A mathematically valid route can still look wrong. Production navigation represents walkable space, finds a corridor, steers through it, avoids agents and synchronises animation.
Define agents before baking
Radius, height, step and slope determine travel. Bake each materially different body type. Epic describes tiled polygon navigation with per-area costs; Unity exposes NavMesh surfaces, links and dynamic obstacles.
Use costs as design language
Discourage dangerous or noisy routes without making them impossible. Keep values interpretable and record corridor cost when diagnosing surprises.
Annotate traversal
Doors, jumps and ladders need links connecting navigation with gameplay and animation. A link is a promise that the agent can perform the action.
Handle dynamic obstacles by timescale
Use local avoidance for moving characters and carving or tile rebuilding for persistent blockage. Distribute replans to avoid spikes. See Fixing Pathfinding Once and For All.