Directing virtual crowds based on dynamic adjustment of navigation fields

Abstract

Navigation fields are a popular data structure for directing the movement of virtual crowds. However, the congestion problem may occur at the corners of objects in using a navigation field because the agents move quite closely to each other. The agents may congest at the corners even though there is room for the agents to move away from the congested regions. In this paper, we propose to place crowd monitors at the corners to collect the data such as the movement direction of crowds and crowd densities. Then the navigation field is adjusted dynamically so that the crowds are led to move away from the congested regions. We also propose a simple data structure for speeding up the collision detection process between agents and objects. Experimental results show that our approach successfully alleviates the congestion problem at the corners.