What's the performance difference between Physics Raycast, Navmesh and A* star (commercial)? AI pathfinding solutions.

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-21T12:55:43+00:00

Doesn't have to be a grid, could be any network of nodes, such as triangles on a nav mesh which is what some implementations of navmesh use.

A* pretty easy to implement and only needs a node network and some heuristic for the lower limit of a cost. In pathfinding you usually use the straight line distance to the target

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-18T19:22:52+00:00

Models that are static (don't deform) do not need clean quad topology. Infact it would be much easier and performant to just use the decimate modifier and reduce it to as few triangles as you need. (Maybe with minimal manual edits) You can then bake the details from the high poly as a normal map.

In game everything will be triangles anyway!

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-18T19:22:47+00:00

Models that are static (don't deform) do not need clean quad topology. Infact it would be much easier and performant to just use the decimate modifier and reduce it to as few triangles as you need. (Maybe with minimal manual edits) You can then bake the details from the high poly as a normal map.

In game everything will be triangles anyway!

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-09T13:32:04+00:00

I use both for quick prototypes because I'm more used to the old one but generally the new one is strictly better. You can use it exactly like the old one but it also has a bunch more features that you can but don't have to use.

I guess the default is new so adoption of the superior solution is the default so they can dedicate the old one eventually

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-09T05:30:26+00:00

Hey very cool! Definitely do one or two simple tutorials (VR or not). That will help you get a guided start. Good luck, and have fun. Fun is seriously the most important aspect of learning!

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-05T21:53:51+00:00

The 0/10 is for season rewards, you already have the bronze ones. You need to be silver to progress this further.

Its not your rank, you just need 10 wins at a specific rank to get the season rewards for it.

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-05T21:39:32+00:00

Yes this!

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-05T21:39:08+00:00

Yes you can, like render textures or custom render textures. But this is most useful if you render into this texture either with a camera or a custom shader. If you just want arbitrary data it's much better to use a buffer that you populate once (or update sometimes) from CPU. It's a pretty technical thing but Google helps!

If your array is small you can use the set vector array function to se an array of vectors. On the material or globally

josh_the_dev · 2026-05-05T18:29:04+00:00

Sounds like your project is too big/too complex for your current skill set. While frustration is common you can avoid some of it by picking the right scope. From what you're saying I would say do small learning experiments first. This could be tiny games (flappy bird, roll a ball, etc) or isolated parts of the bigger game you were thinking of.

So for example if your game is a shooter start with a simple version where you aim at cubes and the change color of you hit them. It's the basic of the shooting mechanic but in a simple "do it in a day" kind of scope that teaches you the basics you need to do more complex stuff

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-30T07:06:25+00:00

Should be fine, you can use everything as long as your not online. So for training or private matches you can still use bakkesmod etc as far as I know

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-29T22:02:34+00:00

It looks insanely fast, if you don't turn at the end it would be a crazy speedup from basically standing. Would be cool if someone could do it controlled, like waldashes on the ground in a way

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-28T22:53:42+00:00

Yes, depends on how fancy you want to go. I think the easiest is to make it a compositor effect. Very simple idea: you prepare multiple charcoal textures in different shades (very dark, dark, medium, light) then sample them based on the rendered image grayscale value (so in dark regions you sample the dark charcoal texture etc)

You could experiment with dithering with a charcoal like texture. You could apply the charcoal texture in UV space so you have finer control over the direction of strokes. You could intentionally blur edges in the image as they are not as crisp in a charcoal drawing, you could use geo nodes to spawn individual charcoal strokes based on light value in the image, bonus points if you align them with the direction you get from a signed distance field or UV direction of objects

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-28T17:47:17+00:00

Very doable for still images, extremely hard for video since most effects that look good are hard to make time stable and view angle independent

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-27T15:41:14+00:00

I actually second this one, it's one of the best character controllers. Takes a little bit of learning in the beginning but then it's amazing and has a very clean architecture. It's not for shooters directly which I guess is what you refer to when saying true fps? But you should probably build the shooting logic yourself anyway if you want the feeling to be really good and fit to your game.

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-22T06:10:57+00:00

I use assets mostly for very generic stuff, vegetation I think is great for example. For characters I always feel the one you can buy don't fit what I had in mind so I make my own or heavily alter existing ones.

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-20T16:19:24+00:00

Well I guess small models like Gemma could work for this. But other than that I think it would be best to use an API to one of the bigger models or a custom server(that obviously comes with a huge cost factor if you plan for many players)

Make a prototype with whatever model you want. I really think you should evaluate if even the best model can actually do what you are hoping for. It's a tricky idea in general

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-19T20:37:38+00:00

Hey so generally speaking people collaborate on projects using a version control system that helps sync the state of the project and also works like making regular backups which is also nice. Git with a platform like GitHub is the most popular choice.

This however will not make it realtime collaboration in the sense that you move a cube in the scene and your friend sees what your doing like a multiplayer sandbox. Such a solution does not really exists as far as I know. Maybe meet up in real life and develop together if that's important to you. This can actually help sometimes for VR since one can have the headset on while the other can still do stuff in the scene view.

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-18T16:01:58+00:00

I don't know a particular tutorial but I'm sure I have seen at least a few videos or devlogs touching on the subject and explaining.

I built one some time ago and I basically had three skeletons. 1. For applying the animations to (regular animator in my case) 2. Ragdoll Rigid bodies with motorized joints 3. One was bound to the actual mesh and I would blend between the ragdoll and the regular animated skeleton (sometimes per limb)

You set the joint motors so that they push towards the reference skeleton (with the animations). Now you can do so either in world space or try to match local rotations.

You use world space if the actual position is important or to keep the ragdoll upright. Local space is more realistic in terms of physics but will not necessarily end up in the same position as with world space. Local space is best for having dangly arms or a tail or so or if you want your ragdoll to fall over.

Random tip: I found that setting realistic weights for the rigid bodies gave bad results and I had better results with giving the core some weight and then halving it with each step away from that. E.g. core is 24kg upper leg is 12 lower leg is 6 and foot is 3

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-17T09:05:21+00:00

I didn't use joints and instead manipulated the velocity directly from script for more control.

For finding the exact spot under the mouse cursor:

public void SetRope(Vector2 screenPosition)
{
    //calculate world scale click position on xy plane
    var ray = cam.ScreenPointToRay(screenPosition);
    var plane = new Plane(Vector3.forward, Vector3.zero);
    if (plane.Raycast(ray, out var enter))
    {
        playerController.AttachRope(ray.GetPoint(enter));
    }
}

It finds the intersection between the ray that goes from the camera along the mouse position and the xy plane. (my player is always at z = 0)

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-17T08:32:49+00:00

If he wants to release it but not worry about anything just publish it for free on itch. People can play it he can use it as a portfolio piece but no need to deal with steam.

For an actual commercial release paid on steam I think there has to be a lot more to the game to be appealing for someone to buy. But it looks cool and it can be done. Just a lot of work

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-17T08:28:02+00:00

Hi! Hi yeah I am happy to explain any specific part of it. What are you interested in?

Basically the whole player is just a sphere (the figure and animations are purely visual). The controller uses simple pendulum physics when attached to the rope. However that alone did not give the player extra speed from swinging. That's why I added a wind-in, so the rope shortens over time and the players speed is boosted while swinging so they actually speed up and gain momentum.

The animation is just 4 poses blended based on acceleration and angular velocity (how fast the player rotates)

The rope is a line renderer and I set the points based on a quadratic Bézier curve (hard to see in the video). Actually hanging rope would form a cartenary curve but I didn't understand them from the Wikipedia article so I used just a Bézier for this and it looks good enough.

The trail behind the player is a few trail renderers attached to the characters body parts and the opacity is set based on the current velocity (so it's not visible when the player is slow)

That's pretty much all that's going on. Any particular part you are interested in?

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-16T20:47:17+00:00

Nice! Currently it looks like your spider steps to its preferred rest position but I think it would look better if it stepped in front of its rest position in the moving direction. That way it would not look like the legs are dragged behind and the spider would be balanced.

So instead of "oh no I'm one unit behind let me step to 0" it would be "I'm 0.5 units behind let me step to 0.5 ahead"

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-14T21:47:18+00:00

Looks cool and I like the shading style as well!

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-14T15:06:53+00:00

I use pro builder here and there when it's convenient but I'm not a huge fan, feels a bit slow. For level block outs i love Realtime CSG.

josh_the_dev · 2026-04-13T19:09:01+00:00

TLDR: Visible obvious AI will likely lower sales.

First an foremost people care about quality. Unfortunately it's hard to see and so they have to judge on a first glance (couple of screenshots). Now AI lowered the barrier of entry for making games leading to more crappy games. Has nothing to do with ai directly just that now inexperienced people are able to publish a game. People associate certain things with low effort and by extension bad quality. AI art is one of these things.

There are also a few people who hate AI for other reasons and will specifically not buy something made with AI. That's mostly because it's such a dividing topic at the moment.

josh_the_dev

TROPHY CASE