Region Module - ability to control flocks within an OpenSim scene This branch tracks the OpenSim 0.7.1.1 release To build from source Add osboids source tree under opensim/addon-modules ./runprebuild.sh against opensim root to build this module into the solution then xbuild, or build within Visual Studio / Monodevelop to produce the binaries osboids has no external dependencies other than the dlls currently included in opensim. The project generates a single dll - Flocking.dll which is copied into opensim/bin as part of the build step Configuration To become active, the module needs to be both referenced and enabled in the ini files. Otherwise it does nothing on startup Entry is as follows: [Boids] enabled = true removing the Boids group or setting enabled = false will switch off the module In addition various config parameters are available to control the flock dynamics flock-size = 100 the number of Boids to flock By default the module will create a flock of plain wooden spheres, however this can be overridden boid-prim = fish01 names the prim to use to represent each boid in the flock currently this prim needs to already exist in the scene - i.e. be rezzed in the region. Eventually this will be an inventory lookup Various runtime commands control the flocking module behaviour - described below. These can either be invoked from the Console or in world by directing them to a chat channel. To specify which channel to use: chat-channel = 118 the chat channel to listen for boid commands on Runtime Commands The following commands, which can either be issued on the Console, or via a chat channel in-world, control the behaviour of the flock at runtime flock-stop or /118 stop in chat - stop all flocking and remove boids from the region flock-start or /118 start - start the flocking simulation flock-size or /118 size - change the size of the flock flock-prim or /118 prim - change the boid prim to that passed in - must be rezzed in the scene flock-framerate or /118 framerate - only update the flock positions every frames - only really useful - for photography and debugging boid behaviour Additionally various parameters of the flocking algorithms can be set at runtime, these are configured using the flock-set or /118 set commands The following parameters can be set - current defaults are shown below max-speed = 3 how far each boid can travel per update max-force = 0.25 the maximum acceleration allowed to the current velocity of the boid neighbour-distance = 25 max distance for other boids to be considered in the same flock as us desired-separation = 20 how far away from other boids we would like to stay tolerance = 5 how close to the edges of objects or the scene should our boid get separation-weighting = 1.5 factor by which closeness to other boids should be favoured when updating position in flock alignment-weighting = 1 factor by which alignment with other boids should be favoured when updating position in flock cohesion-weighting = 1 factor by which keeping within the local flock should be favoured when updating position in flock lookahead-distance = 10 how far in front should the boid look for edges and boundaries Boidprims Any, currently rezzed in scene, object can be used as the boid prim. However fps is very much affected by the complexity of the entity to use. It is easier to throw a single prim (or sculpty) around the scene than it is to throw the constituent parts of a 200 linked prim dragon. Tests show that a few hundred single prims can be flocked effectively - depending on system and network I intend to allow inventory items and UUIDs to represent the boids - this is not written yet however. Prebuilt binaries etc.. proved in project root Status probably made it to alpha by now ... Next Steps I want to improve the ability of the boids to avoid obstacles within the scene. Current avoidance is pretty basic, and only functions correctly about fifty percent of the time. Need to improve this without increasing computational cost. Licence: all files released under a BSD licence