Finding the Path: The Mathematics of Navmeshes and How Video Game AI Learns to Navigate

When a dragon swoops down to attack you, or an enemy soldier flanks your position in a video game, it feels like they are making intelligent, independent decisions. In reality, they are completely blind to the beautiful 3D world you see. Instead, they are reading a hidden, invisible layer of geometry called a Navigation Mesh (Navmesh).

A Navmesh is a simplified floor plan composed of interconnected polygons that tells the AI exactly where it can and cannot step. Before Navmeshes, early game ...