Rectangular shapes in simulation 
Submitted by poly on Tue, 2021-12-21 12:13

I am wondering if there is a way to create creatures similar to those of Carl Sims or Lee Grahams creatures “Purple Jumper” and “Stand up Centipede” . Those creatures consists of rectangular shapes of different size and proportion. So I was trying to use solid shapes with ODE, but when simulating them, it looks like the pivots of the shapes getting offset. Also tried to export the rectangular shapes but in the exported file, they changed back to cylinders.

However, it is only possible to use sticks for now, it would be great if you could give a hint how to evolve creatures similar the Lee’s mentioned above. Maybe they exist already in a gene pool?

Many thanks!

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Submitted by Maciej Komosinski on Tue, 2022-01-11 16:37

Hello! Here are some answers and comments:

  1. “Purple Jumper” and “Stand up Centipede” – can you provide some links to them? They seem to be insufficiently famous to be easily found based on their names only :)
  2. “...solid shapes with ODE, but when simulating them, it looks like the pivots of the shapes getting offset.” – what makes you think so? Can you provide a specific example?
  3. “...tried to export the rectangular shapes but in the exported file, they changed back to cylinders.” – it is possible because the exporter may not support solid shapes (yet). What exporter did you use?
  4. “Maybe they exist already in a gene pool?” – download version 50rc20 (or newer) and play with the creatures from solid-shapes.gen: http://www.framsticks.com/apps-devel

Submitted by poly on Tue, 2022-04-12 18:37

Thank you for your reply!

  1. Sorry for not specify them clear :) here is a link: https://vimeo.com/6002758 , at time: 44:30. The worm at 38:38 is nice too.
  2. When the shapes rotate or move, the center point seems to get offset and they are not staying in their original position. This happens with all examples I tried.
  3. I’ve used the export to blender pipeline.
  4. The examples look rather different.
Maciej Komosinski's picture

Submitted by Maciej Komosinski on Wed, 2022-05-25 22:19

Four answers again :)

  1. Unfortunately, vimeo will not allow to watch this video without having an account ("Video is not rated. Log in to watch.")
  2. "This happens with all examples I tried." – you mean, with your own examples, not with the ones from solid-shapes.gen? This may be because you are not using properly all the fields required – hx, hrx etc. See the specification of Part and Joint in f0s.
  3. Oh yes, the blender script is not perfect and ignores Part shapes, maybe some good soul will update it :)
  4. "Rather different" – you mean compared to the vimeo video? Sure, they are our examples, completely unrelated to this video. I mentioned them to help with designing your own creatures – these examples demonstrate how to properly set up Parts, Joints, hinges, and control neurons, and how they work together.