Boids and Floids

Boids and Floids allows you to tweak the values governing a flock of bird-like creatures which causes them to exhibit flocking behaviors.  This interactive  demo will help you understand the importance of each value and the importance of balancing the values. This program is perfect if you want a dynamic, non-looping animation on an inactive screen or as a screen-saver.

Boids are bird-like programs which follow 5 governing rules:

1. Cohesion: stay close to your neighbors

2.  Avoidance: don't collide with your immediate neighbors

3. Alignment/Direction: point in the same direction as your neighbors

4. Targeting: point towards a designated target

5. Obstacle avoidance: don't fly into obstacles

Floid are boids with extra layers. If the target of a group of boids is itself a boid, it behaves as the leader of the flock so I call them floids (short for flockoids). If you have multiple floids acting as a flock following a single target which is ITSELF a boid, you have a 3 level floid flock (boids following floids following floids). Because each layer targets floids which themselves are coordinating with each other through the boid rules, subtle behavioral changes can be observed where subflocks of boids exhibit coordination across great distances. 

Experiment with different numbers of floids and layers to see what behavioral changes become apparent!