Enabling vertical/sticky surface paths for creatures that can climb

Beginner Questions
#1

I’m working on a simulation of ants and I’m scratching my head as to how I can make them move correctly. I’ve managed to get them walking all over the ground using a regular grid graph, but when they reach the plants they refuse to climb up the stems. I’ve tried adding a second graph that is perpendicular to the first to see if I could transition to using that graph when they got close to the plant, then using the graphMask to switch to the vertical graph for navigation from that point… it didn’t feel like the right solution, and indeed the ant refused to move.

I’d welcome any suggestions on how I could achieve this - ideally the ants would have sticky feet that would get them walking all over the surface of the plants and upside down on the undersides of leaves), but I don’t know if there’s an option for that sort of navigation. If I could merge the meshes of the plants and the ground (which is possible) then could I use the vertices as a custom navmesh? Many thanks in advance!

#2

Hi

There is not really an out of the box solution for that right now.
The closest thing to an out of the box solution would be to use a navmesh graph and include all the relevant surfaces in that, but then of course you will have to model the navmesh manually, which may or may not be feasible.

See http://www.arongranberg.com/astar/docs/getstarted2.php

#3

Many thanks for the speedy reply - after much trial and error I figured that might be the only solution. I guess I’ll have to fire up Blender again and work on a custom mesh for testing!

#4

Ok.
Note however that the funnel modifier will not work on arbitrary surfaces. It assumes that Y+ is up.