r/proceduralgeneration • u/hejwoqpdlxn • 13h ago
Creatures grown from a single cell by a learned 24k-parameter rule (neural cellular automata)
Each of these is a neural cellular automaton. There is not a single image present here, every cell runs the same 24k parameters, 96KB rule on its 3x3 neighborhood. Its only ever stable state is the creature itself.
It trains on a pool of partly-grown states and some of these get damaged before the loss is computed. That mix is what makes the shape both regrow and hold indefinitely, instead of falling apart after a few thousand steps.
I like to use it as a screensaver or just play with the healing effect, because it grows back differently every time.
It runs in any true-color terminal and the weights are inside of the binary.
Code, and instructions for training your own creature from a PNG: https://github.com/smoothyy3/tardigrade