Navigation3D authoring and baking

How to obtain SVO airspace / climb surfaces from scene geometry, when to use each supply mode, and how to place cost zones, no-fly zones, flight corridors, and domain-transfer links.

Three ways to supply an SVO

Scene geometry (Recast / PhysX provider)
 ├─ AutoBuild (runtime voxelize)
 └─ Bake to asset → .svonav → AssetProcessor → .svonav_baked
 ├─ Assign Baked asset (load all at once)
 └─ + Streaming enabled → page with SetActiveRegion

Bake pipeline

Baking is a two-step pipeline:

A. Editor Bake (geometry → source JSON)

1. Mount EditorSvoNavigationVolumeComponent (or climb’s EditorClimbNavigationComponent).
2. Same entity must offer RecastNavigationProviderService.
3. Click Inspector Bake to asset: writes BakeOutputPath (SVO default Assets/Navigation3D/<EntityName>.svonav; climb .climbsurf).

• SVO GeometrySource can record a level / prefab path so AssetBuilder rebakes when geometry changes.

B. AssetBuilder (source → baked product)

Offline bake and runtime self-build share the L1 core and are designed to be byte-identical.

C. Runtime consumption

Assign .svonav_baked / .climbsurf_baked to Baked asset; load on OnAssetReady and skip geometry self-build.

Climb surface authoring

1. Mount EditorClimbNavigationComponent + a geometry provider.
2. Tune ClimbBuildConfig (default slope 55°–120°, sample spacing 1 m).
3. Iterate with Auto build; for shipping Bake to asset → .climbsurf → AP → .climbsurf_baked → Baked asset.
4. On the AI / Hybrid entity, mount ClimbNavigationComponent (or point Climb entity at the surface entity) and query via ClimbNavigationRequestBus (see Querying).

Cost zones, no-fly, and flight corridors

These are runtime overlays—changes apply to the next query without rebuilding the SVO. Prefer declarative components.

NavigationCostModifierComponent

1. Add a Shape (Box / Sphere / …) plus NavigationCostModifierComponent.
2. Set Target volume to the SVO volume.
3. Multiplier: <1 prefers, >1 penalizes.
4. No-fly: overrides Multiplier with ~1e9 no-fly cost.

Time-varying costs: NavigationVolumeRequestBus::AddTimeVaryingCostModifierVolume (low/high multipliers + period + phase).

NavigationFlightCorridorComponent

1. Add NavigationFlightCorridorComponent; Target volume points at the SVO.
2. Waypoints (entity-local) + Radius (half-width) extrude the corridor.
3. Preference is clamped to [0.01, 1.0]—preference only, not penalty / no-fly.

Domain links (takeoff / landing)

1. Add NavigationDomainLinkComponent (needs Transform).
2. Ground offset / Air offset (entity-local) land in domains A / B.
3. Domain A / B, Direction (bidirectional / takeoff only / land only).
4. Traversal cost / Max agent radius / Enabled.

Per-query: NavigationQueryConfig::m_preferredLinks / m_forbiddenLinks.

VTOL alternative: enable Free vertical transfer on HybridNavigationComponent so vertical transfers are allowed where free-column height ≥ Safe climb height, without placing every link.

Local rebuild and streaming

• Local rebuild: on local geometry edits call RebuildRegion(worldAabb) to rebuild only dirty chunks (cheaper than RebuildVolume()).
• Streaming: Streaming enabled plus World Streaming via SetActiveRegion. Build submit budget is BuildChunksPerTick (default 4; tunable with nav3d_setBuildBudget).

Large-world airspace often pairs with double-precision rendering / Cesium 3D Tiles.

Editor Test flight

EditorSvoNavigationVolumeComponent Test flight: TestFrom / TestTo (volume-local) and TestPostProcessor draw a path in the viewport immediately—no AssetProcessor wait.

Next steps

• Motion and following — attach motion models to paths
• Debugging — validate volume health and tune budgets