Project #2 MORPH GUY

Design Process

Since I was really unfamiliar with coding and p5.js., I thought I could somehow directly embed my sketches into p5. Therefore, I spent a lot of time making those sketches. Initially, I was thinking about drawing nine faces in total. However, I eventually figured out how mistaken I was when I finished the seventh drawing. Elizabeth told me that the sketches needed to be translated into codes in order to be put into p5. For a moment, I felt my world collapsed. How could I translate these sketches into codes? I could barely finish last week’s assignment, and it looked like kindergarten-level work comparing to those of my classmates. There was simply no way for me to utilize the sketches. So I started working based on the example. I wanted to make a character that could express emotions. I added many dynamic elements to make the character look alive, such as the eyebrows, the shifting colors, and the body that I drew inspiration from Kingpin, the villain in Spider-Man. To recreate the oppressive feeling, I made my character’s body size increase significantly with the mouseY value. When the mouseY value is great enough, the character’s body will eventually exceed his head height, generating this intimidating impression.

Reflection

Even though I had such a great example to study from, it still took me a long time to understand the meaning of some p5 language. The problem is that even if you saw me struggling and tried to help me, I simply couldn’t describe the issue because there were too many of them. I don’t even know where to begin. Even though I could ask for things, such as “what should I put here to perform this action?” I would still have more questions after I received the initial answer. I felt there were too many details that could go wrong. Although things did get better, each step took so many trials and errors. In the end, I have to admit that I enjoy playing with my sketch. Generating motions on a character using a mouse is simply too much fun.

Credits

This p5.js project was created based on an example by Nicky Du.