The World of Plankton Project: An Exploratory Simulation
What is it? |
The World of Plankton Project is a simulation being developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with help from experts at the Darrin Fresh Water Institute at Lake George. The project is slated to be on display as part of a museum exhibit educating visitors about the delicate balance of freshwater ecology.
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Changing SizeOne of the biggest challenges we faced while trying to show off the variety of life in the lake was the significant variance in the organisms' relative sizes. To remedy this, we implemented the ability to scale everything around the player as if the player was growing or shrinking. Every organism is given a size variable that corresponds to how large it is in real life, and the system uses that to determine what size it should be with respect to the player.
In order for this to work, every model needs to be normalized to one meter, so that it can be scaled using the inverse of its relative size with respect to the player's size. However, because this causes organisms to sometimes be too small to rightly waste processing power on, we had to implement a system that would disable any organism which is smaller than a certain culling size. |
From Programmer to Project ManagerI originally came onto the World of Plankton project as a programmer, but have since moved up to the position of production manager. One of the biggest responsibilities I have in this new role is making sure everything is polished and user-friendly, all while still being relatively true-to-life.
The main focus of this next development cycle is going to be transitioning into something we can easily hand to a person and have them play without requiring any external instruction. Having new members on the team has been beneficial to getting a fresh perspective on the project, as well as finding and squashing bugs that veteran members probably would have overlooked. I'm very much looking forward to the next few months and seeing how the World of Plankton project develops. |
Want to learn more?
Website is forthcoming; for now, here's a video!