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Type of mission: Mansion/Estate/Horror Story: Lord Blackgrove recently purchased a rare expensive artifact. The whole family has now disappeared leaving the manor empty. Time to check out the manor and see if the artifact can be found. Build time: My first map ever, 300 hours (5 months). Credits: Kingsal - Breaker script for light switches and elevator Dragofer - Ambience Track 'Intent' Springheel and Sotha - Video Tutorials (those videos really helped) Feedback and testing: Cambridge Spy, Dragofer, nbohr1more, Acolytesix, wesp5, Shadow, Zerg Rush, AluminumHaste, prjames The whole community. Download (1.03): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wZc_nqHoX7kQvzfg08EpoRy2hyuH7mw3/view?usp=sharing Edit: Version 1.02 provides large performance improvements in the outdoor areas. Be sure to set TDM Object Details (LOD) to Normal (or lower) to take advantage of some of the optimizations. Edit: Version 1.03 further improves performance around hedges thanks to HMart's alternative hedge model. I’ve had a mission like this in mind for years. My main influences and inspirations are: Deus Ex - Chateau DuClare (https://youtu.be/9QLT_l8aH78) Clive Barker’s Undying - Main Mansion (https://youtu.be/t8PyXhCQB3Q?t=90) Thief Deadly Shadows - Shalebridge Cradle (Almost everyone should be very familiar with this one) (https://youtu.be/Rw4YZuRUgXA) In case anyone gets stuck and needs help, I’ve listed some questions and answers below that will hopefully help. FAQ

Lots of great looking screenshots this year! Mine is still very much a WIP, but I've got AI routes and main lighting generally where I want them and now I'm doing initial detail passes. I'm trying to focus on the areas I expect to be the most performance-intensive first, to minimize any fundamental rework I might have to do. I do need to set this aside for a little while in order to focus on some other projects though, so this is also a self-reminder to pick it back up in June To everyone else, keep up the great work!

Thanks to everyone who has played the FM.

I'm embarrassed about how many missions I played, dragging bodies around the hard way, before I realized this...

The Johannes-Burock caves from the abandoned works thread are fully integrated into "Hidden Hands: The Anomaly" (changed the title, this one is much better fitting). The cave geometry has been preserved (only the outdoor area had to be removed), I even let in a sound effect from Johannes because it adds perfectly to the new ambient sound. Seemed to be a really nice place, but now nobody wants to go there anymore...and the guy lying next to his shovel is not a drunk for a change!

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

The recent changes removed a lot of constraints on the entity limit, and now it is free to be raised up. Technically speaking, it is not removed, but it can be raised so high that it won't bother you anymore. On the screenshot, you can see the game working fine with 120022 entities (almost all of them func_static): These changes are included in the latest dev build, which can be freely obtained via tdm_installer. In the end, I set the limit to 65536 entities. I hope you won't need more The main point that I'd like to make here is: optimizations against entity limit should not be used any more! You don't need to worry that something would occupy an entity slot. You should never inline entities --- that's a very bad idea! Of course, many of known optimization techniques have other benefits. For instance, combining several models into one manually or via SEED reduces rendering overhead and should make the game faster. Just make sure that the merged objects are very close to each other. Good news is that now you are not forced to do so, and can postpone it indefinitely.

Changelog of 2.10 development: dev16202-9175 * Major changes in security camera (5528, 4731, Wiki). * Entity limit removed raised to 64K (5439, announcement). * Added secrets tracking system for mappers to use (5549, Wiki). * Integrated Sotha's "automaton" AI from Ulysses into core assets. * Menu: improved the main page and the "new game" page to make it easier for new players. * Menu: ask for confirmation on game restart, fixed menu music setting. * Menu: show checkboxes near objectives after mission is failed (5049). * Fixed rare crash in script-generated frobs (5542). * Added idPlayer::GetObjectiveVisible script event (5543). * Fixed rare collision bug causing lags (5439, r9157). * Debug visualization no longer blocks SMP performance improvements (5468). * Fixed script-generated game saves by disabling screenshot due to SMP. * Added missing frob highlight to plaster materials (4487). * Removed missing material reference in skin "wench/purple_bodice". * Minor fixes to mirroring: puddle, bc_teatray. Known problems: Volta 1, Volta 2, and Snowed Inn don't start due to broken menu. dev16215-9224 * More work on security camera (5528, Wiki) --- not finished yet. * Massive changes in dmap to make it faster (5562, 5488, announcement). * Fixed vertices merging in dmap which could cause sparklies (5486). * OpenAL (sound) upgraded to 1.21.1, fixing bsinc resampler (5564). * Added first implementation of tooltips in settings menu (2626). dev16225-9284 * Map loading optimizations: texture storage, parallel image loading, models loading (5591). * Fixed map not starting after prior error + removed 5 seconds delay at the end of loading (5118). * Removed mandatory snapping from dmap, fixing thin objects like ropes (5486). * Improved precision of windings in dmap compilation (5580). * SIMD code cleanup: enabled AVX on Linux, disabled denormals (4550). * Dropped visportals are now further classified as "leaky" and generic ones (5353, wiki). * Fixed creation of script threads with object method call (4713). * Added cvar s_alReverbGain to tone down EFX reverb (5587). * r_materialOverride fixed with Frontend Acceleration. * Fixed when player is in the void with "r_useLightAreaCulling 0". * Minor fixes in menu tooltips. * Fixed GL debug groups on AMD (5280). * Changes in FPS counter, which make displayed value more stable when com_showFpsAvg is large. dev16238-9330 * Frob highlight replaced with frob outline (5427) --- not finished yet. * Linux platform-specific code now uses GLFW for window, GL-init and input handling (5510, 5293, testing). * Windows build can change desktop resolution once again; also made "borderless" mode default (5510). * New dmap diagnostics for location separators and location entities (5354). * Dmap leak pointfiles are much shorter now (5592). * FFmpeg video formats further restricted to mp4+h264+aac and roq (4845, announcement). * Fixed occasional crash at the end of RunScript AI task, happening e.g. in WS3 mission (5538). * Debug cvars r_lockSurfaces and r_maxTri improved. * Upgraded GLFW to 3.3.4. * Added generic hash map in the code; fixed race condition in shader loading during map start (5597). * Refactoring of Clear methods in code (5593). * Added slider in menu for reverb cvar s_alReverbGain (5587). * Menu tooltip improvements. * Experimental: localization system now accepts string placeholders (5261). dev16256-9358 * Implemented new object manipulation and body dragging physics (5599 announcement). * Extracted static geometry into its own VBO in VertexCache, fixing performance regression since 2.07 (5598). * Added weapons to inventory grid (5601). * Fixed in-game mission downloader warning when downloading localization pack (5551). * Fixed in-game mission downloader warning when FM is not available on the chosen mirror (5551). * Disabled bindless textures by default because it does not work on modern AMD GPUs. * Reduced lower limit on texture units to 32, probably fixing the "Too few!" startup error on bad GL drivers. * Allow choosing adaptive VSync in setting menu. * Fullscreen options in menu: borderless goes first + block resolution when borderless is selected. * Interaction table performance optimization when loading from savefile. * Changed number of contacts in physics to 32 everywhere + minor filling optimization (3871). * Save missions.tdminfo immediately after FM download finishes. * Better logging of FM downloads under LC_MAINMENU & LT_INFO (5551). * Saint Lucia FM: adjusted mission loading GUI to display tip for about 20% of loading time (5118). dev16269-9407 * Reimplemented frob-highlighting of surfaces (5427). * Removed TDM version display in the main menu. * Replaced r_glProfiling and r_logSmpTimings with Tracy profiler library. * Better handling of position-independent executable setting on Linux. * Improved third-party libs usage: fixed OpenAL build on GCC10, fixed rebuilding libs with GCC different from 5. dev16325-9462 * PNG image format is now supported in materials, PCX support removed (5665). * Major refactoring of image formats in: SEED, screenshots of all kind. DevIL library removed (5665). * Rough prototype of .srt subtitles in briefing video (2454). * Fixed stack overflow crash if CPU-resident image is defaulted e.g. when not found (5665). * Mission statistics now show number of game loads. * Silenced "missing vertex or index cache" console warning. * Calling "set" in GUI script with not enough arguments now results in Error instead of crash (5323). * Debug cvar r_skipFog expanded to filter out boundaries. * r_immediateRenderingEmulate = 1 by default, probably fixing debug visualization for people using deprecated GL profile. * Fixed GPL header in source code files. dev16330-9508 * Extended support of subtitles to both briefing video and in-game sounds (2454: BEWARE interface will change!) * Support updating the currently installed mission in in-game downloader (5661). * Supported hide_distance for particle emitters and geometry of light entities (5668). * JPG and PNG images are no longer compressed by pk4/zip (they are already compressed by themselves). * Fixed entity arguments broken in event system after entity limit removal (5439). The bug crashed Snowed Inn on startup. * Refactored entity think code, optimized away thinking of frobable entities. * Added con_nowrap cvar: it caps lengthy lines in game console instead of wrapping them to the next line. * Added a ton of trace scopes in game, dmap, and loading (enabled by com_enableTracing 1 and Tracy connection). * Minor fixes: parallelSky, r_showViewEntities, image_preload 0, r_singleModelName. Known problems: GUI is not drawn in-game until paper is frob-highlighted. dev16335-9550 * Added hot-reload support: LOD settings, _color and shaderParms, noshadows, angle, targets, frobmovers + rotate/translate, bound entities (5683). * Fixed error on respawning an AI (5683). * Added con_fontSize cvar, which allows making console font smaller, also enabled mipmapping. * Refactored shaders loading, which fixes SMP-specific crash on AMD drivers (5012). * Non-bound lights are turned off when they are hidden e.g. using LOD (post). * Fixed noshadows_lod_N not working sometimes (5691). * Fixed GUI rendering on parchments --- known problem from previous build. * Fixed color banding in lockpick success/failure highlights. * Changing tdm_lod_bias has immediate effect without restart. * Small fix towards loading RGTC normal maps from DDS. * Removed old broken code for entities binding/unbinding (5414). * Some showPrimitives fixes. * Automation: fixed bug with astronomical timer for game controls (not used anywhere yet). dev16342-9552 * Merged branch with major changes in main menu GUI (5323, thread). Known problems: All the missions from the list do not work as expected in main menu: custom background is missing, empty briefing page is shown, in rare cases even briefing/debriefing video can disappear. This will be properly fixed only when 2.10 is released. Right now you can download fixed pk4 file by direct link from the same page --- fixed version should work as expected. dev16350-9577 * Support "set X on head" spawnarg for attached heads (post). * Fixed lockpicking getting stuck if you go away (5715). * Hopefully fixed random flickering when frob-highlighting objects with stencil shadows enabled. * Fast and deterministic normal maps compression on CPU (5716). * Optimized OGG files loading. * Optimized TGA files loading. * Continued work on X-ray support. * Continued work on subtitles support (2454). * Added new models and prefabs by @Wellingtoncrab. * Added material textures/darkmod/window/wooden_frame01/wooden_frame01_dark. * Probably fixed reloadModels for .lwo files. dev16358-9588 * Fixed crashes in image loading on AMD driver (5591). * Fixed occasional crashes in TGA loading optimization (5716). * Generate mipmaps for non-DDS textures in software, see cvar image_mipmapMode. * Frob outline disabled by default, see r_frobOutline (thread). * Tweaked render order ("sort last") for particle materials. * Continued work on subtitles (2454). * Removed [cleanup] button in mod selection menu (thread). dev16368-9627 (*) * Major changes in frob highlight/outline: translucency, alpha test, shine-through (5427). * Restored geometric frob outline under r_frobOutline 2 (5427, post). * Fixed bug breaking GL core profile, which usually caused black menu on AMD (post). * (WIP) Volumetric light effect. * Renderer's "safe mode" changed to windowed 800 x 600 (post). * Cap volume parameter in sound shader by 1.5 (4627). * Lockpicking sound no longer affected by EFX reverb. * Some changes in time handling, fixed timescale on uncapped FPS (5324, 4698). * Reduced pause on game start from 1.0 to 0.1 seconds (5314). * Minor dmap (aas) acceleration (5562). * Minor optimizations in models / sounds loading. * Don't drop held item after bumping dead/unconscious AIs (3516). * Tweaked render order ("sort last") for particle materials, reverting some. * Some changes in randomization (5763). * Minor fix in game console. * Adjusted stlucia.pk4 to avoid tdm_installer analysis... unsuccessfully. * Changed integration of doctest unit tests. Known problems: some maps broken with "clip model outside world bounds" warning spam. dev16390-9648 * Fixed "clip model outside world bounds" warning spam on some maps (post). * Fixed sparklies on hard geometric frob outline with bloom (5427). * DDS textures can be used in image programs, although they should not (5781). * Fixed spotlights/projected lights illuminating objects outside their frustum (5529). * Continued work on volumetric light shader: LOD, stencil, etc. (5816). * Allow xray shader in GUI overlays, fixed rare crash. * Do not spam warnings when index cache is not ready yet, e.g. during noclip on large map. * Minor fix of game console behavior. * (WIP) Changed frustum of spotlights when near != 0 (5815). * Fixed AlertDuration of security camera (5528). * Fixed normalmaps: flagstones_mossy_01 (5777), flagstones_gravel (5760), ash_001 and ash01_crumb_edge (5784), blocks_large_mildew (5786), ornament_shield_white_eagleandpallets (5803). * Added material for rough_grey_blocks (5789). * Added missing "torn" skins for all paintings. * Commented out additional camera screen materials (5676). beta210-01 (rev 16399-9702) * Projected lights: restored TDM 2.07 behavior, fix lighting outside frustum (5815). * Fixed light frustum precision (4888). * Major changes in volumetric lights (5816). * Continued work on security camera (5528). * X-ray improvements. * Fixed severe slowdown with soft stencil shadows and antialiasing. * Allow lifting ragdolls above ground, unless they have "ground_when_dragged" (5599). * Fixed mirrors getting black under "image_useTexStorage 1" (topic). * Added script events: vecRotate, getCalibratedLightgemValue, setSolid, getEntityFlag. * Take entity orientation account in flinderization offsets. * Removed "emitter_size" spawnarg. * Fixed r_showLights. * Refactor shaders: extracted common code to includes. beta210-02 (rev 16411-9731) * Fixed dbghelp.dll issue which blocked running TDM on fresh Windows 7 (issue). * Fixed rare depth fighting when SSAO is on. * Fixed OpenGL error with shadow maps when no light fallbacks to stencil implementation. * Fixed envshot command (5796). * Restored materials and prefabs for multiple camera GUIs. * X-ray: supported "suppressInSubview" spawnarg on lights (also affects other subviews like mirrors) * Added X-ray related assets: materials, visible/invisible skins. * Added script events: getLocationPoint, pointIsInBounds, getTraceSurfType. * Preserve opacity towards AIs and restore frobability in script event setSolid. * Func_emitters can now be bound without the particle flickering rapidly. * Fixed "condump unwrap". * Added display case models without glass to allow them to have breakable glass. * Added forcescreenaspect + hcenter GUI keywords for aspect-ratio-independent images. * Removed a few subtitles lines which were for testing only. * Internal typeinfo changes. beta210-03 (rev 16421-9771) * Reverted to 2.09 frob-highlight: no outline, use material frob stages. * Added three new frob outline presets by @kingsal and @nbohr1more. * Changed the way volumetric lights are set up (see wiki page). * Volumetric lights respect noshadows and don't affect lightgem. * Added script events: getHealth, setHealth, setSolid,projectDecal; fixed getLocationPoint. * Added script event getEnemy and canSee to security camera. * Add Epifire's flinder models to the security cameras. * Fixed subtitles going sticky on save/load. * Slightly reduced subtitles font size, added semi-transparent black background. * Added subtitles to Saint Lucia mission. * Fixed dmap issue in generating unoptimized collision maps for patch-only entities (5859). * Elemental no longer has 8 legs, wasting time in inverse kinematics. * Some optimizations in frontend: fix disabled optimization, avoid vertex data copy. * Added r_useInteractionTriCulling -1 mode to move some CPU load to GPU. * Fixed lamp cubemap light textures. * Fixed language switches broken by new main menu GUI. * Fixed occasional spam about slow jobs (threshold is now 100 ms instead of 10 ms). * Corrected OpenGL usage of clipping planes in shadow map generation. * Console printing is now threadsafe, which could crash Frontend Acceleration. * Improvements in system console on Windows. * Allow all SIMD code supported by compiler on Elbrus CPU. beta210-04 (rev 16441-9798) * Security camera now supports AI detection, also fixed volumetric lights. * Fixed save/load for volumetric lights, supported scrolling light materials. * Fixed scrolling light textures (5860). * Fixed uncompressed normal maps and backface lighting (5862). * stain01bwet material now works as it always did, no depth fighting (5325). * Skip X-ray rendering when it is already within subview. * Removed parchment from message about secrets (5549). * Fixed and upscaled droppuddle texture (5870). * Extended tooltips in video settings menu. * Fixed randomization of gui::random_value on game load. * A bit more subtitles in Saint Lucia mission. * Fixed 1280 x 960 resolution in 4:3. * Fixed rare graphic bug in some debug tools. * Small optimization in frontend: reuse index array for interaction. beta210-05 (rev 16457-9815) * Fixed bright lines on the boundary of light volume on AMD drivers (5876). * Fixed secret counter increased multiple times on single-count entities (5549). * Security camera: "sweepWaitSoundOffset" spawnarg controls snd_end timing. * Security camera: snd_sparks and snd_death can be used simultaneously. * Security camera: split "seeAI" spawnarg into "seeAI", "seeAnimals", "seeBodies". * Fixed the xray model stuck in place when shouldered. * Improved player GUI for taking damage. * Added spawnarg "animal_patrol_wait" to allow animals that move continuously (post). * Portal sky scissor optimization. * A bit of cleaning in source code conan dependencies (5839). * Fixed hover highlight on Restart Game button in settings menu. * Volumetric lights refactoring. beta210-06 (rev 16472-9845) * Fixed saving/loading of suppressInSubview for X-ray. * Fixed language setting being ignored on restart (post). * Reimplemented rotation in new grabber code, rotating heavy objects is easy now (post). * Fixed weird spots sticking on screen sometimes when bloom is on (post). * Fixed seeAI setting for security camera towards AIs on hostile teams; updated editor descriptions. * Fixed one more bug causing tdm_installer to analyze installation. * image_downsize no longer affects loading screens and other GUIs. * Fixed lighting with "image_useNormalCompression 0". * Added editor description for nodrop spawnarg. * Reorganized mapper tool prefabs, fixed Epifire's wall-mounted security camera prefab. * Removed non-working 16-bit color option from the menu settings. * Improved EFX in New Job mission (5594). * Fixed issue in Saint Lucia mission: all voiceovers being played on mission restart (4828). * Some more corrections to subtitles in Saint Lucia mission. beta210-07 (rev 16474-9850) * Set r_useMultiDrawIndirect to 0, fixing NaN flickering on AMD drivers. * Fixed X-ray combined with Render Scale. beta210-08 (rev16475-9853) * Fixed crash on index cache resize with now default "r_useMultiDrawIndirect 0". Changelog of earlier versions can be found here.

For a little game in between The Builder Blocks

From the content creator perspective, it's already hard, in this non-pbr framework, to get consistent and predictable shading across your models and materials. Introducing another variable onto the mix, that is based on eyeballing the results with assets that don't even use the complete diffuse/specular/normal workflow, looks like just shooting in the dark and making things even harder. But as an option toggle for the players that is off by default – sure, why not.

I hate to admit that from player's perspective the @nbohr1more's mod does "look cool" slightly when you know what to look for, e.g. on the dimly lit roofs at the distance. OTOH it might be bumming out for programmers to support which I gladly find myself not involved with any more. The question for someone to decide is if the barely visible coolness is worth the support cost. Which again depends on whether this part is isolated from the rest of the code well enough and @nbohr1moreis willing to do all the related routine work in the long term. But then again I don't personally like the pitch black mapping style common in TDM FM's, so I'm automatically pro on any brightening mod there can be. OTOH 2 hehe, I was kinda expecting non-physics-strict eye-candies like SSAO to start conflicting each other like this.

My "plan" was to offer a "legacy mode" for missions that are heavily reliant on the old 1.03 to 2.05 look. If my changes are "good enough" (tm) or someone is incline to improve on them and add them to the core, then no "legacy mode" would be needed. Since PBR already requires fresnel a proper design (rather than my hack) would partially complete this objective. So we have a few options: 1) Leave my work as a fun mod that people can add if they want 2) Incorporate my work as a cvar toggle \ legacy mode 3) Incorporate my work as part of the core mod and redesign it to be "proper" If we go with options 2 or 3, I can also create a cvar for "fresnel strength" so players can tune it to taste.

So here is the full story as I can tell: 1) TDM from "Thief's Den demo to TDM 1.02" had no Fresnel in the ambient 2) TDM 1.03 had Fresnel in the ambient thanks to JC Denton's "HDR-Light" shaders 3) This was the status quo until TDM 2.06 where Duzenko converted the shaders to GLSL and the Fresnel component was omitted Duzenko was not sure about some of the design ideas in the old ambient so he only implemented what he understood was "physically correct" 4) Duzenko then began discussing rim lighting which uses roughly the same math as fresnel 5) I tried the ambientRimLight option Duzenko created on the mission "Inn Business" and found that it was not quite right \ did not approximate the 1.03 to 2.05 look 6) I experimented with adding modified rim lighting to all ambient lighting 7) Duzenko helped fix this design by indicating that the fresnel needs to be modulated with light projection I spent hours tweaking until I found that modulating the fresnel with diffuse helped get the right look and now it is "close" to 1.03 The plan for the future is to possibly go with a proper PBR model so Fresnel as done here may be obsolete at some point.

How high should I start? Thanks, mate. This is the biggest purchase of my life since I graduated and started working. It was my child's dream to own a high end gaming PC. Now owning it, I can crank up soft shadows. Dark mod with RTX when???

Of course, but the amount of code that can be "copied" is limited due to the differences in engines between TDM and D3 BFG, and also the difference in weapons and interactions.

You can try: it will probably work. I would say it's better to do r9167 about EntityPtr, since otherwise it will be hard-limited by 32768 or 65536 (two entity indices stored in one 32-bit number). Most of the other changes are about optimization: the original code often creates local array with NUM_GENTITIES elements, which is not very good for performance if you raise it to 64K. But perhaps it's not so critical, since all these arrays are left uninitialized: it's only stack caching performance that's lost. That's the reason behind the largest commit r9158. Without commit r9156 the map with many entities will shutdown slowly. You will also need to port the interaction table from TDM, because the original [Enum x Lnum] matrix will eat awful amount of memory, also hard-capping the number of entities at something like 16K. Network code will probably give some headache. In TDM it is partly removed, but there were some large arrays, like with 32 * NUM_GENTITIES elements. Note sure how they are used, but keep an eye on multiplayer performance in case there are many entities.

TDM may be more susceptible to more fragility around entities due to some of our more complex designs and alterations to the base game. stgatilov made a number of infrastructural changes to handle the additional overhead that increasing entities can incur. This tracker has a history of the work: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5439 and you can compare that to the git revision history here: https://github.com/fholger/thedarkmod/commits/master

Nice to see this limit go so that the size of an FM is defined by an author's ambition and not some technical limitation.

Hello Destined, Sorry, I forgot to update this thread last nite; NH will take this part. Anyways, thank you for your offer, that's really very kind of you! Jack

New dev build is available: dev16202-9175 Changelog of all versions is in the second post of the thread.

Still experimenting with glass shaders, this time for some more complex shapes. The transparency sorting problem is quite visible here, and even with dark color, the material is too see-through IMO. Going for opaque version and perhaps some sort of glowing crystal a la TDS might be a better option overall. Edit: got a small breakthrough with translucent materials this morning. This is heavily reliant on actual lighting, so getting it right will be hard. But this is one step closer towards some nice magic glowing crystal effect Also, I had no idea you can actually get translucent materials to cast shadows

More pix, to celebrate Lunar New Year - Year of the Ox - and Valentine's Day

Oozing with atmosphere and incredible visual work as always Dragofer. You're a master of your craft!