Hello, Goodbye, Hello Again?
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Julian Hershey
Jan 5, 2017, 12:24:18 AM1/5/17
to Scriptbots
Hello everyone who may still be subscribed to forum updates, or who lurks the internet searching for good simulation programs. If you followed development of ScriptBots back in the day, you should know me as that quirky poster who made a lot of changes to his fork of the project. And then that fork broke for just about everyone but me. And I started implementing Windows-specific code. And then I fixed the brokenness but everyone had moved on already... well, the point I'm trying to make is that I have branched so far away from the original program that I no longer feel what I work on is really ScriptBots anymore. My version is going in a direction that makes it distinct, and different enough to warrant a new forum, a new website, a new start.
So, with the blessings of Mr. Karpathy, I have begun anew. My project is now called Evagents, and tho the name is going to take some getting used to, and the website needs a finer look and videos I have yet to make, AND I'm not quite sure how to use GitHub to it's fullest, the program is finally up and working and out in the world!
It's been a journey, one that is really just beginning. To talk about the differences between ScriptBots and Evagents is to try and describe how water and fire are different. They are literally completely different animals. The basics are the same; we still have little "agents" running around, they try to eat food and reproduce, and they can hunt each other, share with each other, and communicate with each other, but the feature list of Evagents is enormous. So let me attempt to recap the major differences:
* Different art style: Might not seem like much, but from launch our two programs look very different, with Evagents being easier on the eyes with darker backgrounds and more color.
* Load and Save functionality: saving and loading worlds, and saving selected agents. The process is all automated with saves going to a specific folder and special report updating for overwriting saves you loaded from, but the UI is a little lacking, and you have to type file names EXACTLY as they are saved or else things break. But so long as you use standard characters, you'll be good.
* GUI: Using OpenGL's native GLUI, Evagents has a control menu, as well as a right-click context menu with some additional hidden options.
* Settings.cfg: .exe users finally have the freedom to experiment by tweaking world constants, a long-ago requested feature for ScriptBots. Not all constants are tweakable, but many are.
* No direct rewards. This includes the elimination of meat as a distributed event, and the food sensor that simply reported the value of food.
* User interactions: Spacebar Brain input, "wsad" control, force spawn, delete, heal, and reproduce, and fixed follow & selection code.
* Multiple layers: food, fruit, meat, waste/hazard, terrain, temperature, and light. Enabled food spread, MINFOOD, and fertilizer.
* Agent death changes: agent death causes are reported, and agent entities aren't deleted immediately, so carnivores can see potential meat more easily.
* Added many new agent features: Collisions, Jumping, Biting, Grabbing, Sexual Projection, Metabolism, Brain Box Generation Counters (Seeds), backwards-capable Wheels, and Sound and Hearing has been completely reworked, now with both Tone and Volume!
And that is just a minor sample of the full changes.
The project is ongoing still, and tho updates are rare, the GitHub Repo will have all the updates almost as they happen thanks to a personal new work methodology. Expect more frequent changes there, and hey, maybe even try your hand at forking and building something new!
That's all I wanted to say, and honestly unless you subscribe to the new google group over there at https://sites.google.com/site/evagentsproject/discussion, this will be the last time you see anything posted by me here. So I guess this is goodbye. So long, and thanks for all the bots!
So, with the blessings of Mr. Karpathy, I have begun anew. My project is now called Evagents, and tho the name is going to take some getting used to, and the website needs a finer look and videos I have yet to make, AND I'm not quite sure how to use GitHub to it's fullest, the program is finally up and working and out in the world!
It's been a journey, one that is really just beginning. To talk about the differences between ScriptBots and Evagents is to try and describe how water and fire are different. They are literally completely different animals. The basics are the same; we still have little "agents" running around, they try to eat food and reproduce, and they can hunt each other, share with each other, and communicate with each other, but the feature list of Evagents is enormous. So let me attempt to recap the major differences:
* Different art style: Might not seem like much, but from launch our two programs look very different, with Evagents being easier on the eyes with darker backgrounds and more color.
* Load and Save functionality: saving and loading worlds, and saving selected agents. The process is all automated with saves going to a specific folder and special report updating for overwriting saves you loaded from, but the UI is a little lacking, and you have to type file names EXACTLY as they are saved or else things break. But so long as you use standard characters, you'll be good.
* GUI: Using OpenGL's native GLUI, Evagents has a control menu, as well as a right-click context menu with some additional hidden options.
* Settings.cfg: .exe users finally have the freedom to experiment by tweaking world constants, a long-ago requested feature for ScriptBots. Not all constants are tweakable, but many are.
* No direct rewards. This includes the elimination of meat as a distributed event, and the food sensor that simply reported the value of food.
* User interactions: Spacebar Brain input, "wsad" control, force spawn, delete, heal, and reproduce, and fixed follow & selection code.
* Multiple layers: food, fruit, meat, waste/hazard, terrain, temperature, and light. Enabled food spread, MINFOOD, and fertilizer.
* Agent death changes: agent death causes are reported, and agent entities aren't deleted immediately, so carnivores can see potential meat more easily.
* Added many new agent features: Collisions, Jumping, Biting, Grabbing, Sexual Projection, Metabolism, Brain Box Generation Counters (Seeds), backwards-capable Wheels, and Sound and Hearing has been completely reworked, now with both Tone and Volume!
And that is just a minor sample of the full changes.
The project is ongoing still, and tho updates are rare, the GitHub Repo will have all the updates almost as they happen thanks to a personal new work methodology. Expect more frequent changes there, and hey, maybe even try your hand at forking and building something new!
That's all I wanted to say, and honestly unless you subscribe to the new google group over there at https://sites.google.com/site/evagentsproject/discussion, this will be the last time you see anything posted by me here. So I guess this is goodbye. So long, and thanks for all the bots!
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