ICE pathfinding (very much WIP)

[Chris_TC]

I am working on a pathfinding compound for ICE. It is very slow at the moment, and not too user friendly. It is very much a work in progress, so be warned.
I've attached a scene file if you want to play with it. I would also appreciate input on how to make it faster.

I'm using many find in array nodes currently, which I assume is quite slow. Therefore, I'm trying to implement binary heaps which should speed things up tremendously. The tree already contains subrees for binary heaps (see comment boxes), but I'm not using them yet for the actual pathfinding.

If you want to change anything (Start null position, End null position, ground geo, obstacle geo), you should first set the SearchDepth to a small value or you'll lose all interactivity. The compound should work with polygons of any shape, so they don't need to be all quads.

[Pooby]

FAscinating. I will examine the tree tomorrow to see if i can work out what voodoo you have put to use.

[Chris_TC]

When looking at the tree, you should ignore the top two subtrees (they have comment boxes around them) because they're not affecting the pathfinding yet.

The voodoo comes from two sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A*_search_algorithm
http://www.policyalmanac.org/games/aStarTutorial.htm

They describe the same algorithm, but the beginner's guide is more in-depth and explains in simpler terms how to actually make it happen.

[origin]

cool!