Navigation: Recast NavMesh Generation and Pathfinding in s&box

s&box implements Recast Navigation (the industry standard used in Unreal, Unity, and Godot) for navmesh generation and navigation agents.

What is a NavMesh?

A simplified map of traversable areas built from the game's PhysicsWorld. It helps AI with pathfinding but lacks exact height information — use PhysicsWorld alongside NavMesh for precise ground placement.

Creating a NavMesh

Click the "Enable NavMesh" button in the s&box scene editor header. Toggle viewing the generated mesh with the adjacent button. The mesh updates live in the editor and is split into tiles (yellow lines = polygon boundaries, blue lines = tile boundaries).

NavMesh Settings

Adjust properties like slope steepness and physics object filtering via the pencil icon in the NavMesh header group.

Code API

Access via Scene.NavMesh:

// Random position on navmesh
var pos = Scene.NavMesh.GetRandomPoint();

// Random position within radius
var pos = Scene.NavMesh.GetRandomPoint( testposition, radius );

// Closest point on navmesh
var pos = Scene.NavMesh.GetClosestPoint( testposition );

// Closest edge
var pos = Scene.NavMesh.GetClosestEdge( testposition );

// Calculate path
var path = Scene.NavMesh.CalculatePath( new CalculatePathRequest()
{
    Agent = Agent,
    Start = WorldPosition,
    Target = TargetWorldPosition
} );

if ( path.IsValid() ) { /* path.Status is Complete or Partial */ }

// Mark dirty for background rebuild
Scene.NavMesh.SetDirty();