Breeding plants

Breeding creates new offspring plants from parents using random variation. About 350 of the over 400 parameters that make up a plant are numerical values. We realized early on that it might be fun to introduce random variation into these numerical parameters and see what happens. The result is a sort of pseudo-evolutionary process. In each breeding generation1VHOC04 you can select the most interesting plant, then breed it further to produce strange, beautiful, or imaginative plants. The breeder isn't concerned much with botanical accuracy, but it produces some pretty amazing-looking plants.

Breeding works by

▪ Mutation: Each parameter in a breeding offspring is randomly selected from a normal (bell-shaped) distribution around the mean parent value (from one or two parents). The higher the mutation, the greater the standard deviation of the normal distribution, so the higher the variation.

▪ Blending: The mean of the mutation distribution is either the parameter value from one parent, or a weighted mean from two parents. You can combine the two parents in any weighting combination.

IMPORTANT: The plants in the breeder are NOT saved with the plant file and are lost when you leave the program. If you want to save a breeder plant, drag or copy it to the main window and save the plant file.

More information on

Breeding_from_one_parent>second Breeding from one parent

Breeding_from_two_parents>second Breeding from two parents

Taking_a_breeder_plant_out_of_the_breeder>second Taking a breeder plant out of the breeder

Replacing_breeder_plants>second Replacing breeder plants

Deleting_breeder_generations>second Deleting breeder generations

Changing_plant_ages_in_the_breeder>second Changing the age of breeder plants

Changing_the_size_of_the_breeder>second Changing the size of the breeder

%Changing_the_size_of_breeder_plants>second Changing the size of breeder plants

General tips on using the breeder

▪ If you feel that the breeder takes too long to create new generations, you can reduce the maximum number of plant parts. As the breeder creates plants, it will truncate any plant that has more than this number of parts. Depending on your computer speed (and your patience) you can set this number (in thousands) to between one thousand and one hundred thousand parts. If you often find yourself waiting a long time for the breeder to finish breeding, reduce this number. To change the maximum number of plant parts, choose More Options from the breeder Options menu, click the General tab, and change the number labeled Maximum parts per breeder plant.

▪ Sometimes you will get plants in the breeder that don’t draw anything. Usually that means they have a zero in some parameter. Just leave these alone and don’t breed them (if you do you’ll probably just get lots more blank plants).