I didn’t have a lot of success with getting Splatycode to do anything specific (I tried to make a tree that grew and split off limbs), But I did get some nice water-like movement:
In this example, different shades of blue replace themselves with other shades and spawn a clone to the right with 0-1 rotations.
Link to json.
link to JSON file here
I tried making a geomancy-like oracle with Splatycode, but the randomness made that a lot harder and more unreliable than Colorcode, and I ended up losing several attempts to too many tabs… but I was trying to make a worm choose between tiles in a maze that transformed into markers for “yes” / “no” / “maybe” – instead tiles would often disappear or be eaten up by the worm, despite the rules :) Ended up experimenting with creating simple “seeds” of four color tiles in a square formation that would in theory create spiraling growths. The randomness created a kind of “competition” or “cycle” between different combinations of checker tile patterns that somewhat stabilizes into an interesting static noise… see below.
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I tried to make a “fade” which would change black cells to grey, then white and need to edit the rules a bit to make it completely fade out–right now it gets stuck after a bit:
I also was trying to think through the rules such that, no matter the position of a specific color, the cumulative # of those colors in a neighborhood would define the center cell. I was able to do it by hand (last week’s blur effect), but due to my minimal coding experience, figuring out a simplified way to define the rule is more difficult. Here’s my notes/thoughts:
When first working in Splatycode, it immediately reminded me of the work I did while developing my retro top-down rpg, “Sugar Rush”. I started the rpg by making the game on a grid and using squares (cells) to work on player mechanics and environment interactions. So this program was incredibly fun to learn and experiment in. To gain a better understanding, I started with a simple one I prematurely named “Sweeper.” The rules were inspired by my top-down rpg and essentially moved cells down and collected at the bottom of the grid after being bumped into (swept) by designated sweeper cells. Unfortunately, I lost Sweeper to my perpetual tab management faux paus (rip).
But as a result, I felt more comfortable exploring this form of cellular automata with Splatycode and made a different one, “Vapor.”
I wanted to make something cyclical that eventually died on its own. So, inspired by a pot of boiling water, I created a rule set that involved a lot of interactions and state changes. To separate the “gas”, I create a barrier that only rising gas and falling water could pass. I ran it a lot to fix interactions like water cells sticking to gas cells, and finally a few more times to see what was left behind each run. So far, it’s usually a stray gas or about 2 water cells sitting at the bottom.
had a lot of fun with this particular task (also Murilo’s video/tutorial on youtube helped me a lot :)
Basically, the ruleset was merely connecting three A’s together in any fashion, and they would reveal part of a path. But if the A’s didn’t connect, no path would be revealed. There are two series of three A’s that create either a flood or a fire, and as you fill out the page, the randomness of the pattern will sometimes create floods/fires as you keep building your path.
As previously mentioned in my other homeworks, I wanted to use the rule of 3 to illustrate how repetition is contextual, and the context reveals the story. Repetition (the kind I am interested in, I guess?) is less about perfect reproductions than process. I think someone said “synonyms rather than homonyms”, if that makes sense.
I created a set of rules based on a simplified version of what I perceive as the peer pressure or peer influence between two types of cells (A and Is). Setting up with a solid grid for I, I wanted to see how A populates the grid or try to retain and expand its “territory” or “influence”. And the resulting animation seems to be a never ending drama between As and Is constantly battling against each other about the space in the grid. But after a few minutes when I checked back, As (the newcomers) sadly almost went extinct, with just a lonely A surviving at the bottom right corner of the grid.
(the end result)
.gif)
(the process)
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