A navigation graph for real-time crowd animation on multilayered and uneven terrain

This paper addresses real-time navigation for crowds moving on multilayered and uneven terrains. The objective is to animate thousands of characters in real-time on large-scale environments without taking care of motion details: a common goal being given to a homogeneous crowd, the proposed method automatically breaks the homogeneity of the crowd by spreading characters on various routes reaching the goal; the animation effect is displayed at a view point that does not require to address character interaction locally. Our approach is based on a space structuring technique that automatically decomposes multilayered or uneven terrains into navigation corridors giving rise to a navigation graph supporting the search.