Predation and Pheromones in an AI Ecosystem

Finally out !
Bibites can now hunt each other, eat meat, and produces pheromones.
I've also added a few functionalities to better visualize their brain in action and a whole lot of smaller change.
Don't forget to share your opinion in this poll, What should I work on next ?
forms.gle/LJwb9VdNc91Th5Gb8
Want to support The Bibites ? Join my Patreon (download the simulation soon):
/ thebibites
Outro music :
Dummy / Grab bag by Jahzzar
freemusicarchive.org/music/Jah...

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Don't forget to share your opinion in this poll, What should I work on next ? You get to voice your ideas ! forms.gle/LJwb9VdNc91Th5Gb8

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

I'll do my best :)

[@jamie7472]

I'm loving this. If I could make some suggestions it would be to use the remains of dead bibites to fertilize new food pallets within proximity if they don't get eaten, and introduce excretion as fertilizer too. Allow carnivores and herbivores the choice to ignore each others food (or consume them based on starvation levels) Introduce a 'food poisoning' modifier that lowers speed, health and energy absorbed vs energy excreted. And maybe a poison resistance to dictate how much. The ability to stop forward motion, pivot on the spot and accelerate would be great to look at and lastly a stamina stat so the bibites can conserve or expend energy depending on their situation. P.S sorry if all this is asking to much but I love this stuff and cant help myself.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@@jamie7472 don't be sorry ! Actually, a lot of what you suggested was implemented with the last Energy update :) (especially everything about fertilizing) they can also recognise if the food is plant or meat and evolve behavior accordingly. I need to introduce more "statuses" and modifier to influence their state tho

[@Yawrf]

A little late to the party, but maybe instead of changing the system to sexual reproduction, you could keep the asexual reproduction, but add the ability for others to fertilize it. (Not making it a requirement to hatch, but increasing the mutation/etc when it happens)

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Interesting idea !

[@osman4172]

Maybe eggs stay longer before child get out of it and they can be eaten by other bibites. Then, parents should guard their child.

[@Traf063]

Problem is, that is not enough to inspire such a behaviour. A bibite has no value in it's eggs, it's something that happens automatically and does affect it's life if only as a future competitor for food or source of food or even it's own killer, but I am sure bibite's brain is not advanced enough to even come to any of those conclusions yet.

[@osman4172]

@@Traf063 I don't think so. It is kinda same as bibites own struggle for life. As it learned feeding himself and not dying to others, it can also learn to help its baby to grow and run away from others. I do not know the whole logic behind deep learning, but i think it is not so different.

[@Traf063]

@@osman4172 in order to learn that, bibites' children should be valued by them, and as of now they are not beneficial to individual bibite's behaviour. If bibites will start to learn to form some resemblance of social structures, children could become valuable as a way to increase total power of a group, but for now i don't see why they would do that.

[@osman4172]

@@Traf063 maybe they can benefit mutually when child become an adult?

[@osman4172]

it is better to be a society rather than individuals

[@TheAechBomb]

While I understand you can't do updates or update videos too frequently, I would very much like to see more 10-20 minute runs where you just let them go, perhaps tweaking small things before each run starts, which will also help people find your channel (as with only 4 videos it's a miracle it was reccomended to me)

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks for the tip :) I'll try it

[@timhaldane7588]

THIS!! I would love to see current state videos where you show a few minutes of behavior, perhaps comparing how tweaking global variables directs evolution after a few generations, videos of testing incomplete features, etc. I strongly recommend your body features update first. The others sound like a lot of work that your viewers might not be able to see. Also, please consider making the color of the Bibite a function of whatever property you are demonstrating / testing. For example, let's say you want to see what happens if you spawn "free" pellets. Make the carnivores red, herbivores green, and omnivores yellow, then let it run for a while and see if evolution favors anyone. Then tweak the numbers and run it again. Could be cool!

[@Teodzero]

A suggestion: Meat should have a smell (a type of pheromone?). It would let predators evolve easier and potentially allow scavangers to evolve as well.

[@criszis]

Underrated comment. I was fourth like

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Hmmm interesting idea

[@sethharrington1796]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife if you are really ambitious with the idea you could have a rotting system in place along with the pheromones. You could also eventually have plants potentially be another evolving species along with the Bibites that will grow in the rotten meat. If they get complex enough im curious if they develop farming.

[@RomanQrr]

Looking at the date when this video was posted made me fear that the project is dead. But it's nice to see dev still looking through the comments. This is by far the best evolutionary simulation I've ever seen. Usually they are smaller in scope, not as good looking and don't go beyond "learn how to find food, then after everyone learned that learn to be the fastest one to collect it". Pheromones are enough to set this project apart from the rest. Good luck and try not to lose interest!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

A new video should be out soon, recently I had to move and the acoustic of my new room was VERY awful, so it took me some time to fix it, but I'm back on tracks ! I'm planning on keeping on and working on it for a long time, don't worry !

[@pladselsker8340]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife yay can't wait for the release

[@cros108]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife That's awesome, I can't wait to see a new video, this project is amazing

[@nagirok1]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife yay happy

[@tdoge]

9:18 rip that Bibite that got sniped by one speedy boi

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

😥 F

[@syweb2]

ZOOM!

[@paranormalphenomena563]

Stil fast as fock boiii

[@ingrownnipple]

I think neutral objects that can be moved for an energy cost so they could build homes/hiding and then making eggs gestate longer and be edible could make for some interesting behaviors

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Yeah, rocks or something like that would be a great addition

[@dmdizzy]

Yay! Predation! I think it could potentially be pretty dynamic if the size of a Bibite affected how much damage it did to other Bibites, and also maybe reduced incoming damage. Also, even though they have pheromones, giving them the ability to visually note characteristics of other Bibites (size, colour, etc.) would probably lead to more complex behaviours, as they could decide which Bibites to attack or avoid, and potentially they could evolve mimicry like real-life animals.

[@sybro9786]

dmdz I think a different amount of aggression towards different colors of bibits

[@sybro9786]

Loudvary McPopturn Pretty much, but with the intention of allowing the bibit equivalent of a chameleon and also the prevention of attacking a child

[@Jack-te8om]

dmdz perhaps size could also affect speed. Small ones could move faster with less energy

[@sybro9786]

xd ZwanzwaN Well, all actions would be determined by the neural network, but detecting size would definitely be an interesting concept

[@sybro9786]

QeaceTheImmortal Yeah, this could be linked with the color of the bibits, which could end up with some bibits adopting a color just to prey on another bibit

[@bouenyfolefack3489]

FINALLY!!! Edit: didn’t mean to be mean just so excited!

[@luciangg1553]

make a day night cycle Creatures have to rest at night They wont lose energy wen they rest BUT..... they will become easy prey for carnivores

[@thelknetwork1883]

Lucian gg yes!

[@The0Stroy]

They will also can evolve if they can see in darkness or if they are day or night active.

[@CrimsongEdge]

or it can allow minor restructuring of neurons and memory

[@draco5991rep]

They should lose energy when they rest or the AI could develop the habit of permanently resting. It would also require some kind of fatigue System or else the necessity of resting wouldn't be there and a better strategy would be to stay active all the time to collect more energy.

[@delusionalfusional8409]

With this he could also add a gene for noctournalism like how mice sleep at night and cats evolved to be awake at night for easy hunting

[@Silverity1]

this guy just makin the first stage of Spore

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

With neural networks ;)

[@ico-theredstonesurgeon4380]

This is just a whole new way of seeing evolution. So cool!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thank you very much ! I've been working on this for pretty much 4 years (far from full-time of course) and I'm very glad ofwhere it's going :)

[@AkhierDragonheart]

Just wanted to note something here I suggested on the form so others can see it. You can have the latest version of the simulation behind your Patreon and then release older versions for free so that people can get a taste of it.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

That's actually a nice idea I hadn't thought about :) thanks !

[@AkhierDragonheart]

I just come from a different perspective. I follow a lot of web novels and they use a similar thing for releasing chapters on Patreon and it seems to work well enough for them.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@@AkhierDragonheart that's what would make the most sense. I want people to run it for themselves and enjoy it but I still want to bring this at a serious level (I dream of giving all my time to this instead of having to work :p) so I guess it would be a good compromise :)

[@timhaldane7588]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife Do you have a playable version on your Patreon where people can tweak variables and test it? If not, I say do it. This would almost certainly give you more income to help free you from your work schedule.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@@timhaldane7588 that's the case :)

[@user-pc5sc7zi9j]

Anything venomous: *moves to australia* PERFECTION!

[@jasondeng7677]

parent: dedicates themselves to defending their child later... parent: kill it lol

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

So true 😥

[@Suthriel]

Can be avoided with a friend/foe system (and everything in between), maybe based on pheromons. If parents have one special smell, their kids should have it too, and parents would not attackt any bibit with their own smell. This smell could of course change over time if the kids grow older, and could lead them to become neutral or even enemies (maybe if one becomes a predator/carnivor, while the rest of the fam is herbivor). Chamelions then could try to imitate their enemies smell to avoid being hunted or attacked. Or predators try to gain smells from their prey or their food, maybe by following them close enough (or being close to their waste) to collect their (or other useful) pheromones, until they are covered enough in them for surprise attacks.

[@jasondeng7677]

@@Suthriel that would work, but there would have to be a LOT of pheromons

[@toatrika2443]

I would prefer the changes in this order: 1, 3, 2. I think the visual changes are needed to make visual behavoir and evolution interpretation simpler and also more engaging. This is a pretty basic important thing to show. Biomes should be last because they have the biggest implications for new changes afterwards. So you should add sexual reproduction beforehand because that is a feature that is likely just done when its done, without necessarily implying further new concepts.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Agreed

[@criszis]

But sexual reproduction is unnecessary. Since the creatures can’t create new traits, for example wings and claws, breeding won’t give a combination of traits. Instead you just get a random assortment of weights and biases.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@@criszis sexual reproduction, or alternatively horizontal gene transfer, is extremely important for other reasons. It allows to distribute genes among species between different lineage. As a result of that genes can spread across en entire specie instead having to outrun it

[@toatrika2443]

@@criszis I dont agree. Sexual reproduction has the benefit of popularizing beneficial genes, which should lead to a significant increase in fitness

[@PavelNr1]

What's your goal? To simulate the universum from the big bang up until the future? Love it

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Like my channel banner says, I'm just trying to create something that's alive. But is it even possible ? What are the criteria ? Can bits be alive ?

[@thelknetwork1883]

The Bibites HMMMMM....

[@demon_xd_]

Idea: rotting, pellets a being is ‘saving’ and meat on the floor will slowly turn to waste, Also, a simpler version of carnivores and herbivores representation to work as a placeholder, or another ‘family’ of species Carnivores: have a jaws with 2 extra pixels of length Herbivores: an extra pair of antennas behind the front ones Omnivores: both of the above, but the extra parts smaller

[@chronofactor2037]

I think biomes would be best. It would be quite interesting. maybe they can change colors in different biomes to become camouflaged in order to avoid predators?

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Camouflage would be awesome ahah

[@derstreber2]

@The Bibites I've seen a lot of these type of simulations, they always interest me at some level. (I'm sure you get this a lot, so forgive me for dumping a bunch of... veiled feature requests on you.) Yours is the first that I've seen with eggs. If you are not already you may want to play around with "hatch time" as a variable, perhaps clamped to some sane limits. Maybe the bibite could even choose how long the egg takes to hatch when in lays it.(something brine shrimp can do) This could give opportunity for a bibite to lay eggs when conditions are bad and hopefully they hatch when conditions are better. Something else I personally have also never seen done before but would neat is if you have the plants also be part of the simulation,(with their own genes and behaviors) they feeding off of fertilizer produced by the bibites, reproducing via spores/pollen/seeds/branching out, etc, it would probably look more like a fungus then a bush or a tree, but from a simulation perspective it could be interesting. And then bibites could eat parts off of the plants, and if the plant did everything right, hopefully there was a seed in that part of the plant, or maybe not, and the plants need to come up with ways to fend off the constant nibbley bibites. (a much harder problem then -> static bush produces berry every 10 sec, kind of thing, ) if done "correct" biomes might just form themselves, just based on where the fertilizer/plants happen to be, and if that is based off of other things like temperature, "air currents", anything else. Just some thoughts.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

All great ideas ! Hatch time is already implemented (I present it in one of my earlier videos) but definitely needs some tweaking. Also, after thinking about it I'll definitely go with evolving plants ! They will do nicely with biomes and environment (varying factors like heat, humidity, etc.?) Which will affect the type of plants but also of Bibites that can live there

[@derstreber2]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife Nice to hear. Of coarse actual implementation will always be the deciding thing, over theory. And I'm not a botanist so I know very little about plant defense mechanisms to keep them from being eaten, although most I think are bio-chemical in nature. Poisons, irritants, etc, and sometimes physical things like husks or spikes, like a cactus to prevent stealing water. Come to think of it lol your bibites don't drink or use water to metabolize food do they... well if you want to go that far, the plants will probably need water, some of the animals will need water, water is a good way to have separate land masses, separate land masses would be good if you ever do include some kind of reproduction that takes locality into account... and so on. Also if your simulating a plant, many parts of a plant could be considered "energy storage" for that plant. (and overtime the plant can deplete that energy and use it for growth if a bibite does not eat it that is.) Depending on the scale, idk if you are going for more, "this is a forest" or "this is a individual tree". I've seen the "this sprite is a tree and it drops fruit" kind of thing done a lot, but there is not much to mess around with there genetically. Maybe the color of the apples change, or some fruit is edible and some fruit is not. Most of the time though they are less interesting.(imho) Maybe you could push it further and have some fruits have different "vitamins", but I think unless you have a reason how those magical vitamins got there, a reason intrinsic to the structure of the plant, then you are starting to go off the rails a bit.(but this could apply to all scales, not just big picture forest type thing) Another approach is simulating individual plants with the detail of... how would you say it... their individual limbs, stretching and growing out from where they are planted. Genetically, there is more stuff to work with there, size of leafs, where exactly on the plant the fruit grows, does the plant even have fruit,(and by fruit I mean seed + clump of energy that is easy to get, rather then digging it up like a potato) does the plant store all of its energy in one spot, or does it evenly distribute it across the structure?(bulb vs grass???) also how do plants interact with each other when they overlap? ..... and so on. Who knows, such a plant simulation might be just as interesting, or even more interesting then the bibites. :) Anyway, I'm sure your todo list is long enough as it is, so I will stop.

[@blizzardkiehn2508]

@@derstreber2 Not gonna read that whole thing, but if the defence of the plants are good enough, I'd imagine they could become predatory and live on decomposing meat.

[@derstreber2]

@@blizzardkiehn2508 I guess I assumed that as a given, but yes. It might be interesting, you could get plant formations that tend toward confusing the animals into dieing in preferred locations to then later be consumed by the plant. (I imagine something that messes with their pathing, like funnling them in, a bibit with a brain that comprehends the bigger picture of "this is a trap", would do better, etc. ) Or plants that somehow encourage animals to defecate on them. who knows?

[@derstreber2]

@QeaceTheImmortal huh I should have thought of that, but no, I was think more of just regular plants in general. The phrase "pushing up roses", etc. All plants feast upon the remains of the dead. But who knows with the right pieces in place, perhaps something like a Venus flytrap or a pitcher plant or a sundew could come about without explicitly codeing a venus fly trap leaf or something.

[@randompheidoleminor3011]

I know it might be much, but a mobile version would be amazing, especially if it also doubles as a wallpaper.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Would be amazing but oh boy... I have troubles keeping my computer from combusting and it's already a medium-high end machine. I don't know how it could work on a phone. Probably a lot of optimizing work

[@pedro_l9]

HELL YES, glad to see you back, been waiting for updates on the project!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks ! Yeah I know it's been way too long :p

[@ninjakiwigames5418]

I was thinking about the kind of simulation you're doing now before I even saw your videos. I wanted to make it myself but realized I really don't have the knowledge to do it, yet I still wanted to see it done. I'm really glad I stumbled upon your channel!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks so much 😌

[@ninjakiwigames5418]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife Thank you!

[@SHF40k]

Finally, the channel I've seeked for. I love this series you're doing about AI and it's neat capabilities of learning.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks a lot :) !

[@Fauxade]

I love how you have a the nice music over some of the evolution simulation at the end of each video, it's fabulous!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks :) I'll keep that in

[@MattMajcan]

nice, new update! im totally down to see some videos just watching the simulation do its thing. just voted in the poll

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks a lot ! My schedule is going to be pretty full in the next 2 weeks but I'm jumping back on it as soon as I can :)

[@madebysalad7916]

Not The First Time I See Something Like This, But Version Is Pretty Awesome, Looking Forward To What You'll Be Doing For The Next Updates, The Biomes And Different Sprite Are What I'm Voting For, Since I Believe They Make This A Lot More Interesting! Good Luck!

[@genericytprofile852]

Hey I just wanted to say I love little dev projects like this. It can really inspire other people when they need it. Also I think I may have a solution to the problem of parents preying on their children. Still include the diet spectrum but have a separate agression level. That level determines how likely they are to attack other bibites. Since their characteristics are numbers you could calculate how different one creature is from another. When a bibite finds a creature that they haven't seen before, they do that calculation. More passive creatures will not care much about other creatures and are more likely to run away. More aggressive creatures will attack or even hunt down different enough bibites. But if their offspring are similar enough they will not attack them. This could also help bring about new organisms like scavengers, carnivorous but not very aggressive. Or maybe aggressive pack animals, herbivores but very aggressive to those not similar enough to them. Just a few of my thoughts :)

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Absolutely ! I should add a genetic sameness input sense

[@alexbluer]

i would love a defense system, like spikes in their body so they can reduce damage and hurt the bibite that tried to eat (more spikes in his bodies, more energy they need to suvive or they waste more energy). PD: sorry for my bad english not my first lenguage

[@leonvalenzuela8089]

STOMACHES!! i think that could lead to interesting strategies like pooping in a specific place to fertilize the ground, missleading hunters or creating barriers

[@RECTmetal]

What a neat project! Thanks for sharing!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks ! And great pun

[@legojet2456]

The more I listen to this, the more this reminds me of spore

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Big inspiration of course !

[@criszis]

Yeah maybe it should have more detailed plants. Like a leaf or berry sprite instead of green pellets.

[@legojet2456]

Xeno Sapien one thing at a time

[@huntermulhall4849]

I miss Spore. ):

[@thoseoneguy9554]

Found this cause I really wanted to see an eco simulation and seeing an entire channel about it is a dream come true, earned a sub

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks a lot!

[@offbrand5018]

i think it would add a lot of variety to the bibits if they could change shape and have them grow one pixel at a time rarely and also give those pixels stats like it can mutate a mouth part that can gain energy from plants more efficiently or does more damage to other bibits but those new parts would have trade offs like you do more damage but you move slower or whatever it happens to evolve into.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Yeah :o it would be so cool ! But I don't know how ambitious I should be ahah

[@offbrand5018]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife i think it would be best to start with letting them evolve their shape pixel by pixel. im no programmer so i dont know the true difficulty of all this but it would be nice to see variety in their shapes :)

[@catkook543]

Biomes! I feel like that would be the fastest way to build biodiversity

[@bouenyfolefack3489]

These videos are awesome!!

[@BluePulseFlyer]

On a video that is 3 years old, regardless of how boring you may think it would be for an audience I think the occasional video of tracking the evolution of bibites is a fantastic idea. The more videos you put out, the more likely someone is to come across them :D

[@aviko9560]

New subscriber over here! :) I gave you my insight in the poll. Love your project!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks :D and welcome 👈

[@bigbananae]

THIS IS SO UNDERRATEDDD

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks !

[@pabloh6369]

I find really interesting the part of biomes and tress. I think that it would be really cool to see how different condition give birth to different bibites. Maybe a temperature variable that makes movement more expensive in energy, or a biome with really few energy like the bottom of the sea, and let the fittest survive. Great video, btw, and I think uploading many short videos would be better, since a short cool video may call the attention of new suscribers than a log video.

[@theecknogamer5629]

One idea: If not already done, maybe some colours can ward off predators, like how bright colours signal how dangerous a creature is?

[@ytube942]

very cool! excited to see where this project goes

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks :) ! I am too ahah

[@saqinja271]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife you haven't uploaded in 3 months, will there be an update soon. Also i feel like this channel could be pretty successful if you had actual regular episodes, at least once a month preferably every 2 weeks, because this stuff is pretty interesting and a lot of people like watching it. Just something to think about.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@SAQinja I'm working on a video right now (to announce the release) Yeah I too think it would be far better for my growth to upload regularly, but I can't commit to it. I have a full-time job and many other projects and activities, so I can't put too much this into this (maybe 5 to 10h per weeks max) I would LOVE to do this full-time but I'm not there yet :(

[@executormmm]

Amazing ideas! Don't give up - this is one of the most interesting things people can find on the internet! (It took me a year to find by random KZbin algorithms) Some comments from my side: Don't close the system by conservation of energy, use Entropy instead. In the real world Entropy (chaos, lack of order, bigger diversity of energy states of mater etc.) will always increase. The ONLY thing differentiating living things from non-living is that living things consist of feedback loops that conserve Entropy. Due to the nature of mutations, some of these loops will fail as well, so there are also options that the loop can keep smaller loops inside. Putting a smaller loop inside a bigger one reduces the Entropy further more and consumes from the wasted energy, dissipated by the general Entropy increase of nature. I feel it sounds too complicated, so i will give a small example - the process of eating is one that provides constant input of energy in an organism. With this energy, organisms can develop and keep/not keep due to natural selection loops like sexual reproduction, fear of predation, curiosity etc. etc. Energy is constantly bombarding us through sun rays etc. and organisms are simply converting part of it, trying to decrease Entropy (to order, make sense of things etc.)

[@animationspace8550]

Maybe add segments that can change length to the limbs so they have further reach of food. Big bois should be able to swallow small bois whole. Claws and poison might increase diversification. (These are just a few suggestions!)

[@TheStormTalon]

First time seeing this, color me impressed! I'm very curious to see how this evolves in the future

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks ! Stay tuned for more :)

[@somethingwithbryan]

it was kind of awesome seeing fast bibites take over

[@cudgeonkurosaki8489]

Always love to see more coding, machine learning, and ecosystem stuff in my feed. Subscribbled to this miracle channel.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks :D !

[@snowmix4039]

One of the best projects ever! The defense idea with spikes is good. Also they could produce a toxin to harm other bibits

[@problemsolver3254]

Thank you for this

[@SusanAmberBruce]

such an awesome project, I really like the idea of trees.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks a lot for the kind comment :)

[@datbanan2717]

i agree, that was pretty neat

[@DankeLord]

Areas with higher amounts of pellets could be very interesting. With the 'memory' you talked about before, herbivore bibites could learn to go to those areas when they are hungry, and carnivores can learn to go there to hunt for high amounts of other bibites. Ecosystems can thrive or even collapse.

[@gigim7363]

C’est vraiment impressionnant! Bravo!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Merci!

[@hoguesteele]

This is such a cool project! I'd love to see the pheromone system have more depth though. My idea for it goes like this: Each bibbit would have an additional neural network which would take their current status (hunger, aggresiveness, health) and their genetics(size, diet, speed, neural topology) as inputs and the output would be 2 sets of data. The first to determine what they broadcast in their pheromones, and the second to determine their pheromone preferences. My hope is that it would model pheromones more closely to their real world counterparts in the same way you've already accurately modeled the energy loop of nature. With this addition I believe they could eventually develop social skills. If they smell a hungry carnivore they learn to run. Similarly if they smell a bibbit similar to themselves genetically, they may decide to follow them around or to leave based on the status of the other bibbit. They may also adapt to produce less pheromones when hungry, low on health or near predators. Or more pheromones when doing well to seek out companions. It could effectively become a form of communication for them. By the way, id love to help write code for the project. I'm mostly a hobbyist python developer, but I do have some experience writing in c#.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Sure :) sens me a mail at [e-mail]

[@joops110]

Loving the game man! After 47 hours my bibites found an interesting way to stay out of the white zone. By default they move forward in intervals on a clock while turning to the left, then when they see a pellet they suddenly hold forward in a burst of speed. This way when there's no pellet in front of them they end up turning around and moving back to the feeding grounds :) ps. I hope you'll decide to release the game on steam, would love to buy the full version without using patron. Keep up the awesome work!!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Wow awesome ! Very nice to know you've been enjoying it :) I'll look into it, I'm not sure it's at a point where I could put it on steam yet (quality), but it sure would be a good option when I get there. I just want it to be faire for my patrons too, so I'll find a middle ground with your help

[@joops110]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife I understand, got to keep the patrons happy. Just throwing it out there, I think you could get a lot of traffic on steam. But take your time of course, don't want to rush a masterpiece!

[@teambellavsteamalice]

Watching in order, so maybe not relevant anymore, but I think that more smaller updates is the best. You could even alternate videos between 1 describing a new implemented change, 2 a video just showing and commenting on their evolution (maybe compare a few different tweaks) and 3 a video with planned and possible future changes. The last one could be combined with reacting to or mentioning KZbin, Patreon and Reddit comments.

[@samuelguedes6981]

man, this is amazing, make more pls

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks ! Working on that !

[@bacrima6382]

Realy great video, i love your bibite

[@mackblack5153]

Le "Andréanne Valières" était trop bien prononcé pour que tu ne sois pas Québécois! Très beau projet que tu as là. J'attends impatiemment la suite! Merci de nous le partager.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Démasqué ! Merci à toi :)

[@grimtin10]

awwwww yeah. i am so excited!!!!

[@xxx_mouiz_xxx___7969]

cool work dude keep on

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks !

[@grantsherman2001]

this is rly cool. i downloaded the sim, and it immediately began to evolve. it got to a point where they did everything required to live, but hundreds of them began to spawn, u til there was no food from which 100 bibites turned into 0

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Yeah sometimes they are too greedy and cause their own fall

[@grahamferguson2783]

There was something that someone mentioned in the last video that really stuck with me; in addition to the energy-sharing creating a symbiosis, it could be reworked to maybe rarely lead to a multi-cellular like creature? With each Bibite acting as one cell. I guess that would require things like horns and bodily weapons to be added, since putting a horned creature in the center would hurt its surroundings and putting it on the side of the multi cellular creature would act as a defense. Also, I don't fully understand how much room you have to work with this, but I had another idea. If you go the energy-sharing route, you could create an integer value, dubbed the "friend factor", starting at 0 and increasing each time energy is shared between two creatures. You mentioned earlier how it might be a problem if a carnivore attacked its own family, so maybe give a value of 1 or 2 to Bibites with familial relations or Bibites that have shared energy with each other. If the friend factor exceeds a certain threshold, those two creatures are less likely/not going to prey on each other, and are more prone to share energy. This would promote small communities of Bibites, who work with each other. Maybe have the aforementioned friendliness factor apply to the children of those who helped each other? So if two herbivores share energy with each other and gain a friendliness factor of 1, and then one of the herbivores has a child, that child would have a friendliness factor with the other herbivore of 0.25 or 0.5?

[@just-a-fossil]

good idea

[@edisonkimmel7843]

Maybe the "friend factor" variable(btw float not an integer) could go negative? Maybe it could be, that if an enemy a is shared between 2 bibites, they are more likely to become friends? They could have a new output, where if a certain things happened(ie. bibites with certain color killed nearby, bibite releases certain pheromones, bibite gives food to another creature(if that gets implemented)) their friend value with that creature goes up or down. Maybe certain behaviors could be shared between bibites if the friend value was high enough? This could lead to bibites with similar likes, dislikes, friends and enemies coming together. Maybe this could be effected by / affect sexual reproduction ;)? on a whole, great idea though. :)

[@huntermulhall4849]

So you create simulated environments? Holy crap, like someone else said, this reminds me of Spore! Subscribed!

[@Blaineworld]

I like the pheremone particles, but I think it might be better to shift their hues 90 degrees (and change their lightnesses) so colorblind people can better distinguish between them.

[@marcusviniciusdemelo3664]

Your work seems very cool

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks a lot !

[@henrycgs]

Wow, this is something I've always wanted to code but never had the time to do so! I'm glad someone actually did it so I can at least watch... From what I gather from your comments it seems as if you're adding procedural sprites next. So, here's a suggestion. Maybe you could add an input that tells the bibite if they touched a bibite of the same species as them. Of course, species aren't a thing. But you could make it so it checks for genetic similarity. But not all genes- only the ones that influence appearance. This way, you might be able to observe the emergence of mimicry! Also a really, really awesome addition would be procedural taxonomy. But I have no idea how would you approach that. But it would be the coolest thing ever.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Yes it's awesome stuff ! I'll probably add speciation with sexual reproduction (and give them the ability to see it)

[@henrycgs]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife do you plan on making this speciation kinda hardcoded? As in, there's some kind of value that gets added to the bibites that represents their species? If so, that'd be a little boring and unrealistic. Personally, I'd prefer emergent speciation (like with my genetic similarity example), but that's just my opinion :)

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@@henrycgs yeah absolutely, it's going to be based on both gene and neural similarity

[@just-a-fossil]

the patrons should have their own bibite named after them

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Quite a good idea :o ! Kind of like kurzgezact with their custom birds

[@igormarcos687]

there could be a livestream showing them 24/7

[@Kalightortaio]

You have been blessed by the algorithm!

[@spawnof200]

i dont know how i found this, but i love it!

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Sometimes, it's fate that bring us together

[@tdoge]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife I just came from watching your 2nd video. Awesome work so far!

[@fredfondler7281]

Genuinely one of the coolest things I have ever seen on this website.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thanks a lot !

[@spinnis]

I think you should make a proper version we can download and make it so we can change a bunch of variables and experiment. I would love to see the ability to manually add stuff to the map. A great thing about LSES (that other thing that is kinda like this) is that you can edit a bunch of variables and it has a map creator tool.

[@tomekmaso2297]

Its fucking awesome dude

[@reallouiethecat3132]

Really cool!

[@Blockinstaller12]

Introducing trees that produce food pellets would be the next step in creating a self sufficient ecosystem, but I'm also interested in seeing how you execute the idea of procedural sprites.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Yeah, I'm probably going to work on procedural sprites first and work on doing nice code from the start so I can go a little more in depth and show it ahah. Biomes and evolving plants will probably be next

[@ikomage1336]

neat stuff man

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

I see what you did there 👈

[@HunterHerbst]

If you are still working on this, keep it up. I love this shit.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

I still am, dont worry! New video tonight or tomorrow I hope

[@finminder2928]

Procedural sprites would really help with clarity. I would like to see the range of speed and food type at a glance.

[@utkarshsinghthakur5554]

Loved it!! It's been so long I have been trying to do something like this. I have basic knowledge of deep learning and I am really interested in learning how living things evolve, like how parents end up protecting their children more than their lives and all kinda stuffs. After watching your project I'm more motivated now. Keep up the good work. Btw, which software are you using for simulation?

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Unity :)

[@thismianeptunis]

This is an amazing project! The amount of biological realism you've incorporated is really impressive, and the fact that it's in real time rather than using the artificial "generations" of most genetic algorithms is especially cool. Have you thought about incorporating epistasis into the genetic system? Basically this refers to the idea that genes can interact to produce combined phenotypes different than the sum of the phenotypes of the two genes by themselves. A lot of times this works by having regulatory networks of genes which don't specifically affect the physiology of the organism, but rather have indirect impacts by turning other genes "on" or "off". These kinds of networks can really complex, and they're a huge source of evolutionary change in real organisms. (Sorry if I'm explaining stuff you already know, I just get very excited about this kind of thing and I like to ramble about it xD)

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Wow, I'm not sure I even understood epistasis... I'll have to look that up further, might be an interesting avenue :o Would it be kind-of like epigenetics ?

[@thismianeptunis]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife Yeah, there are definitely some things in common with epigenetics! Off top of my head, you might imagine two genes, one for size and one for digestion efficiency. If you have the gene for large size, but also for low digestion efficiency, you might not grow as big as an individual with genes for large size and high digestion efficiency. So there isn't a simple one-to-one correspondence between which gene for size you have and how big you actually grow - the effect of the size gene depends on the rest of your genome. Another example that shows up all the time in the real world is gene regulatory networks, which is the most similar to epigenetics. These genes code for proteins that don't actually do anything themselves, but rather stick to specific pieces of DNA to either prevent the genes there from being read or increase how much they get read. So you can have genes whose only function is to act like switches, turning other genes on and off. And then there are higher-level genes that regulate the regulators, and so on and so forth in complicated webs. Changes in gene expression through networks like this are actually more common than changes to genes themselves, because it's often safer to tweak where and when a gene gets used than to alter the gene itself, which risks completely breaking it. It's a bit like a neural network, except for physiology rather than behavior. I have no idea how much of that would even make sense to implement given how the Bibite genetic code works, but it's just something cool that genomes can do sometimes, so I figured I'd throw it out there. So excited to have stumbled across a project like this with so much depth; it's really inspirational!

[@Obsiduction]

Very nice ! I'm happy to be one of your patreon (you are the only person i follow on it) (and it's prononouced kinda like "kuru"

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

I'll do better next time ! Thank you for your support ?

[@Harrison3579]

you should make a 24/7 live stream of the bibite simulation

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

I'll try livestreaming :o

[@pyrogaming8272]

Very interesting simulation! I do however have a question, how the hurting system work ? Do Bibites hurt themselves when they bump into each other, the demange depending on their speed or stat ? Or do they need to activate an output neuron when in contact with an other bibites to decide to hurt ?

[@kumikuuuu]

"check that little guy over there" *little guy proceeds to die* "neat?"

[@tonio103683]

Very cool little project. I was wondering if instead of using procedural generated sprites as purely aesthetic you could somehow make it so it has a real impact on the simulation. Like if they are wider they drag more and are slower but can catch more food and if they are slimmer they can go faster. At least you have hooked me.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Maybe both together !

[@tiescoolen]

Amazing! I’m aspiring to make such a thing myself as well but i don’t think i can do it

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Don't worry, I didn't know how to do this at first either ! And knowing what I know now (after doing it) I wouldn't do it like this ahah. It's all about having an idea and then figuring how to do it bits by bits :) Start and keep at it and you'll end up having something amazing

[@dunas2662]

I was thinking about adding the ability to make groups and control areas, like a social and territorial trait that makes them protect a specific zone, where is likely to grow food But don't know if this could stall everything, maybe a counter-trait?

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Hmm good point, but I try to implement more broad capabilities instead of specific behaviors directly. Giving them the ability to develop their own use :)

[@edisonkimmel7843]

​@@TheBibitesDigitalLifeMaybe the friendliness could be an output on the neural network?

[@MrAleksander59]

Also. Don't forget that you should separate visual part and behavior, so you can just "switch off" any graphics to create "speed up" button (and showing less frequently).

[@jberrethful]

Ideas: a parental stat, which makes predators not eat their children, and predators can break eggs, releasing very a very small amount of meat, however, if the parental stat of the creature is high enough, they will come to the egg’s defense.

[@cheekygiraffe9848]

4:29 Your comin with ME sonny boi!

[@radar1410]

being able to share energy with creatures next to them, could make for some 'multi cellular' bibites

[@DWal32]

Bibirbs yes we need this we can have Bibirbs (tm) ((bibite groups))

[@sylvainlasjunies4243]

Very good work ! This project give me so many ideas .. I like the spontaneous apparition of behaviors. What if .. attacking a bibites costs energy ? What if you add the ability to attack an egg, which would cost almost no energy ? What if you add as inputs the surrounding eggs distance/angle/color and see if some kind of "protection of own eggs" behavior occurs ? Or eggs hunting behavior ?That would be amazing ^^ Can't wait for the release !

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Thank you very much :) All great ideas ! Attacking others technically requires energy (it often costs health and energy has to be spent to replenish it) They don't even see eggs as of now, so It's true I should do something about that ...

[@sylvainlasjunies4243]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife I am working on my own simulation which is very close to yours. I would love to show it to you (I can provide a live demo) and discuss more in details about technical stuff. Can I join your discord ?

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@@sylvainlasjunies4243 absolutely, DM me and I'll send you my info

[@sylvainlasjunies4243]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife I'm sorry I may be dumb but I can't find a way to dm you on youtube x)

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@@sylvainlasjunies4243 no problem, email me at [e-mail]

[@Session1052]

add poisonous plants! and/or stuff that they would have to learn to avoid

[@pepa6080]

And some coud eat it beacose they woud be imune to that poison.

[@pepa6080]

Also there coud be gene that woud make them poisonous.

[@Session1052]

@@pepa6080 ohhh yeahh.. or like.. some pieces they drop are poisonous, but others are not, and they could learn to only eat the non poisonous ones..

[@likeyou3317]

To increase performance you can implement spacial partitioning. So in order to find closest bibite you don't go through entire bibites array, but in this region/partition bibites array and the neighbouring ones.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Yeah I heard about that... Still not sure how to implement that efficiently ahah I think I'll need help from a more experienced unity programmer eventually lol

[@likeyou3317]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife Make a class cell/partition holding position of cell and arraylist of bibites. Each bibite also should have x and y coordinate of cell it belongs to. Partition canvas into n cells, lets say 50. Adding bibites into according cells is done by simple 4 If's. Each frame u check for each particle if it is in it's cell. If not, remove it from the cell it was in and add it to the cell that it is currentely in. So now u lose performance by all of this, but u gain tons of it when each bibite looking for closest bibite in one and neighbouring cells rather than in all of the cells.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

@@likeyou3317 thanks a lot, that should help

[@aycfes2891]

One thing I've never seen anyone make, in similar situations, is also give plants the ability to evolve. It would be very interesting to have plants spreading roots about to collect "solid" waste, leaves to collect normal waste, fruits, etc

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

I'll be working on that !

[@aycfes2891]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife \o/ also, to help with performance, it would be a good idea to put stuff like the pheromones, where/what the bibites are looking at, their hunger, and other similar info-providing features on toggles

[@ziril3972]

Oh this is so cool

[@davedood679]

I'm thinking as a possible input for the bibites, they could detect how similar another bibit is to them in terms of appearances. That way, predators could evolve to only attack bibites that are different enough from themselves. Alternatively, herbivorous bibites could gradually evolve to appear like their predators in order to potentially gain protection from them.

[@DerSolinski]

You could use shaders on the background for storing information like pheromones. Interesting idea would be to have them bleed, so predators can follow something wounded.

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Hmmm ! Never looked at shaders but that would be very interesting ! Do you have ressources I could look at ?

[@DerSolinski]

@@TheBibitesDigitalLife Nothing Unity specific but there is a thing called shader toy where you can look at live shaders and their code. This isn't a tutorial but a nice place to pickup interesting concepts. In terms of tutorials there should be tons of resources out there since Unity is very popular just google it ;-D

[@DerSolinski]

Also it would be interesting for them to have two "noses" at different positions maybe even as genetic traits, this way they can track the "scent" since the decay states the movement direction. So basically your shader constantly fades everything to black/alpha and your creatures act like a paint brush. This gets actually pretty close to a ant pheromone system.

[@KrazyKaiser]

YOOOOOO I AM SO ON BOARD FOR THIS I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT A PROJECT LIKE THIS FOREVER, I'm just not a programmer at all

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

Why learn programming when a no-life with no friends can do it for you 🤷 ?