What are some good resources on flocking and swarm algorithms?

Question

Awhile ago I read the novel Prey. Even though it is definitely in the realm of fun science fiction, it piqued my interest in swarm/flock AI. I\'ve been seeing some examples of

Answer 1

there are a few techniques that you may want to read up on:

1. Ant Colony Optmiziation
2. Celluar Automata
3. Self Organizing Maps

Also: The wiki page isn't a bad start.

Answer 2

What you're asking for is actually much more simple than you think. The canonical source is http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/.