Autodesk Kynapse and Havok AI comparison

Question

Kynapse

Autodesk® Kynapse® game middleware is a leading artificial intelligence (AI) solution for game development and the creation of real-time simulations for nonplayer characters (NPCs).

Havok AI

Havok AI is a new platform-optimized SDK focused on efficient pathfinding and path following. Havok AI is built from the ground up to consider dynamically changing environments.

Information about both of these middleware solutions is limited. I was looking for pros and cons of using either. As well as any type of comparison between both middleware packages.

In particular:

• Pros
• Cons
• Features
• Experience with using
• Difficulty
• Latency of response
• Clock cycle utilization
• API/tutorial documentation
• Source code included? or binary
• Supported platforms
• Supported languages
• etc

A good response should be fact based, and any subjective subjects like difficulty should be based on an explained experiences with the product.

Answer 1

I'm the AI team lead at Havok, so my opinion may be obviously biased :)

Havok AI is relatively new (announced at GDC 2009), so you probably won't find many users responding on here. But as a company, Havok has been around for over 10 years and our Physics product is one of the best known pieces of game middleware.

The key features of Havok AI are:

1. Fast nav mesh generation
2. Cross-platform, optimized runtime. All major queries run on multiple threads (including SPU on PS3).
3. Dynamic pathfinding that integrates with (but doesn't depend on) Havok Physics.
4. Robust character steering system

The API is well-documented, and there are numerous demos to show different features of the system. Additionally, you'll have access to our support team, who are constantly cited as one of our strengths (i.e. check out the quote from Volition in the 2009 Frontline Awards).

Licensees get access to most (but not all) of the source code.

Supported platforms are: Win32/64 (Visual Studio 2005/2008), Xbox360, PS3, Wii, Mac, and Linux. If you have more exotic hardware needs, we can also do custom builds, although those can take time.

Language: C++

For serious commercial inquiries, you can fill out the form here and one of our sales engineers will contact you.

That's probably all that I can say without an NDA, but if you have any other questions, it can't hurt to ask...

-Chris