Runtime NavMesh Helper is a lightweight, performance-focused Unreal Engine plugin that gives developers dynamic, scalable control over AI navigation spawning NavMesh volumes only when and where they're needed.
Ideal for survival, procedural, stealth, or multiplayer games, it intelligently manages navigation generation around players and AI at runtime using a smart volume pooling and rebuild budget system to keep performance high and overhead low.
No map, No Player Character Included.
See Documentation for setup, very easy and quick under 1min!
Documentation - Documentation
Support - Discord
Video - Video
🚀 Features
🔁 Dynamic Runtime NavMesh Generation
Spawns NavMesh volumes around players or AI actors only when needed
Eliminates the need for full-world static navmesh
Ideal for large open worlds or dynamic content
♻️ Global Volume Pooling
Reuses a shared pool of NavMesh volumes
Reduces spawn/destruction costs
Centralized subsystem limits total active volumes for efficiency
🧠 AI + Player Support
Two components: one for players, one for AI
Rebuilds only when actors move or are isolated
Merges nearby components to avoid redundant volumes
⏱️ Rebuild Budget System
Limits the number of rebuilds per frame (shared between AI & players)
Prevents CPU spikes in high-AI scenes
Console tunable for power users
🎮 Multiplayer-Ready
Fully gated by HasAuthority()
Safe for dedicated servers and coop games
Volumes are transient, non-replicated
🧩 World Partition Compatible
Works with dynamically streamed levels
Volumes spawn into persistent level only
No persistence or save/load conflict
🔍 Detection-Based Triggers
NavMesh is only spawned when tagged actors (e.g. “Enemy”) are nearby
Uses box detection only for performance and consistency
Optionally auto-grows volume size based on nearby actors
🧪 Developer Utilities
bShowDebug toggle to visualize volume bounds and detection areas
Blueprint-exposed manual rebuild control
Configurable cooldowns, delays, and movement thresholds
💡 Why Choose Runtime NavMesh Helper?
Unreal Engine's default static navmesh system isn't optimized for runtime use. It requires baking entire levels, wastes memory in unexplored areas, and struggles in procedural or AI-light games.
Runtime NavMesh Helper removes those limits by spawning only what's needed when it's needed with pooling, merging, rebuild throttling, and optional AI sleep logic.
Perfect for:
✅ Open-world survival & exploration games
✅ Procedural dungeons and runtime map generation
✅ Stealth or horror games with localized AI
✅ PvE or PvPvE multiplayer with many players and AI
✅ VR/mobile games where navmesh overhead must be minimized