I have a ring that lets me cast invisiblity for 30 seconds.....i wanted to see how it worked so i broke into a house got detected and i cast invisibility but they still knew where i was at....then i was fighting 2 wolves and admist the battle i cast invisibility but they continued to attack me....

can someone explain how this works.

It works that if you become invisible after you got spotted you're about to kick the bucket.

NPC's have Red Dots on Thier HUD too. Invisibility only works as long as Your character has not been detected. Invisbility and Sneaking combined with a Muffle Enchant works very well, but Invisibility alone is actually a very weak Spell.

You can't use invisibility to escape, and effect will break if you do basically anything at all. You can also be heard, so enemies could detect you even if they haven't seen you before, but you got too close (as in, you still need to sneak and sometimes walk slowly instead of run).

Yeah, others can still hear your character even if invisible. And if they see you and know your character is there they can usually figure out where you are.

The invisibility spell itself makes a noise when you cast it, unless you have the Illusion skill perk that mutes it.

A lot of people tend to think this is a gimped feature and has broken invisibility all together. But I don't think so. I actually thought it was OP in the older games. Of course, the detection system was different too.

Have you noticed when you pop an invisibility potion that for a moment, their detection lowers? It just gives you that last chance to escape. But for low level sneaking players, it doesn't work easily.

I myself never started using the invisibility spell until I mastered illusion. I normally popped invisibilty potions and cast muffled movement. When I play a mage, I inevitably build up Alchemy skills too for Destruction potions. So I have good skill with invisibility potions too.

I also look at invisibility to be used with a combination of illusion spells besides muffled movement in case your illusion spells are too low leveled for certain enemies.

Think of it this way. It's not perfect invisibility. It's like the Predator's cloaking device. The air shimmers around the target, making him difficult to spot but relatively easy to track if you know what you're looking for. Thus it won't help much in an escape until you can break line of sight and get into a new position away from where they last saw you.