Navgraph Auto-Generation

The NavPower build process automatically generates navmesh for all of the walkable surfaces in a level. The build process is fast, spreading the computation over multiple cores, allowing content creators to rapidly iterate on the level design without worrying about the AI navigation.

The automated NavGraph generation easily handles complex level layouts such as overpasses, ramps, curved tunnels, spiral staircases, and multilevel buildings using a proprietary voxelization and surface extraction technique. The build process is extremely reliable and has been chosen by many AAA titles for its robustness and speed.

Dynamic NavGraph Modification

The NavPower runtime system provides excellent support for destructible or rapidly changing environments. The NavPower dynamic obstacle system quickly reconfigures the NavGraph at runtime, blocking off or penalizing traversal through specified areas. The dynamic obstacle functionality is fully 3-D, allowing obstacles to block walls and ceilings just as easily as they might normally block off the floor.

Additionally, NavPower supports many other runtime modifications such as jumping connections, point-to-point special connections, and line-to-line special connections. Finally, all of the runtime functionality is highly customizable, with filters to control which creature types are blocked, penalized, or able to use each of the runtime features.

3-D Surface Movement

Full 3-D surface movement allows groups of characters to run up walls and across ceilings just as easily as they would traditionally walk across the floor. Whether on wall, floors, or ceilings, the high-quality steering code handles character avoidance gracefully in crowded areas, making coordinated squad type motion easy to implement with characters automatically avoiding each other and re-pathing as necessary to avoid new dynamic obstacles.

Of course, all of the movement functionality is also highly customizable, with tunable creature sizes, parameterized movement models, and direct access to the underlying repulsion system.

Flying and Swimming Movement

The optional NavPower FlightPak adds 3-D volumetric path planning and motion planning for flying and swimming creatures. With the FlightPak, creatures are able to move through a connected set of convex volumes, turning and banking as specified by the tunable flight parameters.

For those familiar with the NavPower surface movement, the API is extremely similar, providing the client with straightforward commands along with command specification parameters that control how the command is carried out. The FlightPak can be used separately from the NavPower surface movement or in conjunction with it to create creatures which can both run and fly.

Proven Technology

NavPower is used daily on thousands of levels with dozens of character types at studios both large and small. NavPower has a proven track record of allowing companies to focus on creating innovative AI-based gameplay without worrying over the low level path planning and motion planning issues. For more information about the technology behind NavPower, please review our technical FAQ for answers to some common questions or contact us at info@navpower.com.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Underworld (c) Eidos Interactive Limited 2008.       Afro Samurai: (c) 2006 TAKASHI OKAZAKI, GONZO/SAMURAI. Program (c) 2008 NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.