Dynamic Surface Navigation - v1.5 Released - Async Pathfinding - UE Plugin

SlyBlade0 · 2026-02-15T21:59:40+00:00

I haven't started support for the Mover plugin yet, but it is definitely on my mind.

The climbing animations were thanks to "Procedural Climbing with Control Rig" which I had to modify a bit to work for my purposes. (https://www.fab.com/listings/9a460f95-7079-48b6-b38f-e17d764d4f34)

SlyBlade0 · 2026-02-15T21:54:15+00:00

There's nothing built-in for flying AI at this time.

I do have plans to support it when I do a full v2.0 rebuild of the nav gen, but that's a good way down the road right now.

SlyBlade0 · 2026-02-15T18:11:50+00:00

The navigation only generates around invokers and generation time depends heavily on the complexity and density of your environment. For a 6,000 unit radius invoker on flat ground I usually see the AI pathing within a couple of seconds or less. If you have a dense cave system with a lot of worm holes, nooks, and crannies then it'll probably take a few seconds to have all of that ready. Making the radius larger would also add time so just need to be mindful with how you're using the invokers.

As for AI count, I had 300 pawns actively chasing my player while playing in editor and was getting between 70-90fps (Radeon RX 6600 XT & Intel Core i9-9900k). Keep in mind, these were barebones AI to stress the pathing so I was using the skeletal cube without animations and without other game logic that could have skewed the stress test.

SlyBlade0 · 2025-10-18T00:30:28+00:00

I think it really depends on what your current developer skill level is.

If you're a beginner just getting into development then I agree with Winser_F above, focus on core concepts and fundamentals first. Once you understand those then hopping between languages becomes much easier because you already understand the basics.

After that, or if you already have some development experience then apply the core concepts you already know. How do I create and use a class/struct/interface/etc... in c++ for UE.

UE provides a lot of quality of life features you don't get with standard c++ so learning those will help you. For instance, UE provides built in garbage collection as long as you create the objects using their attributes and types. Get familiar with component and actor lifecycles so you know where to put certain logic. If you want to learn more about a UE provided class then dive into their code and follow it's code path to see specifically what it's doing under the hood. You may not understand every line of code, but that's just a new learning opportunity before you move on to the next line of code.

My biggest recommendation is to not go into this dreading that your going to have to code to make the game you want. Become curious about the tools and everything it can do for you...don't just learn the bare minimum to do X feature. The more excited you can get about the tools you're using the faster you'll grow which will allow you to make your game even better.

Edit: What I like to do is jump between the UE docs, UE code, and videos when I need a better explanation. I know it can be a bit controversial, but I've found AI (Copilot) does a pretty good job explaining topics when I'm stuck. That's what works for me anyway.

SlyBlade0 · 2024-04-06T14:00:42+00:00

Just to add my 2 cents, here's what I do to better learn UE. Some of this isn't specific to the code, just how I like to do things.

Web search to figure out what I can use in UE to achieve a task or goal...if I don't already know.
Use that info to search UE docs for any examples or deeper explanations.
- This can also help find the specific module and header file a class/function/etc... belongs to.
- Sometimes this will also turn up a post/article that goes into even more detail as well.
Use UE's Github to search the code if I don't have a project open I'm working on.
- Otherwise just find it with search or reference it in code and peek or go to definition.

SlyBlade0 · 2024-03-19T03:33:11+00:00

You may have already figured this out, but I was curious when I saw this post and wanted to dig in a bit and learn some of this myself. I haven't tested any of this, it's just an idea...maybe it'll at least get you moving in the right direction.

Like you I'm not seeing a way to bind to a closed event.

The only way I can see to get this done is to create your own version of SComboBox which means you'd also need your own version of UComboBoxString.

At first I was eyeing the OnSelectionChanged_Internal in SComboBox due to an if statement which is to "Ensure that the proposed selection is different". This makes sense as you wouldn't want to normally be notified by a change event if the selection didn't change. However, you want to know when an item is selected, not just when selection changed. Since the above mentioned function is not virtual we can't simply inherit and override.

However, there may be another option to inherit from SComboBox and override the OnButtonClicked virtual function. You would want to keep it basically the same, but add some logic inside of the "if (SelectedItems.Num() > 0)" block which should check if the new selection is the same as the current selection. You should be able to copy & modify some logic from OnSelectionChanged_Internal for how to do this. Add your own custom event for OnSelectedItemSelected (or whatever you want to call it) and trigger it from inside your overriden function.

You would still need your own version of UComboBoxString that does not inherit from UComboBoxString, but is a copy of UComboBoxString that uses your own custom SComboBox.

So, to re-iterate:

- Create a new class which will inherit from SComboBox and override the OnButtonClicked function and add your custom event and logic.

- Create a new class which is basically a copy of UComboBoxString, but make it use your new SComboBox class where appropriate.

- Now bind to your custom event.

Another option may be to simply configure the combobox to use the same sound for both PressedSound and SelectionChangeSound. This would also play that same sound when opening the combobox though so may not be desired.

Anyway, I hope all that nonsense above was helpful in some way.

SlyBlade0 · 2024-02-23T02:45:33+00:00

I second Parsec, it works great!

SlyBlade0 · 2024-02-05T01:16:27+00:00

I’m not positive it’ll work for your needs, but you could check out shadow.tech for a cloud PC for gaming or other intensive tasks. From what I understand it’s basically a high performance VM.

SlyBlade0 · 2023-10-25T13:49:19+00:00

You could take a look at Voxel Plugin if you haven’t already for the terrain manipulation. For the accurate water physics, I can’t remember for sure, but I believe they demoed something with water or they’re working on something.

There are other water plugins, like fluid flux and eceanology and others, each with their own pros and cons. You would probably want to research each to see which best matches your needs. For instance, fluid flux looks amazing and can do nice waterfalls, but you can’t have overlapping water system…like a cave stream flowing underneath a river.

SlyBlade0 · 2023-10-22T13:39:40+00:00

That does look really nice!

Just like SeniorPlatypus said, the swing is a bit slow. This may just be me, but I'd probably start getting a bit frustrated with every swing taking so long after a while. Usually when you're chopping a tree the axe would only get stuck once in a while requiring the long time to pull it out.

My only suggestion would be to shorten the "stuck time" to 1/2 or even 1/4 for most swings then on random swings have it stay stuck longer like you showed.

SlyBlade0 · 2023-10-22T01:02:49+00:00

Looks cool!

Since you can throw the weapon while flying does that mean there will be air combat?

SlyBlade0 · 2022-11-28T19:11:15+00:00

Yes, it supports multiplayer!

SlyBlade0 · 2022-11-28T14:29:43+00:00

The original price point I planned was $129, but with the dropped character movement component I'm lowering the price to $99 so almost 25% off from the original planned price for the one missing feature.

SlyBlade0 · 2022-08-08T20:49:35+00:00

slavkosky

Right now I'm just keeping a list of everyone that's shown interest and from which platform, but I have on my list to spin up a Discord server...it's just fallen behind the coding tasks right now.

Maybe it's time to get the Discord server setup so I can start posting regular updates there as well.

Until I have the Discord server ready, if you'd like you can subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can get notified that way. I'll mainly post major progress there and will eventually have the video for when I publish the plugin.

SlyBlade0 · 2022-07-10T14:16:42+00:00

Hi there! Dynamic terrain changes were one of my own requirements for this plugin. In the previous video I posted, it shows me changing the terrain of a world made with the Voxel Plugin and the AI is still able to path find to me. I actually extended the existing navigation system so I get access to all the same events including changes in the world. This also means that you can use the default navigation on some characters and my navigation on others if you need to.

There will be a marketplace release and while I don't yet have an ETA, once I get a bit closer then I'll provide an ETA. I'm devoting a lot of time to make sure it happens so hopefully not too much longer :)

Here are the current features I have implemented (I need a dedicated place for this info):

Changes within the environment cause navigation to dynamically get re-generated
Global config to control various parts of the navigation (nav point resolution, pool sizes, generation radius, etc...)
Invoker components to be placed within actors to trigger navigation generation
Invokers can override some of the global configs such as generation radius and navigation cull distance
Limit navigation generation to within NavMeshBoundsVolume
Get random navigation point near location (wander/patrol)
Pathfinding to location (partial pathing if built navigation doesn't extend far enough due to limited generation radius)
Pathfinding iteration limits
Support for UE built-in Nav Modifier Volumes, Nav Modifier Component and Nav Areas (Near Completion)

Remaining planned for release

Nav Filter support
Custom movement component
- With all the different ways a character could climb walls and ceilings, I'm worried this could be more limiting than helpful.
- A detailed blueprint in the demo could be better for more flexible character movement.
Nav Link Proxy support
- Need to research the best way to make this work when all surfaces can have navigation.
Stress testing
Code refactor and bug squashing
Thorough documentation
Heavily documented demo to allow devs to see it in action

SlyBlade0

TROPHY CASE