PathEngine has announced a new release of its pathfinding and agent movement SDK, adding several new functions including 'connected region' queries for fast inter-agent reachability determination and support for dynamic control of off-mesh connection costs.
Other new features include an example project demonstrating 'obstacle set double buffering,' which intends to speed pathfinding against large numbers of semi-dynamic obstacles.
The SDK's connected region mechanism uses existing pathfinding preprocess data structures to assign a unique index to each interconnected sub-region in pathfinding unobstructed space. The goal is to enable pathfinding query cost to be completely avoided in many situations that might otherwise result in failed queries, and opens up the possibility for some interesting behaviour level agent and position reachability analysis.
Off-mesh connection costs can now be specified per 'collision context' (e.g. per type of pathfinding agent), and can also be turned on and off individually, avoiding the need to obstruct connection endpoints with dynamic obstacles, and opening this feature up for more interesting dynamic behaviours.
The semi-dynamic obstacles demo shows how to apply the 'preprocessed obstacle sets' SDK feature to certain requirement sets where pathfinding against large numbers of run-time modifiable obstacles is required. The technique demonstrated is based on 'double buffering' a pair of obstacle sets, with foreground pathfinding taking place on one obstacle set whilst pathfinding preprocess is being updated for the other set in the background.
Other changes in this release include support for filtering sliver ground fragments coming out of the 3D content processing and optimizations and display tweaks in the testbed.
Most recently, the company
announced licensing to Rare (Microsoft Corporation) for a yet-to-be-announced Xbox 360 title, and with this update the company includes two Rare titles in development using the SDK, as well as two additional licensees: Gungho Online Entertainment, Inc. (in Japan), and Saab Technologies.
Previously, PathEngine
added to its list of licensees with ArenaNet for
Guild Wars 2, NextPlay for
Firenze, and also Yedang online, MAIET entertainment, Ani-park. The PathEngine toolkit is currently being used in titles such as the Asian MMORPG
Granado Espada, as well as Ironlore Entertainment's
Titan Quest and B-Alive's
Wildlife Park 2.
