How exactly will Navmeshes work in Settlements? Will they work at all? I'm asking because I know the issue mods ran into trying to implement this feature is navmeshes are created when you load up the game and cannot be modified ingame. I'm curious if Bethesda mentioned how their engine has adapted to account for this, have they said anything on this matter?

No, they haven't made any mention of this at all actually.

In Skyrim there were invisible primitives that could be plonked down on navmesh in the CK and would 'cut' it. When disabled in-game, NPCs could navigate across those areas just fine. When enabled, it was as if a rectangular section of navmesh had vanished, and NPCs had to navigate around the 'hole'.

All they'd need to do for FO4 is for settlement walls to cut the navmesh they were placed on, and for the pathfinding AI to be able to recognise a non-loading door and activate it to pass through. Which (unless I'm going senile) they did in Skyrim anyway.

So it's actually a non-issue, all the tech is there, it just needs a slight tweak so the 'cut' objects are placed at run-time rather than in the GECK.

Dynamic this and dynamic that,you know,

Don't worry, Todd "the God" Howard has assured us that "it just works".

It was already mentioned that you can build only in special areas.

Enabling and disabling navmesh triangles at runtime is already in Fallout 3 (Rivet City bridge) possible. Admitted it wasn't perfect and this area is always a bit wonkey in FO3 but if the bugs that BGS had with this function, it's possible to make it work.

He also said that Skyrim had an intricate and responsive economic system that would react to your action in the world.All we got was randomly generated inventories that respawned after 2 days.

HOWEVER.For some reason I believe him this time.

Probably because he actually showed it working.

Yeah,footage proves something at least.

Very true. However, being able to place navmeshes ANYWHERE (not just enabling and disabling) is unheard of for a Fallout game. As for Todd Howard, I too, am sure he found away around this problem. He kept reciting "Dynamic" over and over again when discussing their new engine. I wonder if the creation kit is now fully dynamic in that AI pathfinding just works on its own? Not common, but there are other engines where meshes come equipped with a navmesh - perhaps we'll see something similar in Fallout 4. I'll remind everyone that Morrowind had a linear point-to-point pathfinding system. Now that just seems primitive. So the idea of a new pathfinding system isn't impossible with the Gamebryo engine, its been done before.

He never showed it working. He showed you could place buildings down but he never showed NPCs walking around perfectly without running into walls.

The important sentence in Todds speech was that this works only in "special" areas.

If you look closely there is a fundament where you build your house. So enable'ing and disable'ing makes sense. Sorry with gamebryo has Beth's engine not much todo anymore since Skyrim.

But sure it could be stuff added to Beth's engine to make it possible, they are constantly working on pathfinding and the AI. As we had with Skyrim we can expect a lot of changes this time too.

I have faith in my God.

Maybe the land has to be flat or dependant on different building blocks where you build.

It seems to be more fluid then HearthFires which used that technique. I reckon it may be baked into the models it would make sense it would be easier to lay the nav-mesh in the prefab construction meshes and link those to the main nav-mesh then disabling and enabling something that is already there (at least in this semi-dynamic fashion) and that doesn't require any real dynamic baking just some dynamic linking where the snaps occur and doorways. So a small progression that could work well? I guess we'll see.

Oh unless it is exactly the same as Hearth Fires just on a larger scale... oh now that would be a disappointment.

Ah entirely possible. I hope not, but I did notice the only thing we saw in the trailer was houses were being built on house foundations. This would make the foundations simply activators that allowed us to build on these plots only. Then, NPCs could just ignore the plot altogether and wait outside. I hope its something a little more exciting like being able to place these plots anywhere you choose (as long as its in those "special" areas of course. However, I doubt they will be enabled/disabled considering bethesda can't predict where we will place a door or staircase or a coat rack. At least, not in my version of how I think it'll be.

it'll be navcuts, or i could imagine there'd be object types like navcutting statics etc, so you'd have a navcut right with the model... just blind guessing anyhow...

if you're commenting on the navcut technique with this, i can assure you this works flawlessly, used it myself a zillion times and always did right as expected

edit: the major downside to the concept being, you can only toggle navmesh on/off, you can never replace it with another one (as opposed to navcut disabling as it could be done in fo3/fnv (but that had so many other issues i gladly trade))

I would say that it'll be somewhat more advanced than that.Considering that you can build multi-layered buildings the game will have to generate an entirely new navmesh path on the stairs and on the new floors.

And by the way with"Dynamic this and dynamic that" I was expressing confidence that the updated engine could handle the navmesh in game.

A good point about the multi-layered buildings.

Oh! I wonder if this means that things like stair and floor models come with their navmesh built right in, which can be merged with existing navmesh at runtime? If so, it could really speed up location build-time, if a ton of the navmeshing is built right into the parts

Yeah,and if this concept is easily replicable while modding it'll be a great relief not to have to spend half an hour drawing red triangles in the GECK while creating house/landscape mods.

yes right, been wondering about this when i saw the fort building presentation, but totally forgot about that part

yeah and that from tomorrow on it'll rain cotton candy and we'll all ride flying unicorns... ) no really, that'd be awesome. it just be too good

half an hour? boy, my average is about 2-3 exterior cells a day, if they're not just empty plains or stg...

Yeah,knowing Bethesda they have used a goofy and overly-complicated workaround to solve the problem.

No matter how good it is on a technical level, I fully expect followers to go nuts in the player settlement.

Ahah i mean,I was slow when I started,It does not take me nearly that long now.It's just that Navmeshing is not something that I find particulary entertaining to do.

or just stick to ground level