Hey there Si,

I really like the idea of boids and following your work with them is very interesting. I wish I had the kind of brain you need to learn programming languages, as it is I have enough trouble with English!

I'm looking forward to seeing more updates.

Later,

Mat.

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Click here to visit my site

thanks mat

the principles themselves of the system are fairly straightforward and you could probably pick them up in no time - but yeah if you dont have programming experience it can be a bit overwhelming.

Here's a slightly improved one with invisible barriers so the boids cant escape:

boundary boids

and here's a real quick basics thingy to have a play with if you have a version of maya that runs python. I'll try and figure some more out that start real basic and move up

Download the file and rename to expression.py or save the contents (make sure the spacing is maintained on each line as python requires it) into a file called expression.py and follow the instructions within it:

expression example

Si

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

hey si - the boids stuff is so cool - i think I could watch them wondering around for hours.

The character is coming along nice - not sure about the red in his eyes though.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

thanks arran

You can kind of duplicate some of the boid stuff by playing with particles and fields. I did an experiment a while back and it worked sufficiently for some things. Think I'm going to compare the particle field version with my version and a couple other maya boid variants I've found that people have done. The satisfaction is definitely knowing how it works though I also want to look into creating a series of path curves from running the simulation to autogenerate movements in the animation.
Yeah the guy was just an experiment with sss and so I threw the eye texture on from an old texture ref that was lying around. He'll get a better texture job for his scene

Si

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Its been slow going in the world of python coding but I'm at a point where most of the configration options are usable through the interface.
Here's a little video demo showing the system (I've called bFlocking) generating some 2D and 3D boid examples. All the configuration options are on the right side and all affect the behaviour to some degree on another:

12 meg demo movie

Next up is assigning a directional pull to a locator that can be keyframed.
Also I need to generate curve paths for selected boids which can then be used in animations. This might involve grabbing the directional angles of the boids along their paths and storing it as an extra attribute in the curve. Then if need be write a custom script so that any objects attached to the path automatically orient themselves to the directional info stored at each point.

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Absolutely brilliant,

can't really say any more than that! Simple looking interface which works, well done.

Mat.

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Click here to visit my site

cheers mat

It'll need a decent help section writing so that all the parameters are listed and average values described.
I'm struggling with creating and altering selection sets using python at the minute (grrr) so that I can assign all the created boids and objects to a set and then easily traverse through them when rerunning the simulation. It might end up being an array as those sets just dont want to work right through code...
Hopefully I'll have a couple of updates this week.
If you run maya 8.5 and want to test it mat just pm me

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Si,

I'd love to have a play with it but at the moment I'm running Maya 8 (no python).

I have a feeling that with the release of Maya 2008 in September my university will be upgrading which means that I will have to aswell, I mailed my course head to find out and I'm just waiting on a reply.

Take it easy,

Mat.

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Click here to visit my site

Yeah Maya 2008 looks very interesting - here's hoping they get it so that you can start dabbling with the coding side

I was reading up about cgkit for maya (I'm guessing the precursor to having it fully integrated) at:
https://cgkit.sourceforge.net/
and they did some real good work on it, with earlier versions of Maya too.

Keep it up with the visuals for your project btw mat, they are looking great

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Hey Si

Coming along nicely!

On a side note I would like to see some sort of nice script editor bulit into the maya MEL/Python editor, even if it just colourises things, highlights open/closed pairs of brackets, would speed up scripting quite a bit.

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"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

looking good Si - still very confused as to how the boid stuff will work with your truck driver you and happymat are keeping me on the edge of my seat.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

cheers guys

Steve - I know what you mean, syntax highlighting and stuff should be as standard in any programming interface. I use Vim (or gVim) nowadays because of the days when I used to write PHP and sometimes was let loose on very old solaris servers which only had vi (precursor to vim) installed. It's a quirky editor but is fantastic once you get into it. You can also download syntax highlighting files for the language you use - I should really check out a python one and use it

Arran - hehe, thats the plan, we wouldnt want you to guess the story before you'd seen it

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

hehe, thought I'd lost this thread but its back again

between other things I've been working on a tool to generate traffic flow from particles that can be used in city/road scenes.

At present you create a curve, run the script and it does the rest for you. It generates the surface with the specified number of lanes and creates a particle emitter with particles targeted to the surface. It starts adding the particles to the 'lanes' with their own traffic behaviour.
Other things to add will be locators to control traffic lights and junctions, attaching circle curves to create roundabouts and also lane changing (the next thing I'm looking at)

traffic flow movie

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Glad you've found it again Si!

Once again your work is way over what I can do with scripting etc. but is facinating none the less.

Are you going to be emitting different size particles to denote various vehicles or have you got your hands full with what you're already working on?

Great job,

Mat.

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Click here to visit my site

yeah - this is so cool!

glad to see that you are still working on it - can't wait to see them change lanes - that will be mad!

very impressive - my wife loves it too.

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arran3D

arran3D blog