Using the Corridor Map Method for Path Planning for a Large Number of Characters

A central problem in games is planning high-quality paths for characters avoiding obstacles in the environment. Current games require a path planner that is fast (to ensure real-time interaction) and flexible (to avoid local hazards). In addition, a path needs to be natural, meaning that the path is smooth, short, keeps some clearance to obstacles, avoids other characters, etcetera. Game worlds are normally populated with a large number of characters. In this paper we show how the recently introduced Corridor Map Method can be extended and used to efficiently compute smooth motions for these characters. We will consider crowds in which the characters wander around, characters have goals, and characters behave as a coherent group. The approach is very fast. Even in environments with 5000 characters it uses only 40% of the processing power of a single core of a cpu. Also the resulting paths are indeed natural.