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Havok AI A little over a year after its release, Havok AI is still expanding its reach. Will Freeman spoke to the firm’s VP of engineering Dave Gargan about why the AI tech has proved so popular…
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Left and right: Havok AI in action, and (below) VP of engineering, Dave Gargan
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hen it was revealed to the development world at GDC in 2009, Havok AI stood out as a significant boon to its creator’s impressive library of middleware solutions. A year on, as it is welcomed by the MMO sector, it is just as relevant as it was at its debut. Havok ‘s AI tech is defined by the fact that it’s been built to allow developers to work with the increasingly dynamic gameworlds that end users have come to expect as the norm; a construction process that started with an industry-changing product from the same stable. The experience of crafting Havok Physics meant that the company is fortunate to be able to leverage its knowledge of simulation to build a package that deals with any dynamic environment efficiently. “We noticed that navigation mesh generation was a real bottleneck for several game development pipelines, so we concentrated on building the fastest, most robust automatic navigation mesh generation,” explains Havok’s VP of engineering, Dave Gargan. That approach to problem solving identified, Havok then spoke with several developers as part of its initial product planning stage, and one thing Havok AI’s focus on pathfinding is highly regarded
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became immediately apparent – AI in games is extremely diverse and too genre specific to lend itself well to middleware. For that reason, Havok AI focuses exclusively on pathfinding and pathfollowing on navigation meshes.
We remove the need to reinvent solutions for the lowest level AI problems which leaves developers time to focus on the unique parts of their AI systems. “We remove the need to reinvent solutions for some of the very lowest level AI problems which leaves developers with time to focus on the unique and game specific parts of their AI systems,” reveals Gargan. Thanks to a well rehearsed ability to respond to industry trends, Havok has enjoyed significant gains in the field, with MMO builders flocking to the AI offering (see Bold new worlds).
“Game worlds are getting larger,” says Gargan. “We’re seeing more server based titles. Memory and CPU costs are just as important on these titles as they are on console. We’re continuing to push CPU and memory performance.” Despite the AI market’s growth, Havok sees the area as one in a fledging state; a frank view that gives organisations space to evolve their offering. Gargan: “We can mostly agree on a spatial representation that can solve the problem of moving a cylinder from one point on a level to another. This is the first step in solving the locomotion problem. As our NPCs become more capable, we need to extend solutions into the animation space.” What allows those pushing Havok AI to tease the outside of the envelope is the same breadth of experience that was so critical to the tech’s conception. Time spent producing physics, animation or rendering middleware gave the architects the chance to learn common challenges to all tool building. The Havok team strives to keep those producing content as productive as possible, and tries to provide a fast runtime that imposes few constraints. “For Havok AI that translates to a fast robust navigation mesh generation algorithm that builds memory efficient navigation meshes and a cross platform runtime that is efficient even in highly dynamic environments,” states Gargan. And so we conclude where we began, with dynamic environments; something evermore prevalent that Havok AI is poised to enhance.
Bold new worlds Time and again MMO developers are choosing to use Havok AI for pathfinding and pathfollowing on navigation meshes. The reason for that is twofold, suggests Gargan: “I think there are two real motives. The product handles large environments well. We have had streaming and stitching support from day one. “Secondly, when someone is building an MMO they know they are making a technology choice that has to last for fiveto-ten years; typically much longer than a traditional development cycle. In those situations they need to be guaranteed that the technology on which they are relying will be continuously updated and well supported over that time. Havok has a proven reputation here.” With the MMO genre continuing to diversify with regards to both theme and target demographic, online realms show no sign of stopping, meaning there’s every chance things can only get better for Havok AI, and subsequently, its users. JULY 2010 | 57