In the last couple of months I’ve watched some videos of Achievement Hunter’s Let’s Play Minecraft videos where were some encounters with Endermen. I was really fascinated by these creatures since they can teleport, demand respect, mysterious, etc.
I have been “playing” with LaTeX, especially with LuaTeX, recently, and I wanted to make a 3D-like picture. So I have chosen tikz‑3dplot and LuaTeX to draw an Enderman. (I think this is totally drawable with pure TikZ (syntax), therefore compilable with pdflatex, etc., but I found making this using LuaTeX much more simple.)
Image source (left): File:Enderman normal.png – Minecraft Wiki
My drawing (right) is not accurate by many aspects, but I’ve achieved what I wanted.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 | % Enderman % Author: István Szántai (szantaii) \documentclass{article} \usepackage{luacode} \usepackage{xcolor} \usepackage{tikz} \usepackage{tikz-3dplot} \usepackage[active, tightpage]{preview} \PreviewEnvironment{tikzpicture} \setlength{\PreviewBorder}{1cm} \definecolor{endermanblack}{HTML}{000000} \definecolor{endermangray}{HTML}{161616} %\definecolor{endermanpurple}{HTML}{CC00FA} %\definecolor{endermanlightpurple}{HTML}{E079FA} \definecolor{endermanpurple}{HTML}{FF9EFF} \definecolor{endermanlightpurple}{HTML}{FFC9FF} \definecolor{particlecolor}{HTML}{DF4AF8} \begin{luacode*} function draw_coordinate_system() tex.sprint("\\draw[white!50!gray,thick,->] (0,0,0) -- " .. "(3,0,0) node[text=white!50!gray,anchor=north east]{$x$};") tex.sprint("\\draw[white!50!gray,thick,->] (0,0,0) -- " .. "(0,3,0) node[text=white!50!gray,anchor=west]{$y$};") tex.sprint("\\draw[white!50!gray,thick,->] (0,0,0) -- " .. "(0,0,3) node[text=white!50!gray,anchor=south]{$z$};") end function tikzcube(x, y, z, color) --[[ \draw[fill=red] (0.5, 0.5, -0.5) -- (-0.5, 0.5, -0.5) -- (-0.5, -0.5, -0.5) -- (0.5, -0.5, -0.5) -- cycle; \draw[fill=red] (-0.5, 0.5, -0.5) -- (-0.5, 0.5, 0.5) -- (-0.5, -0.5, 0.5) -- (-0.5, -0.5, -0.5) -- cycle; \draw[fill=red] (-0.5, -0.5, -0.5) -- (0.5, -0.5, -0.5) -- (0.5, -0.5, 0.5) -- (-0.5, -0.5, 0.5) -- cycle; \draw[fill=red] (0.5, 0.5, -0.5) -- (-0.5, 0.5, -0.5) -- (-0.5, 0.5, 0.5) -- (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) -- cycle; \draw[fill=red] (0.5, -0.5, -0.5) -- (0.5, 0.5, -0.5) -- (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) -- (0.5, -0.5, 0.5) -- cycle; \draw[fill=red] (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) -- (-0.5, 0.5, 0.5) -- (-0.5, -0.5, 0.5) -- (0.5, -0.5, 0.5) -- cycle; ]] local cube = "" cube = cube .. "\\draw[ultra thin, fill=" .. color .. "]" .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- cycle;" cube = cube .. "\\draw[ultra thin, fill=" .. color .. "]" .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- cycle;" cube = cube .. "\\draw[ultra thin, fill=" .. color .. "]" .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- cycle;" cube = cube .. "\\draw[ultra thin, fill=" .. color .. "]" .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- cycle;" cube = cube .. "\\draw[ultra thin, fill=" .. color .. "]" .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", -0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- cycle;" cube = cube .. "\\draw[ultra thin, fill=" .. color .. "]" .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", 0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(-0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- " .. "(0.5 + " .. x .. ", -0.5 + " .. y .. ", 0.5 + " .. z .. ") -- cycle;" tex.sprint(cube) end function draw_head(x_pos, y_pos, z_pos) local color for x = x_pos, x_pos + 7, 1 do for y = y_pos, y_pos + 7, 1 do for z = z_pos, z_pos + 6, 1 do if (x == x_pos or x == x_pos + 7 or y == y_pos or y == y_pos + 7 or z == z_pos or z == z_pos + 6) and not (x == x_pos + 7 and y > y_pos and y < y_pos + 7 and z == z_pos) then if x == x_pos + 7 and (y == y_pos or y == y_pos + 2 or y == y_pos + 5 or y == y_pos + 7) and z == z_pos + 2 then tikzcube(x, y, z, "endermanlightpurple") elseif x == x_pos + 7 and (y == y_pos + 1 or y == y_pos + 6) and z == z_pos + 2 then tikzcube(x, y, z, "endermanpurple") else if math.random(0, 8) < 6 then color = "endermangray" else color = "endermanblack" end tikzcube(x, y, z, color) end end end end end end function draw_bodypart(x_pos, y_pos, z_pos, x_length, y_length, z_length) local color for x = x_pos, x_pos + x_length - 1, 1 do for y = y_pos, y_pos + y_length - 1, 1 do for z = z_pos, z_pos + z_length - 1, 1 do if x == x_pos or x == x_pos + x_length - 1 or y == y_pos or y == y_pos + y_length - 1 or z == z_pos or z == z_pos + z_length - 1 then if math.random(0, 8) < 6 then color = "endermangray" else color = "endermanblack" end tikzcube(x, y, z, color) end end end end end function draw_particles(x_min, x_max, y_min, y_max, z_min, z_max) local x local y local z local black_amount local particle_size local particle_scale local particle_count = math.random(30, 40) local particle for i = 1, particle_count, 1 do x = math.random(x_min, x_max) y = math.random(y_min, y_max) z = math.random(z_min, z_max) particle_size = math.random(1, 8) particle_scale = math.random(20, 100) / 100 black_amount = math.random(0, 25) tex.sprint("\\tdplottransformmainscreen{" .. x .. "}{" .. y .. "}{" .. z .. "}") for i = 0, particle_size - 1, 1 do for j = 0, particle_size - 1, 1 do if math.random(0, 1) == 0 and ((i ~= 0 and j ~= 0) and (i ~= particle_size - 1 and j ~= 0) and (j ~= particle_size - 1 and i ~= 0) and (i ~= particle_size - 1 and j ~= particle_size - 1)) then particle = "\\filldraw[black!" .. black_amount .. "!particlecolor, tdplot_screen_coords] (" .. i * particle_scale * 0.25 .. "+\\tdplotresx, " .. j * particle_scale * 0.25 .. "+\\tdplotresy) " .. "rectangle +(" .. particle_scale .. "*0.25, " .. particle_scale .. "*0.25);" tex.sprint(particle) end end end end end function draw_enderman(x_rotation, z_rotation) tex.sprint("\\tdplotsetmaincoords{" .. x_rotation .. "}{" .. z_rotation .. "}") tex.sprint("\\begin{tikzpicture}[tdplot_main_coords]") math.randomseed(os.time()) draw_bodypart(3, -2, -30, 2, 2, 30) -- right arm draw_bodypart(3, 1, -42, 2, 2, 30) -- right leg draw_bodypart(3, 5, -42, 2, 2, 30) -- left leg draw_bodypart(2, 0, -12, 4, 8, 12) -- body draw_bodypart(3, 8, -30, 2, 2, 30)-- left arm draw_head(0, 0, 0) -- head draw_particles(-10, 10, -10, 10, -44, 10) -- draw_coordinate_system() tex.sprint("\\end{tikzpicture}") end \end{luacode*} \begin{document} \luadirect{draw_enderman(70, 130)} \end{document} |
Copy the code, save with UTF-8 (without BOM) encoding, and compile using lualatex.
lualatex filename.tex
Update ~16:00 CEST on 21 July 2014:
Yesterday I’ve sent in this code as an example for TeXample.net. I got an answer from the site maintainer including a small improvement suggestion, namely that I should try algorithmize the drawing of a single (TikZ) cube (instead of concatenating a bunch of strings and make the TeX engine do the calculations). So I did, see the code below. (More details below the code.)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 | % Enderman % Author: István Szántai (szantaii) \documentclass{article} \usepackage{luacode} \usepackage{xcolor} \usepackage{tikz} \usepackage{tikz-3dplot} \usepackage[active, tightpage]{preview} \PreviewEnvironment{tikzpicture} \setlength{\PreviewBorder}{1cm} \definecolor{endermanblack}{HTML}{000000} \definecolor{endermangray}{HTML}{161616} %\definecolor{endermanpurple}{HTML}{CC00FA} %\definecolor{endermanlightpurple}{HTML}{E079FA} \definecolor{endermanpurple}{HTML}{FF9EFF} \definecolor{endermanlightpurple}{HTML}{FFC9FF} \definecolor{particlecolor}{HTML}{DF4AF8} \begin{luacode*} function draw_coordinate_system() tex.sprint("\\draw[white!50!gray,thick,->] (0,0,0) -- " .. "(3,0,0) node[text=white!50!gray,anchor=north east]{$x$};") tex.sprint("\\draw[white!50!gray,thick,->] (0,0,0) -- " .. "(0,3,0) node[text=white!50!gray,anchor=west]{$y$};") tex.sprint("\\draw[white!50!gray,thick,->] (0,0,0) -- " .. "(0,0,3) node[text=white!50!gray,anchor=south]{$z$};") end function matrix_scalar_multiplication(matrix, scalar) local rows = #matrix local cols = #matrix[1] local tmp_matrix = {} for i = 1, rows do tmp_matrix[i] = {} for j = 1, cols do tmp_matrix[i][j] = matrix[i][j] * scalar end end return tmp_matrix end function shift_coordinates(matrix, array) local matrix_rows = #matrix local matrix_cols = #matrix[1] local array_length = #array local tmp_matrix = {} if matrix_cols == array_length then for i = 1, matrix_rows do tmp_matrix[i] = {} for j = 1, matrix_cols do tmp_matrix[i][j] = matrix[i][j] + array[j] end end return tmp_matrix else return nil end end function tikzcube(x, y, z, color) local side_1 = {{1, 1, -1}, {-1, 1, -1}, {-1, -1, -1}, {1, -1, -1}} local side_2 = {{-1, 1, -1}, {-1, 1, 1}, {-1, -1, 1}, {-1, -1, -1}} local side_3 = {{-1, -1, -1}, {1, -1, -1}, {1, -1, 1}, {-1, -1, 1}} local side_4 = {{1, 1, -1}, {-1, 1, -1}, {-1, 1, 1}, {1, 1, 1}} local side_5 = {{1, -1, -1}, {1, 1, -1}, {1, 1, 1}, {1, -1, 1}} local side_6 = {{1, 1, 1}, {-1, 1, 1}, {-1, -1, 1}, {1, -1, 1}} local cube_sides = {side_1, side_2, side_3, side_4, side_5, side_6} local tex_cube = "" for i = 1, #cube_sides do tex_cube = tex_cube .. "\\draw[ultra thin, fill=" .. color .. "] " local current_side = matrix_scalar_multiplication(cube_sides[i], 0.5) current_side = shift_coordinates(current_side, {x, y, z}) local current_side_rows = #current_side local current_side_cols = #current_side[1] for j = 1, current_side_rows do for k = 1, current_side_cols do if k == 1 then tex_cube = tex_cube .. "(" end tex_cube = tex_cube .. current_side[j][k] if k ~= current_side_cols then tex_cube = tex_cube .. ", " else tex_cube = tex_cube .. ") -- " end end end tex_cube = tex_cube .. "cycle;" end tex.sprint(tex_cube) end function draw_head(x_pos, y_pos, z_pos) local color for x = x_pos, x_pos + 7, 1 do for y = y_pos, y_pos + 7, 1 do for z = z_pos, z_pos + 6, 1 do if (x == x_pos or x == x_pos + 7 or y == y_pos or y == y_pos + 7 or z == z_pos or z == z_pos + 6) and not (x == x_pos + 7 and y > y_pos and y < y_pos + 7 and z == z_pos) then if x == x_pos + 7 and (y == y_pos or y == y_pos + 2 or y == y_pos + 5 or y == y_pos + 7) and z == z_pos + 2 then tikzcube(x, y, z, "endermanlightpurple") elseif x == x_pos + 7 and (y == y_pos + 1 or y == y_pos + 6) and z == z_pos + 2 then tikzcube(x, y, z, "endermanpurple") else if math.random(0, 8) < 6 then color = "endermangray" else color = "endermanblack" end tikzcube(x, y, z, color) end end end end end end function draw_bodypart(x_pos, y_pos, z_pos, x_length, y_length, z_length) local color for x = x_pos, x_pos + x_length - 1, 1 do for y = y_pos, y_pos + y_length - 1, 1 do for z = z_pos, z_pos + z_length - 1, 1 do if x == x_pos or x == x_pos + x_length - 1 or y == y_pos or y == y_pos + y_length - 1 or z == z_pos or z == z_pos + z_length - 1 then if math.random(0, 8) < 6 then color = "endermangray" else color = "endermanblack" end tikzcube(x, y, z, color) end end end end end function draw_particles(x_min, x_max, y_min, y_max, z_min, z_max) local x local y local z local black_amount local particle_size local particle_scale local particle_count = math.random(30, 40) local particle for i = 1, particle_count, 1 do x = math.random(x_min, x_max) y = math.random(y_min, y_max) z = math.random(z_min, z_max) particle_size = math.random(1, 8) particle_scale = math.random(20, 100) / 100 black_amount = math.random(0, 25) tex.sprint("\\tdplottransformmainscreen{" .. x .. "}{" .. y .. "}{" .. z .. "}") for i = 0, particle_size - 1, 1 do for j = 0, particle_size - 1, 1 do if math.random(0, 1) == 0 and ((i ~= 0 and j ~= 0) and (i ~= particle_size - 1 and j ~= 0) and (j ~= particle_size - 1 and i ~= 0) and (i ~= particle_size - 1 and j ~= particle_size - 1)) then particle = "\\filldraw[black!" .. black_amount .. "!particlecolor, tdplot_screen_coords] (" .. i * particle_scale * 0.25 .. "+\\tdplotresx, " .. j * particle_scale * 0.25 .. "+\\tdplotresy) " .. "rectangle +(" .. particle_scale .. "*0.25, " .. particle_scale .. "*0.25);" tex.sprint(particle) end end end end end function draw_enderman(x_rotation, z_rotation) tex.sprint("\\tdplotsetmaincoords{" .. x_rotation .. "}{" .. z_rotation .. "}") tex.sprint("\\begin{tikzpicture}[tdplot_main_coords]") math.randomseed(os.time()) draw_bodypart(3, -2, -30, 2, 2, 30) -- right arm draw_bodypart(3, 1, -42, 2, 2, 30) -- right leg draw_bodypart(3, 5, -42, 2, 2, 30) -- left leg draw_bodypart(2, 0, -12, 4, 8, 12) -- body draw_bodypart(3, 8, -30, 2, 2, 30)-- left arm draw_head(0, 0, 0) -- head draw_particles(-10, 10, -10, 10, -44, 10) -- draw_coordinate_system() tex.sprint("\\end{tikzpicture}") end \end{luacode*} \begin{document} \luadirect{draw_enderman(70, 130)} \end{document} |
I have added two new functions (matrix_scalar_multiplication, shift_coordinates), and rewrote the tikzcube function, so now the LuaTeX engine makes all necessary calculations instead of the TeX (TikZ?) engine which is considerably slower. Let’s see the numbers.
I’ve measured the compilation time of the original and the improved code. I made 20–20 “dry” compilations (no previous aux, log or pdf files). The average compilation time of the original code was 25.35 seconds while the improved code’s average was only 18.30 seconds. This means that the improved version is 25% faster than the previous one. Stefan, thanks for your suggestion!