Mmm Pretty!

[Dinkleberry]

I just found something quite cool.
Watch this (it's 31mb):
http://electricsheep.org/electricsheep-sample.mov

This is from a screen-saver called Electric Sheep. Images are generated by evolving fractals, using the technique of genetic algorithms: Breeding parent fractals, by selecting certain characteristics of each one. Like Folding@Home (which I admit I've never looked at), it gathers data from other computers running it on a network.

I think the program will use a lot of bandwidth and I'm at work so I'll have to find a way to throttle the bandwidth before I try it out myself.

Link:
http://electricsheep.org/index.cgi?&menu=about

EDIT: The installer blurb says it better:

Electric Sheep (http://electricsheep.org) is a distributed
screensaver, which means that everyone who runs the screensaver also
participates in its creation. While the screensaver is running, your
computer will contact the server (sheepserver.net) over the Internet
to download AVI animations with HTTP on ports 80 and 8080.

Until it downloads its first animation, the screensaver displays just
a black screen and a logo. This takes several minutes, and depending
on network conditions and server load, perhaps much longer.

The downloaded AVIs are kept on your hard disk, by default taking up
to 2GB. The disk cache's size and location as well as other
parameters and options can be adjusted from the Windows screensaver
control panel by clicking "Settings".

While you are watching the screensaver, you may vote for or against
sheep by pushing the up or down arrow key. These votes are transmitted
to the server and used to drive the evolution of the flock: sheep that
receive more votes live longer and reproduce with each other, and
creating offspring with a family resemblance.

If you are interested you can have more direct influence over the
sheep by downloading additional software to design your own sheep and
posting them into the gene pool. They will then be rendered by the
network and eventually appear on screens all over the world. If they
prove popular, they will interbreed with the rest of the population,
and variations on them will appear too.

The Electric Sheep are distributed under a Creative Commons
Attribution license, which means you can reuse and remix them as long
as you give credit to Scott Draves and the Electric Sheep as their
origin. The rules for reuse and attribution are on the web at:
http://electricsheep.org/index.cgi?&menu=reuse.

The sheep (as the AVI animations are called) are drawn algorithmically
and are extremely processor-intensive. Because it would take a single
computer a day to render one second of the animation on its own, the
sheep that you get have been rendered by users of the screensaver all
over the world working together as a virtual supercomputer.

Your computer too will participate in this rendering effort, but only
while the screensaver is running. So not only will your computer
download sheep to play for your enjoyment, but it will also download
genomes, render them into JPEG/PNG frames, and upload the results to
the server. No other information is sent to the server: the Electric
Sheep respect your privacy.

The founder of the Electric Sheep Project, Scott Draves, is a
contemporary software artist who sells limited edition fine art, some
of which is rendered by the network. His company, Spotworks LLC,
develops the Electric Sheep and provides access to the server free of
charge, as well as carrying out commercial activities to offset our
costs. Therefore some jobs rendered by the network may be for images
or animations which are not sheep at all, and will not appear in the
screen-saver.

If you would like to support the Electric Sheep by purchasing art
based on the sheep genomes, please visit http://www.scottdraves.com

Thanks for your participation!

 

[Robbo]

Thats really cool, but huge for a screensaver

 

[nurizeko]

That was indeed pretty, but I'll stick with my Aperture Laboratories saver.

 

[Vegeta897]

Mmm old.

 

[Unfocused]

That's beautiful.

 

[Lizardizzle]

I love how there is always an obvious "center" to the crazyness.


Does anyone thing that the last fractal thing on the video kind of looks Like the Ubisoft logo?

 

[Viperidae]

I've had this for a while. Unfortunately if your cache for the app isn't around a gig it gets fairly repetitive.

 

[Dinkleberry]

I've had this for a while. Unfortunately if your cache for the app isn't around a gig it gets fairly repetitive.

Yeah, it's not quite as cool as I thought it would be. Would like to see it morph between the sheep. But, I think that would be impossible with the way it works at the moment.

 

[Ennui]

I've been using this for years, but like Viper said it's really not that awesome until you've got a seriously huge amount of rendered fractals.

 

[Tyguy]

I've been using this for years, but like Viper said it's really not that awesome until you've got a seriously huge amount of rendered fractals.

on wee, how do i get teh rented fractures?

 

[Ennui]

You just have to run it for a while, it renders on your PC when it's running and also uses P2P to transfer rendered material between users. Not sure if there's any faster way to do it.