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News New download and project page 06-2005
Picture: Virtual Life lab at 'Viva la Evolucion' symposium (12/5/04) Welcome The Virtual life lab studies biological phenomena through computer simulations. In these simulations, populations of autonomous agents evolve in artificial ecosystems. By this methodology, we try to gain insight into various issues such as
open-ended artificial evolution,
emergent group behaviour, competitive co-evolution, evolution of cooperation, and biosemiotics. As a research platform for these simulations, we mainly use Framsticks. Framsticks is a versatile 3D artificial life simulator that allows the evolution of both agent morphology and neural control system. It facilitates the simulation of evolution in populations of articulated individuals that can be structured into artificial ecosystems. For more detailed information about our projects, see our projects pages. The virtual life lab is located at Utrecht University, in collaboration of the Department of Philosophy and the Institute for Information and Computing Sciences. The activities at the lab are coordinated by Robbie Veldkamp and Walter de Back. Don't hesitate to contact us for information or comments. Old news... Virtual life course 2005 for CKI 18-2-2005 General information about the course is available (pdf, dutch). Software 2.0 Extra! 7-12-2004 The Framsticks Deathmatch Challenge will be featured in the software magazine Software 2.0 Extra! in a issue about game development. In our article "Fight for your (a-)life", we draw attention to the use of A-life instead of AI in developing Non-Playing-Characters (NPCs). Because it seems to us less important to have intelligent NPCs, than it is to have life-like NPCs. Deathmatch v3.2 is released 7-12-2004 The energy scheme is much fairer (promoting active creatures), and the visualisation is improved a bit. Simulation Center 7-10-2004 The Virtual life lab has opened a computation center dedicated to Virtual life simulations. The simulation center was supported by Insitute of Computing Sciences with their generous donation of eight Pentium III computers. And the system group at the Department of Philosophy by offering of server-room and hosting services. Questions and Answers 1-10-2004 In response to questions posed during a meeting with Theoretical Biologists. Highlights Deathmatch dd 7-10-2004 Predator-Prey ecology dd 10-6-2004 Summer School dd 10-6-2004
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