• Exotic Tea Set - Download link

Prefabs:

• Portcullis lever - Download link

Packs:

• Painting and tapestries (CC0) - Download link

Link to low poly version on Sketchfab

Since it has the right proportions for Darkmod rig I might as well port it into the game. I already did the "skinning" part:

There are couple of kinks that need to be worked out. First of all at the moment the mesh is in one piece. However, the main rig has only the "head" bone, no bones for the eyes and mouth. For the most part heads in Dark Mod are separate and have a separate rig with eyes and mouth bones. Zombies don't use the head rig, and so it seems they don't have facial animation. If both rigs were connected in some well defined way one could attach the head precisely. But from what I see, in the game the head rig's origin is in arbitrary places:

I tested this addon for importing and exporting md5.mesh and md5.anim in Blender: https://github.com/KozGit/Blender-2.8-MD5-import-export-addon

It works with Blender 3.6.15 which is the latest version in the 3.0 series. It doesn't work with Blender 4.2. It seems that the culprit is the change in the 4.0 series from bone layers to bone collections.

• Here's an updated .blend file with male NPC animations.
• .blend file with a female model

Like before:

• use armature_control to animate the model
• when you're done, select the tdm_ai_proguard armature object and Bake Action to Pose; select Visual Keying

• for the exporter to work you need to select both the tdm_ai_proguard and a mesh object that's being animated, e.g. proguard_armor

Here is the first draft of a basic block-out of that church, if there is interest I will complete the creation info a flashed out prefab and model -

church.pfbx

This thread is the place to nominate textures you think are poor and should be either fixed or removed.

The following process will be followed (we are currently on step 1):

1. Ask for nominees. Anyone who wants to nominate a texture for removal can post it here.

 

2. Make a testmap of all nominated textures--preferably a hallway where people can walk down and gaze at examples of any nominees (perhaps with texture name or a number added for easy discussion).

 

3. Post somewhere clearly that the map is ready and people should check it out. People should ONLY respond if they strongly disagree with a texture being removed.

 

4. After a reasonable period of time (two or three weeks, perhaps), any texture that has NOT had someone speak up on its behalf will be deleted from SVN. If a mapper still wishes to use it they must add it to their map_specific folder.

 

5. Any textures that get an "I'd like to keep it but it just needs a little work" response should be posted in the texture thread. If someone volunteers to fix it, fine--it can be recorded on the bugtracker. If no one volunteers to fix it, it should be removed from SVN.

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?f7012a5163.jpg

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?e3e05dd6dc.jpg

This one doesn't look like dungeons, more like a factory or other industrial building. Actually it looks more like Doom rather than Thief I'm waiting for your opinions. 

set up to be used with this motion capture animation pack https://www.rokoko.com/mocap/free-mocap-assets

It's a stripped down version of this Blender rig. Exporting works the same way.

For retargeting you'll need to install this addon: https://github.com/Mwni/blender-animation-retargeting It works in Blender 3.6 as well as 4.5. Animation playback of longer files is waaay faster in 4.5 but the drawback is that md5 file exporter won't work with anything newer than 3.6.

This pack contains different skeleton standards. This setup was made for Mixamo which seems to be majority of files.

• Import .fbx file with scale 48, manual orientation: x forward to match the Darkmod skeleton. When selected, keyframes of the imported animation will be displayed.
• Select armature_control. In the retargeting addon tab (in right panel), in 'Source' box choose the imported skeleton name.
• Load config file: Darkmod_male_NPC_mocap_Mixamo.blend-retarget This should pair up both skeletons.
• First frame in animations is a t-pose. Proper animation starts at frame 2.
• Typically animations start offset from the center. You can move the character to the center at the start of the animation simply by dragging armature_control object.
• Similarly, character model may be slightly below ground level. Move armature_control up to adjust.
• Origin bone in tdm_ai_proguard has constraints to follow the pelvis. Otherwise it would stay in center.

Here's what happens when origin bone stays in the same place. This is idle animation playing:

And here's what happens when origin bone follows the character:

I found that in order to match imported skeletons I had to bend darkmod skeleton forward a little bit. That pose is saved as "tpose_mixamo" single frame animation.

I don't guarantee that this is the best way you can do it. Perhaps skeletons could be matched in a more ideal way.

Remember that there are bones for clothing in Darkmod, that aren't in the motion capture files and need to be animated by hand :)

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"?

The aforementioned 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.

https://www.materialmaker.org/

The website also features a user-created library that includes CC0 materials people have made. A lot of them are mostly tech demo materials, but even ones that aren't general use can be downloaded and examined to see how they were made in the program, which helps with learning it. There's also a lot of tutorials for Substance Designer itself online and, though it doesn't line up 1:1, it seems like you can generally get most of the same stuff done in Material Maker using different methods.

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)...

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.

• .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)

• 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..

• 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.

For the past year or so I've been working on increasing the quality of the carpet textures. Some of them are really REALLY low res. There's some that are actually 128px X 256px. They look really bad in game, but back then, we took what we could get.

So using various tools including AI upscaling and hand crafting parts of the textures in photoshop, I think I'm at a point that I'm getting close to a good workflow.

These won't be replacements for the current textures, but will be sat alongside the low res ones. They have been used in almost every mission in different ways, sometimes in non conventional ways, and I don't want to break the aesthetics of the current missions. They will show up as _HD in DarkRadiant's texture browser.

Here's what I have so far. (Click on the images to see their fullsize)

Here are some side by sides:

Here's the images on imgur https://imgur.com/a/2G0f5ZF

https://imgur.com/a/2G0f5ZF

I wanted to add a different look to my Venice map by buying a street of models to use. I found this and bought it. It's a lie. 

What you get is a set of OUR (Dark Mod Arcturus Rocks and assorted .ASE models from the Grass Demo; packaged up with random textures and images. This has given me

a complete head fuck as now I can't trust this bastard with my credit card details so I have to cancel my card and notifiy everyone I do business with

in direct debits of the new card which I won't get for 10 days. 

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

 Let me know if there's any issue with any of it and I'll fix them or get them up to standard!

Merry Chests 2

Download

These are on hold for the moment while I work on actual missions. I got as far as making 8 new containers/chests that are drop and go prefabs, made a little more efficiently and flexibly than the first lot. Technically 1 is from the first lot, I just liked it enough that I wanted to give it a refresh. They all come with little loot lights inside that switch on and off as the lid opens and closes for optimisation and visibility. Frob boxes, keys you can use or not, etc etc. 

Merry Paintings 2

Download

I needed some office-appropriate paintings that were a bit more neutral than Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes so I grabbed 20 (mostly) C19th still life paintings, all public domain and CC0 scans. Some chiaroscuro, some pastoral, some with kitties

This time around I've packaged them as light as possible so they're not the highest definition, just something to fill your walls with rather than lootable centerpieces. 

GitHub repository

• How do I install the mod?

The character set is meant to be used with fan missions. To include it, first clone the GitHub repository mentioned above somewhere on your drive. Then simply copy all of the directories into the root directory of your FM (eg: darkmod/fms/myfm/). You should now be able to find the characters in DarkRadiant under the AI section and add them to your map!

• What characters are included?

There are 5 species, 7 overall fur patterns, 3 character definitions per race, plus male and female versions of each person. Races include wolves, foxes, leopards, squirrels, rabbits. Voices, personalities, as well as other traits were carefully tweaked to match each character as closely as possible.

• What license is the mod, and who are the authors?

The initial model and texture were created by Untied Verbeger, who publicizes his works under the CC0 license. As such, the anthro models and textures are themselves licensed under CC0 / PD. The characters included were based on his wolf model, to which I made several fixes and contributions in the past. Obviously it's meant to work with other assets in TDM, which have their own licenses (typically CC-BY-NC-SA). The original model and authors can be found on Blendswap at:

http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/79735

http://www.blendswap.com/user/Verbeger

http://www.blendswap.com/user/MirceaKitsune

• Wait... so was this made by furries?

The mod was put together by me (MirceaKitsune) and I am indeed a furry. I chose to clarify this as I'd like to avoid negative remarks on the aspect; This is a contribution I made with enthusiasm and attention to detail for The Dark Mod, same as all contributions done by other artists in the TDM community. I've spent a lot of time adapting the mesh, rigging it, creating the materials, setting up definitions, and testing against long loading times. I don't care whether someone has a negative opinion of the furry community, but please respect the work that was put into this project at least.

• How can I support the mod?

Although the mod itself is released under a free license, I won't accept financial contributions, in order to respect the wish of the community for The Dark Mod to not be used commercially. The most important way in which you can support my mod is to use it: If you're a fantasy mission creator who is a fan of anthro characters, include this into your FM and add the characters to your world! Also, if you notice any bugs or wish to improve something, feel free to inform me or send me your contribution or open a pull request on GitHub. Lastly, if you believe the characters might match the theme and quality standards needed for inclusion, support adding them to The Dark Mod!

Edit2: I found this version

https://www.steamgriddb.com/grid/416897

which comes from this page:

https://www.steamgriddb.com/game/5252610

That may work if I can't find one better. But if anyone knows where a better or more HR version is, let me know.