Dear all,

in January, I have introduced you to Mad Maddy, the girl whose story hasn’t been told yet. What do we know about her identity by now?

She is a city girl.
She lives in San Francisco.
She is a computer geek.
She loves the violin.

Recently my friend Lia pointed Maddy to the song “Madness” by Muse. Her favourite bit of the lyrics is “…some kind of madness has started to evolve”. She can relate to that.

Clio wants her to get a new outfit. I am working on it. Since it is not finished yet, have a look at Clio’s sketch instead.

Mad Maddy was born on 10.1.2015 as a personality created in the programming software “Processing“. The  software is free to download and open source. It is a programming language, development environment, and online community especially developed for the visual arts. Easy to learn and fun to apply.

Originally, Mad Maddy is a creature formed from ellipses, rectangles, triangles, points and lines. I was asked to share the code with you, so everybody can give it a try and make Mad Maddy their own. You will find the code below.

Steps to create Mad Maddy on your own screen:

1. Download “Processing” from the following link https://processing.org/download/?processing. It doesn’t cost a dime. (You might want to take a look at the online tutorial to get the very basics).

2. Start the application “Processing”.

3. Create a new file (processing–> file–> new). That opens the so-called sketch window.

4. Copy the code for Mad Maddy which you find below and paste it into the sketch window. (I have added comments for you to find your way through the programme. Comments are everything written behind “//” or in-between “/*  */”).

5. Press the “run” button at the top left, a little circle with an arrow in it. That will open a new window on which you will see Mad Maddy. (If you want to stop the sketch running, you have to hit the “stop” button next to it, also in the sketch window).

6. Here we go. Mad Maddy has come to life on your own computer and you can start fooling around with the code. Give it a try, change the numbers in the code. They relate either to points on the screen or to colours. Experiment with it. Nothing can go wrong. If you accidentally get rid of Maddy’s neck, shrink her body or discolour her skirt, no problem. The code will stay in this post, so you can start again from scratch.

This is it, the original Mad Maddy Code:

//________START OF PROGRAMME (GENERAL SETUP)

void setup() {
size(600, 600);  //size of canvas
}
void draw() {
background(255); /*background colour_white*/
smooth();
stroke(125);  /*color of body-outline_gray*/
noFill();

//________HEAD

ellipse(300, 150, 100, 100);  /* draw a circle=ellipse for the head*/
ellipse(320, 135, 35, 25); /*eyes*/
ellipse(280, 135, 35, 25); /*eyes*/
fill(0, 150, 150); /*colour of eyes, expressed in RGB colours*/
ellipse(280, 143, 6, 6); /*pupils*/
ellipse(320, 143, 6, 6); /*pupils*/
stroke(255, 0, 0); /*colour of mouth, red*/
line(290, 180, 310, 180); /*mouth*/
stroke(125); /*back to grey, colour of body outline*/
line(300, 146, 300, 160); /*nose*/
line(300, 200, 300, 220); /*neck*/

//________BODY

noStroke();
fill(100, 100, 100, 191); /* colour of body, 75% transparent*/
rectMode(CENTER);
rect(300, 300, 60, 160); /*draw a rectangle for the body*/
fill(140, 0, 30); /*colour skirt*/
rect(300, 390, 60, 40); /*skirt_inner_rectangle*/
triangle(270, 370, 270, 410, 240, 410); /* draw a triangle for the left side of the skirt: skirt_leftTriangle*/
triangle(330, 370, 330, 410, 360, 410); /*skirt_rightTriangle*/

//________LEGS AND ARMS

stroke(125);
line(270, 410, 240, 450); /*leg_left*/
line(330, 410, 360, 450); /*leg_right*/
line(270, 270, 250, 310); /*arm_left*/
line(330, 270, 350, 310); /*arm_right*/

//________HAIR

line(300, 100, 300, 110); /*hair_middle*/
line(300, 100, 290, 110); /*hair_left*/
line(300, 100, 285, 105); /*hair_left_left*/
line(300, 100, 310, 110); /*hair_right*/
line (300, 100, 315, 105); /*hair_right_right*/

//________MADDY’S COMMENT ON HERSELF

println(“Hi, I am Maddy, I have no idea, who I am”);
}

//________END OF PROGRAMME

In the comment section below you can let me know, if you have tried it for yourself. If yes, send us images of your variations of Mad Maddy via our brand-new instagram account (#WhatIfMadMaddy) or upload them on our tumblr account.

Happy coding,

Barbara