TL;DR:
Draw Quickly minigame with 94 subjects to draw.
Symbolic drawing mode where the computer guesses what you're drawing.
Realistic drawing mode where you apply simplification with a reference.
I like to follow the tutorial→challenge→project progression where learning new theory continues to practice and then a creative project where you apply the new knowledge freeform.
The Simplification tutorial is no different and so in between learning abstraction (tutorial) and drawing your own icons (project, coming in the future), I wanted to squeeze in a fun challenge called Draw Quickly.
To keep things black and white, I put it on the Pixeltosh. I can easily imagine how I'd be playing wtih an educational software like this in the 80s.
Symbolic drawing mode is very much like Pictionary, where the computer is trying to guess which of the 10 things you're currently drawing.
Behind the scenes, there's a tiny neural network doing the guessing. It can only recognize 94 items, so it's far from perfect, but good enough for some quick fun.
After you're done drawing things like apples and fish, you can move onto harder things.
It's similar in realistic drawing mode, going from simple to complex drawings.
This time, however, you draw with the help of a reference, each time having less time to draw, so it forces you to simplify and decide which of the lines are the most important.
I prepared references for all 94 possible subjects and I hope you'll have fun discovering them all.
Two devlogs cover the development of this feature, first the neural network training sprint, and then the Draw Quickly one.
Next up I'll have to organize the tutorials a little bit better since there would be too many to display in the portfolio as I add more in the future.
See you then!
—Retro