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Flocks, herds and schools: A distributed behavioral model

Author:
Craig W. Reynolds
Symbolics Graphics Division, Los Angeles, CA
Authors Info & Claims
Published: 01 August 1987 Publication History

Abstract

The aggregate motion of a flock of birds, a herd of land animals, or a school of fish is a beautiful and familiar part of the natural world. But this type of complex motion is rarely seen in computer animation. This paper explores an approach based on simulation as an alternative to scripting the paths of each bird individually. The simulated flock is an elaboration of a particle systems, with the simulated birds being the particles. The aggregate motion of the simulated flock is created by a distributed behavioral model much like that at work in a natural flock; the birds choose their own course. Each simulated bird is implemented as an independent actor that navigates according to its local perception of the dynamic environment, the laws of simulated physics that rule its motion, and a set of behaviors programmed into it by the "animator." The aggregate motion of the simulated flock is the result of the dense interaction of the relatively simple behaviors of the individual simulated birds.

References

[1]
Abelson, H., and diSessa, A., "Maneuvering a Three Dimensional Turtle" in Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981, pp. 140-159.
[2]
Agha, G., Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1986.
[3]
Amkraut, S., personal communication, January 8, 1987.
[4]
Amkraut, S., Girard, M., Karl, G., "motion studies for a work in progress entitled "Eurythmy' " in SIGGRAPH Video Review, Issue 21 (second item, time code 3:58 to 7:35), 1985, produced at the Computer Graphics Research Group, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
[5]
Austin, H., "The Logo Primer," M|T A.I. Lab, Logo Working Paper 19, 1974.
[6]
Braitenberg, V., Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984.
[7]
Burton, R., Bird Behavior, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1985.
[8]
Davis, J. R., Kay, A., Marion, A., unpublished research on behavioral simulation and animation, Atari Research, 1983.
[9]
Girard, M., Maciejewski, A. A., "Computational Modeling for the Computer Animation of Legged Figures," in Computer Graphics V 19 #3, 1985, (proceedings of acre SIGGRAPH '85), pp. 263-270.
[10]
Goldberg, A., Robson, D., SMALLTALK-80, The Language and its Implementation, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading Massachusetts, 1983.
[11]
Goldberg, A., Kay, A., SMALLTALK-72 Instruction Manual, Learning research group, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 1976.
[12]
Hewitt, C., Atkinson, R., "Parallelism and Synchronization in Actor Systems," acm Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages 4, January 1977, Los Angeles, California.
[13]
Kahn, K. M., Creation of Computer Animation from Story Descriptions, MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Technical Report 540 (doctoral dissertation), August 1979.
[14]
Kahn, K. M., Hewitt, C., Dynamic Graphics using Quasi Parallelism, May 1978, proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, 1978.
[15]
Kleinrock, L., "Distributed Systems," in Communications of the ACM, V28 #11, November 1985, pp. 1200-1213.
[16]
Lipton, J., An Exaltation of Larks (or, The Venereal Game), Grossman Publishers, 1977. Reprinted by Penguin Books 1977, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985.
[17]
Maciejewski, A. A., Klein, C.A., "Obstacle Avoidance for Kinematically Redundant Manipulators in Dynamically Varying Environments," to appear in International Journal of Robotic Research.
[18]
Magnenat-Thalmann, N., Thalmarm, D., Computer Animation: Theory and Practice, Springer-Verlag, Toyko, 1985.
[19]
Marion, A., "Artificially Motivated Objects;' {installation
[20]
Moon, D. A., "Object-oriented Programming with Flavors" in Proceedings of the First Annual Conference on Object-Oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications, ACM, 1986
[21]
Myers, R., Broadwell, P., Schaufler, R., "Plasm: Fish Sample," {installation piece}, ACM SIGGRAPH art show, 1985.
[22]
Papert, S., "Teaching Children to be Mathematicians vs. Teaching Them About Mathematics" International Journal of Mathematical Education and Sciences, V3, pp. 249-262, 1972.
[23]
Partridge, B. L., "The Structure and Function of Fish Schools," Scientific American, June 1982, pp. 114-123.
[24]
Pitcher, T. J., Partridge, B. L.; Wardle, C. S., "Blind Fish Can School," Science 194, #4268 (1976), p. 964.
[25]
Potts, W. K., "The Chorus-Line Hypothesis of Manoeuver Coordination in Avian Flocks," letter in Nature, Vol 309, May 24, 1984, pp. 344-345.
[26]
Pugh, J., '~ctors--The Stage is Set," acre S1GPLANNotices, VI9 #3, March 1984, pp. 61-65.
[27]
Reeves, W., T., "Particle Systems--A Technique for Modeling a Class of Fuzzy Objects," acm Transactions on Graphics, V2 #2, April 1983, and reprinted in Computer Graphics, V17 #3, July 1983, (acm S{GGRAPH '83 Proceedings), pp. 359-376.
[28]
Reynolds, C. W., Computer Animation in the World of Actors and Scripts, SM thesis, MIT (the Architecture Machine Group), May 1978.
[29]
Reynolds, C. W., "Computer Animation with Scripts and Actors," Computer Graphics, V16 #3, July 1982, (acm SIGGRAPH '82 Proceedings), pp. 289-296.
[30]
Reynolds, C. W., "Description and Control of Time and Dynamics in Computer Animation" in the notes for the course on Advanced Computer Animation at acm SIGGRAPH '85, and reprinted for the notes of the same course in 1986.
[31]
Selous, E., Thought-transference (or what?) in Birds, Constable, London, 1931.
[32]
Scheffer, V. B., Spires of Form: Glimpses of Evolution, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, 1983 (reprinted 1985 by Harvest/ HBJ), p. 64.
[33]
Shaw, E., "Schooling in Fishes: Critique and Review" in Development and Evolution of Behavior. W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1970, pp. 452-480.
[34]
Shaw, E., "Fish in Schools," Natural History 84, no. 8 (1975), pp. 40~16.
[35]
Sims, K., Locomotion of Jointed Figures Over Complex Terrain, SM thesis, MIT Media Lab, currently in preparation, April 1987.
[36]
Symbolics Graphics Division, S-Dynamics (user's manual), Symbolics Inc., November 1986.
[37]
Symbolics Graphics Division, S-Geometry (user's mafiual), Symbolics Inc., October 1986.
[38]
Pinker, S. (editor), Visual Cognition, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985.
[39]
Thomas, F., Johnson, O., Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, Abbeville Press, New York, 1981, pp. 47-69.
[40]
Wilhelms, J., "Toward Automatic Motion Control," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, V7 #4, April 1987, pp. ! 1-22.
[41]
Zeltzer, D., "'Toward an Integrated View of 3-D Computer Animation," The Visual Computer, V1 #4, 1985, pp. 249-259.

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Published In

ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics  Volume 21, Issue 4
July 1987
299 pages
ISSN:0097-8930
DOI:10.1145/37402
Issue’s Table of Contents
  • cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGGRAPH '87: Proceedings of the 14th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques
    August 1987
    352 pages
    ISBN:0897912276
    DOI:10.1145/37401
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions@acm.org

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Publication History

Published: 01 August 1987
Published in SIGGRAPH Volume 21, Issue 4

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  • (2025)Transition path dynamics for one-dimensional run and tumble particleChaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science10.1063/5.024927735:5Online publication date: 8-May-2025
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References

References

[1]
Abelson, H., and diSessa, A., "Maneuvering a Three Dimensional Turtle" in Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981, pp. 140-159.
[2]
Agha, G., Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1986.
[3]
Amkraut, S., personal communication, January 8, 1987.
[4]
Amkraut, S., Girard, M., Karl, G., "motion studies for a work in progress entitled "Eurythmy' " in SIGGRAPH Video Review, Issue 21 (second item, time code 3:58 to 7:35), 1985, produced at the Computer Graphics Research Group, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
[5]
Austin, H., "The Logo Primer," M|T A.I. Lab, Logo Working Paper 19, 1974.
[6]
Braitenberg, V., Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984.
[7]
Burton, R., Bird Behavior, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1985.
[8]
Davis, J. R., Kay, A., Marion, A., unpublished research on behavioral simulation and animation, Atari Research, 1983.
[9]
Girard, M., Maciejewski, A. A., "Computational Modeling for the Computer Animation of Legged Figures," in Computer Graphics V 19 #3, 1985, (proceedings of acre SIGGRAPH '85), pp. 263-270.
[10]
Goldberg, A., Robson, D., SMALLTALK-80, The Language and its Implementation, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading Massachusetts, 1983.
[11]
Goldberg, A., Kay, A., SMALLTALK-72 Instruction Manual, Learning research group, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 1976.
[12]
Hewitt, C., Atkinson, R., "Parallelism and Synchronization in Actor Systems," acm Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages 4, January 1977, Los Angeles, California.
[13]
Kahn, K. M., Creation of Computer Animation from Story Descriptions, MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Technical Report 540 (doctoral dissertation), August 1979.
[14]
Kahn, K. M., Hewitt, C., Dynamic Graphics using Quasi Parallelism, May 1978, proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, 1978.
[15]
Kleinrock, L., "Distributed Systems," in Communications of the ACM, V28 #11, November 1985, pp. 1200-1213.
[16]
Lipton, J., An Exaltation of Larks (or, The Venereal Game), Grossman Publishers, 1977. Reprinted by Penguin Books 1977, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985.
[17]
Maciejewski, A. A., Klein, C.A., "Obstacle Avoidance for Kinematically Redundant Manipulators in Dynamically Varying Environments," to appear in International Journal of Robotic Research.
[18]
Magnenat-Thalmann, N., Thalmarm, D., Computer Animation: Theory and Practice, Springer-Verlag, Toyko, 1985.
[19]
Marion, A., "Artificially Motivated Objects;' {installation
[20]
Moon, D. A., "Object-oriented Programming with Flavors" in Proceedings of the First Annual Conference on Object-Oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications, ACM, 1986
[21]
Myers, R., Broadwell, P., Schaufler, R., "Plasm: Fish Sample," {installation piece}, ACM SIGGRAPH art show, 1985.
[22]
Papert, S., "Teaching Children to be Mathematicians vs. Teaching Them About Mathematics" International Journal of Mathematical Education and Sciences, V3, pp. 249-262, 1972.
[23]
Partridge, B. L., "The Structure and Function of Fish Schools," Scientific American, June 1982, pp. 114-123.
[24]
Pitcher, T. J., Partridge, B. L.; Wardle, C. S., "Blind Fish Can School," Science 194, #4268 (1976), p. 964.
[25]
Potts, W. K., "The Chorus-Line Hypothesis of Manoeuver Coordination in Avian Flocks," letter in Nature, Vol 309, May 24, 1984, pp. 344-345.
[26]
Pugh, J., '~ctors--The Stage is Set," acre S1GPLANNotices, VI9 #3, March 1984, pp. 61-65.
[27]
Reeves, W., T., "Particle Systems--A Technique for Modeling a Class of Fuzzy Objects," acm Transactions on Graphics, V2 #2, April 1983, and reprinted in Computer Graphics, V17 #3, July 1983, (acm S{GGRAPH '83 Proceedings), pp. 359-376.
[28]
Reynolds, C. W., Computer Animation in the World of Actors and Scripts, SM thesis, MIT (the Architecture Machine Group), May 1978.
[29]
Reynolds, C. W., "Computer Animation with Scripts and Actors," Computer Graphics, V16 #3, July 1982, (acm SIGGRAPH '82 Proceedings), pp. 289-296.
[30]
Reynolds, C. W., "Description and Control of Time and Dynamics in Computer Animation" in the notes for the course on Advanced Computer Animation at acm SIGGRAPH '85, and reprinted for the notes of the same course in 1986.
[31]
Selous, E., Thought-transference (or what?) in Birds, Constable, London, 1931.
[32]
Scheffer, V. B., Spires of Form: Glimpses of Evolution, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, 1983 (reprinted 1985 by Harvest/ HBJ), p. 64.
[33]
Shaw, E., "Schooling in Fishes: Critique and Review" in Development and Evolution of Behavior. W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1970, pp. 452-480.
[34]
Shaw, E., "Fish in Schools," Natural History 84, no. 8 (1975), pp. 40~16.
[35]
Sims, K., Locomotion of Jointed Figures Over Complex Terrain, SM thesis, MIT Media Lab, currently in preparation, April 1987.
[36]
Symbolics Graphics Division, S-Dynamics (user's manual), Symbolics Inc., November 1986.
[37]
Symbolics Graphics Division, S-Geometry (user's mafiual), Symbolics Inc., October 1986.
[38]
Pinker, S. (editor), Visual Cognition, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985.
[39]
Thomas, F., Johnson, O., Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, Abbeville Press, New York, 1981, pp. 47-69.
[40]
Wilhelms, J., "Toward Automatic Motion Control," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, V7 #4, April 1987, pp. ! 1-22.
[41]
Zeltzer, D., "'Toward an Integrated View of 3-D Computer Animation," The Visual Computer, V1 #4, 1985, pp. 249-259.