
Using collaborative diffusion rather than path finding - philf
http://benjamin-meyer.blogspot.com/2011/11/using-collaborative-diffusion-rather.html
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robobenjie
The pdf he links has more examples and greater depth about implementing
diffusion ai. Recommended.

[http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ralex/papers/PDF/OOPSLA06antiobj...](http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ralex/papers/PDF/OOPSLA06antiobjects.pdf)

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jwatte
Aren't diffusion values an implicit representation of pre-calculated closest
path pathfinding? Calculating diffusion incrementally is a way to update the
graph over time with a known incremental cost. But it all is just a variant of
Dijksta in the end, isn't it? :-)

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unoti
It's highly parallel, and suggests also how multiple agents might collaborate
to seek a goal (such as blocking all the possible exits that a pac man might
take). See section 3.2 of the paper
([http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ralex/papers/PDF/OOPSLA06antiobj...](http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ralex/papers/PDF/OOPSLA06antiobjects.pdf))
for an example of this. It's also an approach they've taught with some success
to very young students. Seems extremely significant and need-to-know for
anyone implementing game ai, even if they've already implemented other
pathfinding algorithms. I'm certainly happy to see this! It's awesome and eye
opening.

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alextp
I think the Berkeley starcraft AI used some similar concepts to move units
around.

