David Miles will be talking on “Crowds In A Polygon Soup: Next-Gen Path Planning“. This is a little bit related to the planning theme from the session I looked at last on the AI in FEAR.
Because the planning graph encapsulates the usable free-space, it supports not only path finding queries, but also repulsion field based flocking and squad behaviors, relying only on rapid checks within the planning graph, avoiding ray-casts against the collision geometry. The planning graph, while detailed enough to support these advanced motion behaviors, is simple enough that it can be updated at runtime as dynamic obstacles modify the environment.
The results sound valuable - a method for deciding behaviours for large numbers of units quickly enough for real-time gameplay. And of course you have to leave enough time to draw all those units now that they’ve decided what they want to do. The session description goes on to say that attendees should have background in 3D math and path planning. The 3D math I’ve got covered, but as I’ve said before, path planning has eluded me. I’m sure that eventually I’ll have to do some real experiments in code, but to start with today I’ll just cast around for some good links for path planning and specifically what a planning graph is. Read the rest of “GDC 2006: Next-Gen Path Planning”…