This is a quick, dirty hack I wrote up using JS. It's based on Langton's ant, but adds a lot of new, fun stuff. You can do all sorts of interesting things with it -- a command reference is included. The "docs" were written in 5 minutes, so feel free to ask for clarification. Enjoy!
I've been thinking about color stuff, but just can't come up with how to really do it. However, I think sub-45-degree turning is gonna happen soon. Probably 15-degree to start, and see what can happen there. 45 degree turns do provide some fun stuff, though...
Edit: Just made a small change that will make things look prettier, though. If you have the command string XYZW, the command string XYZWXYZW is 100% equivalent, except for the shading (due to the cell values looping around). So when you put in a command string, it's automagickly extended to > 64 bytes now, guaranteeing smooth shading.
Perhaps a given automaton could be told to open a bucket of paint and then have that paint expend itself over time (drop in color intensity, increase in opacity, or whatever).
Oh nice, I quite like that. I'll try it out. Thanks!
Btw, just implemented yet another new feature: the '@' command is an ant bomb. If there are multiple ants in play, @ kills the one that triggers it. That lets you fork without completely annihilating your system.
Alright, both of these are in. $ increments the color, ^ decrements it. In addition, = now causes the child ant to have its color incremented, and < causes the child color to be decremented. Technicolor craziness.
Edit: Really don't like the color stuff. I've left in $ and ^, but I've turned it off for forks. It just looks like random nonsense, sadly.
Awesome! I love the ease in which you can send other people your creations using the urls. I wonder if anyone would be up for developing this same type of project, but centered around Conway's Game of Life instead (one of my favorite cellular automata).
One of my favorites: http://demoseen.com/langton.html#+..............................