My initial idea was to make a simple self-portrait however after playing around with the options p5 provides, I settled on using 3D shapes to complete my project.
I quickly realized that making a human head would look very odd and uncanny in 3D, so instead I chose to make an animal, specifically a chimp, as it was easier to abstract it into basic shapes.
Most of the structure is composed of ellipsoids. Ellipsoids offered me the most amount of options. Alternatively, I considered using custom geometry however that proved too difficult to create. I also considered using Bezier curves for certain shapes, but the same issue of complexity, as well as their limitation of being exclusively a plane discouraged me from pursuing that route. To shorten the code, I encapsulated the process of drawing an ellipsoid into it’s own function.
// Function to draw ellipsoid with specified colors
function drawEllipsoid(rx, ry, rz, fillColor, translateParams) {
fill(fillColor);
push();
translate(...translateParams);
ellipsoid(rx, ry, rz);
pop();
}
I am happy that I was able to add directional lighting. Without the lighting, I had to display the wireframe of the shapes which made the project look unpolished.
There are many improvements I can make, like tweaking the proportions of the shapes. I really wanted to add a texture file for the fur of the monkey, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it compatible with an online compiler.