Search the Community

I wish you all a happy new year!

I'm happy to announce the release of my third FM: Year of the Rat. This is my first city hub map, focused primarily on story characters and environment. It's my most complex project to date, taking its fair share of effort to make which was a good learning experience. As an experiment I opted to use no scripts and rely solely on the default entities, as well as no custom assets apart from the map and splash screen hence the small pk4. It features a few special elements, such as factions that are hostile only when the player commits crime or a decoder lockpick used to open electronic doors. The beta testing thread can be found here, thank you everyone who helped find the most obvious problems. You play as a famous thief nicknamed Black Jack: A man who's pulled many crazy jobs in his life, only to be hired for an absurd and insulting task by an anonymous employer. The objective is pretty straightforward: Be kind to the mice and feed them some cheese! Your silly quest takes you to the Lantern Light district during the Lunar New Year celebration, a place where gangs and corrupt nobles do their dirty deeds together. What ulterior motives and unexpected twists could your adventure entail? While the most obvious problems were patched during beta testing, some issues can't be easily resolved due to the complexity of the entity setup and objectives, meaning you may encounter a few inconsistencies. Most notably surrounding AI, which may float above chairs and not react to alerts or oppositely send the whole map into a panic: This is mostly due to how the engine handles AI and alarms. The map is small since I wanted to add more detail without having to work on large areas, as such some places can feel cramped while the skybox may be visible up close. I'll be busy so further updates are unlikely unless I decide to add new content later... you're welcome to report any issues you encounter, but keep in mind that if something wasn't fixed it's likely known but difficult to address or due to engine functionality. Spoilers for objectives and secrets as follows: Download 1.2: Google Drive, Mega. Screenshots with minor spoilers for the various areas:

I guess this is basic stuff for you talented model-boys but now I've trudged for several hours without results and from what I have read in several forums/threads, it's even not that trivial. Therefore I dare to start a thread... I've download some models from the web but these come in some new and fancy format; (FBX, USD etc) not exactly the old and brittle format that we use in TDM So to import these into DarkRadiant I need to convert these to lwo or ASE, right? How do people go about this? I have tried to: - install Blender 5.0 and added an ASE-exporter plugin. Blender actually puts out an ASE-file but as I try to open it in DR, the model is only showed as that checkerboard error-box. Do I need to tinker with the model in a text editor first? I read something about changing something about a BITMAP-line... - use an ancient version (7.0) version of Lightwave but that program cannot even open the files (Not surprising)...

Thank you, I'll try from an earlier save and see what happens. I did try a new game and couldn't replicate the disappearance (in that spot) so hopefully it won't disappear from the old save.

Now that Cryengine is basically free to use for community projects, and has proven itself to be ideal for large open worlds with stealth gameplay like Kingdom Come Deliverance, is there anything stopping anyone from porting TDM over with support for existing fan missions? I mean legally speaking of course, as I'm sure it would be a lot of work, but there seem to be fewer barriers than ever before. It's incredible what people have done with an engine that was built to accommodate tiny corridors on ancient hardware, but imagine an engine purpose built to render large open spaces... No more compromised visions when mapping, no more endless optimization to fit a square peg through a circular hole... And if the mission files were to be compatible with the new engine, people could just keep on mapping in DR as if nothing even changed. Cryengine Community Edition https://engine.pterosoftstudio.com/

Back in the day, Tels managed a squad of volunteer translators for TDM. I am not Tels, and could never do that. Nowadays, language translation using AI, either traditional machine learning (ML) models or large language models (LLMs), is common and increasingly fluent. It is often used as an adjunct to speed the work of professional human translators. By itself, AI translation can be imperfect but usually sufficient. Can this "sufficient" approach be used for TDM, to expedite translations? Let's see. I gave some initial thought to a bulk-translation daemon that might range across FMs and fill in all missing translations, without necessarily involving mappers. In the future, possibly AI could tackle that whole enchilada. I was at first visualizing something more modest: a backbone in a standard programming language (I sketched out C++ and C# projects, but lots of other possibilities) that would make calls to an API (I looked at those of Google Translate and ChatGPT). However, I changed focus due to certain concerns... Different FMs, and subsets with each FM, would likely have far better translations if they were properly grouped, ordered, and translated separately, with an appropriate context (e.g., phrase engineering) added. The FM's mapper is best placed to provide this grouping and context. I'll detail what I mean in the next few posts. The mapper would not be expected to know any TDM-supported languages besides English. Instead, each translated phrase could be back-translated to English and examined. Is the "round-trip" meaning OK, even if the English words have changed? Problematic translations could have their context tweaked and rerun. Many AI systems, particularly for API access, require a billing commitment (e.g., credit card). For a professional translator, this is no problem, and subscriptions allow access to more (and putatively better) models and higher quotas. This seems less appealing for TDM. A few paid AI systems have a no-subscription, pay-as-you-go account tier. The cost per translate is typically pennies. But it does introduce quota- and expense-management, and may exclude API usage. Access via API requires an API key (or at the higher end more elaborate security regime), with attendant key-security headaches. Which AI model is thought "best" for translation? Doesn't matter too much, because we can't afford the best. Furthermore, there's endless churn among AI models, with antidotal reports that a given model fluctuates in quality over time, and successor models can be worse than their predecessors. So, with these concerns in mind, I looked for public web-based AI sites that require no billing and provide low-quota but adequate AI. The mapper would enter and retrieve data manually. I will focus on ChatGPT in this exploration, after a quick preliminary test confirmed some promise. Also, as this exploration proceeds, I hope to propose changes to TDM to make it more viable for "sufficient" quality machine translation. Problem areas are incomplete fonts, space-constraints, and layout issues for translated strings. My proposals will likely surface as separate forum threads. That's enough for now. I'll be trying for 1 or 2 substantive posts per week, as I tackle a particular FM.

Lately I have started to play some of the more recent missions and some of these have lots of "own"/unique textures. Is it okay to use these assets (from released FMs) in one's own FMs? I'm referring to models/textures and sound etc, of course not chunks of the mission geometry or blatant plagiarism of readables etc. I guess some people have designed or bought assets for themselves but is it okay to use these textures/models as long as there is no explicit note in a readme etc, that opposes such "borrowing"?

Hello Everyone! I've been a fan of the TDM community for some time now. Over the last year or so, I've been chipping away at an FM of my own and it's finally ready for release. Volta 1 : The Stone Volta and the Stone is a fairly large Thief-style mission (Lord Bafford's Manor). It is the first mission of a campaign that follows the Thief and his encounter with an archaic and powerful force. The campaign will span from robbing noble houses to being hunted by malevolent creatures from beyond the Veil. The emphasis is on creating a mood and tone that will hopefully feel familiar to fans of The Dark Mod and the original Thief games. Available through in-game downloader. Or Download here. A few notes Dark Mod v2.8 Required Normal difficulty is intended for new players. Hard/ Expert for most of the TDM community 2+ Hours of gameplay Features lots of custom art/ sounds/ and intro video. If you are stuck or need help: Please PM me or post spoiler free in this thread. I will make an FAQ with hints as they come up! Thanks: Bikerdude, Oldjim, Taquito, Melan, and Goldwell for beta testing. Andrew Bartmess for the wonderful narrator vocals. (v1.2) Special thanks: to FinalBoss and Tins for early alpha testing. I hope you enjoy it!

Author Note: Thank you for downloading and playing the sequel to The Accountant 1: Thieves and Heirs this FM picks up right from where we left off in accountant 1. This is the second part in my three part series following Corbin on his journey to discover who and what the accountant is. This mission is a little different to what you may expect from a Thief mission but still has plenty of classic Thief moments as well. This is the largest mission I have ever built with an average play through lasting between 2 - 3 hours. A few aspects in game are different to what you may expect as well and those are: - Candles are pinchable (frob to put out instead of pickup) - Food has been hot fixed so now it heals you for 10 health points when eaten - Doors that are missing handles means you cannot enter that room/building - All secrets can be found before you enter the sewers As a little piece of fun trivia there is a small cameo in my mission from a very special guest. He is a longtime voice actor in the industry and you may know him from roles such as Deckard Cain in Diablo, Captain Price in Call of Duty, Elder Lyons in Fallout 3, or just about any Nordic character in Skyrim. In addition to all of the fantastic people who have helped me along the way I have personally spent a lot of time, effort and energy devoted to bringing this out to you all so I hope you can enjoy the fruits of my labor and have fun! File size: 358 mb

For the people eager to play with the latest state of development, two things are provided: regular dev builds source code SVN repository Development builds are created once per a few weeks from the current trunk. They can be obtained via tdm_installer. Just run the installer, check "Get Custom Version" on the first page, then select proper version in "dev" folder on the second page. Name of any dev version looks like devXXXXX-YYYY, where XXXXX and YYYY are SVN revision numbers from which the build was created. The topmost version in the list is usually the most recent one. Note: unless otherwise specified, savegames are incompatible between any two versions of TDM! Programmers can obtain source code from SVN repository. Trunk can be checked out from here: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/ SVN root is: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src Build instructions are provided inside repository. Note that while you can build executable from the SVN repository, TDM installation of compatible version is required to run it. Official TDM releases are compatible with source code archives provided on the website, and also with corresponding release tags in SVN. A dev build is compatible with SVN trunk of revision YYYY, where YYYY is the second number in its version (as described above). If you only want to experiment with the latest trunk, using the latest dev build gives you the maximum chance of success. P.S. Needless to say, all of this comes with no support. Although we would be glad if you catch and report bugs before the next beta phase starts

Ahh, thanks for the answers, boys! I now have managed to both import models in DarkRadiant and export models from Blender so I'm a bit on the road. I tried to add a copper vase and lo and behold, I succeeded, I even managed to add the correct material definition and changing it in the model file via a text editor. Yay! Now I have a small vase consisting of more polys and triangles and white lines than there are stomach acid in my belly... I thought this would be fairly easy but I guess I'll have to learn some basic Blender to be able to convert these models to lower polycounts so they are more ugly than their original quality but not so ugly they look bashed to pieces, in game... I have high hopes even an old and brittle man like me can follow Blender tutorials and be able to perform these easy tasks, and perhaps I'll get the hang of creating some basic loot and junk myself

Contributions downloads are at http://fidcal.com/DarkMod/index.htm Note that there is no dedicated beautiful sortable webpage list. I don't have time and also this means less delays. Just browse the folders and click on readmes and images and grab any zips. If anyone submits anything I can just upload it in a few minutes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you wish to offer coding, modelling, or any other kind of help got to the I want to help forum for discussion. If you have any extensive assets you wish to discuss also you can go to the I want to help forum. If you simply want to share an FM, prefab(s), textures, whatever then post details in this thread (there are other websites for FMs too.) Generally these need to be zipped up with a description.txt plain text file and optionally an image, and uploaded somewhere I can get them such as a fileshare website like rapidshare. Any problem with that and if you have ftp I can arrange a direct upload to a private temporary folder on my website. All submissions to this thread should be accompanied by a short description summary to go on the download page and optionally a picture(s). Such submissions will be placed on my website download page (wip) at fidcal.com. Anything suspect for any reason I reserve the right to delete. I accept no liability for downtime or even no-continuance of the download section or even the entire website for any reason. Downloaders: I accept no liability if you download anything you'd rather not: download at your own risk. Oh yes, and I am not responsible for global warming, economic depression, you name it; I'm not responsible. From there, any mappers can download what they want. The Dark Mod Team may or may not assess some items for inclusion in future Dark Mod updates. FMs may be assessed for inclusion on the Dark Mod website. Anyone feel free to mirror the download folder. Any suggestions post in this thread too.

So I thought I had found a new and BETTER way of creating lit/selflit windows for TDM, but discovered fairly quickly that some window textures are already using this mething, but that unfortunaly the vast majority are not. The aformerntioned method is that we use the stock material def for the frame (so you retain the diffuse & bumpmap details), and then only 'blend add' the lit window panes which are a separate texture. An example stock texture that uses this method already - textures/darkmod/window/wooden_frame01/wooden_frame01_lit What we have above is an overlay of JUST the window panes, and its just this texture that is RGB boosted! I don't know why we HAVENT been doing this in the core mod all this time, and to quote @nbohr1more"Boosting the diffuse is a pretty poor way to achieve that effect." And unfortunately a LOT of the core window textures are using this poor method instead of the window pane overlay method. Ive already spent some time in establishments of lower affairs (the line from the gatehouse popped into my head, heh), making overlay versions for frost_salamander for his recently released FM. Please see the zip arcdhive below. @Amadeus has already had a look at and used some, in his upcoming wip - - https://drive.google.com/file/d/11168eiBj_m-Lu5d-8FLYUgM7J1MC_92h/view?usp=sharing So @Amadeus suggested that I list all the window textures that need looking at. I haven't included the ones I have already fixed in the wip archive above - textures/darkmod/window/diamond_pattern02/diamond_pattern02_*** - the lit versions from this series have a diffuse that is basically black, but thankfully the unlit version has a diffuse that can be used. textures/darkmod/window/ornate/stained_colourful_dirty textures/darkmod/window/ornate/stained_colourful_dirty2 textures/darkmod/window/pointedtop_big01/pointedtop_big01_*** - there are lit versions in this series, but they are not using any diffuse/bump. So these are perfect to use as overlays as they are. textures/darkmod/window/diamond_pattern01_*** textures/darkmod/window/diamond_pattern_andbars01_*** - So these are good candidates to be used as overlays with some tweaking, but we need a much better diffuse/bump. textures/darkmod/window/largesquare01_barelylit - poster child of why this thread was created, all the lit versions of this series are just RGB boosting the diffuse. textures/darkmod/window/roundtop_diamond_pattern01_*** textures/darkmod/window/simple_square01_***- this series also has very poor cropping on the edges. textures/darkmod/window/smallpanels_4w_dirty01_*** - this series has diffuse that is basically black. textures/darkmod/window/smallpanels_4w_dirty02_*** - this series has diffuse that is basically black. textures/darkmod/window/smallpanels_4w_dirty03_*** - this series has diffuse that is basically black. textures/darkmod/window/smallpanels_industrial_mesh_selflit textures/darkmod/window/square_pattern01_*** - this series needs a complete overhaul.

Happy new year from me

This is a problem that started out of the blue ca. two (or three?) years ago. At first I thought, there was maybe something broken with my Windows install, but after migrating to Linux, I see the same problem: I create a map with a leak (or defective portal) and save it (name, for example: m1) dmap , console shows leak when going back to DR for the pointfile, a message appears stating that there is no pointfile for this map then I save the map with a new name (m2) dmap again back to DR: then there is a pointfile Anyone has seen this problem as well and if so, is there a fix?

I didn't know this. Is this page still up to date: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Setting_up_Campaigns ? Because it looks like it does things like: if ("gui::CurrentMission" == 1) { set "BriefingMission1Animation::visible" "1"; resetTime "BriefingMission1Animation" 0; } else if ("gui::CurrentMission" == 2) { set "BriefingMission2Animation::visible" "1"; resetTime "BriefingMission2Animation" 0; But then inside the text briefing. So would you instead use if MM_CURRENTMISSION == # instead like: if MM_CURRENTMISSION == 1 set "BriefingMission1Animation::visible" "1"; resetTime "BriefingMission1Animation" 0; else if MM_CURRENTMISSION == 2 set "BriefingMission2Animation::visible" "1"; resetTime "BriefingMission2Animation" 0; Or am I just confusing things? I don't actually understand what you mean with this.

Well, as usual December was too involved IRL to get anything done in TDM. (Happy New Year, BTW.) On the briefings, I did get a little further since last report. I decided, rather than do tedious patching based on the back-translations, I'd instead change the English source to clarify some phrases, and then re-translate again and call it good enough. This is being expeditious rather than cautious. I expect the briefing translations to on some pages exceed briefing page-text limit. Rather than doing a custom briefing GUI (e.g., with scaling), I instead will edit the .xd to hand-distribute by eyeball the text among the briefing pages.

Happy New Year from Hamburg!

I'm running a fresh install of Fedora 37, and installed DarkRadiant 3.8.0 via the Flatpak installer. Trying to create a new XY view crashes DarkRadiant every time. I checked in Windows 10 and the same behavior doesn't occur. Are there any log files or other info I can present that might help?

Happy new year from denmark

============================================================== Title: Hidden Hands: The Anomaly Filename : hhta.pk4 Author: Jack Farmer Date of release: 01.05.2021 (version: 1) - 08.05.2021 (version 2) 16.03.2022 (version 3) EFX: Yes Version 2 available via the DM mission downloader (see subsequent post below for changes) Mission does not run under 2.08 due to missing new core assets - please update to 2.09 ============================================================== Hidden Hands series: I - Initiation II - Vitalic Fever III - The Lost Citadel IV - The Anomaly ============================================================== Jack Farmer: mapping & drafts Amadeus: revision/editing of all texts for readables, narration and dialogues, design consultation ("The walls are ugly!"...and your were right! ) Joebarnin: consultation for a custom script enabling a crucial in-game event Dragofer: consultation for custom scripts and S/R events, extraction & prefab packaging of Sotha's robots, bug fixes Destined: consultation for custom scripts and...fixing JacK's wrong custom scripts! Very special thanks go out to Geep for updating the Wiki helping me to solve several GUI problems within -literally - seconds! Beta testers: Joebarnin (lead) ate0ate Zerg Rush wesp5 datiswous Voice actors (in order of appearance): Malasdair The Thief AndrosTheOxen Jonus New Horizon Desmond Pilfered items: - portal sky with trees originally developed and arranged by Dragofer for "Down By The Riverside" - fireflies originally developed by Bikerdude for "Alberic's Curse" - floating boat set up (this time used for a different..."object") originally developed by Bikerdude for one of his missions - robots originally developed by Sotha for "Ulysses: Genesis" - new electric door move sound based on one of Sotha's robot sounds - selected cave architecture originally developed by Johannes Burock taken from the abandoned WIP thread - waterdrops sound taken from freesound.org produced by nicstage - custom machine sound taken from freesound.org produced by deleted-user4401185 - forest at night taken from freesound.org produced by felix-blume - machine3 sound taken from freesound.org produced by lupalenzuela - tape-deck-startup taken from freesound.org produced by soundjoao - electric-zap-electricity taken from freesound.org produced by wakerone - static_stylophone_a taken from freesound.org produced by inspectorj - steady-machine-with-hum taken from freesound.org produced by craigsmith - radio_noise taken from freesound.org produced by inspectorj - chain-rustling taken from freesound.org produced by nathanmanaker - wind_turbin taken from freesound.org produced by dommygee - selected guitar_feedback taken from freesound.org originally produced by oymaldonado - stream-water-c taken from freesound.org produced by inspectorj - mic-feedback-fx-short-mid-2 taken from freesound.org produced by chimerical - megaphone-feedback taken from freesound.org produced by deleted-user-2104797 All other new fx sound created by Jack Farmer using a Korg M1 synth, kitchen equipment and his weird voice All new ambient tracks produced and mixed by Jack Farmer sometimes with additional ambient sound samples originally produced by gigagooga Briefing video by SirSmokeALot --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story Tease On the run from her husband, me and my girl. With a bribe to a ship's captain, we're away. What could go wrong now? Oh, dammit. Links "Away 1 - Air Pocket" Version 1.0 is available from the in-game downloader and its mirrors. As well as here. There are two extra documents contained in your installed .pk4 and also conveniently available here - For gamers needing hints, this Q&A uses "invisible ink" to selectively hide the answers: Air Pocket - Hints and Spoilers [Jan. 29, 2020].docx For understanding what's under the hood: Maintenance Guide to Away 1 - Air Pocket [Jan 29, 2020].docx For more about the innards and interations, see this FM's Beta Testing thread. Author's Note This is my first substantive TDM FM, a nautical adventure, and what I hope will be part of a longer story arc. Enjoy. Gallery Credits & Acknowledgements Thanks to TDM community members for encouragement - and assistance with newbie questions - while building this, my first FM (not counting an earlier nanoMission). Kudos in particular to Dragofer for the wonderful ship models (modified here), newly-created ship davits, and assets like kelp models from 'Down by the Riverside'. Also a custom cannon-ball hole through the hull, and much helpful guidance. The skybox is adapted from 'lagoon' by Hazel Whorley (CC BY-NC; hw_lagoon.zip at www.custommapmakers.org/skyboxes). Finally, my deep appreciation to all who tested or assisted during the beta: Biene, Cambridge Spy, Dragofer, duzenko, peter_spy, and stgatilov