Blog / Vav Labs
RSSTechnical notes from Vav Labs.
Unity, Godot, rendering, product engineering, and the maintenance work behind long-lived software.
01 / article
Godot pathfindingMulti-size agents in Godot: clearance maps without the headaches
Godot's grid pathfinding treats every unit as a single cell. The moment an agent is 2×2 or 3×3, paths route it through gaps it cannot fit. Clearance maps fix it with one precomputed grid that serves every size.
2026-05-25 / 8 min read
Read02 / article
Godot / PerformanceWhy your Godot pathfinding causes frame spikes and how to fix it
Pathfinding rarely shows up in the average frame time. It shows up as a spike when every agent repaths in the same frame. Here is why Godot pathfinding stalls, and the patterns that keep it inside the budget.
2026-05-25 / 9 min read
Read03 / article
Engineering practiceOpen-sourcing an old Unity game is not a button
Re-shipping a 2018 Unity game raised the obvious question: open source it. The real answer lives in asset licensing, old-project archaeology, and maintenance promises.
2026-05-25 / 8 min read
Read04 / article
Godot pathfindingAStarGrid2D limitations: where Godot's built-in pathfinding stops being enough
Godot's AStarGrid2D is useful. Production navigation asks different questions: clearance, dynamic blockers, repeated queries, and diagnostics that survive contact with a real game.
2026-05-15 / 10 min read
Read05 / article
Unity architectureHow I structure Unity projects that outgrow MonoBehaviour scripts
A boundary-first approach for Unity projects after the inspector stops being a filing system.
2026-05-12 / 8 min read
Read06 / article
RenderingURP performance mistakes I look for first
The first rendering checks before we blame the engine, the GPU, or the phase of the moon.
2026-05-13 / 9 min read
Read07 / article
ResearchWhy running TDA in real time is an unreasonable thing to try
Topological data analysis has excellent offline algorithms. A 16ms frame budget is where those algorithms stop being convenient and start becoming an engineering problem.
2026-05-16 / 7 min read
Read08 / article
Product engineeringHow to build a Unity Asset Store tool without exposing source
Private source is fine. Private evidence is where things get awkward.
2026-05-14 / 8 min read
Read