The FASTEST TOOLS in the World!

This podcast introduces two Unity assets designed to enhance the performance of games using the Dots framework. The first asset, Ranka, facilitates animation of skin meshes within the Dots environment, enabling faster animation rendering for large numbers of characters. The second asset, Agents Navigation, leverages the Unity AI Navigation package, enabling pathfinding and crowd simulation, particularly for games with numerous units.

DOTS Animation with Ranka

• 00:02:15 Ranka asset enhances the Dots framework by enabling skin mesh animations to work directly within a Dots subscene. It offers compatibility with hundreds of skin meshes and is relatively straightforward to implement with a shader and a component attachment. The animator parameters can be manipulated through a custom Dots system, enabling runtime control of animations and ensuring they function with entities within the Dots system.

DOTS Pathfinding with Agents

• 00:09:09 Agents Navigation provides integration with the Unity AI navigation system, allowing for pathfinding and crowd simulation within Dots. This asset adds necessary components like Agent and Agent Cylinder Shape and can be used with simple scripts to set destinations for entities. It supports pathfinding with Nav Mesh Surfaces, allowing entities to navigate and avoid obstacles, particularly when managing large numbers of units in a game.

DOTS Performance Considerations

• 00:00:25 DOTS offers significant performance enhancements, potentially increasing code execution speed by 200x. However, it has limitations with animations and pathfinding; these limitations can be addressed with specialized assets like Ranka and Agents Navigation. The speaker highlights the ability to mix traditional game objects with DOTS entities, optimizing specific game components for performance.

ASR Pathfinding and Crowds

• 00:13:04 The ASR pathfinding project offers high-performance pathfinding, which can be integrated with the Agents Navigation package. Agents Navigation Crowds, an extension of the Agents Navigation package, uses flow field pathfinding to handle large numbers of units efficiently. This method is particularly effective when a large number of units are traveling toward similar destinations within the game environment.