2. WORLD NAVIGATION

3. Don’t Fall Asleep Through These Topics  Tile Graphs  Points of Visibility  NavMesh  Path Smoothing  Hierarchical Pathfinding

4. Tile Graphs  Large and sometimes complex environments based on squares or hexes  Each node represents center of the cell  Graph edges are connections between the adjacent cells  Primarily used in RTS and war games  Mainly used for games maneuvering across terrains  Algorithms use this information to avoid water, mud, and hills  Downside is the graph gets too large too fast.

5. Points of Visibility  A navigation graph that each node has line of sight to at least one another  The graph nodes will connect all important areas in the world  Nodes can easily represent good sniping, cover, or ambush positions  Good for small maps  Downsides:  Problematic over large and complex maps  Problematic with any type of map generation feature (must develop some automated method to generate POV)

6. Points of Visibility Graph

7. NavMesh  A network of convex polygons that describe the walkable areas of the game environment  Property allows unobstructed travel from any point to another  Data structure is compact and can be searched very quickly  Good for 3D FPS games because environments is constructed entirely from polygons  Possible to use algorithms to partition the walkable areas of the maps automatically

9. WORLD OF WARCRAFT HAND CHECK

10. Path Smoothing  Paths in grid shaped graphs usually have unnecessary edges  Looks unnatural to human eye because of the kinkiness  Smoothing is obtained from using A* and distance heuristics  A quick method for smoothing a path works by checking the “passability” between adjacent edges http://youtu.be/RAI46be2S3E

11. Path Smoothing

14. Hierarchical Pathfinding  Similar to how humans move around in their environment  Two levels  One level is the path is planned using a series of areas (IE: dining room, kitchen)  The lower level is planned using a series of points through those areas

15. You can stop pretending to pay attention now.