Hi,
I am trying to come up with a mini project for natural computing. I was planning on doing some form of particle swarm optimization based study and I came across boid particles in blender. What I am wondering is whether blender uses the actual boid algorithm (reynolds) I can't seem to find any info on the algorithm actually used. We are supposed to use something 'out of the box' and not write any code, but study the algorithm etc..
Any info would be greatly appreciated.

The docs http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:FR/2.6/Manual/Physics/Particles/Physics/Boids do seem to resemble boids as Reynolds originally described them. Why not try them out for yourself to see how they go? You can also check the Blender source code:

Code:

ldo@theon:blender> find . -iname \*boid\* ./source/blender/editors/physics/particle_boids.c ./source/blender/makesdna/DNA_boid_types.h ./source/blender/blenkernel/intern/boids.c ./source/blender/blenkernel/BKE_boids.h ./source/blender/makesrna/intern/rna_boid.c