(Emergent Morphology)

10 Genotype-Phenotype Design

While spontaneous emergence is an ideal to strive for in artificial life, every experimenter must design a representation on some level. In inventing a new genotype-phenotype representation, the search for an effective representation can become a kind of evolutionary process in itself. In these experiments, before settling on a good anatomy and motion phenotype design, many trials were run, and frequently, ranges of gene effect and embryological constraints were tweaked, along with fitness criteria to accommodate such changes.

These explorations have shown me that careful crafting of a highly evolvable embryological scheme for the development of phenotypes is important, combined with a conceptual compatibility with the domain, such that representation is not too arbitrary. In the case of expressive character animation, representations can be based largely on biological understanding, but can also be derived from traditions in cartoon animation (where physics and motor control may have quite a different meaning - for instance, as expressive channels). A genotype-phenotype design methodology which addresses these issues could enrich many areas of engineering, design, and art, and perhaps it could also enrich the field of artificial life, aesthetically.

11 Conclusion

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