SWCharacter Saga

Creating a Character — Stage

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🌐 Environment

Show grid G

Background Color BG Opacity: 100

Show trails

Trail fade: 20 Low = long trail | High = short trail

🔤 Word

Word

Enter or blur

Font family

Letter Color

Randomize

Randomize ON = vivid random colors per letter.
Randomize OFF = all letters use this color.

🏃 Movement

Perlin noise: 0 0 = random walk | 100 = pure Perlin Min speed: 40 u/s Max speed: 150 u/s Speed range applied at each Start. Letters always wrap.

▶ Playback

Each letter gets random speed, spin, and depth-breathe when Start is pressed. Reset returns letters home with fresh colors. Space toggles Start / Stop.

Stage 3a is a focused refinement of Stage 3. The core word-animation idea is the same — a centered word whose letters scatter independently on Start — but four aspects have been improved for a cleaner look and feel.

Changes vs. Stage 3

Grid hidden by default. Press G or use the Show Grid checkbox to reveal it.
Always wrap. Letters cross the edge and reappear on the opposite side (Pac-Man torus). The bounce option from Stage 3 is removed.
Pure random walk. The Perlin noise contribution to angle changes is removed. Perlin's spatial correlation was causing visible "swirly" arcs. Each frame the heading is nudged by an independent random amount:
```
s.angle += random(-0.20, +0.20);
```
Simple, jittery, unpredictable — no spirals.
Slow depth breathe. In Stage 3 the letters were visibly pulsing (0.5–3.0 cyc/s). Stage 3a uses much slower oscillations — 0.08 to 0.20 cyc/s, giving 5–12 second cycles. The amplitude is also larger (20–35 user units), so a letter swells noticeably from small to large and back, like it is drifting toward you and then away.

Letter Color

The Word card now has a color well and a Randomize switch.

Randomize ON (default) — each letter receives its own vivid hue spread evenly around the color wheel, with random saturation and brightness in the vivid range. This is the same behavior as Stage 3.
Randomize OFF — all letters use the single color from the color picker. Changing the picker updates letter colors live without a Reset. Toggle the switch at any time; colors update immediately.

Controls

Start — assigns random speed (40–150 u/s), spin speed (±0.5–4.0 rad/s), base size (50–75 u), and depth-breathe parameters, then launches all letters.
Stop — freezes all letters in place.
Reset — returns letters to their home grid positions and re-applies current color settings.
Space toggles Start / Stop.