Bloodlines diary discusses AI: relevant to Source?

[Apos]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/vtmb/preview_6100691.html

The diary discusses how "scripting" works in Source, all the different methods whereby the AI works to create realistic characters. Pretyt neat read.

 

[TheWart]

Interesting...nice find.

I like this:

The ranged combat borrows as much as possible from Half-Life 2's ranged combat. Most combatants will also try to find places to shoot at you from behind cover. They will kick things at you or kick them over and use them for cover. They will dive behind crates and tables to get out of the way.

 

[Lanthanide]

Pretty dull read, doesn't really say anything at all that other modern games don't have, or any real details about how the AI works or anything.

 

[DimitriPopov]

Currently, our AI has the following main states:

Idle: NPC is going about its normal routine--walking about, patrolling, or talking to buddies.
Alert: NPC is alerted to the player's presence. NPC investigates foreign sounds and sights.
Combat: NPC is actively engaged in combat with an enemy.
Hunting: NPC was in combat, but lost track of the target. NPC combs the area looking for its target again.
Fleeing: NPC is afraid of someone or something and will run and hide in a corner.

This is the AI from Rainbow Six 3 pretty much , I imagine it will be better though.

 

[Apos]

Oh, I don't know: the stuff about "conditions, tasks, schedules, and states" sounds pretty interesting. The key is the schedules: that they can be interrupted and resume as needed. And it's pretty important because it confirms what Rick Ellis said about scripting: it's no longer an explicit overarching bunch of direction, but rather broken down into the NPC AI.

 

[Apos]

Just a note: I've mailed Rick Ellis to see if he can clarify whether or not this info is relevant to HL2.

 

[wayne white]

all those features are in all present generation games.

 

[lans]

It really depends - I'm sure valve has their own special A.I. features for HL2...

The range one is pretty much obvious,
You could see that in a GDC screenshot where there were the orange "A.I hint" boxes behind things like tables and walls.

 

[Apos]

Not in this detail, and not with the interupttion/resume feature.

Think about what Valve has so far described about how the AI works, and how scenes won't be "scripted" per se, but will be part of the enemy AI system. This article describes a framework that this idea could be working on. Scripted sequences could be schedules where AI tasks are progressively triggered by other AI entities.
This is what I asked Ellis:

I was wondering if the AI I/O system they are describing is basically an exmaple of the way that AI works in Source games in general, with the basic concepts of conditions, tasks, schedules, and states (at least the way they break it down) for NPCs. Obviously Troika is making a different type of game, but are these basic concepts the same? I know you had mentioned that Source doesn't have any "scripting" language per se, just a NPC AI I/O system, and this article sounded like it was describing that in more detail. I take it that the NPCs can trigger reactions in each other (this is the way their back and forth conversations work correct?) Is this akin to a "schedule" in Troika's parlance, which can be interrupted and then picked up later?

One specific example I was interested in is when Eli hugs Alyx. Obviously, they both have to be playing matching animations for this to work, but is Eli triggering the reaction in Alyx, or is some larger thing triggering them both? And does Eli have to first signal to Alyx that he's in exactly the correct place for their animations to match up without clipping before the animation is triggered? Or is Alyx herself chekcing to make sure as well? This all seems really complicated, but very exciting.
(you may not know this specific interaction, but it's a pretty good general example)

With any luck, he'll get back to me. If not, maybe another Valve employee can answer it.

Maybe it doesn't seem that important to some, but to mod makers, it's the sort of insight that's really relevant to what they want to do.