(Emergent Morphology)
9 Interactive Evolution Overlay
Animats can also be evolved within a separate animation system, called the
Character Evolution Tool, developed for the purpose of complementing automatic
evolution with fitness contributions from a viewer (Ventrella, 94). In this tool,
the viewer has the ability to contribute to the evolutionary process by adding
fitness values to any one of the animats, as a reward for style. This tool
resembles other interactive evolution systems in that it displays a number of
individuals simultaneously for the viewer to compare and evaluate (Dawkins, 86),
(Sims, 91), (Todd and Latham, 92), (Baker and Seltzer, 93). The Character
Evolution Tool is designed specifically for evaluation of motion qualities,
and it affords the viewer the ability to guide evolution according to such qualities
as humor and personality. It complements the system described in this paper in
that it offers an additional level of fitness criteria to affect evolution - an
aesthetic level. Figure 7 illustrates this tool, with population size set at twelve.
Figure 7 The interface to the Character Evolution Tool, displaying a population of twelve animats.
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