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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!

Many forums with an off-topic subforum end up with some political talk in there.

Hello! Tracking down information on software and plug-ins that work with D3 / TDM can be a tough. So I have created a thread here where people can post what software/ plug-ins/ tutorials or other references they've had success or failure with in TDM. 3DS MAX 2013 64bit .ase - Default .ASE model exporter works. However you have to open the .ase file in text edit and manual change the *BITMAP line on each material to read something like: "//base/textures/common/collision" which allows the engine to read the correct material path. md5.mesh / animation - Beserker's md5 exporter/importers for 3dsmax. http://www.katsbits.com/tools, Importing and exporting works. The model must be textured, UV'd, with a skin modifier attached to the bones to export. PM me (Kingsal) for help with this. Imported models using the script will not be weighted appropriately, so this is not recommended if you are simply trying to edit existing tdm content. (Use blender instead) MAYA 2011 32bit md5.mesh - So far I've not had any luck with Maya 2011. I am using Greebo's MayaImportx86 for Maya 2011. I've got the importer working however I get a "Unexpected Internal Failure(kFailure)" and the import fails. This could be due to something finicky in Maya that I am not doing correctly. Will keep trying.. Blender 2.7 about - Blender is commonly used and pretty well supported on the forums/ wiki. Various versions may work as well - https://www.blender.org/download/ md5.mesh / animation Blender MD5 importer/exporter (io_scene_md5.zip): https://sourceforge.net/projects/blenderbitsbobs/files/ Sotha's guide Blender Male/ Female rigs by Arcturus - Here Edit by Dragofer: more links found in this post.

@Jnon This might be the easiest approach (if you do not want to script something). Doing so would also remove the need to check whether a water or a fire arrow has been fired as at this particular moment only one item is in place and does only react according to the defined stim property.

ttlg seems to down again at least for me I tried different forums but got same message that there is a problem connecting to site!

Neonsstyle recently pointed out to me that my seamless mass teleportation script doesn't seem to work when the setup is rotated, and I realised that the version I linked to in this thread even relies on manually adjusting the script. It was also inefficient because it had two nearly identical script functions for each direction, and it only supported one teleportation setup per map. As this is an old script it was clearly time to rewrite it. To begin with, the purpose of the script is to enable seamless teleportation without the player noticing that it has happened, giving the illusion that two areas of the map are physically connected. There should be two identical-looking locations, preferrably an S-shaped corridor to limit how much the player can see in the moment he is teleported and thus how much needs to be duplicated. The locations should also be AI-free, since I expect their patrols will break after teleportation. There are two trigger brushes at either end: a narrow brush that initiates the teleportation procedure, and a larger "zone" trigger_touch brush around it that applies the teleportation to the player and all AIs and moveables in its volume. The narrow brushes are in slightly different positions at either location to avoid that the player gets stuck in an infinite teleportation loop. The teleportation vector is automatically calculated from the origins of the departure and destination zone entity, so it's important you keep this in the same relative position. The image above shows the setup: the arrow represents the player's expected direction of movement through each location; the narrow box represents the trigger brush which initiates the teleportation; the large box represents the teleportation zone from which everything that can move gets teleported; the red cross represents the origin of the teleportation zone used to calculate the teleportation vector. To setup, copy the script into your map script or add it to your /script folder. Copy a pair of altogether 4 trigger brushes to your 2 identical-looking locations and change the "zone_departure" and "zone_destination" spawnargs on each of the narrow trigger brushes to point to the trigger zone brushes. With this new version of the script, it should be possible to have as many mass teleportation setups in your map as you want, and rotation should be no problem given the fully automatic calculation of the teleportation vector. mass_teleport.scriptmass_teleport.map

============== -= IRIS =- ============== WELLINGTONCRAB TDM v 2.11 REQ Ver. 1.3 *For Maureen* -=- "Carry the light of the Builder, Brother. Unto its end." -Valediction of the Devoted "What year is this? Am I dreaming?" -Plea of the Thief Dear Iris, I am old and broken. When we were young it felt like the words came easily. Now I find the ink has long dried on the pen and I'm as wanting for words as coin in my purse. I can tell we are nearing the end of the tale; time enough for one more job before the curtain call... ============== -Installation- Requires minimum version of TDM 2.11 **Dev build dev17056-10800 (2.13) fixes several visual effects which have been broken in the mission since the release of 2.11. For that reason playing with that version or later is currently recommended** -Iris does not support mods or the Unofficial Patch- Download and place the following .pk4 into you FMs directory: Iris Download ============== *Thank you for playing. Iris is a large mission which can either take as quickly or as long as you are compelled to play. I hope someone out there enjoys it and this initial release is not completely busted - I tried the best I could!* *Iris both is and isn't what it seems. If commenting please use spoiler tags where appropriate. If you are not certain if it would be appropriate a good assumption would be to use a spoiler tag* *Support TDM by rating missions on Thief Guild: https://www.thiefguild.com/* ============== WITH LASTING GRATITUDE: OBSTORTTE - Whose gameplay scripts from his thread laid the foundation which made the mission seem like something I could even pull off at all. Also fantastic tutorial videos! DRAGOFER - Who built upon that foundation and made it shine even brighter! And whom also provided immeasurable quantities of help and encouragement the past couple years on the TDM discord. ORBWEAVER & GIGAGOOGA - For generously offering their ambient music up for use. EPIFIRE - Who lent me his fine trash and trash receptacle models. AMADEUS - Who was the first person who wasn't me to play the damn thing and provided his excellent editorial services to improving the readers experience playing TESTERS AND TROUBLESHOOTERS: AMADEUS * DATISWOUS * SPOOKS * ALUMINUMHASTE * JAXA * JACKFARMER * WESP5 * ATE0ATE * MADTAFFER * STGATILOV * DRAGOFER * KINGSAL * KLATREMUS - What can I possibly say? Playing this thing over and over again could not have been easy. Deepest thanks and all apologies. -=THANKS TO ALL ON THE TDM DISCORD AND FORUM=- ==SEE README.TXT FOR ADDITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS & INFORMATION== HONORABLE MENTION: GOLDWELL - If I hadn't by chance stumbled into Northdale back in 2018/2019 I would probably still be trying to get this thing to work in TDS, which means it probably would not exist - though more details on that in readme. ============== Boring Technical Information: *Iris is a performance intensive mission and I recommend a GTX 1060 or equivalent. I find the performance similar to other demanding TDM missions on my machine, but mileage may vary and my apologies if this prevents anyone from enjoying the mission.* *Iris heavily modifies the behavior of AI in the game, how they relate/respond to each other and the player. So they may act even stranger than they do typically in TDM. Feedback on this is useful - as it can potentially be improved and expanded upon in future patches.* -=- This is my first release and it has been a long time coming! If I forgot anything please let me know! God Speed. 2.10 Features Used:

I tried to post on TTLG Forums first, but despite registering i am still unable to make new posts so i asked elsewhere. Meanwhile I figured the problem by simply scaling down cutscenes resolution. My native screen resolution is 1280x800 and cutscenes in that format work well. Sorry for any double posting or using wrong forums for posting my question. Thank you for all the replies and help so far.

Behind the scenes, what happens is: 0) Lily spawns conscious on her bed 1) one frame after map start, a script is called which aims to KO her (void main() in city.script) 2) the script waits 5s before carrying out the KO (tdm_pw_misc.script) It looks like if you make a save during that 5s (after clicking "Press attack to start") where KO_Painters_Wife is waiting, the KO_Painters_Wife() script fails. This looks like a core bug, so I've posted this on the bugtracker: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6640

Main post updated with the new version and changelog. I intended to avoid modifying sound files to increase their loudness, but idTech4 doesn't seem to care about ReplayGain tags...

And I thought you fixed your problem: https://www.thiefguild.com/topics/95063/thief-the-black-parade-cutscenes-problem By the way, I can only recommend to patch your clean Thief Gold installation with TFix Lite instead of TFix. That way, you will avoid any potential issue with the mods you may or may not have enabled in the full TFix. Best for a fan mission install to use TFix Lite. And, another by the way: You will have much better luck to find help with your problem on forums which are dedicated to Thief Gold. This forum is for the Dark Mod. Try https://www.ttlg.com/ , for example.

off the top of my head.... Make them all trigger_multiple Initially, T1 is enabled, T2 and T3 are disabled Each calls a script function T1 script function call $T1.disable(), $T2.enable(), $T3.enable() T2 script function calls $otherTrigger, $T1.enable(), $T2.disable(), $T3.disable() T3 script function calls $otherTrigger, $T1.enable(), $T2.disable(), $T3.disable()

I've created a python script to make packing missions a bit more convenient. It zips everything into the pk4 for you, while auto-excluding unwanted files/folders that you list in a .pkignore file. You can also create the .pkignore using FM Packer, if you want. This script also allows checking for problems with files, and unused files and definitions. https://github.com/Skaruts/tdm_fm_packer/releases It's in an experimental state, so backup your mission before using it, and where possible double-check the results.

I managed to create this during the past 5 days, which is the only thing I find scarier than the fact I managed to make it at all. I'll start with a little background on what I wanted to do and why. I felt that TDM was in need of some kind of playable minigame. Not just because its beautifully flexible scripting and gui system makes it so inviting to code one, but I feel it makes missions more pleasant to go through. A lot of AAA games add complexity in little details to make them enjoyable. During a normal mission in the 3D world, players find brief minigames or side activities to distract themselves and take their mind off the main objectives, after which they resume playing the normal match; This gives the world a nice effect and makes it feel more wholesome overall. I'm presently working on a FM that will feature interactive city hubs, this is one of the things I wanted to have to make each city feel more alive. Onto how it works: This is a pk4 mod you can download and drop in your FM to enable the minigame. The prefab mechanical/game_blocks.pfb contains a functional arcade machine, the entity itself is static/mechanical/atdm:game_blocks. Once you've placed an arcade in the world and compiled your map, simply approach it and frob the screen to bring up the overlay and start playing. It's an item matching game with simple rules: When 3 or more items form a lump their group is cleared and the player gains score, the more score you gain the more items you unlock, however the game gets faster and more difficult. You use the movement keys as follows: Forward to disconnect from the device (un-frob and regain control of the player), backwards to project the active item to the ground when you don't want to wait for it to fall, left and right to move the active item. From here I'll list the important highlights individually: One advantage is that in its current form, the game uses no custom assets (images or sounds): Everything is achieved using the vanilla graphics and audio exclusively. The only three files are a def, a script, and a gui... the prefabs for the default in-world device is also included. Hence why for all the complex functionality it achieves, the pk4 is just a ridiculous 17.0 Kilobytes! The game is highly configurable using spawnargs. From the game rules to the items and background, most aspects can be customized per-entity. This means arcade on the map can have its own rules for items, scoring, leveling, not to mention its unique appearance! See the def and the editor descriptions for info on each spawnarg. The game is meant to interact with the world via targets. You can use multiple trigger_on_* variables to activate objects in various circumstances. This includes starting or ending a game, leveling up, reaching a specific level, or beating the default high score. The later can be used to open a door that's only accessible if you beat the game. I made full use of the gui system. The game is normally played on an overlay, however the entity represents a screen (textures/darkmod/decals/signs/decal_gui plane) which mirrors the same interface. This lets you see your paused game in-world when you disengage the device, even watch the items fall at the edges of the screen if you're facing the right way. There's even a spawnarg to disable the overlay and play only on the world surface, though turning off the overlay isn't recommended as it's much harder to see detail on the surface. Other than the script and entity which you can use with your own geometry, I also created a prefab containing a fully functional arcade game ready to place on the map. I tried making it interactive and operable by adding other in-world entities in the mix: You have a side door which can be lockpicked to give you access to the power button, which lets you turn off the device or reset an active game. When beating the high score, the other utility door will open and give you access to some loot. It also contains details like spinning machine gears, refractive glass screen, even a short-range projector for light emanating from the screen... all are toggled on and off with the device. Despite arcade games being a little questionable for a steampunk world, I stylized it so it looks fitting for the environment. Lastly there's a broken (unplayable) version of the prefab which you can add as an accompanying decoration. I'm eager to hear your thoughts and what you think. If you like this minigame, the best way to support the work I put into it is to include it in your FM and use it, I would enjoy that the most. I'd be happy if it could be included in vanilla TDM in some form... not just because I'd be humbled to have contributed my own creation, but I feel it would benefit the default game to have this accessible to mappers. I'm happy with the base entity and functionality which I think is as good as it gets... beyond that it might need a better model than prefab, perhaps someone could help with creating one? Feel free to look at script too and let me know if you feel it's coded right, if it's something easy I might further improve it. Important: When placing the pk4 in your FM directory, be aware that any existing tdm_custom_scripts.script will either override or be overriden by the game's and break stuff! If you're already using that file, edit the pk4 to delete it from there, then manually add the following line to your existing FM's: #include "script/tdm_game_blocks.script" And here's the pk4 of the initial release as of today, as well as some screenshots of how this all looks so far. Wish TDM had a builtin recorder so I could share a video as well. game_blocks_1.1.pk4

The Adventures of Thomas: Lucy's Quest Author: gg 2022-06-20 Version: 1.1 Required TDM Version: 2.10 or higher EFX: Yes ============================================================== Cautionary note: This FM needs a strong CPU/GPU combination sufficient to play the more demanding TDM FMs. Just as for many or most of the new FMs being released with the new gfx possibilities opened up it does a world of good to tweak the advanced video settings for the best combination of settings for your PC. For example, on my weaker laptop I set shadows as stencil and soft shadows off. On my desktop I set shadows as maps and soft shadows medium. Bloom off. Ambient occlusion off. Since the FM was built and extensively tested at these settings I believe either should produce a satisfactory experience. ============================================================== Sound Credits: freemusicarchive.org music Aislinn04_-_Aislinn_-_Lovely_Maria freesound.org klankbeeld_horror_1 freesound.org/people/CarlosCarty/sounds/522687/ om_aum_mantra_male_chant_bb freesound.org/people/Still%20Frames/sounds/37720/ still_frames freemusicarchive.org music The_Mind_Orchestra_Bruwynn tecknic.bandcamp.com/album/the-dark-mod-ambience-and-atmospheres Zack Bower Ancient_2, _3, _5. Solemn_1 freesound.org/people/Jagadamba/sounds/256006/ group_chanting_om_aum ============================================================== Thanks to: The TDM/DR developers for producing such a beautiful machine. The keepers of the wiki pages which are looking very good these days. Sotha for his invaluable tutorial "The Bakery Job". This tutorial is a jewel. Springheel for creating an atmosphere. Bikerdude for... ideas how to do things and scale things. Playtesters and advisors Dragofer, wesp5, datiswous, shadow. datiswous pointed out some immersion breaking lighting faults, so I got the idea. wesp5 gave me some good advice on how to tell the story - so it's more understandable. Dragofer gave me some early advice on optimizing the mission, which gave me a couple of months work with results that are well worth it. Dragofer wrote a script which optimizes CPU calculations of AI interactions. Shadow helped by testing the script, as well as testing other attempts at optimization. With the script in action only the minimal of AI interactions in the player's vicinity are called to be calculated. The script provides a general benefit but the results vary from computer to computer. The script targets a CPU task. ============================================================== Gameplay: Notes attached to objectives contain essential information on gameplay, on who the good/bad guys are, on what the player must do, and why. Mandatory objectives are linear, directing the player along a route to the goal. Optional objectives can be completed anytime. ============================================================== CAUTION: spiders, rats, undead, necrophiles, cannibals, psychotic thugs, and some generally unsavory characters. No snakes, though. The spiders ate them. ==============================================================

As my custom assets work has increasingly shifted from models towards scripting, I'll open a new thread here to contain any scripts that I write which can be reused in other missions, starting with the A ) Presence Lamp This is a Lost City-style lamp that brightens and dims depending on the presence of the player or an AI. It fades between 2 colours and can trigger its targets whenever it switches fully on or off, so it should also be viable in various other situations. The standard setup consists of the following: - a trigger_multiple brush. The spawnarg "anyTouch" controls whether AIs, too, are able to activate it - a presence lamp, highly recommended with a colorme skin - one presence light, or any other light with appropriate spawnargs The targeting chain is trigger brush -> lamp -> light When the player or an AI stands in the trigger_multiple brush, the lamp switches on and starts a short timer. Subsequent triggers reset the timer. If the timer runs out because no one's standing in the trigger brush anymore, the lamp switches itself off. Notes - Multiple trigger brushes can target the same lamp, and one trigger brush can target multiple lamps. However, each presence lamp can only target one light, so if you want i.e. a bouncelight you'll need to hide an additional silent presence lamp somewhere and target it from the same trigger brush. - The lamp and the light use their own colour spawnargs respectively, since setting 0 0 0 on a lamp would make it appear pitch black. - Technically the trigger brush can be exchanged for anything else that triggers the lamp every 0.5s (this number can be changed via "update_interval" on the lamp), i.e. a trigger_timer. - This was originally named the proximity lamp and was one of many scripting jobs for The Painter's Wife. I've renamed it to "presence lamp" because the mapper may place the trigger brush(es) wherever he wishes: proximity to the lamp is not a factor. Credits go to Bikerdude for putting together the crystal lamp models. Download Presence Lamps - Google Drive Place or extract the .pk4 into your FM archive, then look up the presence lamp prefabs. If you already are using other custom scripts, remember to add the presence lamp's .script to your tdm_custom_scripts file. B ) Teledoor This is a Skyrim-style door which opens just a bit into a black_matt "void" before teleporting the player to a different area of the map, which may represent the other side of the door. This is used for connecting physically separated map areas with each other, such as when there's an exterior/interior split of a building or ship to allow for more mapping freedom. [Full Thread] C ) Mass Teleport This is a teleportation setup designed to seamlessly teleport the player and any moveables between two identical-looking areas. This allows the mapper to link 2 physically distant areas with each other while maintaining the illusion that they're connected. The teleportation zones should be free of AIs as they can't be teleported like this without their patrols breaking. [Post] D ) Automaton Station A station for Sotha's automatons (includes the automatons) which can be switched on and off by patrolling automatons. (Part of core assets as of 2.10) [Post] E ) Camgoyle A sentient turret originally made for the FM Written in Stone. It's based on the new security camera entity and augmented with scripting to allow it to fire magical projectiles at the enemies it detects. People are more than welcome to use it and to convert it into something else, such as a mechanical turret. [Post] [Download] F ) Audiograph The audiograph is an Inventor's Guild device for playing back recordings stored on spindles, which are small metal cylinders the player can pick up and store in his inventory. [Post] G ) Turret A new companion to security cameras familiar to Thief players. It will become active as soon as an enemy is detected by a targeted security camera, firing projectiles to fend off the intruders. Similar to the security camera and the camgoyle sentry, turrets are highly customisable in their behaviour and appearance. [Thread] G ) Fog Fade Dynamically change fog density depending on what location the player is in. [Thread]

Thomas Porter is back in a TDM FM called... LQD is a medium sized FM, made for the TDM unusual contest 2013, where Thomas Porter sets out to get rid of the Lich Queen once and for all! Will he succeed, or will the evil Lich Queen get her sinister revenge on Thomas? The mission was created by me, Sotha. Betatesters: Bikerdude, nbohr1more and Obsttorte are thanked for their efforts on improving this work. Big thanks to TylerVocal for excellent voice acting. Thanks to freesound audio artists: Amliebsh (39222), Steveygos93 (80401), Jackie4ever (83095) and Klankbeeld (133100). Immense thanks for the developer team and everyone contributing to the mod. Release notes: *This mission has player character narration. There is no way to control the volume of the player lines in TDM 1.08 and they are at 100% volume at all times. For optimal experience, be sure to set SFX and ambient close to 100% volume in the in-game audio settings and fine tune the volume to nice levels from you operating system's mixer. That way the world sounds match the player voice in volume and your gameplay experience is not reduced by very loud player narrative. *This mission involves using objects with other objects. Normally objects are used like this: push R to drop the item into your hands, move the item where you want to place or use it. *This mission has a video briefing, so you have the habit of skipping the TDM logo which is visible before the briefing, do not skip it or you will miss the briefing. Download link: Use the ingame downloader to get it. As always, it is not recommended to read the thread further before you have completed the mission. Someone will fail to use spoiler tags. [spoiler] This will be hidden [/spoiler] Enjoy! Please remember to give comments and vote! -Sotha.

I am pleased to announce the release of our new fan mission, The Hare in the Snare: Part 1 Mission type: City Missions + Inn/Tavern Description: People are being abducted off the streets and a Watch Captain requires the services of a thief to help him find out why. Download link (version 4): https://drive.proton.me/urls/ME63JDKPJ8#cz8NexM0DR75 Credits: Mapping and original characters: @Frost_Salamander Story, readables, custom models, voices and cinematics: @Kerry000 Menu title track produced and mixed by @JackFarmer with selected gigagooga sound samples Beta testers: @Cambridge Spy @Zerg Rush @Amadeus @Acolytesix @Lzocast @wesp5 @nbohr1more @Kerry000 @ate0ate @Wellingtoncrab @prjames Additional thanks: @Dragofer, @nbohr1moreand @peter_spyfor technical help @Springheel for the modules and tutorials @kingsalfor allowing @Kerry000to abuse his manbeast everyone else on Discord and the TDM forums who offered assistance Requirements and notes: This mission requires TDM 2.09. Earlier versions will probably work but you might see one or two missing models. You may experience some FPS drops in some areas with lower-end hardware. Mid-range and above should be fine. If you have issues, I highly recommend you use shadow maps instead of stencil (settings -> advanced -> shadows implementation). It makes a big difference. Screenshots:

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

Good day. how to realize (implement) this behavior of enemies when they follow the player (in id tech 4 or some other game engines)? does anyone have any ideas about this? Original source

I personally still feel it's now a lost cause without first getting clarification over the licence for the def and script files from the original Doom 3, which is why, until such clarification is officially made I'm not doing anything further towards it. I believe that while currently Microsoft may turn a blind eye to copy and pasted text from these files in TDM due to its' non-commercial nature, the moment it were to become Libre then the ability to use it commercially could lead to problems. However to answer your question (bearing in mind I have a very limited knowledge of Doom 3/TDM modding other than what I learnt attempting to get a compiled cut-down version running). In terms of the game scripts the following are the only non-GPL header game scripts and you can comment them out from being loaded in source code: tdm_grandfather_clock.script tdm_turret.script tdm_audiograph.script tdm_camgoyle.script tdm_safe_lock.script tdm_safe.script Also Grayman put the values as comments in code for these two files so they can be easily created: tdm_soundprop.def tdm_ai_base.def It would be easier to seek out Greebo and Springheel and ask them to GPL their work since that would open up all the base def files without the task of re-creating them. I suspect that it would take a very long time to recreate all the def files, also bear in mind that some functionality is copy/paste from Doom 3 eula protected files (func_static for example). As regards the work done by Grayman, that would always remain NC-BY, however access to the SVN commits would allow you to diff remove his non-GPL edits from the .def files. The UI function calls for TDM are all within the GPL source code, and as the UI is all a text based language it probably wouldn't take more than a couple of days to re-create a basic (though not pretty) UI. There are many comments within the source code relating to the UI string references, so a relatively complete UI string language file can be re-created as well.

Starting the Conversion with I18N.pl Folks have found that it is best to do the conversion only when an FM is complete, which is certainly the case here. As a prerequisite, I installed and tested Strawberry Perl on my Win11 dev box. It worked this time, unlike in the distant past on a different, Win10 machine, where I tried and failed for 3 days to get it to work. Then, as specified in our wiki’s I18N page, I set up a directory with the airpocket.pk4, and a copy of TDM 2.13 strings/english.lang. (The wiki specification missed that last step, which I corrected.) Running the I18N.pl script generated the expected results in its “output” folder: an altered airpocket.pk4 and new airpocket_l10n.pk4. Within both, a /strings/ folder was now present with just an english.lang file, with 28 #str_ entries, covering: maps/airpocket.map xdata/airpocket.xd xdata/mission_briefing.xd darkmod.txt readme.txt However, I believe #str_ support for the last 2 was never implemented (and the output version of those files don’t include #str_ s). So this will be lowest priority for me. Also, I don’t see any auto-generated #str_ for the 5 player “thought messages”. Probably need to add these. English text for these is in the .map file (found by searching for tdm_message_no_art).

Hidden Hands: The Lost Citadel ============================================================== Title: Hidden Hands: The Lost Citadel Filename : hhtlc.pk4 Authors: Jack Farmer with Amadeus & Joebarnin Date of release: 18.09.2020 Latest version: 5 (released June 2021) EFX: Yes ============================================================== Hidden Hands series: I - Initiation II - Vitalic Fever III - The Lost Citadel ============================================================== Available via the Dark Mod Mission Downloader (Version 4) ============================================================== Jack Farmer: Mapping & drafts Amadeus: Editing and revising of all texts for readables, narration and dialogues, testing of gameplay and gameplay mechanics, all alpha testing & performance optimization joebarnin: Beta testing lead, debugging and debugging reports Beta testers: Krilmar Joebarnin Cambridge Spy manzanita-crow Shadow Voice actors: New Horizon: The educated Builder & Brother Gilbert (Briefing video) Goldchocobo: The naive Builder, guard (A union of its own) Jedi_Wannabe: Two guards (Of monsters and master guards) AndrosTheOxen: Jonus, guard (A union of its own) Boy Lag: Guard (Evolution of the peasants) Malasdair: Narrator (Briefing video & in game comments) Special thanks to: - Springheel, Sotha, and Fidcal for the tutorials - VanishedOne, HMart, Destined, Grayman, Joebarnin, Dragofer, demagogue, AluminumHaste, STRUNK, Geep and ERH+ for patiently answering my questions and solving in-game issues - All voice actors & beta testers for their great support - All others not mentioned here who answered my questions in the Newbie thread or via PM Pilfered items: - Setup for the main menu animation originally developed by Goldwell for "Snowed Inn" - Portal sky with trees originally developed and arranged by Dragofer for "Down By The Riverside" - Selected cliff sections originally developed and arranged by Dragofer for "A Perilous Refuge" - The scary, red-eyed Builder ghosts that have been originally developed by Bienie for "Longhorn Lodge" - Floating boat set-up originally developed by Bikerdude for one of his missions Contributors from the Inventor's Guild: - STRUNK created a prefab (S.T.A.R.S) used for various puzzles and mechanical items, he also helped with models - Dragofer supplied the experimental func_mover entity (modified by STRUNK to fit the mission purposes) - Joebarnin provided the script alteration for the mechanical locks - Grayman adjusted the switch/door mechanics for all sliding doors and fixed several AI problems Additional ambient sounds by gigagooga All other new ambient tracks and sound effects produced and mixed by Jack Farmer Explosion sound taken from freesound.org produced by tommccann Drowning man sound taken from freesound.org produced by muses202 Engine room machine sound taken from freesound.org produced by Astounded Electric zap taken from freesound.org produced by Joel_Audio Briefing video by SirSmokeALot "Walk On Roses" (title screen reprise) RC Deickler - Drums & loops R. Recum - Keyboards gigagooga - Additional ambient outtakes This mission is dedicated to all past & present Dark Mod and Dark Radiant contributors - thank you for all of your hard work over the years. ============================================================= Listen to another crazy inventor and learn more about his sick brain! Marvel at the latest inventions from the Inventors Guild! Sneak through long forgotten ruins and face (yes. I know, once again) the unspeakable evil! Show the undead that the living are not to be trifled with! Solve puzzles the complexity of which would even melt the brains of Nobel Prize winners!

That's reassuring; the length of the play-testing, not so much. I guess that speaks for the current state of the AI, however improved it got over the years. I'd like to mention the blackjack bashing again. The noise does in fact propagate towards AIs, but the real volume value is so low for them that functionally it is useless, despite sounding pretty loud for the player. This is another big stinker that I'm more familiar with: sound indicators. For starters, NPCs footsteps don't travel far enough to serve as a mechanic. This is thankfully rather easy to solve by increasing the volume of their steps, but it needs testing to not go overboard. But the worst indicators are the player's... Leaving aside the questionable blackjack noises, there is an indicator that is absolutely broken: jumping. Jumping always makes the loudest sound possible for AI, no matter if you are creeping+crouching, crouching, crouching+walking, creeping, walking or standing in place. You'd think that's fine because Thief does the same, but TDM has hidden jump modifiers (the other movement states have pm_stepvol_X cvars) that makes the perceived jump noise quieter depending on the movement state. This is baffling because TDM has an elegant "fall quietly when crouching" mechanic that actually makes less noise, whereas in Thief you have to carefully slide off your lower ball or you wake up the whole neighborhood. I don't mean to sound bitter, but it wasn't long that we were debating whether the new, upcoming tone mapping looked good or bad. Where's the discussion about this!? Your own footsteps aren't being honest to you! There is other aspects that could do with a real good cleanup. Pretty much all player footsteps' perceived volume is too quiet, and if you tinker with the values, you have to take in mind the real noise registered by AI (doesn't seem to be much info about this in the wiki) plus keep a close eye ear to every file sound's loudness; water and metal files have clipping (they go beyond 0db). Some materials even recycle sounds. I recall Amadeus found good CC0 sounds for ice and broken glass footsteps, but looking at the .sndshd files, sound design hasn't been touched in years... I have a quick&dirty "mod" with pumped up AI and player footstep volume, a left-over from when Daft Mugi, others and me tried to clean this up, but everyone has lost steam. I guess I've made a brief return here because with the DS FM playthroughs, TDM came to mind and it generally makes you think "Deadly Shadows but better"; the exciment dies out once I look at the files' guts, though. And partially, the rather apathetic mood in the forums Kudos to the active modders.

This post differentiates between "gratis" ("at no monetary cost") and "libre" ("with little or no restriction") per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre * A libre version of TDM could: ** Qualify TDM for an article on the LibreGameWiki *** TDM is currently listed as rejected https://libregamewiki.org/Libregamewiki:Rejected_games_list because "Media is non-commercial (under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0). The engine is free though (modified Doom 3) (2013-10-19)" ** Qualify for software repositories like Debian *** TDM is currently listed as unsuitable https://wiki.debian.org/Games/Unsuitable#The_Dark_Mod because 1) "The gamedata is very large (2.3 GB)", and 2) "The license of the gamedata (otherwise it must go into non-free with the engine into contrib)" and links to https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/LICENSE.txt Questions: 1) tdm_installer.linux64 is 4.2 MB (unzipped), which is far from the 2.3 GB which is said to be too large. Yes, the user can use it to download data that is non-libre, but so can any web browser too. If the installer itself is completely libre, does anyone know the reason why it cannot be accepted into the Debian repository? 2) If adding the installer to the repository is not a viable solution, would it be possible to package the engine with a small and beginner friendly mission built only from libre media/gamedata into a "TDM-libre" release, and add user friendly functionality to download the 2.3 GB media/gamedata using "TDM-libre" (similar to mission downloading)? 3) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for the Debian repository? 4) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for LibreGameWiki? 5) Would the work be worth it? * Pros: Exposure in channels covering libre software (e.g. the LibreGameWiki). Distribution in channels allowing only libre software (e.g. the Debian repository). * Cons: The work required for the modifictions and release of "TDM-libre". Possible maintenance of "TDM-libre". I'm thinking that the wider reach may attract more volunteers to work on TDM, which may eventually make up for this work and hopefully be net positive. 6) Are there any TDM missions that are libre already today? If not, would anyone be willing to work on one to fulfill this? I'll contribute in any way I can. 7) I found the following related topics on the forum: * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16226-graphical-installers-for-tdm/ (installing only the updater) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16640-problems-i-had-with-tdm-installation-on-linux-w-solutions/ (problems with installation on Linux) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/17743-building-tdm-on-debian-8-steamos-tdm-203/ (Building TDM on Debian 8 / SteamOS) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18592-debian-packaging/ (Dark Radiant) ... but if there are other related previous discussions, I'd appreciate any links to them. Any thoughts or comments?