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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:

To summarize the various findings regarding character-level problems and their workarounds - Recommended Platform The 2024 improvements in character coverage of Stone 24pt were not distributed with TDM 2.13, but now in TDM 2.14. So the Air Pocket update's i18n will work best wtih 2.14. Mapping Error Fixed [Romanian] Due to an old romanian.map error, the Romanian character ș was rendered as Ș. Reported & fixed in bugtracker 6661, committed to dev 2.14 Rev 17437 build. Special (hacked) handling of readables in Air Pocket, to ovecome the shortcomings of mainly-ASCII fonts A system has been proposed to show the text first in English (where font is fine) and then (when current language is not English) switch over to the current language, but in the Stone font, which [at least for 24pt body font] has all 256 characters. This would require new C++functionality, not yet developed. In the meantime, the workaround implementation is to embed a copy of the English text (without #str_) within custom readable sheet GUIs. Specifically for Air Pocket, the fonts and scalings used are as follows. For pg1... Mac Humaine [with English title and body textscales of 0.40 and .31, both invoking 48pt]. Stone [with non-English title and body textscales of 0.30 and 0.23, respectively invoking 48pt and 24pt]. For pg2... Shoppinglist [with English title and body textscales of 1.0 and 0.5, both invoking 48pt]. Stone [with non-English title and body textscales of 0.52 and 0.26, respectively invoking 48pt and 24pt]. For more about this, besides earlier in this topic, see bugtracker proposal "0006638: Feature request: Provide Minimal Engine Support for Fade-In Translations in Readables". For planned improvements to Stone 48pt (as well as Carleton 24pt), see bugtracter 6656, 6657. Changes to English mission_briefing.xd Some pg_1 and pg_2 sentences are slightly altered from airpocket 1.0, to generate more-valid translations. And pg_3 is introduced, to handle language overflows. Unsupported characters in the TDM Char Map [Spanish] Can't do leading "¡", so drop it and replace trailing "!" with "." Missing characters in the Font used for Briefing & Objectives, Carleton 24pt The correct full translation is retained in all.lang as a comment, but the real text has the missing character substituted by its base character without accent. Specifically: [Polish] character ń (0x9c in TDM charmap) --> n [Danish] charactera å (0xe5 in TDM charmap) --> a [Romanian] characters ș and ț (0x9d & 0x9e in TMD charmap; and probably not upper case versions either) --> s and t, S and T. Missing characters in the Font used for Messages (tdm_message_no_art), Stone 48pt [Polish] character ń (0x9c in TDM charmap) --> n Missing characters in the Font used for Title of Stone Readables, Stone 48pt Because under TDM 2.13/2.14, Romanian character ț is not available in Stone 48pt, (used in title), only Stone 24pt (used in body) , we do a work-around, namely, suppress use of title. (Other chars also missing from Stone 48pt: ș, Ș, T+hook.

Here's the map. There's a room with a small area with water in it. When you jump inside, the efx changes to UNDERWATER (when using the efx file). waterefx_test.zip

This is nicely done, good work! I enjoyed playing through it, the light switch scenario with the guard was fun! I did have a gameplay issue though: several areas of the floor that are covered by carpet/rugs still sound like tile, wood, or stone when stepped on. You can see this happening in Cambridge Spy's video above: at 5:18 he visibly steps on the dining room rug, but it sounds like he steps on tile. Later, at 6:24, he steps on the other half of the same rug and it properly sounds like carpet. 8:45, 9:09, 11:14 show more spots where some or all of the carpet doesn't affect footstep sounds as expected, which mirrors what I experienced when playing. Every now and then I've seen other missions have this issue with individual rugs, admittedly I don't know the right way to handle this myself. As for those little lights in the foyer, they didn't work for my first playthrough, but after restarting multiple times in a row I haven't reproduced the issue again. If I reload a quick save I made on that first playthrough then I can see they are still not casting light in that case. And one more very minor thing: I worry the light switch button on the first floor of the foyer doesn't "stand out" as well as it should. The "Private" sign has another small gray thing (the light for the sign) centered under it that's purely decorative, so the small gray thing centered above it doesn't initially read as something useful. Maybe the button should be closer to the stairs instead? Those points aside, once again good job, it's a solid little mission!

Currently if you are implementing EFX in your map, you need to maintain an .efx file: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Setting_Reverb_Data_of_Rooms_(EAX) If you are using presets only, all this is is simply a 1:1 mapping of location entities to an EFX preset. Doing this in a file is kind of tedious and error-prone, as you have to check each location entity in your map, and then check the file to make sure you got the location entity name correct, or didn't leave one out, etc. Would it be a worthwhile feature request to be able to just set the EFX preset with a spawnarg on the location entity itself? Something like: "efx_preset" "WOODEN_SMALLROOM" Also, the location entity has other zone-related information, like ambient sound, ambient light, etc. It would just make sense to have the EFX here as well. This would only make sense for the presets, since you just need the preset name. If you wanted to do anything more complicated, the file could still be used. If both are used for the preset, one could take precedence over the other (the spawnarg pehaps). I don't think anything would need to change in DR either, as it's just a new spawnarg on the entity.

I think it would be smart to go ahead and start a "Newbie thread" that covers all newbie questions in one place, as with the TDS Forum. It doesn't have to be this one, just for future reference. Aaanyway, I was going through the A-Z Tutorial, and right about the time you make the pool of water, I fixed some leaks, thought I got them all. Now it won't Dmap again, but when I hit Pointfile, it says "Could not open pointfile: E:/games/ ... /TutorialMap.lin" I don't know why since it's been working up to now. So if I have a leak I can't find it, but it's troubling just that Pointfile suddenly, inexplicably doesn't open! There isn't any ".lin" file either; not sure what happened to it. Any ideas? Edit: I started a map from scratch and Pointfile didn't show up again. So whatever it is, it isn't something I messed up in that first map, but a general problem I'm having with DR. Edit2: But it does Dmap and Map just fine, so that's ok.

@STiFU Thanks for explanation At first, I thought it was a misunderstanding on your part – but then I tested an old 2.10 HarzardPay – a false memory on my part. Crouching doesn't change the height of sight – it lifts the height of the feet. (which was more important for grabbing crates from the bottom of the silo without leaving the net) [[but the type of my false memory would be pretty cool ! Crouch position -> Stand position would raise the head a little to take a quick look -> back into crouch position to hide. the effect for the feet would remain the same - more space before one touches the ground-floor If so, one could behave as if acting behind a small wall on the ground.]] mmmmh?? thinking about --- one can just move quickly up&down Absolutely, thank you for revisiting the earlier opportunity. will there be an other dev. before release (to test and give response) ? situations to spare room to ground are rare and players may prefer to a quick slide and i am unsure of how Snatchers solution will work . P.S.: Are the feet also responsible for whether the character is visible, or just their head? EDIT : - @STiFU - As long as no head is being raised, it may be of little use to switch between crouching and standing. It makes sense if you can lower yourself slowly (to carefully reach the end of the rope). So - if you used Snatchers' suggestion - the creep function should be implemented with 'Ctrl/strg

Mandrasola is a small sized map in which aspiring thief Thomas Porter steals some herbal products from a smuggler. The mission was created by me, Sotha and I wish to thank Bikerdude, BrokenArts and Ocn for playtesting and voice acting. Thanks goes naturally to everyone contributing and making TDM possible. This mission occurs chronologically before the Knighton's Manor, making it the first mission in the Thomas Porter series. Events in chronological order are: Mandrasola, The Knighton's Manor, The Beleaguered Fence, The Glenham Tower and The Transaction. The winter came early and suddenly this year. Weeks of strong blizzards and extremely harsh cold weather hit Bridgeport hard. With the seas completely frozen, a rare occurence indeed, most of the City harbor commerce has stopped completely. Vessels are stuck in the ice and no ship can leave or enter the City, resulting in the availability imported goods declining and their prices skyrocketing. One of these imported items is Mandrasola, a rare herbal product, which is imported overseas from the far southern continents. Mandrasola has its uses in alchemical cures and poisons, but mostly this substance is used for its narcotic qualities by commoners and even the nobility. The problem with Mandrasola is that excessive use is extremely addicting and the withdrawal effects are most grievious. Many are utterly incapable of stopping using Mandrasola and are transformed into quivering human ruins if they do no get their daily dose. And now this expensive and rare substance is running out from the whole City. Me and my fence, Lark Butternose, would love to grab this monopoly to ourselves: selling the last few doses in the City would probably be worth a fortune. According to Lark's sources, there remains only one smuggling lord who still has Mandrasola in stock. The problem is that this individual maintains an exclusive clandestine operation and only supplies a few nobles. Despite our best information gathering efforts we couldn't learn who the smuggler is and where he or she operates. Luckily we have an alternate plan. While searching for Mandrasola related information, we learned that a noblewoman called Lady Ludmilla is addicted to the substance and has paid high prices for small amounts of it. We also know that she has visited frequently someone in the Tanner's Ward waterfront, and since she goes to the area personally we believe she is visiting the smuggler. The plan is simple: I must monitor Ludmilla's most likely entryway to the Waterfront and then follow her to the smugglers hideout. I'd better be very careful around Ludmilla. She must not realise I'm following her or she probably won't lead me to her dealer. Hurting her is also out of the question. After she leads me to the smuggler's hideout, I can take my time to break in carefully and steal all the Mandrasola I can find. While I'm there it wouldn't be a bad idea to grab some loose valuables as well. I've now waited in the blistering cold for a few hours already. Looks like there are a few city watch patrols in the area to complicate matters... I think I heard a womans voice beyond the north gate. That must be lady Ludmilla, I haven't seen many ladies in these parts. I'd better get ready.. Links: Use the ingame downloader to get it. WARNING! Someone always fails to use spoiler tags. I do not recommend reading any further until you've played the mission.

Nice little mission, I particularly liked the backstory that is revealed through the readables. The lighting and decoration of the rooms were very good too for such a small mission. The foyer lights were off during my first play, did work though during the second run. Weird...

@Mike__ could you please put this in spoiler tags?

Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8:

I have a small speed build mission that I need a some custom voice lines for. many thanks.

Can you share the map?

Congrats! A nice little mission. I've always felt that starting with a small mission is the right move - rather than trying to build something grandiose and giving up in frustration. Good work! Now, on to something semi-grandiose

Yuletide Boon The idea behind this mission was to again show, what can be built in a small amount of time and with help from other community members. It also showcases the new church modules that I don't think have been used all that much in previous FMs. Enjoy Notes: - TDM 2.13 or later is REQUIRED to play this mission. - Build time roughly 50hrs. - I have created serveral new custom models and prefabs for mappers to use, based of the church models. Download Link: - (v1.2) - https://mega.nz/file/qV1UQKqK#B9cdy3iB_Z7q8j2nQOEc9KISw8cPSYLIowP-1yokRbI Credits: Special thanks: - Springheel for creating the church modules. - Jack 'mozart' farmer for the briefing video and menu music. - datiswous - subtitles. - Goldwell - voice acting and briefing additions. - Dragofer - pagan statue from http://www.cadnav.com/3d-models/model-40413.html - Misc - Melted candlewax texture from - www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-wax-of-a-melted-candle-17959695 - Amadeus - scripting beta testers: -Jackfarmer, datiswous, CambridgeSpy, DavyJones, Mat99, Amadeus.

I think you started with the story and made the gameplay and map to fit. The map is realy decent for a week into DR but the gameplay and story already exellent I think. Unlike joebarnin, I would say: Next up a 6 mission campaign masterpiece!! XD I started playing and was into the story from the time I went into the kitchen untill the end, so: Well done!

Congratulations on the release. It is an aristotechnic mission. It has all the core gameplay components of the original series compressed in a small mission.

Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock By Sotha The mission starts some time after the events of Ulysses: Genesis, and continues the story of Ulysses. It is a medium sized mission with a focus on stealthy assassinations and hostage liberation. BUILD TIME: 12/2014 - 05/2015 CREDITS The TDM Community is thanked for steady supply of excellent mapping advice. Thanks goes also to everyone contributing to TDM! Voice Actors: Goldwell (as Goubert and Ulysses), Goldwell's Girlfriend (as Alis) Betatesters: Airship Ballet, Ryan101. Special Thanks to: Springheel and Melan (for proofreading). Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraRGduUWlVRmtsX3c/view?usp=sharing Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

So it's meant for a quick slide!? Okay, got it! (for emergencies – a bit faster than walking – but thieves usually do it slow and quiet ) But at the end of the rope, you'll fall immediately (no stop at the end of the rope) This can hurt if the end of the rope is high above the ground (need to test if another click is needed or if the button can simply be released-tested ! ) and it might also not be possible to do it quietly (I haven't used it since it appeared) (It doesn't seem so! The undead in HazardPay got up immediately and were alerted when I did it very close to the ground) And no – I am not afraid of being in a squat when letting go of the rope (staying in a squat but making noises doesn't make sense to me). I want to maintain the position and be able to switch between squatting and standing normally. For example, it can be helpful to take a quick look at the top edge or to quickly hide. or to hide when only a small part is in the shade, or to pick things up from the ground without leaving the rope. At the moment, you can still climb up and down in a crouched position – but only if you entered the rope in this pose.(and stay this way) A good test area is the silo in HazardPay – carry a crate down and test the difference in version 2.10 and late Thank you for the response – it would be nice to find a solution for both options: different key mappings in the game (<>/y is near by) or the choice in the settings – the players' preferred style.

I get that issue in maybe one playthrough in four. Couldn't figure out what causes it, even opening the map up in DR.

The engine has a rather cool feature of rendering perfect planar reflections using mirrorRenderMap. But it is well known that this feature can be costly, because it requires the whole world (in the worst case) to be rendered twice. There has been a request to support lower-resolution rendering to reduce GPU load (5485). This feature is added in 2.14 with new material parameter mirrorResolutionFactor. For example, in order to make mirrored rendering with 1/3 x 1/3 of native resolution, you can write the following in your material: mirrorRenderMap mirrorResolutionFactor 0.333 Of course, this has a downside of making the mirrored view more blurred. But I've seen materials which explicitly blur the rendered view, distort it, or blend with other effects, etc. In these cases the lack of crispness of the reflections is not that ugly. The second change is related to the similar feature remoteRenderMap. There has been a way to specify resolution for this feature already, but it has some weird behavior and thus is now deprecated. If you have a square screen and want it to be rendered at 512 x 512 pixels, then you can write: remoteRenderMap remoteResolution 512 512 A slightly more convoluted way is to specify three numbers: remoteRenderMap remoteResolution 1024 1024 10.0 It means: render 10.0 pixels per 1 doom unit, but limit resolution by 1024 x 1024. So if the screen is of size 64 x 64 doom units, then it will be rendered at resolution 640 x 640, if it has size 16 x 16 units, then it will be rendered at resolution 160 x 160, but if it is stretched over 200 x 200 screen, then it will be rendered at resolution 1024 x 1024 because of the cap. There is also another limit for the remote screen resolution, which is applied at the end: see below. Finally, TDM 2.14 includes a few generic optimizations for these two features: Remote screen resolution is now capped by its size on the screen. So if a remote normally has 512 x 512 resolution but the player looks at it from far enough and it occupies only 100 x 100 pixels on the screen, then the rendering resolution is lowered to 128 x 128. This is controlled by cvar r_remoteLimitResolutionByScreenSize. Mirrored view image was previously copied at fullscreen resolution. Now the copy is limited to bounding rectangle/scissor, which means wasting less GPU bandwidth for mirrored surfaces which cover a small portion of the screen. Remember however, that all the resolution/scissor tweaks can only reduce GPU load. They don't simplify the work of the renderer frontend. So if the game is CPU-limited, none of this helps.

I agree with Amadeus, you can also look at Snowed Inn which has lots of snow. We generally kept the snow drifts pretty unabtrusive to avoid problems. I would recommend keeping them solid if possible, as objects will dissapear in them, kinda of like real snow Keep solid 0 for plants or other very small rocks/ func_statics. Also the AI pathing over patches is pretty forgiving, so unless you have really steap angles or the drift is very far above the solid "walkable" geometry below, you should be good. It might just take some testing to see where the AI gets caught up.

The Air Pocket update is essentially done except for packaging. However, it was noted that a few characters were shown as missing characters, which led to the discovery for me that the updates to Stone 24pt, that I thought had been incorporated into TDM 2.13, was not. They are reportedly in the TDM 2.14[alpha], so I need to look into that. Also, I built a small utility program that will draft a rebuild of a missing all.lang file from *.lang files. See the wiki: Rebuild all lang Program.

The Doom 3 engine has some architectural limitations: everything which can be rendered and lit must be a "render entity", and they are usually tied to game entities. For that reason, projected decals (i.e. the ones generated dynamically using the world geometry) are rendered with some lightweight processing, which excludes any possibility to interact with lights. The architecture of projected decals has been changed in TDM 2.14, and now they can interact with lights just like any simple func_static, for instance. What's the point in this change exactly? Well, it was requested by @Dragofer a few years ago, when he tried to add some depth to guards' footsteps on the snow by applying normal maps. Normal map is only used in lighting equations, thus it had no effect at all on the projected decals previously. From now on, if decal's material has interactions stages, it will be lit. So normal map and specular map finally make sense for projected decals just like it makes sense for static ones. The new behavior is enabled by default, but is a potentially breaking change. If we discover that some missions have become visually ugly because previously inactive interaction stages have become active, we'll try to fix missions. If there are too many issues, we'll have to restore legacy behavior by default and hide the new behavior behind material parameter. Right now it is possible to switch between two systems using cvar r_decalInteractive. Here is the testmap originally made by @Dragofer, with normal-mapped footsteps generated as projected decals: You might have noticed that footsteps are too bright where they overlap. That's because light interactions are additive in our engine, so each of the overlapping footsteps makes the image brighter. The usual way to avoid this is to make surfaces opaque, but then we'll get all the joy of depth fighting which is very hard to avoid in such a dynamic scenario. So yeah, while technically decal interactions are possible, unfortunately it does not necessarily mean that it works well in every imaginable scenario. P.S. The tracker issue is tracked as 5867.

Author note: A couple of weeks ago Kingsal & myself set ourselves a challenge, to see if we could make a small wholesome winter themed Dark Mod mission. And if we could do it as a speed build in two weeks. The final result was Snowed Inn. Enjoy and Merry Christmas! Thank you to our beta testers Epifire & Skacky. Thank you to Moonbo for his briefing video script revision. NEW UPDATE AVAILABLE 1.2 Version 1.2 Dropbox Mirror Version 1.2 also available via the in-game downloader File Size: 379 mb