P-167: Paranoia: Oculus Rift Horror Game: World Constructor 4: Navmeshes and pathfinding

While researching AI and pathfinding techniques for this project, I realised that T3D actually has a fantastic navigation and pathfinding resource build in. Daniel Buckmaster created a commercial resource called “Walkabout” which has, as of T3D 3.7, been made open source and is packaged with the engine.

This resource integrates the recast navigation library. Based on my very preliminary testing, it is extremely powerful, and supports 3D navigation (ie, it works fine with my multi-storied interiors, and allows the AI to easily travel up stairs) and supports platforms and jumping. It also comes with it’s own editor, and can not only quickly generate navmeshes, but also regenerate part of a navmesh, which would allow for dynamic content, such as destructable objects, etc.

The below screenshots show the navmesh after it has been created. I have done nothing to modify my art assets or creation code, I simply copied my script files and art over to a 3.8 build of the engine, and created a navmesh using the editor.

The video below shows an AI character plotting a path to the player.

A generic, integrated navmesh resource like this is an excellent addon to T3D, and will save many hours of work in terms of creating custom navigation solutions.

This is a short video that I created which shows off the dynamic level constructor that I have built: