This is the README for School.NIHS.bs.tar.gz [Download] [Browse] [Up]
SchoolView v1.0, 17 April, 1994
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This is SchoolView, a BackSpace module that implements the flocking
algorithm discussed in SIGGRAPH a few years ago (1989, 1990?) and used
in Jurassic Park for the herd-o-dinosaurs scene.
The code is public domain, although you'd probably need the article to
follow the algorithm. Basically, a fish's acceleration is a weighted
and prioritized sum of four different accelerations. They are (in
order of priority):
1. Collision avoidance
2. Flock centering
3. Flockmate velocity matching
4. Target seeking
The fish are implemented as a font for speed.
Hope you enjoy it. Comments and suggestions to:
David Lambert
dcl@homer.uu.panix.com (NeXTMail ok)
NOTE:
Also included is a slightly modified Thinker.m for Backspace itself.
You may have noticed that Backspace no longer lets you do something
with the mouse, no matter what "- ignoreMouseMovement" returns. Well,
it does, in case, you haven't noticed, and this Thinker.m fixes it, if
you use it instead. (The problem had to do with the way Backspace tried
to see if it should quit displaying the view - looking for the "autoDimmed"
state.) I needed this for the "Follow Mouse" switch in SchoolView.
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.