What I did:

• Used 3D geometry data pulled from GPU buffers in-editor

• Created a plugin for Unreal Engine that modifies the editor

• Worked out and implemented rendering-related math, including triangle culling, mesh stitching

• Created a Navmesh generating system that allows players and AI to move along any surface, regardless of orientation

• Implemented a threaded A* pathfinder and some other systems to allow the ants to path and avoid collisions

• Created a little map with pre-made assets

• Brought in footsteps, ant voices, woods sounds and a music track to make the demo enjoyable to play

Skills used: C++, AI Design, Pathfinding, Threading, Unreal Engine, Blueprints, 3D Math, Level Design, Sound Design

Time taken on prototype: roughly 145 hours from September 1, 2022 to October 4, 2022

Humans walk on floors, stairs and ramps. Bugs walk on walls, ceilings, and inside hollowed-out stumps. Unreal Engine has no pathfinding system for bugs, which is why I set out to make one. The player camera will clip through walls and collision with non-navmesh objects is not pretty, but these parts of the demo were not high-priority. As a navmesh and pathfinding system for bugs and other wall-crawlers, the project is yet unfinished, but show-worthy.

For this project I re-re-learned some linear algebra, I read some new math papers on triangles (who knew we are still writing math papers on triangles?), and I finally got around to learning about Quaternions. Outside of pure math, I implemented a few systems that allow 100 ants to walk around the map quickly and without bumping into each other too much. For more details, please watch the video below, download the playable demo (Windows only) from itch.io, and/or read the source at github.