Genetic Drifter - Evolved Virtual Creature

Added a tidbit of educational material since the creature itself is not so great.

3DVCE on the web:
http://www.stellaralchemy.com/lee/virtual_creatures.html

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• 3D
• virtual
• creature
• evolution
• genetic
• algorithm
• programming
• simulation
• physics
• artificial
• life
• intelligence
• software
• fitness
• graphics
• population
• animation
• adaptation
• generations
• computation
• morphology
• drift
• functional
• redundancy

[bundangbear]

This is just exceptional!

[kjlg74]

@bundangbear Thanks a lot :) There's a ton more where that came from. By far the best is the one called "End-over-end Worm" watch?v=l-qOBi2tAnI

As for your suggestion to draw you - can do! I've got a few others queued up to be shamanized, so it could be quite a while before I get to it, but consider it in the pipeline ;)

[wo262]

third question :P is there sexual reproduction? i though tournament chose X number of parents. the X ones with the better fitness :S

[kjlg74]

@wo262 There are no sexes but some offspring are produced by taking genetic material from two parents (called "crossover").

The way the tournament scheme works is this: when it comes time to produce a new creature, N individuals are chosen at random from the creatures in the previous generation. The one with the best fitness wins that "tournament" and becomes a "parent" from which to produce a single offspring (2 tournaments if child will have 2 parents).

[wo262]

what is better? slow population with long countdown or huge population with short countdown? i just don't want to wait so much :) and the program crashes sometimes during evolutions so i have to continue it manually

[kjlg74]

@wo262 I wish I knew the answer to that :D

Based on my experience, it seems a really large population (100 to 300, say) with short count-down (say, 1500 cycles) in the early generations, changing later on to a small population with longer count-downs works well - but I can't say with certainty what's the best route.

Sorry about those crashes! I hope I can make the updated version more fault-tollerance and less faulty.

[kjlg74]

@wo262 Sorry for the slow reply.

There are three senses, but none of them is a visual sense. Some kind of very primitive visual sense is something I might try to add at some point.

[wo262]

is there any way of perceive the enviroment? l mean the bumpy terrain. I saw a sensor for touching but not for "seeing" or detecting near surfaces

[kjlg74]

@MrStripyHead There is gravity, and they can die.

If any creature breaks any of its joints, the program kills it. The physics engine I'm using seems to generate "recoil" forces when joints break - this sends one part of the body flying in one direction and the other flying in the opposite direction. If I don't kill them when that happens, they sometimes evolve to deliberately break their joints for the "free" energy. Evolution will abuse loopholes like that if I don't close them somehow.

[MrStripyHead]

@kjlg74 aww i feel sorry for them if theyre not eating :( is there gravity in their virtual world? can they die?