Optics

[PurpleYouko]

I know Carlo will hate this but I think color recognition would be a real cool thing to add.
Team it up with a command for changing your own color and it is even more useful.

[Zelos]

it seem to have quite some good feed back. But as I explained before you could change ur Color while you live (with cost of energy depending on how graet the change is) but also that if we have deepth where no light reaches they would be color less, its no use so why waste energy on it then? but then they could glow and other bots could see it. nums a question, could you make it so it follow the square rule like in real life? and do you ppl want it to be square like in pur 3d universe or linear like in 2d that db is?

[PurpleYouko]

Depth would be a great feature to use in pond mode where we already have a light gradient that controls the feeding rate of veggies.

I like the darkness and glowing bots idea in this scenario. It could be combined with color/light vision such that none of the refvars would work in complete darkness and only bioluminescence can be seen.

We can make Angler bots with glowing lures  :D

[Botsareus]

If you wana talk realistic we should have real dna , real protines , real molecules , and 3D. Good Bye Computer speed, have FUN!

 :evil: Bau

[Numsgil]

The depth gradient for eye range isn't terribly difficult.  The harder part is the biolumiescence, because it would tend to be fairly computationally expensive depending on how you do it.

Let me think about it for a bit.

[Zelos]

bot you maniac. sure it would be fun to have those but that is not possible today. maybe in a distant future its possible but now not so dont be so damn ironic.

how do you mean nums?

[PurpleYouko]

The depth gradient for eye range isn't terribly difficult. The harder part is the biolumiescence, because it would tend to be fairly computationally expensive depending on how you do it.

I don't think so.
Just adjust their color towards black as they get deeper by multiplying the base RGB by a depth factor so that beyond a certain level they become all black.
Bioluminescence will just multiply the RGB by another factor, determined by the chosen bioluminescence factor of the robot.
Simple.

Also lets a robot choose to glow red, white, blue, yellow or any pale color.

[Numsgil]

If we assume that all bots cannot be seen further than the 12 bot lengths or whatever that's standard now, then the problem becomes considerably easier.

So the idea is that a bot has a minimal (and maybe maximal) level to detect R,G, and B values?  How do we handle bots that are actually all black?  Are we assuming they're invisible?  Do we calculate a color at a certain depth and have the difference of the bots color to that?

Just thoughts.  I'll admit it would be neat to have a bunch of white dots floating around because the bots are all perfectly blended into their environment.

We'll need a formula that factors in relative motion, color of the bot, background color (which is effected by depth I'd assume), and how sensitive the looking bot's eyes are.  Unless I've missed something.

[PurpleYouko]

Missed something?

I think you may be overcomplicating it.

Here is a simple suggestion. Instead of a bot always seeing what is in its eyes, make it only do so on a percentage basis. On some cycles it will see and on some it won't.
In normal light this will be 100% but as the amount of light reflected or created by the target bot decreases, it is not always seen. At zero light (blends into the background perfectly) it cannot be seen at all.

This system will also allow chameleon bots to blend with the background color at a cost.
A further mod would be to allow bots to boost their vision, allowing them to see better in bad light but worse in full light where their eyes will become saturated.

Opens up quite a few cans of worms really.

[Numsgil]

I'm not much for non-deterministic vision.  I'd vote to decrease range that a bot can be seen as the light level decreases.  Are we having bots have color vision or not?  If bots' vision is black and white it makes some things a bit easier.

[PurpleYouko]

I kind of like color vision actually.
I see your point about the non deterministic vision though.
Maybe sight range should be proportional to the luminosity of the target minus the background light.  (light difference or more accurately color difference)
Use an upper and lower fixed cap to determine if a bot is seen or not.
Allow bots to adjust their own sensitivity to light. ie. shift the working visibility window up or down.

[Numsgil]

That's more or less what I was thinking.  Just need an actual formula to start working from.

[PurpleYouko]

Well all the colors return an RGB value and the bots already have a color property stored in a long variable. Shouldn't be too hard. Add the RGB components Higher numbers make brighter colors.
If memory locations can be changed to long as well then bots can also have a direct color sense too.

[Numsgil]

Changing bot memory to long means alot of incredibly large and pointless numbers.  Which is something I'd rather not even mess with.

Storing R,G and B values seperately might be a better idea.  And then also store a value representing total emitted + reflected light.  Such a value would probably not be larger than 1800 (and that would be a white bot glowing as hard as it can).

[Endy]

Ohh...Pretty Colors.

Seriously I like the idea since it will give me some nice markers to see what is happening. Sort of like using radiation to track cells.