Vav Labs BlogTechnical notes from Vav Labs on Unity, Godot, rendering, product engineering, and maintaining long-lived software.https://vav-labs.com/en-usMulti-size agents in Godot: clearance maps without the headacheshttps://vav-labs.com/blog/godot-multi-size-agent-pathfinding-clearance/https://vav-labs.com/blog/godot-multi-size-agent-pathfinding-clearance/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.Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTGodot pathfindingWhy your Godot pathfinding causes frame spikes and how to fix ithttps://vav-labs.com/blog/godot-pathfinding-frame-spikes-fix/https://vav-labs.com/blog/godot-pathfinding-frame-spikes-fix/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.Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTGodot / PerformanceOpen-sourcing an old Unity game is not a buttonhttps://vav-labs.com/blog/open-sourcing-old-unity-game-not-a-button/https://vav-labs.com/blog/open-sourcing-old-unity-game-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.Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTEngineering practiceAStarGrid2D limitations: where Godot's built-in pathfinding stops being enoughhttps://vav-labs.com/blog/astargrid2d-limitations-godot-production-pathfinding/https://vav-labs.com/blog/astargrid2d-limitations-godot-production-pathfinding/Godot's AStarGrid2D is useful. Production navigation asks different questions: clearance, dynamic blockers, repeated queries, and diagnostics that survive contact with a real game.Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTGodot pathfindingHow I structure Unity projects that outgrow MonoBehaviour scriptshttps://vav-labs.com/blog/unity-projects-that-outgrow-monobehaviour/https://vav-labs.com/blog/unity-projects-that-outgrow-monobehaviour/A boundary-first approach for Unity projects after the inspector stops being a filing system.Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTUnity architectureURP performance mistakes I look for firsthttps://vav-labs.com/blog/urp-performance-mistakes-first/https://vav-labs.com/blog/urp-performance-mistakes-first/The first rendering checks before we blame the engine, the GPU, or the phase of the moon.Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTRenderingWhy running TDA in real time is an unreasonable thing to tryhttps://vav-labs.com/blog/tda-real-time-constraints-hyperplex/https://vav-labs.com/blog/tda-real-time-constraints-hyperplex/Topological data analysis has excellent offline algorithms. A 16ms frame budget is where those algorithms stop being convenient and start becoming an engineering problem.Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTResearchHow to build a Unity Asset Store tool without exposing sourcehttps://vav-labs.com/blog/asset-store-tools-with-private-source/https://vav-labs.com/blog/asset-store-tools-with-private-source/Private source is fine. Private evidence is where things get awkward.Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTProduct engineering