Glossary¶
Definitions for the terms that recur across the navigation and spacing settings, gathered here so you can look one up instead of hunting the page that happens to use it. Each entry links to the page that covers it in full.
"Clearance" means three different things¶
The word clearance appears in three separate settings, and each one controls something different. Keep them apart:
- Wall Clearance (Strength / Distance) shapes the route. At bake time it makes cells near a wall cost more to cross, so the path bows away from walls and rounds corners with a margin instead of grazing them.
- Surface Flow Wall Margin is a runtime body gap. Each step it holds a moving agent's body a little further off a blocked cell edge so it does not clip into the wall.
- Clearance Radius is an agent size. It tells the bake how wide the agent's footprint is, which decides whether a gap between two walls is passable.
One shapes where the path goes, one holds bodies off the wall as they move, one sets how big the agent is assumed to be.
Navigation and spacing terms¶
| Term | What it is | Set on | Not to be confused with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wall Clearance Strength | Bake-time cost that bows the route off walls. 0 turns the berth off — routes graze walls and corners again. |
Swarm Manager | Surface Flow Wall Margin; Clearance Radius |
| Wall Clearance Distance | How far the route berth reaches from a wall, in world units. | Swarm Manager | Surface Flow Wall Margin; Clearance Radius |
| Clearance Radius | Agent footprint radius the bake sphere-casts with. A slot narrower than twice this bakes non-passable. | Swarm Manager | Wall Clearance; the archetype's sim body radius |
| Agent Height | Standing height the bake checks as a capsule, so a floor under a low overhang bakes walkable only when the agent fits. Needs a non-zero Clearance Radius and an Unwalkable mask — with either unset, the overhead check is skipped. | Swarm Manager | Clearance Radius, which is width |
| Enforce Cell Boundaries | Runtime clamp that stops an agent crossing into a cell the bake marked blocked. | Swarm Settings | the bake-time berth, which runs once at bake |
| Surface Flow Wall Margin | Extra runtime gap between an agent body and a blocked cell edge, added to the agent's own radius. Active only with Enforce Cell Boundaries on. Default 0.05. |
Swarm Settings | Wall Clearance Distance |
| Radius / Wall Margin (Simple Flow Field Follower) | The same body-off-wall gap on the sample follower component, for a single non-swarm object. | Follower component | the swarm's own Surface Flow Wall Margin |
For the full behavior of each, see Navigation and Swarm Settings.
"Blocking" is four separate passes¶
Four settings groups share the word blocking. Three correct positions; one steers.
| Pass | Keeps agents out of | How it acts |
|---|---|---|
| Body Blocking | each other | Position correction — resolves the agent-to-agent overlap left over after steering. |
| Obstacle Blocking | level geometry — walls, pillars, props | Position correction — pushes a body back out toward the side it came from. |
| Target Body Blocking | the target's body | Position correction — separates any agent that has clipped inside the target radius. |
| Target Crowd Blocking | the area around the target | Steering — pushes front agents laterally so the crowd rings outward. Not a hard collision. |
Target Crowd Blocking and Target Body Blocking pair the same way Personal Space and Body Blocking do below: one shapes movement, the other enforces space.
Other pairs that read alike¶
Personal Space vs Body Blocking. Personal Space is a steering behavior — each agent adds a push away from nearby neighbors, so the crowd spreads through movement. Body Blocking is a simulation pass that corrects whatever overlap is left over, so bodies hold space instead of sharing it. One suggests, the other enforces. Personal Space is set per archetype on the Behavior Profile; Body Blocking is global, on Swarm Settings.
Congestion Bias vs Congestion Reroute. Both react to crowded surface-flow cells. Congestion Bias nudges each agent's sampled direction toward less-occupied neighbor cells in the moment — the baked route never changes. Congestion Reroute schedules a rebake that charges crowded cells extra cost, so the route itself moves to another corridor. Bias smooths distribution now; Reroute commits the change to the field over a few seconds.
Direct Approach Distance vs Goal Release Distance. Both decide when an agent near its target stops following the flow route, and they hand off in sequence. Inside Direct Approach Distance — measured along the flow route, so a ramp counts as farther — the agent steers straight at the target while still on the field. Inside Goal Release Distance the agent ignores the field entirely and behavior steering takes over for the final surround. Both live on Swarm Settings; the route-measured hand-off needs Quality Smooth or Eikonal.