Tim Nikias v2.0 wrote:
> Hm, well, I've had the animation loop for some
> time and just inspect their movement. I think
> there's too much sideways movement.

Yeah.

> Additionally, you might want to have the boids
> have a viewing frustrum which other boids to
> steer up with.

Yeah, I haven't gotten to that part yet. :)

> For example on the first goal seeking, some boids
> just run by the goal because they steer up with
> boids behind them.

Which ones? Let's call the initial columns from left to right A, B, C
etc. and the initial columns from top to bottom 1, 2, 3 etc. Can you
single out the boids you refer to? Cause I'd be interested in studying
them. :)

> You also might want to add a factor how egoistic
> a boid is. Some might just want to push into the
> crowd when getting to their goal, thus
> intentionally getting closer to a boid than it
> normally should. With varying distances, some
> boids will thus get forced out, whilst "stronger"
> ones move in on the prey.

An interesting random factor. I'll sure try it out later... :)

> Judging from your description what you want to
> achieve (two-legged, shooting boids), I'd say
> you're going for the home-version of Massive, eh?

You could say that, though I envisioned it before the movies were made,
so that's not where I got the idea from. Besides, my simulation is
point-based - while the developers of Massive carefully explains how
their system is much more advanced than primitive point-based systems.
Oh well, there's a limit for my ambitions. ;)

> I had that in mind as well, thus the modular
> approach for my Particle-System, I can easily
> reuse the movement code for boids.

Hmm. If you're going to code a complete battle simulation in pure
POV-Ray script, then I wish you good luck. If, besides that, you also
have plans to release the code and make it userfriendly and
well-documented, then I wish you good patience as well!

I've decided to code my simulation in Java, and to make it specialized
and not care about userfriendliness or documentation or about making it
generic. I have decided it because it means that I'll have all the fun
of coding the simulation, and (almost) none of the hard work... ;)

> It seems like we're often having same thoughts,
> but that you're always one step further in
> actually implementing the stuff. :-)

It has happened a few times, yes... ;) But it sounds like you have plans
to continue doing great contributions to the POV-Ray community, while I
have sort of given up on that. One can do two things - create great
work, or create the tools that enable others to do great work. I have
concentrated more on the latter for a while, and now I'll concentrate
more on the first for a while (or attempt it at least)...

> But my boids will have to wait a little longer.
> Need to finish the particle-system and then cook
> up a nice keyframing system...

I'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff! :)

Rune
--
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rune|vision:  http://runevision.com **updated Mar 9**
POV-Ray Ring: http://webring.povray.co.uk

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