Hi Matt, hope your project is going well

I did them in flash using actionscript 2 (looks a bit like java nowadays) and based it on a the original boid information and a pseudo (generic, non-specific) code example. Theoretically implementing a similar structure in Mel should be straightforward, being a C style structured language not vastly different from PHP's structure which I've used for years.
I had a play with Mel the other week and liked how you can use both Mel and Python when scripting (I'm learning Python at the minute too) - the only drawback I found, correct me if I'm wrong here - is that you can't use python to write expressions, only a variant of Mel. Also controlling things based on the time or current frame seems a bit overly complicated to what I'm used to. I would much prefer to write a Python function and execute it per frame through some kind of custom control rather than having to put it inside an expression (and therefore Mel) that is automatically evaluated every frame.

I'm aiming at getting a behaviour pattern so that the boids leave a small constrained place and spread out avoiding objects and each other as they travel towards a final location which they further spread out at and stop behind an object like a wall. Another behaviour I'd like is to have some random boids stop behind obstacles (staying under cover) for a random length of time before moving forward - something along the lines of the guys leaving the landing craft at the beginning of saving private ryan (if thats not giving too much away)

Si

p.s, I'll put the flash code up on my site at some point soon so that people can have a look and play with it