Author Topic: "Rain"  (Read 2942 times)

Offline Zinc Avenger

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"Rain"
« on: November 22, 2006, 10:47:09 AM »
If energy (or, say, photons for plants) is introduced into a sim in the form of a constant drizzle of something like shots which start at the top of the screen, move directly downwards and give energy to the first bot they touch, that might encourage more interesting plant evolution. The current closest equivalent, pond mode, does not allow for "shadows" and tactics for stealing "light" from competitors. This way would encourage plants to grow upwards and outwards, and a multibot would have a definitive advantage over a singleton - a multibot could cover a larger area and grow into a taller structure than a singleton confined to rolling around the "floor". The problem I have always had with pond mode is that the lower regions are always so energy poor that if gravity is introduced the sim is so energy poor little happens. This way, even bots at the bottom of the screen get a decent energy input... as long as there's nothing above it.

This post was rushed because I'm about to leave work, but the idea behind it wasn't

Offline EricL

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"Rain"
« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2006, 01:40:15 PM »
I very much like this concept and fully agree that doing something like this would encourage plant competition.

The problem I have is with the y axis orientation.  We really need a third dimension for this...

I've toyed with the idea of doing this on the z axis, but that does not have the advantages of shadowing, etc.

What if we invented the concept of a light source?  One option would be for top fo the field to be the light source, but one could also or instead add point sources or even non-point sources (I think for flexability and to re-use the code, I'd add the option for one or more shapes to be sources) around in a non-pond mode sim.  They would radiate in a radial fashion and plants could compete for exposing surface area to the radiation.  We could add the concept of burning - I.e. getting too much radiation per unit time has negative effects, perhaps coupled to the new chloroplast .photo concept described in other posts  - so that there would be selection against plants getting too close....
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Offline Numsgil

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"Rain"
« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2006, 02:19:34 PM »
How about taking it a step further and doing a ray trace sort of thing.  It wouldn't need to be as complicated as a real ray trace (with refraction and all that not really necessary).  This way we could have a bot not absorb 100% of incoming light, and have some dribble to the depths below.

Offline EricL

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"Rain"
« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2006, 02:48:53 PM »
Yea, I don't think there is any need to make photons visable (to humans) or even to use a particle model at all for the radiation.  Thus a ray tracing approach is probably best as a means for acheiving shadowing...

Man, I've re-learned more geometry and physics in the last 6 months...
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Offline Jez

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"Rain"
« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2006, 02:57:14 PM »
ooh, ooh, does that mean we get red and green chloroplasts to take advantage of different wave lengths plus scorching and thin and thick cells that absorb differing amounts of light?

Rofl, only joking, it's a good idea, plants don't really get much of a look in when it comes to the evolutionary stakes unless they smoke to much!
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