Havok Navigation for Unreal brings our full dynamic pathfinding solution to Unreal Engine. Let’s look at how it works, how you can get the product, and how we stay in lock step with Unreal Engine Releases.

Havok Navigation for Unreal consists of two layers: Havok Navigation SDK and the Unreal Engine integration layer.

The integration layer is provided and updated by the Havok team; however, all customers have access to the integration source code to make their own changes

Havok Navigation for Unreal is a plugin level integration. It does not overwrite or edit any existing functionality but adds the Havok Navigation SDK feature set to Unreal Engine. You are currently required to build the plugin from the integration code provided, this communicates with the version of the Havok Navigation SDK on the installation and brings the feature set into Unreal. We provide windows packages as standard, and other platforms are available on request after proof of partnership with relevant platform holders.

Havok Navigation for Unreal is a full pathfinding solution catering to both ground navigation and volumetric navigation and integrates fully within Unreal Engine using systems like World Partitioning and streaming to give the best development experience.

Havok Navigation works with the default physics solution in Unreal Engine and does not require Havok Physics to function.

Havok Navigation for Unreal brings fast, effective, and dynamic pathfinding to Unreal Engine with a wide range of functionality, some of which include:

• Automatic Traversal Analysis (i.e. automatic generation of traversal links)
• Moving platform support
• 3D volumetric navigation (i.e. flying, swimming)
• Dynamic pathfinding and following
• Dynamic painting and cutting
• Dynamic cost modification
• Integration with World Partition system
• Support for Data Layers
• Global Region pruning
• Seed points
• Cater to multiple character radii on a single nav mesh
• Integration with environmental query system
• Navigation through unloaded world sections

For more information on the features available in Havok Navigation for Unreal, see the product webpage.

There are two main ways to get Havok Navigation for Unreal: through GitHub or through our partner branch on the Epic Perforce. To access either of these you first need access to the Unreal Engine source code from Epic, and once that has been established, we can open our repo/branch for evaluation.

Havok Navigation for Unreal is updated within two weeks of every Unreal Engine release. The full product is updated to work with the latest changes to the engine and is made available on GitHub in this timeframe.

Havok Navigation for Unreal also updates twice yearly with the release of the Havok Navigation SDK. These SDK updates use the naming “Havok 202X.Y.Z” and are included in the release tags on GitHub so you can tell which Havok Navigation SDK version you are using.

These updates aim to bring as much functionality as possible from the Havok Navigation SDK to Havok Navigation for Unreal as quickly as possible.