Brief
Students will start by picking a single UN Sustainable development goal and find a related statistic within the context of Aotearoa. Subsequently, students will construct a narrative that is expressed through a sequence of images.
Working through an abstract lens, students will animate geometric primitives and produce an animated GIF through scripted means.
Project Setup
This project was really fun to do. This write-up will include my process toward my final GIF with pictures along the way.
Learning Processing 3
Our lecturers intended for us to use Processing 3 to display our narrative. Processing is a visual coding program that uses Java. As my conjoint is with Computer Science, I was already familiar with a lot of the thinking behind coding; however, the coding style in Processing was one that I had to learn. Here are some of the critical features I learned throughout my time working on this project. I had never touched on any of these before in my Computer Science degree. Some of these features I studied and then declined to use in my final code.
keyPressed function / key variable
Rotation/translation of shapes
Using push/popMatrix to isolate rotation/translation of shapes
Vectors for physics
Working with classes/functions/loops concerning displaying graphics
Due to my experience, I was happy to help people and had a few fellow students send me direct messages for feedback.
Statistic Research
The outcome of this assignment is a geometric gif that represents a statistic. I needed to find both a subject and a statistic I was passionate about to produce my best work.
We were encouraged to look at the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to start. I found an interactive wheel set up for 2017 SDG stats. This wheel helped me better understand the core parts of each goal and its progress.
While looking into the statistics, I was also considering what might be fun and unique to design. The previous submissions showed us subjects around water, composting, and animals. I thought it might be rewarding to create something around greenhouse gases, so I found my statistic:
The transport sector currently produces 47% of CO2 emissions.
I retrieved this statistic from Stats.NZ and Transport.NZ, both official NZ government sources. Stats.NZ is our official data agency and Transport.NZ is our government’s lead on transport. The data comes from Ministry for the Environment, and we can source it back to NZ’s interactive Emissions Tracker. This website contains an official annual report re-calculated every year. On the Stats.nz page, they say the work is a part of the environmental reporting program of Stats.nz and the ministry.
I thought that it would be interesting to iterate designs around gas and vehicles using just geometric shapes. It feels challenging, but I’m up for it!
Iteration
During the process for this assignment, I had never felt more comfortable with iterating, brainstorming, and implementing feedback. I usually saw this task as a chore and wanted to get to creating. However, as I felt comfortable with coding, it was a good part of the process.
Sketch iteration
I got a lot of really great feedback about the direction I was going. People I spoke to preferred simplistic, dynamic, straightforward concepts. There was a lot of helpful discussion around my chosen statistic and how I would display it. I wanted to ensure that my subject matter came across well in my GIF.
From these concepts, I concluded that my dynamic iterations were received the best by my peers. I created a practice GIF to test my skills.
Storyboard iteration
Concept 1 Concept 2
I brainstormed concepts with two people: My TA (Concept 1), and y peer Jed who took the class last semester (Concept 2). In both ideas, I wanted to show how CO2 emission is linked to transport. It doesn’t exist before the wheel rolls and disperses when it stops. I was also encouraged by many people to include the wheel design to link it to my subject. However, I wanted to keep it abstract, so I simplified it in the storyboard. Later on, I implemented a design to demonstrate the wheel rolling.
People preferred concept one over concept two, so I worked with the first one.
Coding
I ran into many obstacles while coding. My main two were dispersing the ‘gas’ from the wheel and the second ‘gas’ dispersing after the wheel rolls away. I used many resources to help me code: The Coding Train on YouTube, my experienced coding friends, my lecturers and TAs, and googling.
First gas code hurdle
Second gas code hurdle
I didn’t take any screenshots of my GIF during this hurdle, as they all looked messy. I did take a lot of screenshots of the code and recorded the few methods I tried. I tried:
Reworking an attraction/repulsion particle simulator from The Code Train to move circles instead of particles.
Writing a class that ran a ‘pop’ effect.
Adding transparency to the cloud circles to make them fade away at different frame points.
The last idea worked well, so I stuck with it. I tinkered with a wheel rolling code that fits into my GIF then ended up with this final result! It loops with each run of the code and is very satisfying.
Due to the randomness of the GIF I ran it a bunch of times and asked my peers which black shape looks the nicest. I decided to go with shape three.
The Final
Statement of Intent:
I wanted to demonstrate how our transport sector produces 47% of NZ’s CO2 emissions with this GIF. Our government currently has plans to reduce our emissions from road transport by at least 60% by 2050. However, in the present day, the percentage is still high, and I wanted to reflect on our impact.
The gas emitted by the wheel hits the bounds of the space and blooms into a large, nasty cloud. The cloud doesn’t cover 47% each time due to the randomness of the spread to make it more natural. Once the wheel stops its emissions and rolls away, the cloud disappears. The GIF then repeats, and multiple wheels continuously create the cloud shape.
I wanted to show our transport’s contribution to the otherwise clean space and how it can quickly get out of hand. I also didn’t want to blame the individual - demonstrated by the looping and the initially small emissions from the wheel. A lot of learning, brainstorming, and iterating went into this piece.