Oblvion: Radiant AI in action...

Jeremy Reaban <jer.TakeThisOut@connectria.com> wrote:
>
> Sheeeesh, this has to be the dumbest AI I've ever seen.

Haven't played the game yet, but I read something articles about this
radiant AI. It sounds very impressive, ambitious and vulnerable to
weird events. It sounds quite a lot like the plans I had for NPC AI
if I were ever to write a CRPG (I wanted to go a bit further that that),
but it also demonstrates how hard it is to tune it correctly.

I even saw an official looking demo video where an NPC woman fireballed
her own dog because he was barking too much. Assuming a BDI agent
architecture, I'd say they need to add goals like 'keep yourself alive
at all costs' and 'keep loved ones alive (relative to your love for them)'
to keep them from killing themselves or their pets.

But from an AI perspective, I'm actually pretty impressed with what I've
seen so far.


mcv.
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On 09 Apr 2006 07:33:04 GMT, mcv wrote:

> But from an AI perspective, I'm actually pretty impressed with what I've
> seen so far.

With what you have seen or with what you have heard from Bethesda? I'm
playing the game, and I've not seen anything that would strike me as very
outstanding with regard to the AI. A lot of people are very impressed by
the schedules of the NPCs, however, an Ultima title had NPCs with day/night
schedules already, and that was nearly twenty years ago. The AI in Oblivion
isn't intelligent in a sense that it evolves and learns. It doesn't. NPCs
may know what happened on the other end of the world a few minutes ago, but
not through oral transmission of the information, but because they access
the same pool of information. That has nothing to do with intelligence. I
can have the same conversations with the same NPCs over and over, without
the AI realising it, I can predict how it will react, and the same tricks
work over and over.

For all practical purposes, there is no difference between the Radiant AI
and traditional scripted "AI". I actually believe that it is basically a
marketing trick, hype. If it's repeated often enough as fact, most people
will believe it, see scripted reactions, and go all "Woah, there's
intelligence in there!". I honestly haven't seen anything that would really
amaze me. Except the schedules, the AI is the same as in Morrowind.

And I don't mean to bash the game. It's a solid game, can be quite fun and
is very pretty and smooth. But it doesn't offer anything that I haven't
seen before in other games, some of them really old. The appearance is
unmatched in the RPG field, but that is expected, seeing how hardware gets
more powerful every few months.

M.
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mcv wrote:
> But from an AI perspective, I'm actually pretty impressed with what
> I've seen so far.

Still needs a lot of work. Either that, or the empire huntsmen I keep
running into using each other for target practice need to quit sampling so
much of the local fungi.

--
chainbreaker
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Michael Vondung wrote:
> And I don't mean to bash the game. It's a solid game, can be quite
> fun and is very pretty and smooth. But it doesn't offer anything that
> I haven't seen before in other games, some of them really old. The
> appearance is unmatched in the RPG field, but that is expected,
> seeing how hardware gets more powerful every few months.
>
> M.

Some of the pathfinding I've seen is pretty impressive.

--
chainbreaker
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On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 10:56:39 -0400, "chainbreaker" <noone RemoveThis @nowhere.com>
wrote:

>mcv wrote:
>> But from an AI perspective, I'm actually pretty impressed with what
>> I've seen so far.
>
>Still needs a lot of work. Either that, or the empire huntsmen I keep
>running into using each other for target practice need to quit sampling so
>much of the local fungi.

I've seen that happen. It starts with them both shooting at the same
deer while chasing it, one gets in the way of the other, and after the
prey's dead they end up with a shootout.
--
Greg Johnson
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Greg Johnson wrote:
> On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 10:56:39 -0400, "chainbreaker" <noone.TakeThisOut@nowhere.com>
> wrote:
>
>> mcv wrote:
>>> But from an AI perspective, I'm actually pretty impressed with what
>>> I've seen so far.
>>
>> Still needs a lot of work. Either that, or the empire huntsmen I
>> keep running into using each other for target practice need to quit
>> sampling so much of the local fungi.
>
> I've seen that happen. It starts with them both shooting at the same
> deer while chasing it, one gets in the way of the other, and after the
> prey's dead they end up with a shootout.

Seems like somebody could have programmed a round of "Sorry about that old
bean," and "No permanent harm done old chap, I didn't sight with that eye,
anyway," into the mix and ending with the former antagonists holding hands
and skipping off into the sunset.

--
chainbreaker
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"chainbreaker" <noone.DeleteThis@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:KvqdncrQVtc6D6TZRVn-ig@comcast.com...
>
> Seems like somebody could have programmed a round of "Sorry about that old
> bean," and "No permanent harm done old chap, I didn't sight with that eye,
> anyway," into the mix and ending with the former antagonists holding
> hands and skipping off into the sunset.
>
> --
> chainbreaker

I thought we were aiming for realism. In other words, after one guy kills
the other, he looks to see if there were any witnesses. That's the point
when you run for your life...or if you're not a coward, stand and take your
death with honour...or if you have no dignity, curl up into a ball and cry
hysterically until he leaves in disgust...or if you realize you're playing a
game, reload to an earlier save point. The possibilities are endless, which
is why it's so difficult to program convincing AI characters.
 >> Stay informed about: Oblvion: Radiant AI in action... 

Grackle wrote:
> "chainbreaker" <noone.RemoveThis@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:KvqdncrQVtc6D6TZRVn-ig@comcast.com...
>>
>> Seems like somebody could have programmed a round of "Sorry about
>> that old bean," and "No permanent harm done old chap, I didn't sight
>> with that eye, anyway," into the mix and ending with the former
>> antagonists holding hands and skipping off into the sunset.
>>
>> --
>> chainbreaker
>
> I thought we were aiming for realism. In other words, after one guy
> kills the other, he looks to see if there were any witnesses. That's
> the point when you run for your life...or if you're not a coward,
> stand and take your death with honour...or if you have no dignity,
> curl up into a ball and cry hysterically until he leaves in
> disgust...or if you realize you're playing a game, reload to an
> earlier save point. The possibilities are endless, which is why it's
> so difficult to program convincing AI characters.

It's not entirely realistic to have so-called friends so easily barraging
each other as it is in this game, which is what I was aiming at. I'd hate
like hell to go rabbit hunting with any of these jakelegs--and deer hunting
would be completely out of the question.

It'd sorta be like scheduling a hunting trip with the vice-prez--how'd
anybody like to get stuck with *that* job?
--
chainbreaker
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Michael Vondung <mvondung.DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09 Apr 2006 07:33:04 GMT, mcv wrote:
>
>> But from an AI perspective, I'm actually pretty impressed with what I've
>> seen so far.
>
> With what you have seen or with what you have heard from Bethesda?

With what I've seen on that demo video and what I've read on several
forums.

> I'm
> playing the game, and I've not seen anything that would strike me as very
> outstanding with regard to the AI. A lot of people are very impressed by
> the schedules of the NPCs, however, an Ultima title had NPCs with day/night
> schedules already, and that was nearly twenty years ago.

Yeah, a schedule like that is pretty trivial. If all NPCs really have a
hard, scripted schedule of everything they do during a day, I admire the
effort, but it's not too special from an AI perspective. What is impressive
is that NPCs seem to have their own goals and seem to make their own
decisions based on those goals. That those decisions sometimes lead to
weird behaviour like people killing their own pet, friends shooting each
other or knights jumping into a pool of lava, just means they didn't
tune it very well. The basic idea is nice.

> The AI in Oblivion
> isn't intelligent in a sense that it evolves and learns.

I'm not expecting that. That's a whole lot more difficult to do, and would
make it even harder to predict the behaviour of the NPCs. It would be
really nice if it did learn, ofcourse, but so far, I'm happy with
slightly more dynamic NPCs.

> NPCs
> may know what happened on the other end of the world a few minutes ago, but
> not through oral transmission of the information, but because they access
> the same pool of information. That has nothing to do with intelligence. I
> can have the same conversations with the same NPCs over and over, without
> the AI realising it, I can predict how it will react, and the same tricks
> work over and over.

It's definitely not all the way where it's supposed to be, and I get the
impressions they made quite a lot of shortcuts compared to what I would
have liked to do with a game like that, but games are on a budget, and
compared to the appalling state of AI in most games, at least it sounds
like Oblivion is making a step in the right direction. They probably
have a lot more steps to go, though. I hope they're gonna make them.


mcv.
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"mcv" <mcvmcv.TakeThisOut@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:443a1acf$0$11061$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> Michael Vondung <mvondung.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 09 Apr 2006 07:33:04 GMT, mcv wrote:
>>
>>> But from an AI perspective, I'm actually pretty impressed with what I've
>>> seen so far.
>>
>> With what you have seen or with what you have heard from Bethesda?
>
> With what I've seen on that demo video and what I've read on several
> forums.
>
>> I'm
>> playing the game, and I've not seen anything that would strike me as very
>> outstanding with regard to the AI. A lot of people are very impressed by
>> the schedules of the NPCs, however, an Ultima title had NPCs with
>> day/night
>> schedules already, and that was nearly twenty years ago.
>
> Yeah, a schedule like that is pretty trivial. If all NPCs really have a
> hard, scripted schedule of everything they do during a day, I admire the
> effort, but it's not too special from an AI perspective. What is
> impressive
> is that NPCs seem to have their own goals and seem to make their own
> decisions based on those goals. That those decisions sometimes lead to
> weird behaviour like people killing their own pet, friends shooting each
> other or knights jumping into a pool of lava, just means they didn't
> tune it very well. The basic idea is nice.

Actually, from what I've seen this is not true. NPC's do not make decisions
any more complex than any other game currently going. That is, they attack
the enemy. If they take damage from a friend then the friend becomes an
enemy. Thats about it. They do not make decisions on how to achieve a goal
aside from pathing decisions. Even the pathing algorithm is a bit weak imo.
NPC's easily get stuck not able to round a corner to find the stairs, or
trying to cast through a doorway and constantly hitting the side, or running
into the side of the rock you are standing on while you plink him with
arrows. The AI advertised never made it into the game. Dont get me wrong,
I like the game. But the AI is not something to trumpet.
 >> Stay informed about: Oblvion: Radiant AI in action... 

On Sun, 09 Apr 2006 08:43:31 +0100, Andrew <spamtrap RemoveThis @127.0.0.1> wrote:

>>I even saw an official looking demo video where an NPC woman fireballed
>>her own dog because he was barking too much.
>
>I think that was staged for a tech demo, I haven't seen anything like
>that in the game. Maybe it is in there, but it certainly isn't
>representative of the game world in general.

I would guess that they fixed that. Otherwise you'd have NPCs
slaughtering each other every time they bumped into each other.
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On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 13:38:21 +0200, Michael Vondung
<mvondung.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:

>With what you have seen or with what you have heard from Bethesda? I'm
>playing the game, and I've not seen anything that would strike me as very
>outstanding with regard to the AI. A lot of people are very impressed by
>the schedules of the NPCs, however, an Ultima title had NPCs with day/night
>schedules already, and that was nearly twenty years ago.

The AI in Oblivion is significantly more random than you could ever
get with purely scripted AI, without having it actually BE random. In
a purely scripted AI system, you always have NPCs at the same place at
the same time - that's the nature of scripting. Oblivion's AI isn't
nearly as worried about getting to where its going - its willing and
able to stop and smell the roses.

Probably the best way to think of Oblivion AI is similar to the AI in
the Sims, except that the needs bars are hidden. If they're hungry,
they'll head over to the local inn and have a meal. If they're bored,
they'll take a walk in the local park, or read a book. If they're
tired, they'll go to bed. Aside from shopkeeper NPCs or quest NPCs
(who have been told to be at a specific location at a specific time),
you generally can't predict where an NPC will show up.

(You may argue than if you save and see where an NPC goes, 10 times
out of 10 they'll head to the inn and eat - that's because they're
hungry, and when they're hungry they'll always head to the inn to eat.
By unpredictable, I mean you can't predict where they'll be in 3 days
(game time) because you don't know what their needs will be at that
time.)

It is, of course, not a perfect system, and is far from completely
realistic, but it IS a major step forward for AI design.
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"chainbreaker" <noone.TakeThisOut@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:v4-dnZgwU_BqIKTZnZ2dnUVZ_v6dnZ2d@comcast.com...
>
> It's not entirely realistic to have so-called friends so easily barraging
> each other as it is in this game, which is what I was aiming at. I'd hate
> like hell to go rabbit hunting with any of these jakelegs--and deer
> hunting would be completely out of the question.
>
> It'd sorta be like scheduling a hunting trip with the vice-prez--how'd
> anybody like to get stuck with *that* job?
> --
> chainbreaker

Seems like a simple thing to have added some 'friendship' logic in the AI.
Maybe the idea is that this exists, but in the case of the two hunters
bashing on each other, this variable is set low enough that a single
incident causes them to turn on each other. I think it would be interesting
to see what can be learned from AI mods (is that possible)?
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