Tutorial 98: Flocking
Added 2017-11-23 07:53:56 +0000 UTCI've been working late this week to launch a few things, and because of that—and wanting to be done in time to enjoy Thanksgiving— I finished this week's tutorial tonight. It'll go live for everyone on Friday as normal, but I thought you guys might be happy to see it early if you're not stuffing your faces or falling asleep after dinner like I do pretty much every year.
Anyway, after talking with Paul Conigliaro (aka @conigs) about how Tutorial 95: Fluid Motion was similar to flocking, I decided to go a little bit more in depth on the subject because it's a pretty interesting subject—and one I've been interested in since [Processing] first came out and I discovered the amazing work of Robert Hodgin (aka Flight 404 back in the day). Sadly, it no longer looks like his blog is up, but it used to have a bunch of great stuff on it. I might have to archive.org that one.
Anyway, being able to create a decently complex flocking system in After Effects with pretty minimal effort was surprising. It can get way more complex of course. I'm going to take a little time—when I can find some—to see how I can add the complexity of movement without bogging the code down. I think I can improve upon this, and I hope you will attempt it too!
