On Aug 24, 2013, at 10:07 PM, Robert McCune wrote:

> I am interested in Flocking in a bounded, or Non-Toroidal, space.  I coded a wall avoidance vector that, once within an agents' neighborhood, repulses with the square inverse of the distance to the wall.

Sure.  This would be a common steering behavior.  Often known as a "motor schema" in the robot world. 

>  This negatively impacts flocking - there tend to be more, smaller flocks, and more agents not apart of a flock, because flocks break up when they hit the wall
> 
> Are there other ways to implement a bounded area, or wall avoidance?  Ways that reduce fragmentation or don't effect flocking?

I'm not sure.  But are you sure that if you smash a flock of birds or a school of fish into a wall, they don't do basically the same thing?

The whole point of boids is to look realistic.  You sure that this isn't realistic?


> Are Flockers and related BOIDS typically implemented in toroidal space for this very reason?

I made Flockers toroidal because classic boids models are toroidal, and they're toroidal because I think Craig Reynolds did his demos toroidally.  And that's about it.

Sean