Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#1

Post by esychology » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:28 AM UTC

Neural CAs model self-organizing pattern formation.

Now they can generate patterns at HD resolution in real-time, enabled by turning each CA cell into a Neural Field.

Try 3 demos: grow a pattern from a seed (and damage it, it heals), synthesize PBR textures that can regenerate, or create 3D textures like clouds.

Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata
cells2pixels.github.io

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#2

Post by amelius » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:07 AM UTC

Why are the images always generated in the same orientation (upright)? Do the cells have awareness of what is "up"?

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#3

Post by WithinReason » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:07 AM UTC

You can make the centipede grow longer, which makes sense given how this works. Or grow a 2nd centipede for extra points.

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#4

Post by esychology » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:13 AM UTC

WithinReason wrote: post #3

You can make the centipede grow longer, which makes sense given how this works. Or grow a 2nd centipede for extra points.

haha yes, also the same with the worm

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#5

Post by esychology » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:14 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #2

Why are the images always generated in the same orientation (upright)? Do the cells have awareness of what is "up"?

yeah normally NCAs have a sense of up and left. There are some isotropic variants that make the perception fully rotation-invariant.

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#6

Post by jekude » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:19 AM UTC

The abstract implies that strictly local updates are a hinderance to high res, however i would have thought there would be an interesting way to get speed up gains from neighbor-only traffic on GPUs CAM-style. am i making that up?

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#7

Post by embedding-shape » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:27 AM UTC

Really interesting demo, nicely done :) Would be fun if switching the "Target Image" when using the second brush mode in the Growing Demo didn't erase/reset the existing canvas, so we could "stamp" new things on top of other images. Small thing perhaps but I got sad when it disappeared when I wanted to merge a kitten on top of the chameleon but couldn't :(

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#8

Post by whilenot-dev » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:59 AM UTC

The automata just completely destroys the image if I draw too much over the stabilized image with the brush. 5 horizontal swipes are enough to destroy the kitty, is that to be expected?

EDIT: video here: https://imgur.com/a/ItZGd5X

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#9

Post by mirekrusin » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:59 AM UTC

So the goal is to evaporate it with minimum number of shots?

Re: Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata

#10

Post by bfmalky » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 12:23 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #7

Really interesting demo, nicely done :) Would be fun if switching the "Target Image" when using the second brush mode in the Growing Demo didn't erase/reset the existing canvas, so we could "stamp" new things on top of other images. Small thing perhaps but I got sad when it disappeared when I wanted to merge a kitten on top of the chameleon but couldn't :(

You can, just enable the 'transition' switch.