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Preface HUD-elements are often a technical necessity, to convey important information to the player that would otherwise not be available to them. A problem with such HUD-elements is that they don't belong to the virtual world. They make it painfully clear to the player that they are just playing a game, thereby reducing immersion. There are many genres, where you need to have such information available at all times, think fast-paced first person shooters, Mobas, or strategy games. However, especially for genres featuring free exploration, that information is simply not needed at all times. Some games (e.g. Dead Space or Metro series) have gone to extreme lengths to completely eliminate HUD elements by integrating all relevant information in the virtual world. While this is of course the most immersive approach, it is also the hardest to implement. A much easier solution is to rely on a dynamic HUD, where certain HUD elements are displayed depending on context. In recent years, I have become hyper focused on immersion. I can't stand a cluttered HUD ("sensory overload") or a map full of quest pointers ("feels like work"). I want to immerse myself in the world, not tick of pointers on a map. About a year ago, having played a ton of WoW in my youth, I played the alliance fraction on WoW Classic for the first time. Via interface addons, I had my UI completely disappear during exploration, but when I entered combat or clicked on an enemy, the UI would become visible. The minimap would generally only become visible during mouse-over. The same goes for non-combat-relevant action-bars. I paired that with a text-to-voice addon for the quest texts and some nice dynamic camera addons that would zoom in on characters when talking to them. Of course I also did not use any quest-GPS addons, so that I actually had to pay attention and search the world for the quests. It was super immersive and a glorious experience reminiscent of the 2004 release. So naturally, having played a lot of TDM recently, I am thinking about how we could improve our dynamic HUD in TDM for immersion-seekers. Current State of Dynamic HUD in TDM The HUD of TDM already has quite some dynamic elements Healthbar only shows if we are not at 100% health Breathbar only shows if we are not at 100% breath Weapon only shows if a weapon is selected and ammo text only shows if ammo is relevant to that weapon Inventory-Icon and -text only shows if an item is selected Pickup- and object-update texts are only displayed momentarily Ideas for More Dynamic HUD Elements in TDM So basically, with every HUD element, we should ask ourselves the following questions: Added information: Does this HUD element actually convey any information? Relevant when: In what situation is that information relevant? Let's start! (Please note that all proposals below shall be made optional under some "tdm_dynamic_hud"-cvar or something like that, so I am not planning to take anything away from anyone) I will update this list of ideas as we go. Weapon HUD Blackjack and Sword Added information: None. The player can see the 3d model of both weapons, so the HUD does not add any information. Relevant when: Never Proposal: Remove completely --> Very easy (already tested) Bow and arrows Added information: Arrow type and amount. Sadly, the 3d model does not show the type of arrow unless the bow is drawn. So, the icon and weapon text add information. Also, there is the ammo display. Relevant when: Player is equipping the bow Proposal: Investigate if we can alter the non-drawn bow model such that it already shows the arrow type. If that works nicely, remove arrowtype and arrow icon from HUD and potentially move the ammo display around and make it bigger. I would need support from a 3d modeler here! Proposal: Consider showing the arrow amount only briefly when the weapon is selected (and/or when the player presses "R"?) (and/or ammo amount changes) and then fade it out again. Healthbar Added information: Health Relevant when: Player is losing health. Player is likely going to loose health, e.g., when in combat or when breath bar is close to zero. Player is preparing to enter combat. Player has very low health Proposal: Briefly show after losing health; Show when equipping a weapon (possibly limit to sword?); show when breath is close to running out; show when health is below some threshold (like 20%) Breathbar: Already very dynamic. No action needed! Inventory HUD (Not the inventory grid) Compass Added information: direction Relevant when: When player equips it. Must not fade-out unless a different item is selected. Other items: Added information: Selected item Relevant when: Only during selection (or when player forgot which item is selected) or when the item can be used with the world Note: I had added the tdm_frob_item_selects_item to prevent items being selected when picking them up, thereby eliminating the respective HUD annoyance. However, I found that frequently, I wanted to use the picked up item right away (a readable, a key, etc.), so this approach is not working well. Proposal: Briefly show after selecting an item, then fade-out. Show item when it can be used on a world entity. For picking up items, consider selecting, but not showing them, so player can use them right away without HUD pop-in. When HUD is not shown, pressing next or prev item should not go to next / prev item, but just show the HUD element. Are there maybe other types of inventory items that need special treatment? Shouldering HUD Added information: Shouldering state Relevant when: Always when shouldering a body Proposal: It would be awesome if we could actually have the 3d model shouldered in view. Then we could get rid of the HUD, but of course, this would be very hard to achieve. Lightgem Added information: To some degree, visibility of player Relevant when: sneaking about or running to hide (so basically always) Discussion: It is actually debatable, how much information is really added, because the player can already tell how well illuminated they are just by looking at the environment. I would say minimalists simply disable the lightgem and all others keep it on all the time. Crouch-intent indicator Added information: Crouch-intent, i.e., while it is impossible to change crouched-state, the crouch-state that will be assumed once crouched-state is unlocked again. Current crouch state can be seen by looking at the 3d world. No indicator needed for that. Relevant when: Only while crouched-state is locked / cannot be changed. Proposal: Only show when crouched-state and crouch-intent differ? Any other UI elements I forgot? Another aspect of dynamic HUDs is HOW visibility is controlled. HUD elements might pop-in instantly or gradually fade in and out, like our FrobHelper. I would say, having HUD elements fade in and out looks generally more appealing, but I would need some advice on how to best control transparency. Should transparency be handled by the GUI scripting or dictated by the engine like in the case of the FrobHelper? What makes most sense here?

Hello everyone! I created a mod for TDM that enhances immersion by adding visible hands and animations when the player is crouching or holding an item. Let me know if you find any strange behaviors with the animations or have suggestions for new ones you'd like to see added! You can download it here: Visible Player Hands This mod requires some modifications to the game engine, which you can check out here: GitHub repository SHOWCASE

So is there a chance that this will be included into the core game? And if not, Snatcher, is this something for your modpack or should I ask if it can be added to my patch before it gets completely forgotten?

One might think this is the case, but sometimes if core developers are against a feature, there is no way to get it into the game. Snatcher and myself can tell you a thing or two about this ;)!

Finally done with my vertical contest entry... Swing You'll get your sea legs ... or die trying ... Thanks to my beta testers: SiyahParsomen Diego Baddcog ---------------------- README: SWING a Dark Mod mission, by Komag for the Vertical Contest held summer 2010 find me on TheDarkMod.com forums, or via ShadowDarkKeep.com This mission is a "platformer" with slight puzzle elements (figuring out where to go next and how to get there). Be prepared to do a lot of falling, dying, and quickloading! Quicksave anytime you are sure-footed, about take a risk Getting off the swing for any reason is not recommended! And try not to get sick ;-) Have FUN!!! Komag - Ben Ramsey -------------------------- BRIEFING: The King's steward has seen you in action aboard His Majesty's Ship Vertigo, and he is pleased with your potential. You are hereby granted an opportunity to prove your quality by successfully navigating the King's Royal Navy training swing. You need only retrieve the high crown (a replica of course) from the top of the swing, and return it to the docking area. As a bonus, see how many of the ten hidden bottles you can find - the more you come back with the more impressed your superiors will be, and that can only be a good thing as you know." ------------------------ Known Issues: - It's possible to stop the motion of some of the moving things, and even the entire swing itself, if you mess with things enough ENJOY!!! http://www.shadowdarkkeep.com/missions/Swing_v1.2.pk4

Physics and particle engines are slowly being implemented inside "Geometry Nodes".

Good game. Nice stormy atmospherics. Only gripe is that the game crashes a lot. The latest TDM update seems to be the cause I believe.

got an old phillips 52 " tv that works pretty well with linux as well (60 hz 1080p only) allmost 2 decades old now . has all the connections a tv enthusiast could drool over like s-video composite scart hdmi and vga . i dont use it anymore though as my LG 58 " 4k tv works fine with solus (may be because it can only handle 4k in 60hz ?). as for aholes on forums, i had my fair share just like trolls they seem to pop up from time to time and i found the most effective way of handling them is just to ignore them (dont feed trolls!). otherwise ping the site admin if they are doing they're job a warning about decorum can usually put them right but otherwise a ban might be needed. permanent if nessesary.

My issue was that when starting the computer, the first log in screen would be a 60hz, and on OLED that causes horrendous flicker due to PWM voltage control. Input latency also gets high on lower refresh rates (>60 ms on some monitors), so moving the mouse around on the log in screen felt awful. Even my non gamer wife immediately noticed how not nice the log in screen was compared to the Windows 11 log in. Once I logged in, and the monitor switched modes to 240 or 360 or 540 hz, I could log out and it would be at the high refresh. So I did some research first and all the guides for kubuntu/ubuntu basically said the same thing, modify SDDM and apply plasma settings to the SDDM. This did NOT work for refresh rate on first boot. So I did more research and edited some files, still didn't work. So I asked the question on the forums. 90% was Apply Plasma Settings... in the SDDM section, and the other 10% were, you don't need that, that's not important, you're dumb for asking this question.

Welcome! I hope you'll like it, or at least find it better than Windows. I have never received that answer myself, but I have seen it in various forums, not necessary associated with Linux. It is such a dumb and unproductive respone. Either it can be done or it can't. The purpose is not a factor. One silver lining though: it teaches us what kind of answers we don't want to provide ourselves when someone asks us a question.

I'm on Linux now (Kubuntu 26.04 / kernel 7+) Still haven't changed my opinion on the help forums, there is STILL a lot of assholes gatekeeping / new user bashing. My favourite is "Linux is super power user friendly and you can do pretty much anything that you want!" Cool, how can I do this? "Why do you need that? You don't need that! Just leave it the way it is!"

CRawBuffer is a small class that I wrote as my first contribution to TheDarkMod around 15 years ago It is only used for saving/loading the game, so I assume you got the crash during that moment? But seriously speaking, I'm not very confident we can catch this. I had some sporadic crashed in memory allocation routines on my PC, but I never managed to track them down. If there is something wrong, it can crash / not crash depending on TDM version and maybe even Windows update... And somehow I doubt it has anything to do with GPU drivers, GPU is not used during game save/load. As a first step, you can try to record a crashdump. There is one detail though: since don't get a real crash. If you see the special blue screen, then you get a "fatal error". If you set cvar "com_error_crash 1" in game console, then all fatal errors would convert into instant crashes, and in this case you can record a proper crash dump. This cvar is internal, it does not persist on game restart. If you need some time to reproduce the bug, then you can add the line "com_error_crash 1" into autoexec.cfg in the directory with TheDarkMod.x64. You can execute "com_error_crash" in-game to check if it got the proper value.

This has been a recurring issue for me over the past year or so and I'm finally fed up enough with it to make a forum post about it. I've not been able to find anything else with either a forum or discord search, so I'm hoping I can get some troubleshooting assistance here. Sometimes, on larger maps with lots of custom assets and/or scripting, when I'm attempting to load a save file the game just... hangs. At like 1% loaded, in the loading screen. This happens to me a lot with Seeking Lady Leicester, but also has started happening to my most recent playthrough of The Lieutenant 2. Some relevant notes: - I am on the latest beta branch, but this has been happening to me since at least 2.13, so I don't think its a beta-specific bug. - I'm on Windows 10. - Starting a fresh run of the map does not ever reproduce this problem (I can reliably fresh-load a map even when I can't save-load it), and it doesn't happen until I close the game and reopen it (so, if I start a new mission and play a bit, I can reliably load save files if I get caught or whatever. Its not until I save after a long gaming session and try to pick up where I left off later that I occasionally hit this bug). - Usually I get around this issue with a complete reinstall of TDM? But my most recent reinstall didn't do it for my playthrough of Lieutenant 2. - Once this happens to me, there's no way for me to close the game or go back to the main menu. I have to alt+F4 or Task Manager kill TDM. - When I'm loading a save or a new map and things are working correctly, I am unable to open the dev console during the load. However, when I get stuck in this bad state, the dev console is openable. I've attached a screenshot of the contents of the dev console just in case its illuminating, although there are no scary looking errors or warning text that I can see. If we want me to try any commands when I get into this state I'd be happy to poke around. Let me know if this explanation makes sense, or if there's anything I should try or any debug info I should poke around the game's folder for.

Greetings everyone! I recently got into TDM and am already having a lot of fun playing through and ghosting missions. However, coming from Thief, I am mostly relying on the rules and my experience with that game, while there are clearly differences in how TDM works. Right now, there is talk in the ghosting discussion thread on TTLG to amend the ruleset and include clarifications pertaining to TDM. So I wanted to drop by and ask: is there an active TDM ghosting community already and have any rules for this playstyle been developed? I would also like to ask someone to take a look at the draft of this addendum to see whether everything looks correct: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148487&page=16&p=2473352&viewfull=1#post2473352 Thanks!

So any idea why I cant get these rising bubbles to show in-game..? its showing in DR just fine.

Hello, I hope I'm in the right forum today, and I apologize if I'm not. I've been playing FM IRIS for the past three days without any technical issues and am about halfway through the game. Since yesterday, the game has started crashing in a specific situation. Always at the same spot. Once I managed to skip that part, the game continued running. After I shut down my computer yesterday and booted it up again today, when tdm starts up—after the loading bar finishes—the screen goes black and returns to the Windows desktop. No error message. If I completely restart the game, everything works perfectly. The mod is fantastic, but I’ve spent a lot of time on it now and don’t know if it will crash again after three days if I start playing it again. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? I couldn’t find any clues in the FAQ. The tdm version is 2.12/64 #10651 Thank you very much DESKTOP-USer.txt

Older TVs that were just dumb TVs had no complex signal processor to upscale and color correct and do fancy things, so they were....ok. 60hz were still like 33 ms or higher. Modern Game mode just bypasses most of that stuff, which is fine by me. EDIT: I meant older as in older smart TVs.

If you have a subscription on rtings.com, one of the tests for monitors and TVs is input latency. It's crazy how bad older TVs were, especially in cinema/movie mode. I remember playing on my old LG LED TV and in cinema mode it was measured at 120ms of input lag, unplayable. Switching everything off, got it to about 50 ms, not great but at least playable. Now in game mode on my new Samsung QDOLED, at 144hz input latency is in single digits.

As long as one can install more than one game on the same VM, I don't see the number of images being all too many. Maybe I'm missing something here...

The nights are getting colder and you need to pay your rent on time before you get tossed out into the winter air. Luckily, your neighbor told you about a mysterious merchant from faraway shores who has come to the small hamlet of Wilford's Hollow, and he's staying at the inn next door. What's more, he's brought something with him... Gameplay Notes: 1) This is a fairly small map, but I did intend for this map to be a bit harder than normal Dark Mod missions, even on the lowest difficulty setting. But there will certainly be plenty of rewards for the careful thief... 2) This map implements the func_peek mechanic by allowing players to peek through any door that has a keyhole by leaning forward. PLEASE NOTE: This function has been known to cause crashes for players using the 32-bit version of the Dark Mod 2.07 (should be fine for those running the 64-bit version). While this function has worked painlessly for some, please be aware that crashing may occur. At no point in this mission is it required to use the func_peek mechanic, it is purely optional, so feel free to not use it. Download: This FM is available via the in-game downloader FM: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eGMhIkoMFqlkk_ehN430cP63RQr5quEh/view?usp=sharing Promotional Screenshots: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bwuy0QPhaGpV32CgEdXhBIA5KgvcRueN?usp=sharing Credits: A HUGE thanks goes out to JackFarmer, Dragofer, and Bikerdude for scripting, EFX, custom ambient tracks, assets, answering a billion of my questions and doing so, so, so much more to make this mission something special. Thank you! Another GIANT thank you to my beta testers: Jedi_Wannabe, Bienie, Filizitas, joebarnin, bikerdude, Cambridge Spy, STRUNK, Lonewanderer, Rezar. Thank you all very much for your wonderful work and eye for detail! And another thank you goes out to Goldwell, Kingsal, and Grayman for scripting help and patient guidance. Assets are from: Springheel's Superb Modules Refl3ks' Rad Artwork Kingsal's Killer Assets Dragofer's Delightful Assets Epifire's Expert Models dmw's Dazzling Textures Spooks' Spectacular Painting for the Loading Screen R Soul's Fantabulous Assets JackFarmer's Miraculous Machines and Sounds Bikerdude's Bountiful Assets Hugo Lobo's Luxurious Textures ***PLAYER BEWARE*** SPOILERS lie in the depths below. I strongly suggest playing it first so you don't spoil the fun for yourself *** Version 2 Changelog: - Fixed several broken visportals - Fixed reflections in flooded basement, improved performance - New particles, models, and textures - Fixed broken AI pathing - Fixed fireplace glitch in the Inn - Fixed several texture issues - Added new secret objective - Lighting and fog changes - Implemented fade lights - Implemented Kingsal's inventory icons - Replaced slow match with flint - Increased bow draw speed using modified settings from Kingsal

I can't say anything about this, the game with its minimum requirements is wish thinking for my poor Laptop. It only caught my attention when I saw a complete gamemovie in YT (in Spanish), appreciating it as a highly original and beautiful game with a good plot. Apart of enthusiastic user comments in Steam.

Anyone knows this game? https://store.steampowered.com/app/648410/Colony_Ship_A_PostEarth_Role_Playing_Game/ Maybe this is actually a more interesting turn-based tactics based game: I read there's heavy use of stealth and hacking involved. Some reviewer compared it to Invisible Inc.

If you have a copy of Windows XP that the game works on, then you can try install XP on a virtual machine (using VM Ware or VirtualBox or some other hypervisor) running on some Linux distro. But perhaps turn off network on the VM for security reasons. Windows 7 should work too. Later versions of Windows may be trickier because of licencing/activation issues after Microsoft implemented tighter DRM measures for later versions. But perhaps not impossible. But yes, I agree with you. A working emulator would be nice. WINE works well for some programs. ReactOS did not work for my use case the last times I tried, but could be worth a try. At least in a VM.

Another procedural animation I've been playing with. There is already predefined "look at" event in the game. When I set up NPC to look at the path node it was a little buggy. Anyone tried to set up NPCs looking at player? They do seem to look up when they throw stones. tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script

"When the leaves change and the air is still, there is a quiet." -Lady Blackbriar -=| DISPLACEMENT |=- BY AMADEUS & WELLINGTONCRAB = DOWNLOAD = <( | )> -REQUIRES TDM 2.14- -JOIN THE BETA NOW- "Seek not the prideful sin that is perfection The Builder's light shines through all flaws. It is His wisdom to recognize a thing is done Before it is ever truly finished." -St. Edgar's Sermon of Rust LAMPFIRE HILLS... They say the woods around here give the tourists bad dreams, but I don't mind. I like it here. I feel like a piece of me belongs here. ... That it fits. DISPLACEMENT is a medium-sized traditional manor mission with a highly variable playtime. *2.14 provides a number of improvements to gameplay, performance, and stability. It is strongly encouraged to play on the latest 2.14 beta release. Join in testing now!* *Mods such as the “Unofficial Patch” and “TDM Modpack” are not supported by this mission and should be used at your own risk* https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/97429/displacement CREDITS: ADDITIONAL MUSIC: -AIRSHIP BALLET -GIGAGOOGA ADDITIONAL SCRIPTING: -DRAGOFER -OBSTORTTE -FROST SALAMANDER -KINGSAL ADDITIONAL ASSETS: -KINGSAL -TDASH -SKACKY -BIKERDUDE -GOLDWELL -EPIFIRE -STRUNK -SHANNEN ART -POLYHAVEN -TEXTURES.COM -SKETCHFAB CULTURAL HERITAGE CC0 COMMUNITY -LOISTE INTERACTIVE -COLINFIZGIG -CDMIR BETA TESTERS: -KINGSAL -GOLDWELL -MAT99 -FROST SALAMANDER -MIKE A -STGATILOV -STIFU -MARBLEMAN -DETEEFF -THEBIGH FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: -STIFU FOR HIS EFFORT IN FIXING THE NOTORIOUS STUCK AI AND ARROW CRASH BUGS. -STGATILOV WHO MADE A NUMBER OF 2.14 OPTIMIZATIONS AND BUG FIXES. -KINGSAL FOR PROVIDING SOME OF THE MAIN MENU GUI ASSETS -PURAH FOR ORIGINATING THE SETTING OF LAMPFIRE HILLS, REIMAGINED HERE, IN HIS THIEF FMS. -GUY-ON THE COUCH AND JAM61 FOR THEIR SILENT HILL COMMUNITY MAPS WHICH HEAVILY INSPIRED THE LAMPFIRE HILLS REGION MAP. -SPECIAL THANKS TO LOISTE INTERACTIVE FOR ALLOWING US TO USE ASSETS FROM THEIR GAME "INFRA." SOME ADDIITONAL DETAILED LICENSING INFORMATION: SOME NOTES ON PERFORMANCE: NOTE TO MAPPERS: MOST OF THE NEW ASSETS IN THE MISSION ARE INCLUDED IN 2.14