Captain Knighton Camera Ride

[Sotha]

Have you ever thought what the TDM world looks like through the AI's eyes?

 

I have. In order to find out, I did this little video.

 

It was done like this: I made a copy of the KM mission, dragged Knighton out from the bedroom, added some waypoints for him and removed his head using an invisible texture skin. Then I simply binded a camera onto the spot where his eyes are (plus "bindtojoint" "head"). Added some cinematic spawnargs for the AI and doors. I also added a bit drama, as you will find out.

 

Since the camera does not capture sound, I have a script keeping the player piggybacking the AI in notarget mode. That's why the doors don't close properly behind him, the player blocks them.

 

There has been a lot of discussion about body awareness in TDM and T4, this video also gives a mild taste of that: depending of the animation the AI is running, you can see the characters hands in the view port most naturally. All the animations and movement you see is the natural movement AI does ingame normally, just a camera has been attached to the AI.

 

Enjoy! I hope you have as much fun watching this as I had making it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZallt0nskU&feature=youtu.be

[SeriousToni]

What a cool video! It makes you even feel the fear if you see the game through ai's eyes looking into dark corners for a villain.

 

And why do I get video suggestions for Disneyland Paris. Dafuq youtube..?

[Lux]

Cool video and concept. Its a shame the AI doesn't sheath his sword after having dispatched the enemy and threat. Also you'd think after killing the thief he'd crouch by the body and inspect it for stolen items/identification or just general curiosity at his victory.

 

Its possible these things will happen in 2.0. Was this done in 1.08?

Edited September 7, 2013 by Lux

[Ladro]

What a brillant idea, Sotha!

 

It creates a lot of immersion for the player. IMHO some of those videos from the POV of the AI, can be used in the beginning of a mission, as introduction.

[grayman]

This is brilliant. I agree that the victor should kneel down and inspect the loser, unless another enemy is spotted.

[Springheel]

Wow, this was great! It even made me feel positive about some kind of limited body awareness in TDM.

[jaxa]

I didn't realize just how much the AI moved their heads to look around. Brilliant video.

[grayman]

This is a terrific new debugging tool for AI work.

 

Seen from the AI's perspective, we could add a HUD showing the AI's alert level, incoming sound volume, enemy detection, missing stuff, doused lights, open doors, dangling ropes, bodies found, etc.

 

I think my head just exploded.

[Bikerdude]

Oh man this the ***ing Brilliant!, I love when I hear myself greating the captain @ 1:17

 

@Springs, very very well done on the animation, I bet you didn't even consider 1st person perspective when making them or that the animations would look this good from the view of the Ai. The walking animation, the looking around, the drinking is all absolutely spot on mister! the only flaw is when the Ai turn their heads are rigidly fixed to their bodies so the camera view is very jerky, could a damping or buffer be implemented for this issue I wonder.

 

I think my head just exploded.

ROTFL!

[grayman]

the only flaw is when the Ai turn their heads are rigidly fixed to their bodies so the camera view is very jerky, could a damping or buffer be implemented for this issue I wonder.

 

I had the same thought. While this is jerky from the AI's perspective, I never noticed it from the player's perspective. Must look more closely.

[grayman]

Imagine what the world looks like from a rat's POV. Which leads to a thought about supernaturally taking over a rat to scout otherwise unseen areas.

[Obsttorte]

Yeah, I thought about that, too. The question is though how the player could control the mouse. Must think about it.

[Sotha]

Cool if something useful becomes out of this... Do you want me to package a test .pk4 for you? I'll just package everything into a custom edition of KM?

 

Note, to make the system perfect, the func_cameraview should have a microphone on it. As long as the player needs to piggyback teleport near the followed AI, it is too hacky for any real gameplay use.

[grayman]

Cool if something useful becomes out of this... Do you want me to package a test .pk4 for you? I'll just package everything into a custom edition of KM?

 

Droooooooooool. Yes, please.

 

Note, to make the system perfect, the func_cameraview should have a microphone on it. As long as the player needs to piggyback teleport near the followed AI, it is too hacky for any real gameplay use.

 

Agreed.

[Obsttorte]

Based on the rideable horse it is possible to have a controllable rat. Still need to fix it here and there, but then I can hand the def and script file.

[Springheel]

The walking animation, the looking around, the drinking is all absolutely spot on mister!

 

Thanks, but only the drinking ones are mine. It was pretty fun seeing him lift the bottle up to his face though.

 

 

the only flaw is when the Ai turn their heads are rigidly fixed to their bodies

 

Not sure what you mean here...when AI turn their heads, they move their shoulders a bit too, but the camera is obviously attached only to a single joint so you wouldn't notice that.

 

This is a terrific new debugging tool for AI work.

 

Yeah, I found myself thinking, "Hey, why did he so quickly start looking for an intruder when he saw the dead guy? He should have interacted with the other guard first." Which got me thinking about communication barks for AI joining a search.

[Sotha]

Okay, I built a package. It is here:

https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing

 

There is a lot of bloat there as I did not have the time or interest to cut the useless stuff out. Just brief remarks:

*Upon map start, there is a lever next to the tree in front of the player. This activates the script that makes the view jump into Knighton's head.

*The Knighton AI has an custom head (atdm:ai_head_builderguard_ghost) that is declared in the builder_ghost.def file. As you notice, the head uses a skin (heads/builder_ghost) that makes it invisible. It should be simple to check how it was put together to use in your own stuff.

*Once the head is gone, there is nothing stopping the camera view. All the camera stuff is declared in the knighton_body.script file. I suppose the stuff there is self explanatory for you coding heroes.

 

Have fun with it!

 

I watched it again now in TDM, and it was funny how the set is a little different each time. This time both the guards greeted the noble and the noble greeted them. When the noble went in the other guard said "It's been a long day" and the noble said "A servant should deal with it" and closed the door.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention! Important! Activate NOTARGET before pulling the lever, otherwise other AI will bump into the player can cause them getting angry.

[Diego]

This is awesome! It would be so much fun to have this as a 'replay' feature for the game itself, then we could see how invisible we really were in certain situations.

[grayman]

Okay, I built a package.

 

Excellent! Thank you.

[Lux]

This is awesome! It would be so much fun to have this as a 'replay' feature for the game itself, then we could see how invisible we really were in certain situations.

 

Then we also need a record/playback feature as well so we can post videos of playthroughs?

[Obsttorte]

oCam is a free programm to record on screen. It is not time-limited as fraps. I use it for recording the screen.

[Bikerdude]

Then we also need a record/playback feature as well so we can post videos of playthroughs?

Imagine if we could somehow setup a "sort of multiplayer" where we have a different player haven taken over their requsite Ai doing a a video cap, we could then see the drama unfold from each angle, and then edit it to make a short film of sorts...

 

Or failing that have each Ai with a camera bound to thier heads streaming directly to the harddrive so we get the multi view for editing etc that way..

[Obsttorte]

Sounds a bit performance-hungry, don't ya mean.

[i30817]

Could be used for cutscenes

[jaxa]

Since the camera does not capture sound, I have a script keeping the player piggybacking the AI in notarget mode.

 

Could be used for cutscenes

 

The flythrough at the beginning of NHAT 1... doesn't that have sound? I hear footsteps in this video: