Pathfinder 2011.0.0614 (Beta)

What's New

Currently, elevators can be used only for evacuation. Each elevator defines a discharge floor and any number of pickup floors. Occupants can enter the elevator at any pickup floor and exit only at the discharge floor. Elevator hall calls will be served according to their priority – which, by default, is highest first. Elevators will not attempt to pick up occupants at multiple floors. They will attempt to pick up occupants at the highest priority call floor, then return to the discharge node before moving to a new pickup floor. Occupants trigger an elevator call by standing near the elevator entrance door.

To use the new elevator system:

1. Add basic geometry for each floor in the building – floors must already be present for the elevator creator to work.
2. Create a room that will lie along the elevator path and connect it to the existing geometry with a door.
3. Right-click the room and click Create Elevator… Then click OK.

This will add an elevator to the model, but it will not yet be used by occupants. To make occupants use the elevators, create or edit a Behavior to include a Goto Elevators action. Elevators can be set to share hall call notification by creating a sub-group in the Elevators tree node and adding (grouping) the elevators that should share the call signal. You can edit the elevator discharge node (initially at the bottom) by selecting an elevator in the tree and editing the elevator settings at the top.

If you test out the beta version of Pathfinder, please visit the forum and share your experience or send email to support@thunderheadeng.com to let us know how it went (even if you found no problems).

Changes since Pathfinder 2011.0.0420 (Beta):

• Added support for elevator evacuations.
• In the 3D results, human models are now stored in a binary format and load about 10x faster.
• When calculating the locally quickest path, occupant now evaluate fewer paths, improving simulator performance.
• Occupants now have an internal priority system that improves movement when individual occupants need to push through crowds.
• When copying multiple objects, the grouping/hierarchy will now also be copied.
• Occupants that cannot find an exit path will once again be removed, rather than causing the simulation to crash.