Just as the fittest survive, multiply and become the dominant species, so does good ActionScript source code. The neatest, most optimised and well-formed code is repeatedly downloaded, replicated, studied and reworked and let back into the eco system of computer networks. This is good as good code continues to propagate itself and bad code dies off (hopefully). The fittest code spreads through the networked eco-system like a computer virus itself, perhaps visually approximating the crystalline growth spreads of grant skinners beautiful crystal simulation.

The following selection of artworks have Life or kinematics at there core and have most likely have proved to be dominant code species by propagating themselves via code integrity and beauty through the open source community.

CREATURES THAT SWIM

Apparently humans evolved from simple creatures made of a few cells with comparatively simple interactions with their environments. However simple the flagellum is in zoological circles, Levitated's Flagellum is high up there in coded exquisiteness. Its a beautiful example of how code, when well crafted, can give rise to very smooth fluid movements and undulations that simulate something living. Watch how the fastest tails don't necessarily make the fastest guys.

From a more a slightly more abstracted view of a creature swimming we should check out Uncontrol's 'fishy' (click on the top row square 4th from the right). Here, it's the well-observed nervous jumpy movement of the fish that has been recorded in the mind of the coder. The slight time lag in the flickering repositioning of the elements of fishy's body makes him fish-like. His twitching eye looks out of browserspace waiting for the stimuli of food or an annoying finger taping at the screen.

CREATURES THAT WALK

Eventually some of those primitive flagellum we just saw had to face the unexpected prospect of dealing with gravity, wandering onto land as they did without the proper survival equipment. Legs are great tools for moving through space without the support of water. Levitated's Organic Machines are generative insects, machine-like insects of combinatorial construction! 'Each computational organism is constructed from a set of individual, hand drawn elements. Unique graphic elements are attached, hinged, scaled, and skewed to anatomical specification. Locomotion and behaviours are also uniquely modified. The resulting walking machines are diverse in both appearance and behaviour'.

CREATURES THAT FLY

Flocking behaviour is a long studied mathematical system. A simple flock can be represented by an Array matrix. Each member of the Array typically might contain the X and Y and even Z position of each bird in the flock. Spheres of influence, such as food can be represented as objects on the screen. Proximity calculations can be used to find the distance each bird is to the food and decide whether the bird manages to 'see' the food or not and react to it. If we move the food around, a very simple flocking behaviour will result. Out of quite simple environmental attributes, very complex behaviour can occur. Grant Skinner has used his own Proximity Class to model bioluminescent communication in swarms of fireflies.

INVERSE KINEMATICS

No investigation of the mechanics of life-like movement can be left without mentioning Inverse Kinematics. Inverse kinematics is a technique for determining the movement of interconnected segments of a body or model. Using a technique called parenting, a target object (the child) is assigned to another object (the parent). Every time the parent object moves the child object will follow according to the attributes assigned to it, much the way a hand moves according to the arm. A complete hierarchy can be created with objects that have children and parents. The inverse kinematics technique moves the child object to where the animator wants it, causing the parent object and all other attached objects to follow. A Few years back, Andries Odendaal gave to the flash world the 'IK puppet' (IK meaning Inverse Kinematics). It was a stunning piece, intricately engineered so that various limbs/joints could be articulated with the mouse. It was like the human skeleton version of the soda creatures from soda.co.uk. Unfortunately it seems not available online anymore.

BUT WHAT CAN THESE A-LIFE EXAMPLES BE USED FOR?

Aside from the obvious beauty these creations impart to the flash eco system, what practical uses do they have? Well, their obvious place would be in Game design where fluid life-like character movement is preferred over static sprites, Inverse Kinematics is particularly helpful here. On a more fundamental level these artworks are educational examples showing how very complex movement can be arrived from extremely simple code routines - I further believe they are starting points towards more philosophical debates on the subject of what defines sentience itself.

This is the second part of an article examining A-life in flash the first part can be found here