I just watched the e3 demo for Oblivion and there was the radiant AI , yes I know it wasn't put in the final product but is the Radiant AI still in Bethesda hands so we can't even mod for a Radiant AI or we are just out of luck?

The AI wasn't included in the final game, so no, we couldn't mod it in, atleast with Bethesda's codes. I'm not a modder, but I'd assume that with the right coding it could be done...

there was a mod project awhile back attempting to add some sort of AI back in via scripts and stuff but i havent seen anything within the last year or two..........so either its dead or its gonna pop up out of nowhere with a link to tesnexus.

I think that was abandoned, but I haven't been following it so I'm not really sure.

The problem with the Radiant AI is that it had a tendency to cause riots in the cities and get a lot of people killed whom you might need later, so I'm not sure reinstating it would be wise even if that mod project is still going.

They never really got it under control. Would have been nice if they hadn't released prematurely and spent more time getting it to work, but they didn't, so we have a pretty standard AI system in the game. If it's not there, there's nothing to mod. Whether they kept working on it for future games or abandoned the project, I have no idea...it would be nice, having some super-polished and amazing radiant AI they've been working on all these years.

To think that whenever Todd's back was turned the developers were snickering to each other and making sotto voce "I've got your Radiant AI right here, buddy" cracks as they sneakily went about scripting the behavior of every NPC in Oblivion! O, the humiliation!

Seriously, though, you did not see the Radiant AI in that demo. Radiant AI is not the behavior you see. Instead, it is what drives the behavior you see.

The AI that drives Urbul gro-Orkulg in the Imperial City is the AI that drives Glarthir in Skingrad is the AI that drives Baily and Kezune in Chorrol. Urbol gro-Orkulg does not behave exactly as Glarthir does, nor do either Urbol gro-Orkulg or Glarthir behave exactly as Baily or Kezune. What's my point, you ask? My point is that just because you see an NPC behaving in a way that another NPC does not, does not mean that the AI driving the first NPC is any different from the AI driving the second.


They did get it under control. That is why Oblivion does not play like Westworld when the robots went berserk.

These threads have been popping up all the time. I'm sure Bethesda does have the code although i'm not sure whether they would be willing to share it, although I'm absolutely sure the community would be extremely grateful (I know I would). Then again I think them relincquishing of such a large amount of code would almost be on par with them releasing the source code (wink wink Bethesda).

On an unrelated note: Geez fishy your avatars change as much as you do

Hehe, are we all still under the impression that a game company had achieved the holy grail of computer science? How adorably naive.

Radiant AI was just scripting. That's all it was and that's all it was ever going to be. Highly sophisticated and complex scripting maybe, but still scripting.

Umm... thats what radiant AI is, so... what else would we want?
It's not like we're asking the CPU to start randomly creating behaviors...

Actually to a extend we could do that.

I think a huge problem there was that the NPCs actually had a far to shallow pool of possible actions to chose from and that they basically had no personality. It's like having a bunch of robots all only having a few options what to do and otherwise having no different behavior options, it's predestined that some will do crazy stuff.


A solution I'd suggest is giving Dwarf Fortress a look since it can create a lot of different personalities for NPCs and actually have them act on that.
The first thing needed for NPCs is personality. Someone who's a thug and otherwise won't care about others will likely push someone away from his table and take his lunch just because he can, if that person is too afraid to fight back he'll just let him do it. With different personalities this would play out differently, if the guy pushed away is not afraid he'll try to get his stuff back and even risk a fight.
How this could be achieved is through "personality sheets", a large list of options and variables that all then factor into actions.
I already posted something a while back about it, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1073698-tes-v-ideas-and-suggestions-153/page__view__findpost__p__15612581 if you like.

Based on those personality factors actions can actually differ. Someone who's not willing to go into a fight but willing to steal will try to snatch someones food or go out and steal a few vegetables from someones garden. Someone less willing to do that will maybe try to beg for some money to buy something or try to ask for a small job just to pay for it. Or someone willing to get his own food will go out in the wild and try to hunt for something. A lot can be done if the basis is working and, most of all, wide enough.

Radiant AI would be possible, but it ended with everybody dieing every time the PC got arrested.

It would be nice and then again It doesn't seem we formally asked or Bethesda's tweaking of their engine might improve it
Also , I had my previous avatar before this for about 3 months.

Just found this interview on google that mentions instances where the radiant AI went horribly wrong - thought it might provide an interesting read to those who hadn't already read it -

"1. One character was given a rake and the goal “rake leaves”; another was given a broom and the goal “sweep paths,” and this worked smoothly. Then they swapped the items, so that the raker was given a broom and the sweeper was given the rake. In the end, one of them killed the other so he could get the proper item.
2. In another test, a minotaur was given a task of protecting a unicorn. However, the Minotaur repeatedly tried to kill the unicorn because he was set to be an aggressive creature.
3. In one Dark Brotherhood quest, the player can meet up with a shady merchant who sells skooma, an in-game drug. During testing, the NPC would be dead when the player got to him. The reason was that NPCs from the local skooma den were trying to get their fix, did not have any money, and so were killing the merchant to get it.
4. While testing to confirm that the physics models for a magical item known as the “Skull of Corruption,” which creates an evil copy of the character/monster it is used on, were working properly, a tester dropped the item on the ground. An NPC immediately picked it up and used it on the player character, creating a copy of him that proceeded to kill every NPC in sight.
5. In one test, after a guard became hungry and left his post in search of food, the other guards followed to arrest him. The town people looted the town shops, due to lack of guards.
Bethesda worked to fix these issues, balancing an NPC’s needs against his penchant for destruction so that the game world still functions in a usable fashion. In-game there are over 1,000 different NPCs, not including randomly spawned monsters and bandits. The result is that the AI in the release version is much reduced, only featuring NPC schedules."

So you are saying that you can not or will not tell us what AI is, but you will say with authority that Radiant AI is not AI. Uh ... thanks?

Personally, I prefer the following quote listed on http://waiting4oblivion.com/developer_quotes_offsite.html#msfd67. The source is one the programmers who worked on Oblivion:


This statement jives with what I have read and heard elsewhere about AI over the years. The procedure for establishing actor behavior in Oblivion also conforms to my notion of AI and fits with what the developers and spokespeople for Bethesda have repeatedly said about Radiant AI: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Portal:AI.

...or they could simply have the NPC pick-up a spare rake...or buy a new one...or have the NPC ask the other NPC for the rake...or put a kill limit for raking leaves...seriously



...then have the unicorn and minotaur in the same faction and make it a rule that no one in that faction can kill each other.



...make him essential?



This one is great, it shows exactly how the PC acts and what their personality is like



...then have them carry extra food with them...or call some kind of waiter/messenger-boy to get food for them...or tell them to wait it out, seriously Beth :huh:

:wacko: What is wrong with those situations exactly? particularly the town looting one, I would actually encourage that kind of behaviour. It happens in real life and your trying to achieve life like behaviour so....

I can see why they wouldn't want the whole town storming the local bakery when a guard turns his back, but I do agree that some of the more unlawful citizens should take advantage of any lapse in security.

I feel like it just needed some alteration; restrict illegal activities to, depending on disposition an action, NPC's with low responsibility.

My guess is they could have fixed it if they had more time to experiment and optimize with it, hopefully we'll see a really good version in TES: V.

:rofl: The development team was probably too busy laughing to fix it.

after reading these 'issues', i don't see what the problem was. sounds like an interesting game to me

The remark "The result is that the AI in the release version is much reduced, only featuring NPC schedules" is a load of BS.

I definitely remember the article in which a Bethesda spokesperson talks about item #1. I think Gavin Carter is the one who mentions it, and I think the focus of the article is Radiant AI. Unfortunately, it seems the article is no longer posted on the internet. Item #5 appears to be mis-reported. I vaguely recall an article where someone from Bethesda mentions a guard wanting food, going hunting, and then somehow ending up in a fight with another guard because of it. My even fuzzier recollection wants to say that the crime or issue was connected to killing a deer, not to deserting a post. As for items #2, #3, #4, I really can't attest to their accuracy. Anyway, that's enough reminiscing.

If one looks at the http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/AI_Button in the Construction Set, one finds the means to correct items #1, #2, and #3. NPC's have a Responsibility setting and an Aggression setting -- simple. There are a number of ways they might have corrected #5 without reducing the AI one jot. I do not know how the game addresses item #4.

The unforgivable part is that the back of the TESIV box advertises Radiant AI. Which isn't even in the game. :nono:

Oblivion only has schedules. Look in the Construction Set, look at the actions you can tell the NPCs to do. It's all related to schedules. The rake situation cannot be recreated in-game with the current release. If you recreate it, the NPC without the rake who is told to sweep paths will do it anyway because you tell him to play the "Sweep" animation at "this place". Broom or not, he'll do it. And if the "Sweep" animation had a condition with wich the NPC must have a broom in his inventory, the NPC will just stand there and do nothing.

The issue about the guards and the deer you are talking about can be related to something that always happen in-game. West of Bruma, you'll often find two guards fighting each other and one or two dead deers nearby. If I recall correctly, it's because the two guards spawn close to each other and one accidently hit the other, so both start a fight.

Anyway, we never got really "Radiant AI" in the current game, just the schedules. So you can give goals to the NPCs, but they'll achieve these goals in one way only, unless they are scripted to do it other ways. Responsible NPCs will buy their food from the inn owner, while low-responsability NPCs will enter sneak mode and try to steal some food from the table or from someone else, but they'll always get spotted and a guard will come in to slay him. That's the closest "Radiant AI" example we can see in-game that's related to what was seen in the prevriews.

I hope we'll see a proper implementation of it in the Elder Scrolls V because it could be something very interesting. Having NPCs staring at walls and not reacting properly to certain situations is a bother.

I don't exactly buy the whole 'The AI was amazing but we had to dumb it down completely because everyone ended up killing each other' thing. Even if that was really true it shouldn't be that hard to program in some sort of restriction so that people won't go to extremes to fulfill their goals.