Yes—that's what it's built for! Custom Obstacles: Select your own wall or labyrinth mesh in the THE COLLISION OBJECT (Object Info) node (just make sure the walls intersect the Z = 0 movement plane). Custom Ant / Agent Model: Pick your own mesh or collection in THE ANT OBJECT (Object Info) node and adjust Ant Scale in the Modifier tab (or in the yellow frame). Custom Food Sources: Simply move, duplicate, or add your food meshes into the Food_Added collection—the simulation picks them up automatically! (Or move them out into Food_Not_Added to temporarily disable them.)

Use Ant_Sim_Full_With_Food_depletion_Control inside the Collision Detection and Avoidance collection. It has all 24 simulation parameters exposed directly in the Modifier Properties tab under clean, collapsible categories. Once you want to learn how the math works inside, inspect Ant_Sim_Full_With_Food_depletion (where every control lives in a labeled Yellow frame right inside its relevant section) or Ant_Sim_Full_Without_Food_depletion for an even cleaner look at the core tree.

The colony runs inside a Geometry Nodes Simulation Zone, which starts with 0 ants on Frame 1 and evaluates dynamically frame-by-frame. Set your timeline to Frame 1 and press Spacebar to play the animation forward and watch the swarm spawn and explore! (Note: Always return to Frame 1 before re-running after changing settings so the Simulation Zone cache resets cleanly.)

Pheromone balance depends on arena size vs. evaporation rate: If trails fade before ants finish a round trip, slightly increase Evaporation Factor (e.g., from 0.985 closer to 0.992–0.996) or lower Potency Decay Rate (default 0.004). If ants wander off strong trails too easily, lower Dampener Min Wander Factor (default 0.1) or adjust Dampener Scent Min Threshold (default 0.2). If ants are missing thin trails, slightly increase Pheromone Brush Radius (default 1.0) or bump up Pheromone Grid Resolution (default 200).

Each food object starts with Initial Food HP (default 100.0) and loses Food Depletion Per Bite (default 1.0) every time an ant collects food from it. Once a food source hits 0 HP, it disappears and ants naturally disperse or redirect to remaining food in Food_Added. If you want infinite, non-depleting food sources, simply switch to the Ant_Sim_Full_Without_Food_depletion object/tree!