The latest version of this guide can be found in your local installation of Unreal Engine under the following directory: Engine\Source\Runtime\NavigationSystem\DevDocs\How To Optimize Navmesh Generation.md
Overview
Unreal Engine's Navigation System provides pathfinding capabilities to Artificial Intelligence Agents. To find a path between a start location and a destination, a Navigation Mesh is generated from the collision geometry of the world.
The Navigation Mesh is divided into tiles which are used to rebuild localized parts of the Navigation Mesh at runtime.
The Navigation System provides a variety of settings that advanced users can use to modify the way navigation is computed in the Level. This guide provides recommendations to optimize the generation speed of the Navigation Mesh.
Use the Highest Cell Size and Cell Height Possible
The Cell Size and Cell Height properties define the size of the voxels used to generate the Navigation Tiles. The smaller the voxels, the more precision is gained and the more accurate the navigation will be around obstacles. However, the smaller the voxels, the more processing is required when rebuilding the Navigation Mesh at runtime.
For this reason, it is important to balance the size of the cells (voxels) with the amount of navigation precision needed in your project.
Follow these steps to adjust the Cell Size and Cell Height properties of your Navigation Mesh:
-
Click Settings > Project Settings to open the Project Settings window.
-
Go to the Navigation Mesh section and scroll down to the Generation section. You can increase the Cell Size and Cell Height values to improve generation speed. Note that increasing the Size and Height values will decrease the Navigation Mesh precision in your level.
-
Alternatively, you can adjust individual Navigation Meshes inside your Level by selecting the RecastNavMesh-Default Actor in the Outliner and going to the Details panel.
-
In this example the Cell Size was changed from 19 to 64. Notice how precision is reduced and the Navigation Mesh is less accurate around the objects in the level. The new Cell Size of 64 prevents navigation generation between the wall and the box (see the arrow in the image below).
Recommendation
Make the cells as large as possible while maintaining the required precision for your Agents.
In the example above, setting the Cell Size to 64 caused the path between the wall and the box to be removed. If this path is needed for your Agent, you can either continue to adjust Cell Size until a path is generated or move the box further from the wall.
Limit the Tile Size
The Navigation Mesh is divided into tiles which are used to rebuild localized parts of the Navigation Mesh at runtime. Since each tile is built from cells, rebuilding a Navigation Tile will result in the recreation of all its cells with the new collision information.
Larger tiles contain more cells and are more expensive to rebuild than smaller tiles. However, when processing a tile, the system also processes the contiguous cells on the edges of the tile. You should consider this overhead cost when setting the size of your tiles, as there can be situations where the overhead cost of processing many smaller tiles is greater than the cost of rebuilding a single large tile.
Recommendation
The Tile Size should be set between 32 to 128 cells per side. This will provide the best performance when rebuilding tiles at runtime.
In the previous example the Cell Size was set to 64. In that case, the Tile Size UU should be set between 2048 (6432) and 8192 (64128).
Use Simplified Collision for Your Meshes
The Navigation System uses each object's collision data to generate the Navigation Mesh. Simpler object collision results in faster processing compared to higher triangle count collision data.
Recommendation
Use Simple Collision when possible for Static Meshes. The lower the triangle count used in the collision mesh, the faster the generation will be.
Reduce the Number of Objects That Affect the Navigation Mesh
By default, Blueprint Actors and Static Meshes in your Level affect navigation. The number of objects that affect a Navigation Tile has a direct impact on the cost of generating that tile.
Recommendation
Smaller objects that should not affect the Navigation Mesh should be configured so they don't affect navigation. Select your Actor in the Level and go to the Details panel. Scroll down to the Collision section and disable the Can Ever Affect Navigation checkbox.
This setting should be disabled for any Actor that should not affect the Navigation Mesh, such as moving objects in inaccessible areas of the Level.
If possible, you should avoid affecting large tile areas or multiple tiles at the same time.
Useful Developer Tools to Manage Navigation Generation
Locking and Unlocking the Navigation Mesh Generation at Strategic Times
It is possible to stop the automatic generation of the Navigation Mesh before loading many assets that might affect it. You can unlock the generation once all the assets have completed loading. This method prevents the Navigation System from rebuilding the same tile several times.
To lock the Navigation Mesh generation, set your navigation system's bInitialBuildingLocked to True. To unlock the generation, call the function ReleaseInitialBuildingLock(). Once unlocked, the Navigation Mesh will rebuild all the tiles marked as dirty by the loaded assets. To prevent this, you can call DefaultDirtyAreasController.Reset() before unlocking the generation.
Enable Multi-threaded Navigation Mesh Generation
You can control multi-threaded Navigation Mesh generation by setting the MaxSimultaneousTileGenerationJobsCount property in the Navigation System. Note that this is limited by the total number of worker threads in FRecastNavMeshGenerator::Init().
Use Dynamic Obstacles with Full Dynamic Navigation Mesh Generation
You can mark Static Meshes and other Actors in your Level as Dynamic Obstacles. Dynamic Obstacles mark the Navigation Mesh surface where generation needs to be rebuilt. This prevents the entire Navigation Tile from being rebuilt.
Using this method is less costly than generating the full Navigation Tile and should be used when a Navigation Mesh surface is not needed on top of moving obstacles.
Use Data Chunk Streaming for Static Navigation Meshes Loaded in Sublevels
If the only changes to the Navigation Mesh come from loading and unloading sublevels, you can set the Navigation Mesh Generation Method to Static and use NavMesh Data Chunk Streaming, instead of using a dynamic Navigation Mesh.
With this method, the Navigation Mesh will be fully built in the editor and only the relevant parts will be loaded in and out at runtime.