Individual Life Form

This project is an artificial life simulation in which the life form starts out as a single cell which is given random DNA. The cells then multiply and pass on their genetic code to new cells but mutate the DNA slightly each time. I really like the visuals of this project because it is so beautiful: the colors and the way the organism unfolds is really inspiring. Besides being mesmerizing to look at, the idea of creating artificial life forms is also intriguing. The project could be more interesting if the different life forms that were created were able to interact somehow, i.e. if they could combine cells to form new organisms. It looks like the project was created for a creative coding source at a London university, which is pretty inspiring since this means that it’s a student work and something which is possible for a student like me to create.

Bozork Quest: In Search for the Lost Stroompang

This project is an exploration of “real-time ray marching distance fields” which are used to procedurally generate the world that an abstract character can explore. The scene is created solely using parametric distance functions, and no traditional graphics polygons are used in creating it. The abstract character can explore the world and modify it by spewing out or eating the terrain. I think this project is really cool because it’s exploring a new way to display computer graphics, departing from the traditional methods. The final effect of this procedurally generated world looks really interesting and beautiful. The project could have been more effective if the creator had explained it more. I wish instead of the kind of distracting background hum, the creator had been talking over the demonstration, explaining more in detail how it works and what “real-time ray marching distance fields” even are/how they differ from normal computer graphics methods. Also, the creator often opens up an interface to tweak parameters of the world or character, and it would be useful to know what exactly he’s doing when he does this since it’s not always apparent from the immediate effect on the environment. Something interesting I found when researching the background of the project is that it is created with a modified version of openFrameworks.