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AI Game Programming Wisdom
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Path Finding in Polygon Soups
Gamasutra Article
 
Path Finding in Polygon Soups

In noticed an article on path-finding over on Gamasutra, GDC 2002: Polygon Soup for the Programmer's Soul: 3D Pathfinding (free registration required). The method is based on voxel-like technique, where lots of 3D cells are connected together. Compression of neighbouring cells is used to reduce memory overhead. Ladders, teleporters and doors are considered, as well as motion imitation (following a player blindly).

Though you can tell the author has thought about the subject a lot, considering many interesting details, the method bothers me. Especially with respect to dynamic obstacles, and the section on Avoiding Robotic Paths. He suggests smoothing the path with a curve to provide more "organing" movement, but warns that this may cause paths to collide with walls. But isn't that the whole point of path-planning!!! And robots have smoother movement since they are actual physical entities with mass and momentum. Oh well, I'm sure it works reasonably enough ;)

934 posts.
Saturday 13 April, 18:12
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