Flocking System using Particles - Is it a good idea???

[dbsmith]

The way you are doing it seems fine, you should look into per particle (PP) attributes.
Select your particle shape, and go down to Per Particle Attributes options in attribute editor.

You can Add Dynamic Attribute, click General.
Type in a name (say BugFacingDirection), click Float (probably), and then click Per Particle(array).
Click Add.

Now in your PP Attributes, right click BugType and go Creation Expression.
In Expression box, type something like:

particleShape1.BugFacingDirection = rand(1,360);
(you'll need to play around to make it work probably, im just pseudo-coding here)

Now each individual particle has its own attribute which is a random number between 1 and 360.


What you might need to do though (the hard bit) is to figure out (using more PP attributes) how to write your own facing direction code based on Velocity. Figure out how to control the rotation/facing direction (there will be a per particle attribute somewhere) and make it dynamically update based on your particle's individual velocity.
Then, in the Runtime before Dynamics tab in the Expression Editor for your rotation/facing direction, create something like:

particleShape1.Rotation = convertVelocityToRotation(particleShape1.Velocity);
if(particleShape1.Velocity < 0.1){
particleShape1.Rotation = particleShape1.BugFacingDirection;
}

Anyways, this is all pseudocode just to give u ideas bout where to go next, so dont complain if none of it works if you try and type it in!

[dbsmith]

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=89&t=496342

This thread talks about figuring out characters direction based on worldspace...

[D4ng3rmouse]

Hey cool thanks for the reply. There some good stuff to think about there so I will give it ago. The one thing im not sure about at the mo is if u can actually rotate particles, there doesn't seem to be any options for it. I'm reading up on all my vector and matrix maths at the moment because its been a while for me since i have done it but im thinking that im gonna have to do something like finding the current velocity(which is obv a vector) then the velocity that will be created for the next frame. Find the difference between them and then use a matrix to somehow do the transformation to the new vector velocity..... I think. Anyway thanks for the help im sure it will come in handy and i may be over complicating things.

[Buexe]

In the first volume "Mel Scripting for Maya Animators" Mark Wilkins creates and explains a basic Crowd system. Maybe you can find some useful starting information there. AFAIK he uses particles. Hope this helps.

[fsy412]

here is a api plug,hope u can find some help.www.kolve.com (http://www.kolve.com/)

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