This Emergent Mind project, created by Matt Mazur in July 2014, uses Bezier curves and a simple genetic representation to create virtual creatures that smoothly morph between forms. Named after the book series about teenagers who can transform into animals, it explores how curve-based drawing and gene-by-gene interpolation can produce fluid shape transitions.

How It Works

Each animorph is drawn by connecting multiple cubic Bezier curves together, filling the resulting shape with a solid color, then mirroring it to create a symmetrical creature.

1. Genome. Every animorph has a genome made up of chromosomes, one per curve. Each chromosome contains six genes representing the relative positions of the two control points and the endpoint of a Bezier curve.
2. Development. To draw the creature, the algorithm starts at the center of the canvas and builds each curve in sequence. Each gene value is multiplied by a constant (2.5) to determine how far each control point and endpoint sits from the previous point. The resulting curves are filled and mirrored horizontally.
3. Morphing. When a target is selected, the animorph compares its current genes to the target's genes. On each frame it picks a mismatched gene at random and nudges it one step closer to the target value. This produces a smooth, organic-looking transition as the shape gradually shifts form.

The Preset Creatures

Four preset genomes are included: Man, Fly, Octopus, and Bat. Each was hand-tuned to resemble its namesake using 13 chromosomes of 6 genes each. You can also morph to a completely random creature, which generates a new genome with random values for every gene.

Why It's Interesting

The morphing process looks biological but differs from real evolution in important ways. There is a fixed target (real evolution has none), genes move deterministically toward that target (real mutations are random), and there is no reproduction or selection pressure. Despite these simplifications, the visualization demonstrates how a compact genetic encoding can produce a wide variety of complex shapes, and how small incremental changes to that encoding can create the illusion of one form flowing into another.

The symmetry trick, drawing one side and mirroring it, is something nature uses too. Most animals exhibit bilateral symmetry, which arises from the way body plans are encoded in DNA. Here the same principle reduces the genome size by half while ensuring every creature looks plausible.

Originally published July 7, 2014