So, the other day, my new sneak thief got jumped by a couple of hired thugs on the road just east of Valthiem Towers. He quickly dispatched the two thugs but took some good hits in the process, when the third thug comes running up with a 2H weapon. My thief can't take another hit, at least not 2H power attack, so he sprints up the road a ways and ducks into the middle of some foilage.

This was nothing solid, no tree or thick trunk. Just some shrubbery. The kind you can walk right through but not see through very well. My understanding of prior games is that NPCs could see right through that type of stuff, so it did no good to hide in it.

Well there is my thief couching in the shrubbery, when this thug walks up the road and stops right at the edge of the shrub, like he knows I am there, but he does not swing at me or advance beyond the edge of the shrubbery.

My sneak skill was only about 50 at the time and I did not have Shadow Warrior or anything like that and there was a moon out, so the road was bathed in moonlight. I slowly crept toward him with my dual swords drawn and he started to notice me, but I got a quick sneak attack in before he became fully aware of my presence.

The only explanation I have is that the shrubbery did the trick and hid me well enough so that the Thug couldn't pinpoint me, which let me get the sneak attack in before he could do anything.

Has anyone used shrubbery to similar effect? Do any PC players out there know what effect shrubbery has on NPC's ability to detect you? This was the first time I put shrubbery to such use and if was great fun. If it really works, I plan to hide in the weeds more often.

Well, like you I have always assumed that shrubs and grass offered no advantage to sneaking, like in past games. But I'm encouraged by your story - hopefully it does work!

I can't confirm anything, but I'm going to give this a shot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xvvvJ7hvo8

hahahahahaha

I think it was just you being far enough away and crouching. Even if someone is in your line of sight, running aways a distance and crouching with average sneak can make them loose track. Atleast it has for me. Also being nighttime gives you a bonus outside, whether the moon is out or not. Actually a very large bonus from my experience. I play on master and was trying to get past Valtheim Towers at low level. I was getting 1 shotted by the enemies, so I tried to sneak by. I had low sneak, it not being a skill I had really even used beyond the bear in the tutorial. I was spotted before I even got to the tower during day. So I waited until night and sneaked by the river to get past them no problem.

I would have thought that too, except for the weird way the thug walked up to the shrubbery and stopped. I figure if he had seen me he would have attacked and if he did not see me he would have passed by, so I thought the shrubbery may have had something to do with his weird behavior. But maybe the fact he was a thug and scripted to track me down explains his weird behavior? I suppose if he did not see me at all but was scripted to find me, that might explain why he stopped right at the edge of the shrubbery and waited for me?

If you do not bring me a shrubbery I shall taunt you a second time!

Hahaha! I didn't even have to watch the video for it to make me laugh, I've seen that movie so many times it hurts just to think about it

To answer your question OP I actually think it helps hiding in shrubbery..it's about the enemies line of sight so i would say shrubs help a bit..I have never tried myself though

In every other game I've ever played that had 'shrubbery', high grass, whatever- that shrubbery is basically invisible, see-through, as far as the NPC's/monsters are concerned. It does not block their line of sight whatsoever, and gives you no cover whatsoever. Tree trunks, sometimes- but usually they are no help either. If the shrubs in Skyrim actually hinder the NPC's ability to see you, that would be quite groundbreaking. Reason being, vegetation in games is created by the game engine as a kind of 'textured artwork', as it were- not sure if I'm using the right phrase, probably not. At any rate, those bushes and shrubs and grass are not true game objects, they are just ephemeral artwork laid over the surface of the naked ground. For something to give you cover, and block an NPC's view of you, I believe it has to be a true object, one that has dimensions and volume that can be measured and added into the LOS calculations being done by the detection routines in the game engine. Textured generic artwork doesn't count into those calculations, I'm pretty sure. The hit on game performance if they tried to make 3-dimensional 'objects' out of every shrub and grass clump, would be terrible. If they've found a way to get around this, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

As long as it's nothing too fancy.

Do you have any experience programming video games? 'cause you sound like it.

But anyway, I imagine there are ways they can get around this problem. Perhaps for LOS they could recognize each piece of foliage just as a simple sphere, so they only need to check whether the LOS comes within a certain range of a bush's foliage before returning a false value or something.

The easiest explanation is you are in shadow so you are less likely to be seen. Also, some NPCs are more capable of noticing a Sneaking character, others are not.

Now, I have noticed that if I sneak into a bush, I go unseen. It happened at a fort the other day. However, I had to crouch away from the fort (it was daylight) so I don't know if it was the distance or the bush that put me back in Sneak Mode. I have noticed this on other occasions too, but I always seem to be Sneaking away from a place into a bush.

That's what I always heard too, which is why it surprised me that it worked. Todd Howard even explained it once in an interview. I never really broke the line of sight between me and the thug before jumping into the shrubbery. I just created some distance fown a fairly straight road. It was bright moonlight and there was nothing besides the shrubbery to create a shadow. I wonder whether the shrubbery creates a shadow and the shadow lets you hide better?

It would be a big improvement to the way sneak works if things like shrubbery created soft cover.

Now if they can every figure out how to make walls muffle sound I will be very happy.

Hiding in shrubbery unlocks the hidden skill of blowing your nose in the general direction of enemys with a perk tree including the cow catapult.

We are the knights who say NI!

Correction- that perk is called 'Fahting in their generile die-rection'. Quite OP, though.

i've often wondered whether or not being outside an enemies 'normal' location within the game causes some of these effects.

it seems like once they hit that invisible wall in the game they suddenly lose interest or sight of the player character and begin their retreat towards the original location.

another way it could be done is combine the LOS code with the shubbery placement code... in other woords.. shrubbery is placed at x,y,z coords...

if player is crouched and sneak = 50+ while player is within x,y,z of the shrubbery texture placement
then player concealment 100% = true...
else player concealment = distance from target + sneak value + LOS etc etc...

I think you were just in the dark part of the area so he didn't see you.

Maybe, but it did not seem like I was in a dark area. I was on the side of the road and there was not anything there to cast a shadow other than the shrubbery. Usually, once I am detected, I need to break line of sight before I can become hidden again, regardless of whether it is a dark area (at least with this character whose sneak is about 50 -- Shadow Warrior is a different story entirely).

The only way to know for sure is if we get confirmation one way or the other from Bethesda or if someone digs into the code to see what's there. As post 20 above points out, there are ways they could code shrubbery to give you some soft cover.