namigator

namigator is a drop-in, high-performance, and nearly feature complete pathfinding system for server-controlled movement of units within a World of Warcraft environment.

Components

namigator is made of three different types of components: applications, shared libraries, and third-party dependencies.

Applications

• MapBuilder -- Generates navigation mesh for a given map, or geometrical data for a collection of objects. NOTE: This application can also build a python module.
• MapViewer -- A DirectX application to load input data, any mesh data, and allows for testing and debugging.

Shared Libraries

• pathfind -- The core pathfinding library. This is the only library you should need to include in your server. NOTE: This library can also build a python module.
• parser -- For parsing source terrain data. This library is not needed for navigation functionality. Only for computation. It should not be needed in your server.
• utility -- Various generic mathematical and structural utilities used across the other components. You should also not need to include this in your server.

Third-Party Dependencies

• stormlib -- Used for extracting source data from its containers.
• recastnavigation -- Underlying computational geometry library. Used for mesh generation, pathfinding, and more.
• pybind11 -- Optional. Used in creating python modules.
• python -- Optional. Used in creating python modules.

Future Plans

namigator is being released because I have lost interest in taking it to the next step myself. I also think it might give other interested people a good start. I have some thoughts on what functionality should be added. This is documented on the issue tracker for the most part. My interest in developing this functionality will probably be proportional to adoption by others. While initially this was a purely academic exercise, I no longer have time to devote to development unless it will be helpful to the larger community.

Caveats

This is something I have developed off and on for nearly a decade. I have never used it, but have tested it fairly thoroughly in a controlled setting. I have also put in a fair amount of effort to understand why common bugs happen and mitigate them (e.g. falling through the world, stuttering, etc.). At this point I do not have time to invest in integrating this library into an existing server. However, if someone else wants to do that, and in doing so discovers some issues, I can probably assist in correcting them. I can also provide some guidance in how to integrate the library. Feel free to contact me privately for this.

Production Testing

namigator has been integrated into The Alpha Project and several robustness issues have been addressed as a result. Thanks to them!

Thread Safety

The thread safety of the map builder and parser should be correct. However the thread safety of the pathfind library is likely not fool proof. Use with caution!

Bots

This software is not designed to honor client-side movement restrictions, and is therefore not natively suitable for use in bots. Though its possible such capability may evolve, I also avoided explicitly supporting this use case. My goal is not to improve the ability of those who undermine the integrity of a server with large scale automation.

Feedback

Please use the issue tracker on this repository to submit issues, feature requests, etc.. Do not use the issue tracker to request help with integration, unless there is a bug causing your problem.