to go in the inner loop in draw(). also, you're using i, j where i was using x, y so you'll need to change that.