How to Draw a Space Invader

Summary

This is an interactive article. To fully experience it, you'll need to turn JavaScript on. I recently made the Space Invader Generator for Creative Coding Amsterdam code challenge. I made it for fun of course... and galactic domination too! You can see how it looks below and in this post I'll show you how it works using an interactive animation. Here are a few invaders it can generate: While showing friends how it works, I realized the process would look great animated. So I decided to write another interactive blog post. I'll give you some background first, but if you are eager to see the process, feel free to jump straight to the interactive part. How it started # I was working on a new version of Rayven, my vector 3D renderer. Sometimes I get stuck working on tools - they turn into never-ending projects and I never actually use them to create something. At some point I became aware of this pattern, and I think I've gotten better at wrapping projects up, releasing them in one form or another, and moving on. So I thought it would be cool to do a few plots using Rayven instead of endlessly tweaking the renderer itself. I wanted something simple that I could whip up quickly. It would be a meaningful milestone, even if I didn't finish everything I planned for Rayven. Then I thought of Space Invaders. They are small, easy to render with 3D blocks, and instantly recognizable as part of video game history. I did a few renders of the classic space invader and started thinking that it would be fun to generate random ones and create a series of plots. That sounded like a good idea to share as a code challenge. The code challenge # I was pleasantly surprised that people liked the idea. We drafted some rules and the Space Invaders code challenge was on! At the time of writing, the challenge is still ongoing, but once it wraps up, I'll link to all the submissions. I've already seen some works in progress and there is some really cool stuff coming - stay tuned! From doodles to ...