AnymaEngine

This will be the most large scale and fastest evolution simulation out there.

Brain update rate will be 1 / 6 of the physics update rate.

Building

Make sure you have cmake, vcpkg and all necessary c++ development tools for your operating system.

Cmake is gone! Simply run build.bat in an x64 command window (you get this command window when installing visual studio).

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Large scale TODO

• Switch to HandmadeMath linear algebra library.
• Break world up in chunks and process chunks using multithreading.
• Make cute renderer.
• Make the world absolutely huge and do processing by chunk offsets to prevent floating point errors.
• Two pass collision solving.
• Improve standard library: Add string type, better sorting.
• Improve standard library: Make own multithreading primitives.
• Build introspection and profiling tools.
• Do real good collision detection, fix the fact that lots of agents are being checked twice.
• Do rendering on background thread such that the main thread doesnt block and feels smooth.
• Saving and loading the state of an entire world.
• Tracking succesful agents.
• Tracking lineage.
• Showing the entire state of the brain and genes.
• Make a circular buffer.
• IDEA: Create a kind of business rule table where you can set rules like:
  • Required speed for carnivores to do damage to herbivores
  • Allow sprinting, how much energy to take on a sprint?
  • Do carnivores get a reproduction boost if their population is low?

Design

TODO

• Show charge when zoomed in.
• Show charge of agent in ui.
• Make checkbox whether to show health bar in world.
• Show graphs of deaths and births.
• Store most succesful agents. (Requires herbivores to collect plants).
• Edit total lifespan of agents.
• Remove health bar in world with checkbox.
• Port to webassembly and run online.
• Make grass fields , energy in ground.
• Configure amount of eyes and fov.
• Create real and simple memory pool with chunks
• Show indicator when herbivore is hurt.
• Edit reproduction rate calculation, more offspring if population is low for instance.
• Implement my own std::function.
• OPTION: Boost or nerf agents if population is large.
• Plotting utility functions.
• Make active and inactive chunks.
• Fix agents popping into view.
• Draw scale with some text too.
• Show agents in chunk in debug window.
• Consistently call everything either draw or render.
• Make random number generator.
• Make texture region.
• Global empty texture for convenience.
• Make list of common colors.

Done

RELEASE 4

• Remove CMAKE. I decided to use CMake for this project and i regret it. Very much.
• Make particles when agent gets killed or dies.
• Show health when zoomed in.
• Recoil, or however you wanna call it when a herbivore is hurt. They cannot move unless they sprint?
• Use the charge or refractory value to disable movement for herbivore agents.
• Fix colors everywhere, follow imgui layout.
• Give carnivore agents a charge/attack procedure that is controlled by a neuron. This costs energy.
• Configure energy transfer on hit.
• Show overlays: Make coloring of genes to show genetic distance of different agents.
• Make color helper functions.
• Better agent selection, give feedback on agent hitboxes.
• Plot low dimensional version of genes.
• Draw active chunks.
• Compare two agent genes.
• FIX BUG: SelectFromWorld often has idx out of range.
• Highlight currently hovered agent.
• Create some background in the world, it looks boring right now.
• Make neural network library.
• Implement alpha blending.
• Icons for imgui.
• Make a startup screen to start simulation with new persistent parameters.
• Turn off asserts when not debugging.
• Show number of workers and available threads. Make settings.
• Custom font for imgui.
• Show time also in seconds, not just ticks.
• Make agents squishy in direction of their velocity.
• Make carnivore attack.
• Collide herbivores and carnivores.
• Implement simple jobsystem.
• Do sensor updates and brain updates in parallel.

RELEASE 3

• More options for user. Spawn agents.
• Make mutation_rate adjustable in gui.
• Keep selection when moving camera around.
• Organize interface.
• Debug tools for memory arenas, check if clearing doesnt lead to problems.
• Implement 2 memory arenas for lifetime management.
• Make super simple brain.
• Agent lifespan.
• Agent asexual reproduction with mutations.
• Make cumulative graph of types of agents.
• IMPORTANT: Solve the huge memory leak in AddAgent.
• Remove agents.
• Pause simulation.

RELEASE 2

• Simple behavior.
• Setup screen to make new simulation.
• Show agent sensors when selected.
• Set debug option: Show chunks etc.
• Refactor main loop and main in general. Move to SimulationScreen.
• Show agent rays when selected.
• Show agent info in debug window.
• Raycasting for all eyes.
• Sort agents into all chunks they belong to.
• Draw grid in a more efficient way and in the background.
• Grid based collision detection for rays.
• Camera to world position.
• Make agents selectable.
• Handle collisions using chunks.
• Draw eye rays for selected agent.

RELEASE 1

• Create itch.io page.
• Asexual reproduction.
• Collect statistics about chunk occupancy.
• Only render visible agents.
• Divide the world into chunks.
• Update creature sensor info based on raycast (seeing).
• Do raycast;
• Do simple collision detection.
• Resize screen.
• Fix Array issues.
• Level of detail.
• Render eyes.
• Use N-gon to draw creatures.
• Sorting in Array
• Render N-polygon
• Make creature struct (Agent).
• Line rendering.
• Fix frame update rate at user specified FPS with SDL_Delay.
• Create window struct for platform handling.
• Render a creature.
• Implement scrolling.
• Move the 2D camera with WASD.
• Move the 2D camera with the mouse.
• Handle user input.
• Make a 2D camera.
• Make a basic 2D renderer.
• Import imgui with docking.

Ideas

• For an overview of how the world is evolving, create a kind of sampling minimap. Dont render each individual creature but take a couple of samples for each pixel using the bsp-tree and take the average color. Store these frames and show as animation.
• Set business rules for evolution.
• Make interesting presets, make it easier for the user.

Bugs

• No agents leads to deadlock? SOLVED

Engine and more games.

• Move game-engine related stuff to different folder and turn into reusable game-engine.
• Create a game like super world box. Make complex behavior and create a behavior tree editor for fast iteration.
  • Create a custom interpreted langauge for creating behavior trees.
• Online game where you manage your little land and need to trade or fight with neighbouring countries. On a server WASM.