Creative Evolution
Research
Introduction
In a series of projects using genetic algorithms and genetic programming, we have tested such evolutionary approaches on generative applications to abstract art, graphic design and game design projects. The work up until 2010 was summarised in a Keynote talk at the UK Computational Intelligence Workshop by Simon Colton. The talk is available here:
- “Evolving Stuff – A Computational Creativity Perspective”UKCI Workshop, 2010
Publications
Below are the papers that have arisen from our evolutionary approaches to Computational Creativity.
Cook, Michael; Colton, Simon; Gow, Jeremy The ANGELINA Videogame Design System, Part I Journal Article In: IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 9 (2), pp. 192-203, 2017, ISSN: 1943-0698. @article{Cook2016TCIAIGb, title = {The ANGELINA Videogame Design System, Part I}, author = {Michael Cook and Simon Colton and Jeremy Gow}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/COM-Cook2016a.pdf}, doi = {10.1109/TCIAIG.2016.2520256}, issn = {1943-0698}, year = {2017}, date = {2017-06-01}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games}, volume = {9}, number = {2}, pages = {192-203}, abstract = {Automatically generating content for videogames has long been a staple of game development and the focus of much successful research. Such forays into content generation usually concern themselves with producing a specific game component, such as a level design. This has proven a rich and challenging area of research, but in focusing on creating separate parts of a larger game, we miss out on the most challenging and interesting aspects of game development. By expanding our scope to the automated design of entire games, we can investigate the relationship between the different creative tasks undertaken in game development, tackle the higher-level creative challenges of game design, and ultimately build systems capable of much greater novelty, surprise and quality in their output. This paper, the first in a series of two, describes two case studies in automating game design, proposing cooperative coevo- lution as a useful technique to use within systems that automate this process. We show how this technique allows essentially separate content generators to produce content that complements each other. We also describe systems that have used this to design games with subtle emergent effects. After introducing the technique and its technical basis in this paper, in the second paper in the series we discuss higher level issues in automated game design, such as potential overlap with computational creativity and the issue of evaluation.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {article} } Automatically generating content for videogames has long been a staple of game development and the focus of much successful research. Such forays into content generation usually concern themselves with producing a specific game component, such as a level design. This has proven a rich and challenging area of research, but in focusing on creating separate parts of a larger game, we miss out on the most challenging and interesting aspects of game development. By expanding our scope to the automated design of entire games, we can investigate the relationship between the different creative tasks undertaken in game development, tackle the higher-level creative challenges of game design, and ultimately build systems capable of much greater novelty, surprise and quality in their output. This paper, the first in a series of two, describes two case studies in automating game design, proposing cooperative coevo- lution as a useful technique to use within systems that automate this process. We show how this technique allows essentially separate content generators to produce content that complements each other. We also describe systems that have used this to design games with subtle emergent effects. After introducing the technique and its technical basis in this paper, in the second paper in the series we discuss higher level issues in automated game design, such as potential overlap with computational creativity and the issue of evaluation. |
Cook, Michael; Colton, Simon; Gow, Jeremy The ANGELINA Videogame Design System, Part II Journal Article Forthcoming In: IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, Forthcoming. @article{Cook2016TCIAGa, title = {The ANGELINA Videogame Design System, Part II}, author = {Michael Cook and Simon Colton and Jeremy Gow}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/COM-Cook2016b.pdf}, year = {2016}, date = {2016-11-01}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games}, abstract = {Procedural content generation is generally viewed as a means to an end – a tool employed by designers to overcome technical problems or achieve a particular design goal. When we move from generating single parts of games to automating the entirety of their design, however, we find ourselves facing a far wider and more interesting set of problems than mere generation. When the designer of a game is a piece of software, we face questions about what it means to be a designer, about Computational Creativity, and about how to assess the growth of these automated game designers and the value of their output. Answering these questions can lead to new ideas in how to generate content procedurally, and produce systems that can further the cutting edge of game design. This paper describes work done to take an automated game designer and advance it towards being a member of a creative community. We outline extensions made to the system to give it more autonomy and creative independence, in order to strengthen claims that the software is acting creatively. We describe and reflect upon the software’s participation in the games community, including entering two game development contests, and show the opportunities and difficulties of such engagement. We consider methods for evaluating automated game designers as creative entities, and underline the need for automated game design to be a major frontier in future games research.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {forthcoming}, tppubtype = {article} } Procedural content generation is generally viewed as a means to an end – a tool employed by designers to overcome technical problems or achieve a particular design goal. When we move from generating single parts of games to automating the entirety of their design, however, we find ourselves facing a far wider and more interesting set of problems than mere generation. When the designer of a game is a piece of software, we face questions about what it means to be a designer, about Computational Creativity, and about how to assess the growth of these automated game designers and the value of their output. Answering these questions can lead to new ideas in how to generate content procedurally, and produce systems that can further the cutting edge of game design. This paper describes work done to take an automated game designer and advance it towards being a member of a creative community. We outline extensions made to the system to give it more autonomy and creative independence, in order to strengthen claims that the software is acting creatively. We describe and reflect upon the software’s participation in the games community, including entering two game development contests, and show the opportunities and difficulties of such engagement. We consider methods for evaluating automated game designers as creative entities, and underline the need for automated game design to be a major frontier in future games research. |
Colton, Simon Evolving a Library of Artistic Scene Descriptors Inproceedings In: International Conference on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music and Art, pp. 35–47, Springer 2012. @inproceedings{colton2012evolving, title = {Evolving a Library of Artistic Scene Descriptors}, author = { Simon Colton}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/colton_evomusart12.pdf}, year = {2012}, date = {2012-01-01}, booktitle = {International Conference on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music and Art}, pages = {35--47}, organization = {Springer}, abstract = {We describe the building of a library of 10,000 distinct ab- stract art images, and how these can be interpreted as describing the placement of objects in a scene for generative painting projects. Build- ing the library to contain only markedly distinct images necessitated a machine learning approach, whereby two decision trees were derived to predict visual similarity in pairs of images. The first tree uses genotypical information to predict before image generation whether two images will be too similar. The second tree uses phenotypical information, namely how pairs of images differ when segmented using various distance thresh- olds. Taken together, the trees are highly effective at quickly predicting when two images are similar, and we used this in an evolutionary search where non-unique individuals are pruned, to build up the library. We show how the pruning approach can be used alongside a fitness function to increase the yield of images with certain properties, such as low/high colour variety, symmetry and contrast.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } We describe the building of a library of 10,000 distinct ab- stract art images, and how these can be interpreted as describing the placement of objects in a scene for generative painting projects. Build- ing the library to contain only markedly distinct images necessitated a machine learning approach, whereby two decision trees were derived to predict visual similarity in pairs of images. The first tree uses genotypical information to predict before image generation whether two images will be too similar. The second tree uses phenotypical information, namely how pairs of images differ when segmented using various distance thresh- olds. Taken together, the trees are highly effective at quickly predicting when two images are similar, and we used this in an evolutionary search where non-unique individuals are pruned, to build up the library. We show how the pruning approach can be used alongside a fitness function to increase the yield of images with certain properties, such as low/high colour variety, symmetry and contrast. |
Cook, Michael; Colton, Simon; Gow, Jeremy Initial Results From Co-Operative Co-Evolution for Automated Platformer Design Inproceedings In: European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation, pp. 194–203, Springer 2012. @inproceedings{cook2012initial, title = {Initial Results From Co-Operative Co-Evolution for Automated Platformer Design}, author = { Michael Cook and Simon Colton and Jeremy Gow}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/cook_evogames12.pdf}, year = {2012}, date = {2012-01-01}, booktitle = {European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation}, pages = {194--203}, organization = {Springer}, abstract = {We present initial results from ACCME,A Co-operative Co-evolutionary Metroidvania Engine, which uses co-operative co-evolution to automatically evolve simple platform games. We describe the system in detail and justify the use of co-operative co-evolution. We then address two fundamental questions about the use of this method in automated game design, both in terms of its ability to maximise fitness functions, and whether our choice of fitness function produces scores which correlate with player preference in the resulting games.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } We present initial results from ACCME,A Co-operative Co-evolutionary Metroidvania Engine, which uses co-operative co-evolution to automatically evolve simple platform games. We describe the system in detail and justify the use of co-operative co-evolution. We then address two fundamental questions about the use of this method in automated game design, both in terms of its ability to maximise fitness functions, and whether our choice of fitness function produces scores which correlate with player preference in the resulting games. |
Browne, Cameron; Colton, Simon Computational Creativity in a Closed Game System Inproceedings In: 2012 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG), pp. 296–303, IEEE 2012. @inproceedings{browne2012computational, title = {Computational Creativity in a Closed Game System}, author = { Cameron Browne and Simon Colton}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/browne_cig12.pdfhttp://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/browne_cig12-1.pdf}, year = {2012}, date = {2012-01-01}, booktitle = {2012 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG)}, pages = {296--303}, organization = {IEEE}, abstract = {This paper describes the early stages of an experiment investigating the role of the computer as a creative collaborator in the game design process. We introduce the Shibumi set, a closed game system so simple that its rule space can be completely defined, yet deep enough to allow interesting games to emerge. Constraining the search space to such a closed system has computational benefits, but had unexpected effects on the creative process of designers during a related game design contest. These effects yield some insight into the creative process of experienced game designers, in particular, the way they search for rule sets to realise desired behaviours, and suggest a simple unified model of the game design process. We suggest ways in which these insights may be incorporated into future work, to produce software that might not only search for new games more effectively and assist the designer as a creative collaborator, but to automate the game design process in ways that might be perceived as more creative.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } This paper describes the early stages of an experiment investigating the role of the computer as a creative collaborator in the game design process. We introduce the Shibumi set, a closed game system so simple that its rule space can be completely defined, yet deep enough to allow interesting games to emerge. Constraining the search space to such a closed system has computational benefits, but had unexpected effects on the creative process of designers during a related game design contest. These effects yield some insight into the creative process of experienced game designers, in particular, the way they search for rule sets to realise desired behaviours, and suggest a simple unified model of the game design process. We suggest ways in which these insights may be incorporated into future work, to produce software that might not only search for new games more effectively and assist the designer as a creative collaborator, but to automate the game design process in ways that might be perceived as more creative. |
Cook, Michael; Colton, Simon ANGELINA-Coevolution in Automated Game Design Inproceedings In: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Computational Creativity, pp. 228, 2012. @inproceedings{cook2012angelina, title = {ANGELINA-Coevolution in Automated Game Design}, author = { Michael Cook and Simon Colton}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/cook_iccc12.pdf}, year = {2012}, date = {2012-01-01}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Computational Creativity}, pages = {228}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } |
Colton, Simon; Cook, Michael; Raad, Azalea Ludic Considerations of Tablet-Based Evo-Art Inproceedings In: European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation, pp. 223–233, Springer 2011. @inproceedings{colton2011ludic, title = {Ludic Considerations of Tablet-Based Evo-Art}, author = { Simon Colton and Michael Cook and Azalea Raad}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/colton2011ludic.pdf}, year = {2011}, date = {2011-01-01}, booktitle = {European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation}, pages = {223--233}, organization = {Springer}, abstract = {With the introduction of the iPad and similar devices, there is a unique opportunity to build tablet-based evolutionary art software for general consumption, and we describe here the i-ELVIRA iPad ap- plication for such purposes. To increase the ludic enjoyment users have with i-ELVIRA, we designed a GUI which gives the user a higher level of control and more efficient feedback than usual for desktop evo-art software. This relies on the efficient delivery of crossover and mutation images which bear an appropriate amount of resemblance to their par- ent(s). This requirement in turn led to technical difficulties which we resolved via the implementation and experimentation described here.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } With the introduction of the iPad and similar devices, there is a unique opportunity to build tablet-based evolutionary art software for general consumption, and we describe here the i-ELVIRA iPad ap- plication for such purposes. To increase the ludic enjoyment users have with i-ELVIRA, we designed a GUI which gives the user a higher level of control and more efficient feedback than usual for desktop evo-art software. This relies on the efficient delivery of crossover and mutation images which bear an appropriate amount of resemblance to their par- ent(s). This requirement in turn led to technical difficulties which we resolved via the implementation and experimentation described here. |
Cook, Michael; Colton, Simon Multi-Faceted Evolution of Simple Arcade Games Inproceedings In: Proceedings IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games, pp. 289–296, 2011. @inproceedings{cook2011multi, title = {Multi-Faceted Evolution of Simple Arcade Games}, author = { Michael Cook and Simon Colton}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/cook_cig11-2.pdf}, year = {2011}, date = {2011-01-01}, booktitle = {Proceedings IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games}, pages = {289--296}, abstract = {We present a system for generating complete game designs by evolving rulesets, character layouts and terrain maps in an orchestrated way. In contrast to existing approaches to generate such game components in isolation, our ANGELINA system develops game components in unison with an appreciation for their interrelatedness. We describe this multi-faceted evolutionary approach, and give some results from a first round of experimentation. }, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } We present a system for generating complete game designs by evolving rulesets, character layouts and terrain maps in an orchestrated way. In contrast to existing approaches to generate such game components in isolation, our ANGELINA system develops game components in unison with an appreciation for their interrelatedness. We describe this multi-faceted evolutionary approach, and give some results from a first round of experimentation. |
Howlett, Andrew; Colton, Simon; Browne, Cameron Evolving Pixel Shaders for the Prototype Video Game Subversion Inproceedings In: The Thirty Sixth Annual Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB’10), 2010. @inproceedings{HowlettAISB10, title = {Evolving Pixel Shaders for the Prototype Video Game Subversion}, author = {Andrew Howlett and Simon Colton and Cameron Browne}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/howlett_aisb10.pdf}, year = {2010}, date = {2010-10-01}, booktitle = {The Thirty Sixth Annual Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB’10)}, abstract = {Pixel shaders can be used to create a variety of visual effects in 3D environments, far more efficiently than if produced using the standard graphics pipeline. For such efficiency reasons, pixel shaders are commonly used in video game rendering, to add artistic or other visual effects. We investigate the automated creation of novel shader programs for rendering scenes in the Subversion virtual game world, with a view to providing the player with a visually richer and more diverse 3D environment. We show how shader programs based on the OpenGL shading language may be represented in a hierarchical tree form. This representation admits an evolutionary approach to shader creation, and we show how the application of genetic programming techniques can lead to the evolution of new and interesting shaders. We harness this for an approach where the user supplies details of a fitness function for the overall look of the city environment. We experimented with a number of different fitness function setups in order to produce some preliminary results about this approach. While generally successful in the creation of novel and visually interesting shading effects with little effort, we find some drawbacks to the approach and suggest methods for improvement.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } Pixel shaders can be used to create a variety of visual effects in 3D environments, far more efficiently than if produced using the standard graphics pipeline. For such efficiency reasons, pixel shaders are commonly used in video game rendering, to add artistic or other visual effects. We investigate the automated creation of novel shader programs for rendering scenes in the Subversion virtual game world, with a view to providing the player with a visually richer and more diverse 3D environment. We show how shader programs based on the OpenGL shading language may be represented in a hierarchical tree form. This representation admits an evolutionary approach to shader creation, and we show how the application of genetic programming techniques can lead to the evolution of new and interesting shaders. We harness this for an approach where the user supplies details of a fitness function for the overall look of the city environment. We experimented with a number of different fitness function setups in order to produce some preliminary results about this approach. While generally successful in the creation of novel and visually interesting shading effects with little effort, we find some drawbacks to the approach and suggest methods for improvement. |
Martin, Andrew; Lim, Andrew; Colton, Simon; Baumgarten, Robin Evolving 3D Buildings for the Prototype Video Game Subversion Inproceedings In: Proceedings of the 2nd EuropeanEvent on Bio-inspired Algorithms in Games (EVOGAMES) , 2010. @inproceedings{Martin2010EvoGames, title = {Evolving 3D Buildings for the Prototype Video Game Subversion}, author = {Andrew Martin and Andrew Lim and Simon Colton and Robin Baumgarten}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/martin_evogames10.pdf}, year = {2010}, date = {2010-10-01}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2nd EuropeanEvent on Bio-inspired Algorithms in Games (EVOGAMES) }, abstract = {We investigate user-guided evolution for the development of virtual 3D building structures for the prototype (commercial) game Subversion, which is being developed by Introversion Software Ltd. Build- ings are described in a custom plain-text markup language that can be parsed by Subversion's procedural generation engine, which renders the 3D models on-screen. The building descriptions are amenable to ran- dom generation, crossover and mutation, which enabled us to implement and test a user-driven evolutionary approach to building generation. We performed some fundamental experimentation with ten participants to determine how visually similar child buildings are to their parents, when generated in differing ways. We hope to demonstrate the potential of user-guided evolution for content generation in games in general, as such tools require very little training, time or effort to be employed effectively.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } We investigate user-guided evolution for the development of virtual 3D building structures for the prototype (commercial) game Subversion, which is being developed by Introversion Software Ltd. Build- ings are described in a custom plain-text markup language that can be parsed by Subversion's procedural generation engine, which renders the 3D models on-screen. The building descriptions are amenable to ran- dom generation, crossover and mutation, which enabled us to implement and test a user-driven evolutionary approach to building generation. We performed some fundamental experimentation with ten participants to determine how visually similar child buildings are to their parents, when generated in differing ways. We hope to demonstrate the potential of user-guided evolution for content generation in games in general, as such tools require very little training, time or effort to be employed effectively. |
Lim, Chong-U.; Baumgarten, Robin; Colton, Simon Evolving behaviour trees for the commercial game DEFCON Inproceedings In: Proceedings of the 2nd European eEvent on Bio-inspired Algorithms in Games (EVOGAMES) , 2010. @inproceedings{Lim2010, title = {Evolving behaviour trees for the commercial game DEFCON}, author = {Chong-U. Lim and Robin Baumgarten and Simon Colton}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/lim_evogames10.pdf}, year = {2010}, date = {2010-10-01}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2nd European eEvent on Bio-inspired Algorithms in Games (EVOGAMES) }, abstract = {Behaviour trees provide the possibility of improving on existing Artificial Intelligence techniques in games by being simple to implement, scalable, able to handle the complexity of games, and modular to improve reusability. This ultimately improves the development process for designing automated game players. We cover here the use of behaviour trees to design and develop an AI-controlled player for the commercial real-time strategy game DEFCON. In particular, we evolved behaviour trees to develop a competitive player which was able to outperform the game’s original AI-bot more than 50% of the time. We aim to highlight the potential for evolving behaviour trees as a practical approach to developing AI-bots in games.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } Behaviour trees provide the possibility of improving on existing Artificial Intelligence techniques in games by being simple to implement, scalable, able to handle the complexity of games, and modular to improve reusability. This ultimately improves the development process for designing automated game players. We cover here the use of behaviour trees to design and develop an AI-controlled player for the commercial real-time strategy game DEFCON. In particular, we evolved behaviour trees to develop a competitive player which was able to outperform the game’s original AI-bot more than 50% of the time. We aim to highlight the potential for evolving behaviour trees as a practical approach to developing AI-bots in games. |
Colton, Simon; Gow, Jeremy; Torres, Pedro; Cairns, Paul Experiments in Objet Trouvé Browsing Inproceedings In: Proceedings of the 1st Int. Joint Conference on Computational Creativity, 2010. @inproceedings{ColtonICCC10Objet, title = {Experiments in Objet Trouvé Browsing}, author = {Simon Colton and Jeremy Gow and Pedro Torres and Paul Cairns}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/colton_cc10.pdf}, year = {2010}, date = {2010-10-01}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1st Int. Joint Conference on Computational Creativity}, journal = {Proceedings of the 1st Int. Joint Conference on Computational Creativity}, abstract = {We report on two experiments to study the use of a graphic design tool for generating and selecting image lters, in which the aesthetic preferences that the user expresses whilst browsing ltered images drives the lter generation process. In the first experiment, we found evidence for the idea that intelligent employment of the user's preferences when generating flters can improve the overall quality of the designs produced, as assessed by the users themselves. The results also suggest some user behaviours related to the delity of the image lters, i.e., how much they alter the image they are applied to. A second experiment tested whether evolutionary techniques which manage delity would be preferred by users. Our results did not support this hypothesis, which opens up interesting questions about how user preferences can be intelligently employed in browsing-based design tools.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } We report on two experiments to study the use of a graphic design tool for generating and selecting image lters, in which the aesthetic preferences that the user expresses whilst browsing ltered images drives the lter generation process. In the first experiment, we found evidence for the idea that intelligent employment of the user's preferences when generating flters can improve the overall quality of the designs produced, as assessed by the users themselves. The results also suggest some user behaviours related to the delity of the image lters, i.e., how much they alter the image they are applied to. A second experiment tested whether evolutionary techniques which manage delity would be preferred by users. Our results did not support this hypothesis, which opens up interesting questions about how user preferences can be intelligently employed in browsing-based design tools. |
Colton, Simon; Browne, Cameron Evolving Simple Art-based Games Inproceedings In: Workshops on Applications of Evolutionary Computation, 2009. @inproceedings{Colton2009EvoGames, title = {Evolving Simple Art-based Games}, author = {Simon Colton and Cameron Browne}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/colton_evogames09.pdf}, year = {2009}, date = {2009-10-01}, booktitle = {Workshops on Applications of Evolutionary Computation}, abstract = {Evolutionary art has a long and distinguished history, and genetic programming is one of only a handful of AI techniques which is used in graphic design and the visual arts. A recent trend in so-called `new media' art is to design online pieces which are dynamic and have an element of interaction and sometimes simple game-playing aspects. This de nes the challenge addressed here: to automatically evolve dynamic, interactive art pieces with game elements. We do this by extending the Avera user-driven evolutionary art system to produce programs which generate spirograph-style images by repeatedly placing, scaling, rotating and colouring geometric objects such as squares and circles. Such images are produced in an inherently causal way which provides the dynamic element to the pieces.We further extend the system to produce programs which react to mouse clicks, and to evolve sequential patterns of clicks for the user to uncover. We wrap the programs in a simple front end which provides the user with feedback on how close they are to uncovering the pattern, adding a lightweight game-playing element to the pieces. The evolved interactive artworks are a preliminary step in the creation of more sophisticated multimedia pieces.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } Evolutionary art has a long and distinguished history, and genetic programming is one of only a handful of AI techniques which is used in graphic design and the visual arts. A recent trend in so-called `new media' art is to design online pieces which are dynamic and have an element of interaction and sometimes simple game-playing aspects. This de nes the challenge addressed here: to automatically evolve dynamic, interactive art pieces with game elements. We do this by extending the Avera user-driven evolutionary art system to produce programs which generate spirograph-style images by repeatedly placing, scaling, rotating and colouring geometric objects such as squares and circles. Such images are produced in an inherently causal way which provides the dynamic element to the pieces.We further extend the system to produce programs which react to mouse clicks, and to evolve sequential patterns of clicks for the user to uncover. We wrap the programs in a simple front end which provides the user with feedback on how close they are to uncovering the pattern, adding a lightweight game-playing element to the pieces. The evolved interactive artworks are a preliminary step in the creation of more sophisticated multimedia pieces. |
Colton, Simon; Torres, Pedro Evolving Approximate Image Filters Inproceedings In: 7th European Workshop on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design , 2009. @inproceedings{Colton2009ImageFilters, title = {Evolving Approximate Image Filters}, author = {Simon Colton and Pedro Torres}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/colton_evomusart09.pdf}, year = {2009}, date = {2009-10-01}, booktitle = {7th European Workshop on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design }, abstract = {Image filtering involves taking a digital image and producing a new image from it. In software packages such as Adobe's Photoshop, image lters are used to produce artistic versions of original images. Such software usually includes hundreds of di erent image ltering algorithms, each with many ne-tuneable parameters. While this freedom of exploration may be liberating to artists and designers, it can be daunting for less experienced users. Photoshop provides image lter browsing technology, but does not yet enable the construction of a lter which produces a reasonable approximation of a given ltered image from a given original image. We investigate here whether it is possible to automatically evolve an image lter to approximate a target lter, given only an original image and a ltered version of the original. We describe a tree based representation for lters, the tness functions and search techniques we employed, and we present the results of experimentation with various search setups. We demonstrate the feasibility of evolving image lters and suggest new ways to improve the process.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } Image filtering involves taking a digital image and producing a new image from it. In software packages such as Adobe's Photoshop, image lters are used to produce artistic versions of original images. Such software usually includes hundreds of di erent image ltering algorithms, each with many ne-tuneable parameters. While this freedom of exploration may be liberating to artists and designers, it can be daunting for less experienced users. Photoshop provides image lter browsing technology, but does not yet enable the construction of a lter which produces a reasonable approximation of a given ltered image from a given original image. We investigate here whether it is possible to automatically evolve an image lter to approximate a target lter, given only an original image and a ltered version of the original. We describe a tree based representation for lters, the tness functions and search techniques we employed, and we present the results of experimentation with various search setups. We demonstrate the feasibility of evolving image lters and suggest new ways to improve the process. |
Colton, Simon Automatic Invention of Fitness Functions, with application to Scene Generation Inproceedings In: Proceedings of the EvoMusArt Workshop, 2008. @inproceedings{Colton2008EvoMusArt, title = {Automatic Invention of Fitness Functions, with application to Scene Generation}, author = {Simon Colton}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/colton_evomusart08.pdf}, year = {2008}, date = {2008-11-01}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the EvoMusArt Workshop}, abstract = {We investigate the automatic construction of visual scenes via a hybrid evolutionary/hill-climbing approach using a correlation- based fitness function. This forms part of The Painting Fool system, an automated artist which is able to render the scenes using simulated art materials. We further describe a novel method for inventing fitness functions using the HR descriptive machine learning system, and we com- bine this with The Painting Fool to generate and artistically render novel scenes. We demonstrate the potential of this approach with applications to cityscape and flower arrangement scene generation. }, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } We investigate the automatic construction of visual scenes via a hybrid evolutionary/hill-climbing approach using a correlation- based fitness function. This forms part of The Painting Fool system, an automated artist which is able to render the scenes using simulated art materials. We further describe a novel method for inventing fitness functions using the HR descriptive machine learning system, and we com- bine this with The Painting Fool to generate and artistically render novel scenes. We demonstrate the potential of this approach with applications to cityscape and flower arrangement scene generation. |
Hull, Marc; Colton, Simon Towards a General Framework for Program Generation in Creative Domains Inproceedings In: Proceedings of the 4th International Joint Workshop on Computational Creativity, 2007. @inproceedings{HullCC2007, title = {Towards a General Framework for Program Generation in Creative Domains}, author = {Marc Hull and Simon Colton}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/hull_cc07.pdf}, year = {2007}, date = {2007-10-01}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th International Joint Workshop on Computational Creativity}, abstract = {Choosing an efficient artificial intelligence approach for producing artefacts for a particular creative domain can be a difficult task. Seemingly minor changes to the solution representation and learning parameters can have an unpredictably large impact on the success of the process. A standard approach is to try various different setups in order to investigate their effects and refine the technique over time. Our aim is to produce a pluggable framework for exploring different representations and learning techniques for creative artefact generation. Here we describe our initial work towards this goal, including how problems are specified to our system in a format that is concise but still able to cover a wide range of domains. We also tackle the general problem of constrained solution generation by bringing information from the constraints into the generation and variation process and we discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of doing this. Finally, we present initial results of applying our system to the domain of algorithmic art generation, where we have used the framework to code up and test three different representations for producing artwork.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } Choosing an efficient artificial intelligence approach for producing artefacts for a particular creative domain can be a difficult task. Seemingly minor changes to the solution representation and learning parameters can have an unpredictably large impact on the success of the process. A standard approach is to try various different setups in order to investigate their effects and refine the technique over time. Our aim is to produce a pluggable framework for exploring different representations and learning techniques for creative artefact generation. Here we describe our initial work towards this goal, including how problems are specified to our system in a format that is concise but still able to cover a wide range of domains. We also tackle the general problem of constrained solution generation by bringing information from the constraints into the generation and variation process and we discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of doing this. Finally, we present initial results of applying our system to the domain of algorithmic art generation, where we have used the framework to code up and test three different representations for producing artwork. |