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[Resolved in TDM 2.0] Untethered Dark Mod


vorob

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  • 4 weeks later...

If anybody is interested, there is a command line switch to enable debugging in D3's filesystem module:

 

DOOM3.exe +set fs_debug 1 +set logFile 1 (+ other parameters like fs_game and fs_game_base)

 

(The Team/SVN Users can try TheDarkMod.exe +set fs_debug 1 +set logFile 1 without further parameters.)

 

This will create a file qconsole.log somwhere (this might be C:\games\doom3\base\qconsole.log for instance) which shows which files are opened from where (directory or PK4). It doesn't cover derivative works or declarations copied from original D3 files, but it makes a few direct dependencies obvious. Grepping through that qconsole.log can give you an insight about many files are still loaded from base.

 

Something like this:

 

 

using ARB2 renderSystem

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/makeintensity/lights/squarelight1a.dds -> adding C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak001.pk4 to referenced paks

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/makeintensity/lights/squarelight1a.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak001.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/makeintensity/lights/squarelight1a.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak001.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: lights/squarelight1.tga (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak000.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/guis/assets/splash/launch.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3/darkmod')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/guis/assets/splash/launch.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3/darkmod')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/textures/bigchars.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak005.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/textures/bigchars.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak005.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/textures/black.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak001.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/textures/black.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak001.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/guis/assets/white.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak001.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/guis/assets/white.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak001.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: fonts/english/fontImage_12.dat (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak000.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: fonts/english/fontImage_12.dat (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak000.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/fonts/english/fontimage_0_12.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak006.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: dds/fonts/english/fontimage_0_12.dds (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak006.pk4')

idFileSystem::OpenFileRead: fonts/english/fontImage_24.dat (found in 'C:\Games\Doom3\base\pak000.pk4')

 

 

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The fontimage files are probably the default font (whatever this actually is). I guess we can find a similiar looking free TTF and replace them.

 

dds/guis/assets/white.dds should be quite easy, too :)

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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Here's my compromise thinking.

 

IMHO a standalone Dark Mod is one of those exceptional situations where it's worth a hard-fork, in the sense that after that version the previous FMs using custom-to-it Doom3 assets could take those assets from a TDM version linked to a legally-bought version of Doom3 (which would, if possible, stand alongside the pure standalone version and still play new standalone FMs). That is, the updater would distinguish in its installation between a pure standalone version (which just plays newer FMs) and a D3 integrated version (which keeps old D3 assets used in old FMs from a legally installed D3 in a side place, and it plays new and old FMs).

 

Then if any authors want to update the old FMs to be fully compatible with the pure-standalone version, they can do that FM by FM and re-release them (and later TDM releases can drop the need to use those D3 assets)... And maybe it turns out after a few years all the old FMs get updated and we can drop the segregated-installation completely and just have a pure standalone that plays all FMs new and old (which would be worth the cost of asking people to re-download standalone-compatible versions of the old FMs IMO)... But doing that wouldn't force us to hold back releasing a standalone version for people to play new FMs without buying D3 by possibly years.

 

Does all that make sense? I understand it raises lots of technical questions, so I just raised it as an idea to ask if it's possible & a good idea.

 

Edit: This same manner of thinking could also apply to making a pure standalone version on an expedited schedule, where we just have to replace enough D3 assets to make it possible to make new standalone FMs that are playable (leaving D3 assets used by vanilla TDM, again, in a side-place for those with legal D3 installations)... then release the segregated installer distinguishing "pure standalone" and "D3 integrated" installations sooner rather than later (the 2nd playing all FMs, the 1st playing just 'standalone FMs'), and over time, with later releases, the "pure standalone" package gets bigger and bigger (until we reach the stage where all vanilla TDM assets are standalone, which is the starting point for the first part of my post above)... And then we encourage mappers to focus on making pure-standalone FMs throughout that period so the pure standalone version is worth something.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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The fontimage files are probably the default font (whatever this actually is). I guess we can find a similiar looking free TTF and replace them.

 

Yes its actually that easy. We have a few made in house and few free use ones. We just changed the default gui font the other day. It looks for fonts/english root by default. We also created a new console font about 2 weeks ago.

 

The easiest way I've found to sort through Hexen's assets is we moved to standalone and then let all the warnings tell us what we need. Once solarsplace got all our code, scripts, and defs in order and the game launched without crashing it was just a matter of loading a level and dumping the console. It showed us everything that was broken.

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The hardest things to replace will be the scripts, def and gui stuff - the art assets are more or less all falling into place at the moment,

 

I'm not sure how hard it is to replace scripts, but the more complicated art assets, like character models and animations, are going to be quite difficult.

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I was also planning on adding some more heads that used the D3 heads as a base, but now it seems like that would be a waste of time. :(

 

(where the hell is our sad emoticon?)

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This one -- -_-

Since this wasn't my home field, I think this is a site that would give you the background you were looking for: http://www.funnystrange.com/copyright/

... since the closest major field of art to what you're doing that has caselaw is probably collage.

You can claim fair use to appropriate certain prior material if it fits in certain boxes, like de minimis or "incidental" use. Unfortunately most of the boxes (research, education, reporting, criticism, parody) come from a different era that didn't have this kind of thing or the idea of 'content as pure information' (that files are) in mind.

 

It's not all that optimistic, but good to see somebody researching your questions directly.

The main punchline though is the points I made on the article I posted in the OffTopic forum on the collage federal case that just came down, which is that fair use is woefully behind the times when it comes to digital appropriation, and judges & lawmakers need to understand computer & online reality because their concepts are practically medieval when they're only thinking about literal cut-and-paste collages as the proper metaphors, which as you know aren't all that helpful when you're talking about files & pixels. From that site above, you'd think de minimis or incidental use is the way to go, but they're underdeveloped concepts where there's unfortunately a lot of uncertainty and not much guidance according to that site.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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D3 is still £15 in the shops.

 

p.s. Incidental use won't help you. That's for things like if you take a photograph and there happens to be a billboard in the background - that would be an incidental copy of the billboard artwork. If you pinch an art asset, even a minor one, then that's just plain old copying. I wouldn't 'go' de minimis either, not least because the site you linked to misunderstands de minimis - it's not about only using a little bit of someone else work, it's about the harm done being so small as to be inconsequential; that's not a call I'd want to make.

Edited by jay pettitt
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I agree that a fork would be the best option.

 

I think that would be the perfect opportunity to test-out the new Bi-Pedal Rig import method espoused by BloodRayne.

 

All the AI in the new fork could have motion-captured animations from the Carnegie library mixed with possibly crude place-holder animations.

 

Presuming that the process is as easy as BloodRayne describes, of course (and that someone other than Springheel is willing to try... I might even be that candidate if I can scrape

some home-pc time...)

 

I would not object at all to the idea that the non-free fork would always require Doom 3. Id Software deserves those sales for providing the gift of Open Sourcing their game.

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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That's an odd recommendation?

 

Please clarify what you mean by "ditch the Thief clone themes" ?

 

Are you suggesting that no stealing take place?

 

Not set in a Steam-Punk world?

 

No Builder religion or Thief style factions?

 

Not set in a historic era?

 

No Thief style tools like rope-arrows?

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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All the AI in the new fork could have motion-captured animations from the Carnegie library mixed with possibly crude place-holder animations.

 

 

None of our regular AI use D3 animations. It's the zombies and werebeasts that do, and I'm not sure motion-capture would help there.

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p.s. Incidental use won't help you. That's for things like if you take a photograph and there happens to be a billboard in the background - that would be an incidental copy of the billboard artwork. If you pinch an art asset, even a minor one, then that's just plain old copying. I wouldn't 'go' de minimis either, not least because the site you linked to misunderstands de minimis - it's not about only using a little bit of someone else work, it's about the harm done being so small as to be inconsequential; that's not a call I'd want to make.

 

Well my main point wasn't that they were ideal or even viable but, out of the lot you had to choose from, in relative terms they were the only ones the even had a hook that could make any sense even with fridge logic; the others don't even give you that much.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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The hardest things to replace will be the scripts, def and gui stuff - the art assets are more or less all falling into place at the moment, and in the long term they can be given placeholders should we get close enough with the rest.

 

Er no, I worked the previous years my hard ass of to already replace all the scripts, def and gui stuff ;) It's already done.

 

We are only using one file with the definitions of the doom3 events - but we cannot change this because the format and names are required. We could of course rewrite it and reorder everything - but it still stands this script is required. And renaming every script event could be done but borders on the silly. And I think © wise we are clear anyway, as header files cannot be copyrighted and that file is such an instance. You need the declarations to be using the script functions. And I see why if the entire source is GPL, the file that makes it possible to use that source in the script is not GPL.

 

All the D3 definitions where long ago removed (they are all in a sep. file which we can now delete from SVN). And we longer inherit from them, except in a few cases which we can easily replace (I think things such as idStatic might be still be used in one case or so)

 

As for the GUI, we no longer use any D3 gui files, and the entire GUI has been rewritten so many times that it no longer resembles anything from D3 at all :)

 

As for the AI scripts, the last D3 AI script we included was removed in v1.07 http://bugs.angua.at/view.php?id=2777 The only script file we used (a small one with a few basic definitions) has been rewritten from scratch by me (but it falls into the same as the D3 events script - it is techical required to have the basic functions and constants, otherwise you can't f.i. say "x = log(123);", which would make scripting impossible. And I don't think anybody can claim copyright on a small one-liner log function or it's definition, anyway :)

 

So this side is clear with only a few very minor things.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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I don't think a for is warranted - let's first see if we can replace the obviosu things. If v1.08 comes close to 95% of D3 free than that is a huge step - replacing a lot of things and then whittling the list of things down to a manageble version.

 

Rhere is no sense in debating a full fork (which will break a few missions) when people can't even do the work in replacing art assets. A for is VERY complicated to maintain - and who is gonna maintain that if the team+community (no offense!) can't even go ahead and replace dds/guis/assets/white.dds?

 

If we have come along to the 95%, then you can always still do the fork if you really want. But my guess is there will be a lot of "debating" in the forum (as there is always), but the actual work will be done by the usual few suspescts like Springheel, Arcturus, greebo (and so on).

 

Now is the time to step up and help :)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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There is sense in considering stand alone fork. D3 is still £££ in the shops - that's got to be a hurdle TDM doesn't need, it's not like you can just download TDM from the Internet and go. And it may well be possible to minimise the rough edges a fork may introduce to some existing FMs.

 

That's an odd recommendation?

 

It's really not a recommendation - but the engine is there and TDMers have expertise & experience. That doesn't mean that it's a good idea or something anyone would actually wake up in the morning and want to do...

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I don't think a for is warranted - let's first see if we can replace the obviosu things. If v1.08 comes close to 95% of D3 free than that is a huge step - replacing a lot of things and then whittling the list of things down to a manageble version.

 

Rhere is no sense in debating a full fork (which will break a few missions) when people can't even do the work in replacing art assets. A for is VERY complicated to maintain - and who is gonna maintain that if the team+community (no offense!) can't even go ahead and replace dds/guis/assets/white.dds?

 

If we have come along to the 95%, then you can always still do the fork if you really want. But my guess is there will be a lot of "debating" in the forum (as there is always), but the actual work will be done by the usual few suspescts like Springheel, Arcturus, greebo (and so on).

 

Now is the time to step up and help :)

If someone compiles a list of the needed art assets I am willing to do some of the work (I'd mainly do some models and textures).

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If someone compiles a list of the needed art assets I am willing to do some of the work

 

Well, we're currently using the Doom3 zombie and skeleton, along with the 20+ animations that come with them. That would be a good start, since at least a third of our missions use them.

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