Pathfinding for large crowds

I am currently working on a code plugin that enables pathfinding for a large number of units (even on large maps with dynamically changing environment).
I basically implemented the “Flow Field” approach from Supreme Commander 2 (plus some custom enhancements and modifications).

The plugin is not yet complete, but would anyone be interested in test-driving it?
If you are interested you can also tell me which feature you want to see in the final plugin and I will see if it can be added :slight_smile:

Currently working:

  • initialize surface cost data from textures
  • tile-based merging A* search
  • flowfield generation
  • steering an actor based on the flowfield
  • dynamically moving target
  • adding and removing actors for pathfinding
  • visualize flowfield and generated paths
  • Optionally create smoother flow fields by computing a sector ahead for each field

Still to do:

  • Support multiple targets per agent (e.g. for zombies chasing more than one hero)
  • Add multithreading support, so flow fields can be generated in a separate thread
  • [Optional] Automatically generate surface data from navmeshes
  • [Optional] Automatically generate surface data from geometry

Source:

Nice :slight_smile:
If you want to beta-test the plugin just send me a PM.

I also have some WIP screenshots:

hey did you get anywhere with this ? id love to try it out. could really use something like this!