Sandbox Assassin: The AI of Hitman (2016) | AI and Games #45
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- Hitman (2016) was a refreshing take on IO Interactive's beloved franchise that returned Agent 47 to his roots. These vast new playgrounds are full of AI characters living their lives, blissfully unaware of the players presence. In this episode I explore the suite of AI systems running under the hood that allows for thousands of AI characters to be active in a given level for both Hitman and 2018's Hitman 2.
Special thanks to IO Interactive and their community and AI teams for reaching out to me on Twitter and offering to help! This final version of the episode not only has the seal of approval from the studio, but also has new information not available in my research sources.
Chapters
[00:00] Introduction
[01:02] The Hitman franchise
[04:44] The Hitman AI Architecture
[13:05] The Crowd AI System
[19:27] The AI of Hitman 2016
[25:32] AI-Driven Animation
[28:45] The AI of Hitman 2
[30:53] Closing
This video is based on the following presentations:
"Creating the AI for the Living, Breathing World of Hitman Absolution" by Mika Vehkala, GDC Europe 2013.
"Crowds in Hitman: Absolution" by Kasper Fauerby, Game/AI Conference 2012
"Reinforcement Learning based Character Locomotion in Hitman: Absolution" by Michael Büttner, Game/AI Conference 2012.
"Bodyguards and VIPs: A look at ambient, alert and evacuation AI behaviour in Hitman" by Jason Schroder and Thomas Egeskov Petersen. nucl.AI Conference 2016.
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You can read the article based on this video on the AI and Games website:
aiandgames.com/hitman
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Music in this episode (in order of appearance):
Tracks from the Hitman 2016 OST by Niels Bye Nielsen
- A World of Assassination
- Showstopper
- The Key to Mastery
- What Hides Beneath
- Mission Accomplished
Tracks from the Hitman 2 OST by Niels Bye Nielsen.
- Main Theme
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#Hitman2 #Agent47 #Hitman #GameAI - Ігри
The AI of Hitman is the longest episode of AI and Games I've ever attempted, as it explores the AI behind not one, but three games, that all rely on the same core architecture. With special thanks to IO Interactive who reached out and helped me refine this episode to make it as accurate as possible. I hope you all enjoy it.
You sound really like bigmooney
Woah woah woah. Are you telling me you are on episode 45 and you publish this now? Couldn’t you have waited for 47 it’s just two more??
Oh shit... 😂
@@AIandGames no swearing.
@@AIandGames you can always to a "complete" history of ai in hitman for 47 ^^,
@@AIandGames YOU DUN MESSED UP MY GOOD BITCH
Ya dun GOOF'D, son!
Lol, oh well, there's always.... Other stuff.
A lot of focus on Hitman all of a sudden..
First No Clip.. Now AI and games..
And thats a good thing, these games need way more attention.
Especially Hitman. This game is so great
The sandbox assassin. Also known as the common house cat.
LMFAO
Litterbox purring assassin.
Noclip and AI and Games showing me Hitman. Now I might need to go buy it.
You should. Great great great games
Hitman 2 also includes Hitman (2016) afaik
@@b4ttlemast0r no it doesnt. unless you own the first game, in which case you can play it within the second.
@@James28R And you can buy and download HITMAN 2016 maps into HITMAN 2. "Legacy Pack" or "GOTY Legacy Pack". I strongly recommend the latter.
I did. I spent three days in paris. I spent 4 hours completing every challenge of each training mission. It's hard not to fall in love with the game. I'm eager to discover more. So far I actually like the second mission the most.
Both AI&G and Noclip uploading about Hitman on the same day :o
Danny on a video that isn’t Battlefield?
But I’ve seen your Hitman videos so I know you like this franchise
I didn't plan that. But hey, if it helps spread the Hitman love (and a few views my way), I'm not complaining. 😎
@@AIandGames Do love how IO is so open with the things they share, from NC's interviews that go back to the lowest points in their history to you and travis offering IO's help!
I wish contracts mode let you mark AI as different roles (Mark a random npc target as VIP to be escorted, mark guard AI as Bodyguards etc.)
Totally brilliant! I'm a computer vision researcher and despite working in machine learning every day, I had no clue about how refined and diverse the engineering is in these games. That, and Hitman is my favourite game of all time! Thank you for this video ❤️
I played this game for the first time just recently and I have to say, I was absolutely blown away by the AI in this game. I've never played anything where the npc's in the game felt so real and believable, and it's absolutely a core part of the fun of the game.
Bro try The Last Of Us 2
Yeah, the AI voices dropping details about the story, and hints on how to manipulate the world (like setting of the fireworks) is great.
From now on, anytime I make guards evac a target....I'll just hear the Google Assistant voice in my head coming from the lead bodyguard as he exclaims: "Calculating route"
Jee this channel is a whole gem! Haven’t seen anything so helpful and valuable in a lifetime! Im trying to compose my own bs-level pathfinding /crowd management algorithm and finding out there are explanations online is just so wholesome to me
Best example of your topic is Sapienza, all NPC’s act so casual and are doing unique activities like the dancer near the docks and a priest doing confessions. It makes the world feel lively and the freedom of entering different buildings like the infamous art shop (near the archway at the crashed van site) which even though small it still makes Hitman an interactive and explorable game. This is probably the most replayed game I’ve played and never got bored doing challenges and just fucking around.
The AI behind the enemies is quite incredible, but still can't believe however after seven years you still can't subdue someone from behind on a flight of stairs without them doing an instant 180 towards you and seeing your face, blowing your cover.
Always love listening to your videos as I work, fantastic videos every time!
Man, this is probably your best video ever! I just couldn’t stop watching and I want more! Kudos for a great job!
Best video of yours yet, I think. Really fascinating topic, keep it up!
Absolution was my first foray into the series. Glad it got mentioned! Makes me want to blow through the rest of the series
I always go out of my way to like your videos ASAP when they get posted so the algorithm shows you the love you deserve for your videos
Much appreciated! Gotta get dem veews.
17:52
Hits everyone else but the soldier actually firing at him. 🤣
Awesome content.
I love that developers now come to you to offer insight.
Excellent video as always. If you're up for suggestions, possibly take a crack at MGSV:TPP, that game had some decent (as in believable) AI routines, with a lot of attention to detail.
Having serious Writing on Games flashbacks here.
These videos are very well made and thought out. Im definitely subscribing. This is exactly the kind of stuff that got me interested in game design when I was a kid.
This was a hell of an episode! I may or may not ever play the Hitman games but there's some real good game dev food-for-thought in here. Really fantastic work.
Also it's cool as hell that IO Interactive was so eager to help you.
Fucking play the games already. At least 2016 and HITMAN 2.
Wow great video!👍
Pretty sur you are as pumped as i am for the third one🤘🤘
Hey, man - you are making great videos, keep going!
"Pending walk" is amazing
This game (and I'd assume its sequel, which I sadly haven't played yet) does some truly incredible, underrated stuff with AI.
I think its safe to say hitman 2 (2018) is the most fun I've ever had with AI in any game. The way they react to the things you do in that world are incredible.
"Hence, a character [...] won't keep trying to find or interact with characters that are either missing or dead." That's good, since the main point of the game is to cause that scenario.
Almost finished with Hitman because of the NoClip doc.. now this is the cherry on top, great insights! :)
This is such a great video on a such a great game! Thank you very much!
Holy defecation, this is high quality content. This really goes in depth. Subscribed and recommended.
Holy defecation LMAO
Usually UA-cam algo would "recommend" me shit show. For once I'm very well pleased with the recommendation !
This vid' is a very good addition to the NoClip Docu Serie and deserves recognition on its own right !
I might be in a heavy minority, but I really enjoyed Absolution. Having never played a Hitman game before, the gameplay really surprised me, and I loved its small yet dense environments.
That was the first Hitman game I played, and I found it fun.
After playing Blood Money and the new trilogy since, I can definitely say they're far better. But Absolution is fun in it's own ways.
One thing I loved was the NPC reactions to bodies and whatnot. I remember knife killing a load of guys within a room, in the Blackwater level. A guard walked in and was all like "Command... it's a massacre... I'm not in the habit of exaggerating command." It felt so real. Also, *one* thing it has over the newer ones is how NPCs react when alerted. I liked that, when dead bodies have been found, they all remain alerted for the remainder of the level. That's much more immersive.
the AI is so amazing. Its a step above anything rockstar have ever done. CDPR isn’t even in the conversation. Both the latter have stealth gimmicks. Only Bethesda and Ubisoft have okayish stealth mechanics.
IO Interactive is amazing, I wish they were publicly traded so I could buy shares. When 007 drops, they will get their due recognition as a Triple AAA studio
Great timing for this video with No Clip releasing their documentary episodes on these games! I wonder if that was IOI's plan or just a happy coincidence.
Very much a happy coincidence. I did chat with one of the NoClip folk on Twitter last month joking about how GMTK and Writing on Games had already released episodes, then we were both making videos about it. But we certainly didn't plan anything together.
Wow this is amazing. Good job. Thinking of trying to implement that crowd AI in javascript XD.
I am beyond thrilled these games are finally getting eyeballs on them. What IO has managed to achieve, just in pure technology, is too impressive to go under the radar.
absolution is the only hitman game i've played, and bc it isn't that popular I smiled so hard when you mentioned it!
i wish we could see NPC's with different A.I.'s in action versus each other. i.e. FEAR soldiers versus Ready or Not terrorists, vs hitman bodyguards (either cicada or agency heavy troopers) where instead of the player, they fight a squad of each other
Wish I could experience this for the first time again
id love an IO game with maybe 20 or so SUPER INTELLIGENT A.I. characters that we could actually have conversations with and kill.....our interactions with these characters shaping the outcome of the social adventure....idk just an idea.
That would need a long time for it to work.
@@marshahammack4503 would it really??? a game structured like Life Is Strange with each character having 1000 different conversation options, it wouldnt be THAT hard.
This trilogy has magical AI i swear. Usually I'm one to play a game while thinking about the technical mechanisms, but booting up Hitman 3 for the first time (as my introduction to the series)? I seriously tried to walk around like a "normal guest" for the first 30 minutes, because I couldn't figure out what the AI would and wouldn't allow as suspicious. I was terrified of running. It was a little pathetic.
But man, what I wouldn't give to be able to bring myself back to the first moments of testing the realism. Maybe I'm getting old, but it really did seem seamless... well, okay, I know better now, but...
12:47
So, in essence, they become taken over by an Agent of the Matrix.
11:56 Stryfe actually uses a similar system. Albeit substantially less developed. Firing weapons in crowded areas forces the enemy AI to begin hunting the player.
Hitman AI vid, not episode 47. You've failed, my friend.
Wow interesting content, thanks UA-cam recommendations
I love how the devs show their AI tech. I wish more devs would be open about the engine tech in terms of graphics, mechanics, ai, workflow, etc.) GDC might have something interesting each year but thats about it.
Dammm, u make software engineering look sassy!
Cudos to you and the HitDev Team.
Hi! Love ur series! RtCW (2001) is a personal fav. and would love a text or video on that a. i.
Ai and games: “preparation and planning coming together”
Me: runs in with no plan and only a pistol that is very loud. Kills everyone in the game. “Oh..well that works.”
18:07 - Agent 47 is indeed a “negative influence on people”. teeheehee
So many Hitman 2016 documentary style videos recently
Great puzzle game.
I love Hitman
All the hitman!
Mini ninjas needs a sequel 😢
12:45 Have never seen any crowd NPC turn into a normal NPC before.
You must be very good at the game, it happens if you make, like any mistake
The biggest question I had was, how does he know all this or is he just making assumptions. Cool of them to help out with this video 😁
No bullshit on AI and Games. Either I know how it works or the video doesn't happen. 😎
Can you make a video about Radiant AI, its functionality, how it is used, and both what it can be used for and its potential pros/cons?
It seemed to have been introduced in Oblivion, and was one of the highlighted 'features' pumped up by Bethesda... only for them to remove a good chunk of the Radiant AI functions before the final release due to it being 'too smart' and creating chaotic problems.
Was this the AI where a shady quest giver would disappear because they were actually dead in the woods because a Skooma addict murdered them?
It would be really interesting to see videos that analyze not just games that accomplish great things in AI (like Hitman) but classic games that failed in interesting ways.
@@helloofthebeach Yes. It's the same AI where an infamous "City Swimmer" event happens.
Many people would find a character, City Swimmer, dead in Bravil. An argonian female, her AI was given low responsibility, so whenever it was time to 'eat', they would steal food rather than buy it. This would lead to City Swimmer being killed in Bravil for most players, as the guards caught her stealing, and the AI is incapable of going to jail or pay the fine, just 'resist arrest'... which means flight or fight. In her case, death.
Hi, look into the Driver AI of MotoGP 2019 - thats very interessting, maybe you can point out if this is the furture of AI - in most games the AI more A than I ;)
Imagine putting this much work into your AI and then adding the coin.
@30:28 Fairly large "patrol routes..." Sure... lets go with that.
You know what I don't like about the evacuation is that when it happens you might as well reset the mission, it's triggered by messing up, when ever you mess up you lose points on the score at the end, there is no 'evacuation beaten Bonus' and with good reason as it gose against the mentality of the score, not being seen. It just seems, counterproductive to even attempt to deal with the situation.
Not necessarily. Evacuation can be triggered by a number of things that do not compromise the player or affect the score. And many players use it to their advantage.
3:59 wow, I’d completely forgotten about Hitman Absolution :/
Im guessing Episode 47 will be Hitman 2?
What I really don't get is how ai calls out to other ai. Say you get spotted the ai should call out to nearby people to say he spotted you. Using a volume limits the ability to that area. What are other ways of doing this?
Is there any "level editor" for hitman? And what was at 3:00?
How much does internet affect your play in Hitman 1 & 2? I have an ISP with very high ping... would that affect my experience?
Nope the speed of the connection doesnt affect that much even with a very gud connection(fibre optic) i have to retry multiple times to get the game online. Even when i connect using tethering a mobile device same thing happens.
One note...the AI does not seem to work on the 'looking at them' principal you described; covers seem to be blown just as fast with your back turned. It's almost like they know their Indian friend with hair isn't a near-albino with a shaved head and a barcode tattoo...at least they know that sometimes. Other times they are just like, "Hey, you changed your size, skin color, face and hair in the 30 seconds you were in the other room...and you got a tattoo on your head! None of my business. Oh hey, a crowbar just flew at the wall...I should look at the crow bar rather than where it flew from. Oh hey, I found a flashing rubber duck on the ground...better put it in my pocket. Someone put something in my drink right in front of me...but they ran away being chased by guards so I guess there is no harm in drinking it." Maybe it would be more accurate to call it artificial ignorance than artificial intelligence...still abbreviates the same.
The AI has the work within the gameplay of Hitman. Making them too aware might make the game too hard.
How do you find all this out?
Research. Lots and lots of research.
You sound EXACTLY like BigMooney06. I had to double check what channel I was watching lol
Couple things. What system is responsible for bullets? I find in absolution that guards firing in me thru the crowd hit me every time without missing and none of them end up shooting civilians that surround me even when I'm crouched.
Also, I have been spotted thru walls and on the other side of the map before. I have video proof of both of these things, if anyone cares.
What causes this besides some kind of bug that will never be fixed? If AI farther from the player is updating more slowly than those around me, why am I spotted across the map thru walls?
Sometimes I even activate th "spotted" trigger and my suit flashes in the corner and the NPCs have no idea what I look like and what I'm wearing. Like they know but they don't at the same time.
All of this is monumentally irritating and probably why fans hate absolution soooo much.
He sounds like bigmooney06
I aften wonder if a game's AI is as simple as it looks or so detailed that it's impossible to tell how many things affect the AI
Like, Thief had AI literally yell out what they where thinking, then you see other games where the AI just coldly calculate everything from an open door to a spot of dirt
AI, after graphics, is often the most process intensive thing a modern game has to do, I can say that much at least. And this is particularly true if a game's AI system is not well optimized. Io interactive did a helluva job getting Hitman's AI to this level.
@@DFX2KX Considering the AI only calcs on a plan instead of in 3D, maybe
In the poll you didn't mention contracts and silent assassin
But the problem isn't just that
15% didn't even play the game what are they doing here?!🤔
And why blood money is not at the first place???
You sound just like bigmoney06
The AI might seem intelligent at first glance, but try sitting in the corner of a bathroom stall during a shootout and you find that it's as dumb as bricks. Literally, I killed like 50 guards just by crouching in the corner of the bathroom, they all just ran in one by one, the toilet got flooded with bodies, absolutely killed my framerate.
The AI assassin has been sanctioned there will be signs everywhere
Interesting perspective, as always. The first half of the video makes me think that the whole system is very rudimentary. It seems more like artificial awareness and responsiveness rather than "intelligence". Very useful to know how it works under the hood, of course, but I can't help but to wish that someone would try and take this to the next level already.
In the end it's only about how intelligent an AI seems to the player, not how intelligent it actually is. One of the best examples is the F.E.A.R. AI that is still considered legendary, but is not that complex and intelligent overall. It just FEELS extremely intelligent because they talk a lot and use the level layout which is basically just great level design, not AI. When playing Hitman I almost never had questionable AI behavior or felt like the AI was barebones. Yes, they are predictable, but that is important for gamedesign, as we know. Unpredictable AI is frustrating to play against, even if it is more realistic.
golan such is AI in games, bit of a misnomer really. It’s somewhat crude and heavily scripted, but equally it works well within the space of delivering a consistent experience in a game.
I think looking at Hitman especially, but also other games it would be interesting if they experimented in adding another layer that persists between individual levels.
If you tended towards specific styles or exploits for example, in subsequent levels the AI could adjust and force you to adapt.
It’d be great in sustaining a challenge in a game over time, keeping some kind of machine learning mechanism within a particular save file or whatever.
Circle strafing is a stock abuse of AI in all sorts of games, and can be used to really ‘break’ even difficult games.
Now imagine being halfway through a play through and suddenly enemies start countering circle strafe abuse, to take one example.
I think it’d be super cool to experience something like that, you find some optimal abusive technique and suddenly it starts to stop working and you have to figure out something else.
golan in terms of anything approaching machine learning stuff or AI stuff that’s not scripted I recommend looking at some of the AlphaStar content out there, Deepmind’ attempt to make a Starcraft AI. It’s recently been unleashed on to the matchmaking system of the game too (for those who opt in)
It’s interesting as hell, I think it also illustrates some of the benefits but also some of the pitfalls of using machine learning techniques into making a game AI vs more scripted and curated methods.
@@StewartMillarTheManCave That's not necessarily what I meant. I do follow those guys, definitely helpful if you're interested in the general progress on AI, context independent.
When it comes to Hitman, it doesn't look like something that fancy, it's very basic - so thos example might not be relevant. The different approach isn't necessarily bad, keeping it simple (if possible) is a difficult to achieve goal. However, if you keep it simple with the release of your first game, with the second and third you can try out other stuff too, add depth of playthrough through whatever works for you. That's what I meant and it applies especially for those projects, like Hitman, that managed to find a way to keep things basic.
It's worth remembering that even if it were possible in a talent sense to do it (I'm sure there are some that can), it simply won't work in a technical sense at any kind of scale as it's just too slow for consumer PCs, let alone consoles
Blood Money is still the best in the series doe
The AI in the new Hitman games is deeply flawed.
You should try to work in the word "bespoke" a bit more, as it is in no way overused in current media.... /sarcasm
(Otherwise, great video as always.)
The big thing that disappoints me about these games is the fact that the “civilian” characters have literally no way of fighting back. I don’t know about you, but if I was extremely close to a man who seemed likely to murder me (seeing as he’s just done the same to two or three or even a dozen other guards/people), I’d at least TRY to fight back. I think it would’ve been cool if the civilians had a chance of suddenly charging you and tackling you (or engaging in melee) or snapping out a gun and shooting you or grabbing a dead person’s gun to fight back or something like that. It would’ve added a realism since people inherently have a desire to survive, so just sitting there while you casually kill the people around them isn’t too realistic. It also would’ve made it more challenging since people would be less likely to just run the game as a third person shooter by grabbing a machine gun and just gunning a bunch of civilians down (since the surviving civilians would be able to attack in response).
You should do a video on the ai for animal crossing villagers
Hitman is one of my favorite games but it’s kind of sad how the NPCs look noticeably more cartoonish in the newer games.
There are too much clones in these games. It destroys immersion. Couldn't they use a similar system to GTA 5?
Bb
jittery game footage :(
super complicated and complex way to say that the AI is dumb and very predictable.
Your videos are very detailed but you keep talking about AI systems that simply suck in practice regardless of how interesting their technical make up is. Just look at the guests when you’re shooting at their foot, they aren’t really trying to run they’re just like ok whatever, I’ll back off a little.