Wolfire Development Blog - Part 3!

Post by **David** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 4:39 pm

Renegade_Turner wrote:The silly gyrating motions probably did it. Like GaGrin touched upon in his post, it kinda looks like he's got ants in his pants or something.

Oh no, you figured out my secret animation technique!

GaGrin · Post by **GaGrin** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 4:43 pm

So THAT'S what I've been missing!

Zantalos · Post by **Zantalos** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:51 am

It looks like you created a rag doll body to randomly move and twist its body then had it remember what it did exactly to move the farthest distance and then taught it what to remember so it could repeat the best movements it made for better results and then you had it do this for 100 hundred times until it got to generation 100. You did this for 100 separate individuals.

I have heard of people animating a crawl movement, but I have never heard of creating a program to teach itself how to crawl. This is amazing, like, wow are you going to do the same thing to teach it how to do things like rolling and tumbling? It's so cool, like something out of a science fiction novel how you teach your game how to animate themselves. This is going to blow people minds when they see this. They evolve, that's so unbelievable, so awesome, how!

Post by **David** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 10:22 am

If you are interested in this idea you should check out Karl Sims' virtual creatures. He did some groundbreaking work in this area back in 1994, but I haven't seen much other related work since then.

Post by **David** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:57 pm

I posted on the blog about another game-related project I was working on.

Chainsaw man · Post by **Chainsaw man** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:24 am

I would watch it, but even Images are hell trying to veiw on this peaceC Crap (Dial up hells doing my head in...) I would watch a vidio, but Its gonna be a few hours I dont have to veiw it.

its something to do with Life like animation? Please go into the further Detail about it?

Makrond · Post by **Makrond** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:39 am

Essentially, it's a shoulder-joint ragdoll, with ligament restraints, so it cannot move beyond normal capacities.

It seems a little loose to me, but I suppse with solid muscle surrounding the shoulder it would look significantly more natural and realistic.

Zantalos · Post by **Zantalos** » Sun May 04, 2008 7:52 pm

Thanks for the link David. Those virtual creatures are so cool. It doesn't seem realistic at all that someone can program creatures that evolve their own behaviors and mutations but here it is. I think the most awesome part is that he says it can be even easier to evolve creatures to accomplish tasks than to design creatures manually. Man, the swimming creatures were so cool in that video.

Post by **David** » Wed May 07, 2008 7:22 pm

I made another video with some more evolved behaviors.

WingedWolf93 · Post by **WingedWolf93** » Thu May 08, 2008 12:12 am

Hahaha! Nice work david!

Renegade_Turner · Post by **Renegade_Turner** » Thu May 08, 2008 4:53 am

Hahaha the first bit looks like someone having a bad nightmare.

What's the premise of this evolved movement thing, David? I don't understand what it's supposed to be for. What's its purpose?

Sartan · Post by **Sartan** » Fri May 09, 2008 10:42 am

Renegade_Turner wrote:I don't understand what it's supposed to be for. What's its purpose?

Seriously? Put it this way. But for a few differences, what that poor flailing mannequin is doing is what babies do.

Renegade_Turner · Post by **Renegade_Turner** » Fri May 09, 2008 1:09 pm

Thanks for the ambiguous answer!

This is why I specified a person to whom I was asking the question.

invertin · Post by **invertin** » Fri May 09, 2008 1:20 pm

I don't understand either. David already has walking/running animations that look really realistic. Maybe it's for the ragdoll part of the game? Instead of just collapsing like L1 they'll writhe and try to fight back?

I dunno. Just throwing out ideas.

WingedWolf93 · Post by **WingedWolf93** » Fri May 09, 2008 1:22 pm

Agree...