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Rockstar look to be going big on NPC AI this generation - Praise be!!!

cormack12

Gold Member
Keep in mind though, patents do not mean this tech will be used, or used to the full extent described. Companies often patent stuff that they might use and then decide not to use them due to lack of feasibility, or go for a broad patent and use it a lot more limitedly.

Took this from various reddit posts, but they have two patents here:
Gentrification and 'aging'
Reddit link


[0007] In view of the foregoing, a need exists for an improved system for virtual navigation in an effort to overcome the aforementioned obstacles and deficiencies of conventional video game systems.

It’s essentially a method to improve vehicle AI when driving
an additional drawback, conventional systems relied almost entirely on local traffic avoidance for NPCs to avoid collisions. This involves, each frame, checking the local environment for any potential obstructions (vehicles, pedestrians, objects), building up a view of that obstruction from the local vehicle (creating a front facing polygon which is a list of points/lines that the vehicle will need to avoid in order to not hit the obstruction), generating information about the road the vehicle is on so they can avoid going off-road into buildings and finally generating and detecting the best steering angle to avoid all the obstructions. This is done every frame for each entity and no knowledge of the previous frame is used. This can result in very late detection of potential issues and no high level knowledge of this road is blocked; instead, the system only indicates that there’s something in my way to be avoided. Vehicles cannot plan accordingly, for example, if there is any type of road blockage.

Rockstar's patent describes a system that primarily will change this and give NPCs more situational awareness. They will essentially have an objective of navigating from one location to another (simplified, but is essential in making routines similar to rdr2) and be able to take into account other external factors. Coolest of all,NPCS will still exist when your game isn’t rendering them in this implementation.

Specific examples mentioned by Rockstar state they will be able to use weather conditions, traffic, and crashes to determine where to go. Some areas might be dangerous in the rain, they might avoid it. If an area has too much traffic, they will avoid it. Possibly destructible environmental areas could be reacted to (similar to bridges in Just Cause, this point is speculation however ). Cars will also be able to take into account # of lanes and speed in their decisions. NPCs will be also able to take into account high speed chases, and be able to navigate if they themselves are speeding.

There will also be other reactions that are mentioned specifically, such as changing lanes before a highway exit appears, and as Rockstar puts it

The large part they also mention is this implementation uses a lot less processing power. The NPC schedules can be relayed by a central server (they could possibly use the console itself as well) and it doesn’t require the same constant surrounding analysis as previous AI. Rockstar mentions this will allow them to have denser traffic with the same resources.

A large aim also seems to be “realism.” Rockstar's patent mentions realistic reactions to various factors as being the main intent. For example, NPCs will each have different driving ability levels, based on the driver and the car:

each NPC can define its own specific characteristics for traversing the road nodes. These characteristics can define the distinction between vehicle types/models that have various speed restrictions and benefits. By way of example, various characteristics and parameters can include acceleration, times/distances, braking times/distances, top speed, cornering speeds

em25jxpwgob61.jpg


Other notable patent snips
[0005] Furthermore, conventional systems only provide limited resources for automating NPCs. For example, processing power, memory, and efficiency only allow for a predetermined number of NPC controlled cars in any single instance of a conventional system. However, players of a video game would expect to see more than a predetermined number of NPC controlled cars in a video game for a realistic experience. In conventional systems, NPCs are often grouped by characteristics and perform the same motions. In fact, some NPCs of conventional systems fade out of existence as the player approaches the NPC.

[0006] As an additional drawback, conventional systems relied almost entirely on local traffic avoidance for NPCs to avoid collisions. This involves, each frame, checking the local environment for any potential obstructions (vehicles, pedestrians, objects), building up a view of that obstruction from the local vehicle (creating a `front facing` polygon which is a list of points/lines that the vehicle will need to avoid in order to not hit the obstruction), generating information about the road the vehicle is on so they can avoid going off-road into buildings and finally generating and detecting the best steering angle to avoid all the obstructions. This is done every frame for each entity and no knowledge of the previous frame is used. This can result in very late detection of potential issues and no high level knowledge of `this road is blocked;` instead, the system only indicates that there's something in my way to be avoided. Vehicles cannot plan accordingly, for example, if there is any type of road blockage.


The NPCs were great in RDR2 but very limited and I'm hoping this patent supports that same level of NPC but more organically
 
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ne1butu

Member
Sounds good, I love stuff like this. Surprisingly the best NPC AI I’ve seen so far is in watch dogs legion.

They all have jobs and routines and friends / associates and like and dislike you based on your actions. It’s weird coming across someone in the street that hates you because you killed their boyfriend who was some random guard on a mission
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Who knows what the plans were, but what is in Cyberpunk looks amazing in trailers. When you play the game you are quickly able to tell that it's a big crowd simulation with zero complexity.
It should never have been released on current gen consoles. They don't have the cpu horsepower for this tasks.
 

ratburger

Member
Hopefully this turns out better than Bethesda's Radiant AI, which was very underwhelming.
 
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Sentenza

Member
Hopefully this turns out better than Bethesda's Radiant AI, which was very underwhelming.
Aren't jabs at "radiant AI" 15 years late the to the party?

Back in topic: I remember arguing with friends few years ago that for better or worse Rockstar is constantly trying to push the boundaries of what tech allows in their products (see their experimenting with Euphoria, or their tech to blend seamlessly animations for third person shooting at 360 degrees in Max Payne 3, etc.) and they keep proving me right years later.
 
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Hudo

Member
But their best writer left. So have fun with sandbox style gameplay. Thats all you gonna have.
I wouldn't mind that, actually. That's how I got into GTA (and Rockstar games) anyway. GTA 2 was THE sandbox game for me when I was a wee lad. GTA 5 lost some of that in favour of story and presentation and RDR2's design basically fought against its own sandbox systems.
 

Woggleman

Member
That is all good but with Dan Houser and Lezlie Benz gone prepare for a generic sandbox and for them to milk it for online. They should release something as soon as possible though. They would be fools not to take advantage of all this newfound love gamers have for them,
 

Woggleman

Member
With most of the original team gone and Take2 caring only about profit Rockstar games will probably become as generic as a Ubisoft game. I have a feeling RDR2 was their last gasp of greatness.
 

Dibils2k

Member
Sounds good, I love stuff like this. Surprisingly the best NPC AI I’ve seen so far is in watch dogs legion.

They all have jobs and routines and friends / associates and like and dislike you based on your actions. It’s weird coming across someone in the street that hates you because you killed their boyfriend who was some random guard on a mission
the thing is, even if you dont kill a single guard, that probably still happens
 

zkorejo

Member
Have been let down too many times by every fav dev recently to believe any of that. Will believe it when I see it.

For all I know, Rockstar might be next in line to disappoint.
 
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mxbison

Member
That's cool, but I'd rather finally be able to break shit in open world games.

Everyone talking about immersion while I still can't break through a shitty little fence or gate with a truck.
 

Caio

Member
GTA6 should have improvements in all areas.
Improved system for virtual navigation, improved vehicle AI when driving, various characteristics and parameters including acceleration, times/distances, braking times/distances, top speed, cornering speeds taken into account for much more accurate physics and collision's system. All sounds so cool, but sadly not applicable because the main protagonist is female :messenger_beaming:

Kidding aside, I'm confident GTA6 will have quiet good improvements thanks to a vastly superior combo CPU-GPU-SSD-IO-Audio VS PS4 and Xone.
 
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Thomish

Member
Traffic systems in open world games are always an immersion breaker. Sounds real good. This sort of thinking can be extrapolated to a lot of other NPC characteristics which will improve realism like crazy. Hopefully this will be implemented in 6.
 

D.Final

Banned
Keep in mind though, patents do not mean this tech will be used, or used to the full extent described. Companies often patent stuff that they might use and then decide not to use them due to lack of feasibility, or go for a broad patent and use it a lot more limitedly.

Took this from various reddit posts, but they have two patents here:
Gentrification and 'aging'
Reddit link


[0007] In view of the foregoing, a need exists for an improved system for virtual navigation in an effort to overcome the aforementioned obstacles and deficiencies of conventional video game systems.

It’s essentially a method to improve vehicle AI when driving






em25jxpwgob61.jpg


Other notable patent snips
[0005] Furthermore, conventional systems only provide limited resources for automating NPCs. For example, processing power, memory, and efficiency only allow for a predetermined number of NPC controlled cars in any single instance of a conventional system. However, players of a video game would expect to see more than a predetermined number of NPC controlled cars in a video game for a realistic experience. In conventional systems, NPCs are often grouped by characteristics and perform the same motions. In fact, some NPCs of conventional systems fade out of existence as the player approaches the NPC.

[0006] As an additional drawback, conventional systems relied almost entirely on local traffic avoidance for NPCs to avoid collisions. This involves, each frame, checking the local environment for any potential obstructions (vehicles, pedestrians, objects), building up a view of that obstruction from the local vehicle (creating a `front facing` polygon which is a list of points/lines that the vehicle will need to avoid in order to not hit the obstruction), generating information about the road the vehicle is on so they can avoid going off-road into buildings and finally generating and detecting the best steering angle to avoid all the obstructions. This is done every frame for each entity and no knowledge of the previous frame is used. This can result in very late detection of potential issues and no high level knowledge of `this road is blocked;` instead, the system only indicates that there's something in my way to be avoided. Vehicles cannot plan accordingly, for example, if there is any type of road blockage.


The NPCs were great in RDR2 but very limited and I'm hoping this patent supports that same level of NPC but more organically
Well..
For openworld games are probably the most efficient indeed
 

MeteorVII

Member
How about working on mission design and shooting/combat so it's no longer stuck in the PS2 era.
- someone who’s never played a PS2 game in their life and got really excited after watching that one nakeyjakey video to jump on the bandwagon and regurgitate the same tired false narrative.

Cringe.
 
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