Following food sources by artificial creatures in a virtual ecosystem

International audienceIn this chapter a virtual ecosystem environment with basic physical law and energy concept has been proposed, this ecosystem is populated with 3D virtual creatures that are living in this environment in order to forage food. Artificial behaviors are developed in order to control artificial creatures. Initially, we study the behavior of herbivore’s creatures, which feed resources available in their environment. A genetic algorithm with an artificial neural network were implemented together to guarantee some of these behaviors like searching food. Foods are presented in different locations in the virtual ecosystem. The evolutionary process uses the physical properties of the virtual creatures and an external fitness function with several objectives that will conduct to the expected behaviors. The experiment evolving locomoting virtual creatures shows that these virtual creatures try to obtain at least one of the food sources presented in their trajectories. Our best-evolved creatures are able to reach multiple food sources during the simulation time