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[filosofiamanga]

Actually, read the Wikipedia page about the flocking algorithm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior)

After read it, I started to wonder if these kind of behaviour or algorithm could be made to other things than just "flocking".

Here are my reflexions:
In the wikipedia page, It say the flocking behaviour is made of three simple rules:
- Separation: Avoiding crowding neighbors (being aware of the surrounding), mainly made by repulsion.
- Alignment: Steer towards average heading of neighbors.
- Cohesion: Steer towards average position of neighbors (long range attraction).

Somehow I feel we can "emulate" this three rules so other kind of behaviours appear.
But we need more clarification on each term, so I'd checked in the dictionary.

- Separation:
      *Coming appart
It could mean the enemies make the decition to take you where they want, meaning they're aware of the level design, maybe they carry you to a trap, maybe to protect also their weaker pals.
      *Distance two things that were together
Again, this mean the enemies are aware of the level design (wall, hidden traps, other enemies), so they separate you from stuff you wish (like coins, treasure, exit walls, ammo).
      *Space or distance between two things.
This time, they’re aware from the spacing in some of your attacks, they take cover when you shoot at them, they doesn’t enter mindlessly your range attacks. They are also aware of your position and their pals, flocking and surround you to attack at your back.

- Alignment:
      *Placement of several people in a straight line.
The enemies seem to prefer to be in group more than to be alone, that means, they like to be in groups or re-grouping in the middle of the battle.
      *Linking a person to an ideological bias, political or otherwise.
So, enemies are “aware” of diferences between them and the others monsters, attacking others monster when and because they feel threaten.

- Cohesion:
       *Intimate or close union between the elements of something.
Enemies seem to like to protect each other, helping each other in magic or physical terms.

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That's what I think how we can "translate" the flocking rules to other more "oriented" to games.
Also, I was talking about enemies but we can use this to NPCs.


I would like to ask the help of some TIGsource fellows to see If we can make something in Game maker to show if it's posible.
Something like a battle between two armies of 5 enemies each one.

[QOG]

Interesting ideas, though perhaps a bit difficult to implement.

[filosofiamanga]

Interesting ideas, though perhaps a bit difficult to implement.

Thanks, I just wanted to share just my thoughs on that, maybe I can give a TIG fellow a little of inspiration.

Seem hard, but I'm pretty sure a coder can do them with a little of creativity, although if someone want, I can put a design in pseudocode.

I haven't made the demo because lately I was a little busy, but I did a demo with gamemaker of a shrump with two "paterns" working at the same time and It created some pretty interesting behaviours.

[Danmark]

Canonical series of articles on the topic yonder.

[LDuncan]

While the ideas are interesting and certainly have merit to work on, I'm not sure the flocking algorithm is really what you're looking for here. Most of your dictionary definitions don't have anything to do with flocking, and some are quite opposite of what flocking rules try to simulate. It'd be great, as you say, for NPCs... such as getting them to move in crowds around a city or whatever. Or maybe even large-scale battle movements for armies. But the rest, I can't help but feel it's not really the right algorithm to start with if you're trying to simulate the behaviors you're thinking of.

You might want to read some more about the flocking rules. It seems you might be confused on the definitions of some of them. Separation, for example, doesn't mean they would try to separate you from treasure... it means they don't want to be all that close to each other. You could maybe use that to tell your enemy units to spread out, so that a grenade doesn't take out all of them at the same time. The Cohesion rule, on the other hand, would maybe work to separate the player from a treasure (i.e., the treasure acts as a long range attractor, so they would eventually group around it, effectively guarding it from you).

Anyway, the ideas still have merit; I think you'll probably just have better luck looking at more general AI algorithms, with regards to the ideas you have.

[filosofiamanga]

While the ideas are interesting and certainly have merit to work on, I'm not...

Actually, the ideas come after watching a flocking algorithm "example" in some AI books.

I know it's not the best stuff for others behaviours, I think It's a good start, so that way we could create more "interesting" enemies or AI.

That's why I would like to see your feedback, maybe we can get other ideas from others TIG people.