Game of Life 3D

[MyronHuzan]

Hi,
I am new to this site, and relatively new to Game of Life. I have a project for my university for programming, and I have chosen to program the Game of Life... Since I have already done this, I was wanting to take it to the next step and maybe alter the game a little and make it 3D, I am just curious if anyone has done anything like this before and if so how they went about it.
Thanks:)

[dvgrn]

Hi,
I am new to this site, and relatively new to Game of Life. I have a project for my university for programming, and I have chosen to program the Game of Life... Since I have already done this, I was wanting to take it to the next step and maybe alter the game a little and make it 3D, I am just curious if anyone has done anything like this before and if so how they went about it.
Thanks:)

Here's a recent addition to a thread that might be useful for you -- but the three-grid shadow detail really only applies to editing a pattern (i.e., showing where a cursor is) not just displaying the evolution of a pattern.

Here's one of many 3D Life implementations; it certainly shows off the largest problem, which is the difficulty of visualizing an evolving 3D shape made out of blocks without the closer blocks hiding most of the interesting details.

It could also be interesting to think about ways to extend 2D Conway's Life into the third dimension in some other way. Chris Rowett's LifeViewer gets some really impressive-looking results by using the third dimension to show how long a given cell has been alive. Click on the airplane or "Speed" buttons to see some of the 3D effects. There's also the "Ready" simulator, which can do things like Life on a torus.

I've always wanted to do a "flyover" of a Conway's Life plane, showing the huge variety of oscillators and spaceships and still lifes that have been invented over the last forty years -- starting from an eagle's-eye view, let's say, and then zooming in closer and changing camera angles in 3D, to show just how many hundreds of thousands of different Life forms there are.

Generally making Conway's Life 3D alters it a lot, not a little -- the dynamics become quite different, and it's not really recognizable as "the same thing" at all... with the possible exception of Carter Bays' rule that lets you simulate 2D Life in double layers of a 3D grid.

[MyronHuzan]

Here's a recent addition to a thread that might be useful for you -- but the three-grid shadow detail really only applies to editing a pattern (i.e., showing where a cursor is) not just displaying the evolution of a pattern.

Here's one of many 3D Life implementations; it certainly shows off the largest problem, which is the difficulty of visualizing an evolving 3D shape made out of blocks without the closer blocks hiding most of the interesting details.

It could also be interesting to think about ways to extend 2D Conway's Life into the third dimension in some other way. Chris Rowett's LifeViewer gets some really impressive-looking results by using the third dimension to show how long a given cell has been alive. Click on the airplane or "Speed" buttons to see some of the 3D effects. There's also the "Ready" simulator, which can do things like Life on a torus.

I've always wanted to do a "flyover" of a Conway's Life plane, showing the huge variety of oscillators and spaceships and still lifes that have been invented over the last forty years -- starting from an eagle's-eye view, let's say, and then zooming in closer and changing camera angles in 3D, to show just how many hundreds of thousands of different Life forms there are.

Generally making Conway's Life 3D alters it a lot, not a little -- the dynamics become quite different, and it's not really recognizable as "the same thing" at all... with the possible exception of Carter Bays' rule that lets you simulate 2D Life in double layers of a 3D grid.

Wow! There is so much i never really thought of.. Thanks, i will have a better and more thorough look soon and i will keep you posted, or if i have any further questions, which there will be i am sure of:P
Thanks a lot:)