变脸怪 (Face Changing Monster)
Description
The second project explores the idea of generative art and parametric design. In this project I mainly played with the generative geometric forms of faces.There are some issues I met in during the design and coding process which lead me to scale down the final results in a simplier form, but there still exist some kind of bugs but due to the lack of knowledge I could not solve for now.
Design Process
When I first started to think about the design, this interactive form reminded me of Bian Lian in Peking Opera. Bian Lian, which could be translated as face-changing is a special skill used in the art of Sichuan opera to shape characters. It is a romantic technique to reveal the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters in the play. Sichuan opera puts Bian Lian on the stage and to make it a unique art.
The Sichuan Lian Pu has so many different forms and every part of the design of it, such as colors and the arrangement of certain shapes have different meanings. I think these can be all trabnsferred to geometric languages to use for generative form.
At first I was thinking about making every part of the faces interactivable but it gets very complicated when I tried to match them up to the right combinations. So I decided to start from the easy part. I want the faces to be able to change by clicking so it looks like a gif logo.But after simulating on the ipad and coding some little examples out I figured that it would be too hard to control and make everything work so I decided to scale down the difficulty level and change my idea.
Instead of making the actual face masks used in the opera, I decided to build something cuter, and I thought about Pokemon faces. They are perfect for the interactive here.
After picking out a few faces that I would like to use for the project, I decided to use mouth clicks to make them keep changing. For the Pikachu specifically, I decided to make his face more lively with his eyes changeable by moving around the mouse. But I used a graphic for the mouth part which is unable to change by moving.
To add some more interactive functions I decided to have a Pokemon ball showing uo at the end as to "capture" the Pikachu. The problem is that the pikachu face wouldn't disppear and it's simply hidden behind the ball. So when you move the mouse on the ball interface the face may still showing out of the ball image which I did not able to solve tge problem.
Reflection
I found that there are a lot of "uncertaintoed" in generative design in which I mainly have to try to see what it would be like. Maybe it's because my lack of practice or unfamiliarity with the skill. But it it really fun. to play with these "unknowns."
The generative form itself gives strong interactiveness to the project. I think more ideas could be made by simply just playing with it and see how it goes. I would still like to try to see if the Lian Pu idea could be made in the future since I think it is a very graphic idea.
Reference
Bian Lian: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.maxxelli-consulting.com%2Fface-changing-in-sichuan-opera%2F&psig= AOvVaw1vWr6NcfzQ1dHSLCDgxiKc&ust=1608286344864000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCLiA7dbj1O0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
Pokemon Faces: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffi.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F707980003910793415%2F&psig=AOvVaw0PXz99CV7 AG_FXT6ysMgtX&ust=1608286266654000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCOCo6bHj1O0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
Pokemon Ball: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sohu.com%2Fa%2F386902117_100126326&psig=AOvVaw1XD_ZeRim_cjba_9CehU gi&ust=1608286414568000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCNjXp_Xj1O0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD