Evolving Virtual

Creatures
By: Group-5

Karl Sims
Thinking Machines Corporation 245 First
Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
Introduction

● FOCUS ON CREATING VIRTUAL CREATURES IN SIMULATED 3D WORLD.

● DIFFERENT FITNESS EVOLUTION FOR DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT LIKE

LAND,AIR,WATER ETC

● DIRECTED GRAPHS FOR MORPHOLOGY AND NEURAL CIRCUITS.

● GENETIC ALGORITHM & DARWIN’S “SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST”

● GENOTYPE

● PHENOTYPE
Creature Morphology

● DIRECTED GRAPH OF NODES AND CONNECTIONS.

● EACH GRAPH CONTAIN DEVELOPMENT INSTRUCTION FOR
GROWING CREATURES.
● NODES CAN BE CONNECTED TO THEMSELVES OR IN
CYCLES TO FORM FRACTURE LIKE STRUCTURES.
● EACH NODE CONTAIN INFO. OF RIGID BODY PART.
● JOINTS ARE MADE FOR RELATIVE MOTION.
● DIFFERENT JOINTS : RIGID,REVOLVE,TWIST,BEND-TWIST
ETC.
Creature Control
● VIRTUAL BRAIN THAT ACCEPT
SENSOR VALUES AND PROVIDES
OUTPUT EFFECTOR VALUES.
● WE CAN ASSIGN VALUES TO THE
EFFECTOR SO THAT IT MAY HAVE AN
EFFECT OF PUSH OR PULL. ● SENSORS: JOINT ANGLE,
● EFFECTOR CONTAIN A CONTACT,PHOTOSENSORS
● NEURONS
CONNECTION TO A NEURON OR A
SENSOR FROM WHICH TO RECEIVE ● EFFECTORS
THE VALUE.
Combining Morphology and Control
The genotype descriptions of virtual brains and the actual phenotype brains are both directed
graphs of nodes and connections. The nodes contain the sensors, neurons, and effectors, and the
connections define the flow of signals between these nodes.

Evolved nested graph genotype

● The outer graph in bold describes a creatures
morphology.
● The inner graph describes its neural circuitry.
● J0 and J1 are joint angle sensors, and E0 and E1 are
effector outputs.
● Saw,wav,itp,mem,abs are activation functions of neural
nodes(2 types).
● Dashed node contains centralised neurons that are not
associated with any part.
 The phenotype “brain”
generated from the
evolved genotype

Phenotype morphology generated

from the evolved genotype

The effector outputs of

this control system
cause paddling motions
in the four flippers of the
Phenotype morphology.
 Physical simulation
There are several components of the physical simulation used in this work:
Articulated body dynamics:
Featherstone’s recursive
method is used to calculate the
accelerations from velocities
and external forces of each
hierarchy of connected rigid
parts.
Numerical Integration:
The resulting motion from
these accelerations and is
performed by
Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg
method(4th order
Runge-Kutta). The adaptive
timestep typically 1-5 steps per
1/30 second.
Collision Response:
It is accompanied by a hybrid model using
both impulses and spring forces.
At high velocity, instantaneous impulse
forces are used.
At low velocities, springs are used to
simulate collisions.
Collision Detection:
The shapes of parts are represented here
by simple rectangular solids. Bounding
box hierarchies are used to reduce the
number of collision tests between parts.
Pairs whose world-space bounding boxes
intersect are tested for penetrations, and
collisions with a ground plane are also
tested if one exists.
Friction:
This is applied when the
character is walking/
following on the ground.
Viscous Fluid Effect:
A viscosity effect is used
for the simulations in
underwater environment.
For each exposed moving
surface, a viscous force
resists the normal
component of its velocity,
proportional to its surface
area and normal velocity
magnitude.
 Behaviour Selection
Swimming:
After a certain duration of virtual time (perhaps 10 seconds),
a fitness value is assigned that corresponds to the success Simulation of water
level of that behavior. If a creature has a high fitness relative environment is achieved by
to the rest of the population, it will be selected for survival and turning off gravity and adding
reproduction as described in the next section. the viscous water resistance
effect. Swimming speed is
Walking: Following: used as the fitness value.

Indicates any form of land Adaptively follow a light

locomotion. This environment is
simulated by adding gravity,
turning off viscous water
resistance and adding a static
ground plane with friction.
Speed is used as the selection
criteria but vertical component
of velocity is ignored.
source. Photosensors are
enabled, so effector output
forces and resulting Jumping:
behaviour can depend on
relative direction of the light Jumping behaviour can be
selected for by measuring
source to the creature.
Average speed with which it the maximum height above
the ground of the lowest part
moves towards the source
are taken as fitness value. of the creature.
 Creature Evolution
A new directed graph can be produced by two mating methods, or asexually by using only
mutations.

Mutating Directed Graphs

● The internal parameters of each node are subjected to possible a
alterations and then values are clamped to their legal bounds.

A new random node is added to the graph. This allows the

complexity of the graph to grow as an evolution proceeds.

New random connections are added and existing ones are

removed. Unconnected elements are garbage collected.

Mutation of nested directed graphs, is performed by first mutating the outer graph
and then mutating the inner layer of graphs. The inner graphs are mutated last
because legal values for some of their parameters (inter-node neural input sources)
can depend on the topology of the outer graph.
 Mating Directed Graphs

This permits features to evolve independently and later be merged into a single individual. Two
different methods for mating directed graphs are presented.

1. Crossover operation 2. Grafting

Two genotypes are grafted together by
The nodes of two parents connecting a node of one parent to a node of
are each aligned in a row, another.
with one or more
crossover points
determining when the
copying source should
switch to the other
parent.

Offspring from matings are sometimes subjected to mutations afterwards, but with reduced mutation
frequencies. As this cycle of variation and selection continues, the population is directed towards creatures
with higher and higher fitness.
 Results
Evolutions were performed for each of the behavior selection methods:-
WALKING
LIGHT FOLLOWING SWIMMING - Shuffling or hobbling at high
-Simple paddling and tail speeds.
-Swim or walk towards a light - Lizard-like gaits using corners.
wagging creatures.
source. -Push or pull themselves along,
-Creatures with specialized
-In the water environment, steering inchworm style.
sculling appendages &
fins that turn towards the light using - Leg-like appendages to
flippers.
photo sensor inputs. successfully crawl or walk.
-Multi-segmented
-Others adjust the angle of their -Hopping creatures that raise
watersnake creatures with
paddles appropriately as they and lower arm-like structures.
sinusoidal motions.
oscillate along.
FUTURE WORK To experiment with additional types of fitness evaluation.

Adjusting the genetic language of creatures that could be built as real robots.

Dressing up virtual creatures to give them different shapes and improved rendered looks
such as scales, hair, fur, eyes, or tentacles.

CONCLUSION
● A system has been described that can generate autonomous three-dimensional virtual creatures without
requiring cumbersome user specifications, design efforts, or knowledge of algorithmic details,
Connection Machine® CM-5 in a master/slave message passing model.
A single processing node performs the genetic algorithm. It farms out genotypes to the other nodes to be
fitness tested and gathers back the fitness values after they have been determined.
To prevent idle processors from just waiting for others to finish, new generations are started before the
fitness tests have been completed for all individuals

● A genetic language for representing virtual creatures with directed graphs of nodes and connections.
These methods have potential as a powerful tool for the creation of desirable complexity for use in virtual
worlds and computer animation.