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I see a lot of talk with regards to Grayman's unfinished missions. Perhaps it would be best to let the dust settle before taking any decisions. I feel that in these circumstances proper respects must be given, and that a certain time period must be honored before any attempts of assessing his legacy. So for now my suggestion is: let's give it a month and reserve this thread for those who wish to pay respects to a beloved member of the TDM community. There's plenty of time to figure what to do with any content left behind.

Hi this is Graymans son My father was a poet, a painter, a writer, and a giant nerd. He studied nuclear physics, aerospace engineering, and AI. But all he really wanted to do was play video games. He recently lost a very long war with Cancer. My dad has a little plaque you all sent him hanging on the wall next to handprints from his grandchildren. Whenever my children would call him he'd talk to them about "his boring video game stuff" according to my 8 year old... who never really understood why Grayman didn't like Pokemon as much as he did. I found a file on his computer stating that the last few levels he was working on 95%, 95%, and 50% finished. He also said working with another dev would take up too much time that he wanted to spend with his family instead. To be fair I worked with my father my entire life on random things (including Doom mods back in the day) and he never thought anything was finished. So I'd personally consider the two 95% missions to basically be done. If whoever he sent them to to Beta test wanted to share them with the development team I don't think he'd really mind and you shouldn't feel guilty if you do. I'll leave that up to you guys, but I will not be uploading them and they should not be posted publicly. The final mission will remain unfinished though. I will mention that it was going to be pretty damn good from what I read in his notes. He did ask that two levels that weren't related to the Steele missions do get uploaded to the abandoned level archive. I am in the process of doing that now. Thanks

I am very sad to hear of grayman's passing. I knew his battle with cancer had been long, and he was fortright about the possibility, but you always hope... This feels like losing an old friend, as he has been a member here for a very long time. It is not just his missions - which were justly cited as among the best - and not just his work on the core mod - which was essential. He was also a kind and friendly presence here, and that, especially, will be missed. RIP, grayman! And condolences to @grayson and the entire family.

We have lost so many important people in the thief community over the years. Whether to age or not I think it shows how long running our community is. I have yet to play through the William Steele series but was very much looking forward to it. I remember a lot of the missions he helped with. Seeing as the original author would sometimes put his name along with theirs. Reading what Grayson put made me think of my own father. He and I made many doom levels together back in the day (not that any of them were good). His online name was Major Lag. Now you can see why I have always been known by Boy Lag. Our fathers shape the world and then they shape us. Rest In Peace.

Half-Life 2 is definitely one I'd love to play again with no prior memory of it. EDIT: So I feel more obligated to explain my feelings as to why. HL2 was first and foremost something I played much later after it's release (with the Orange Box set) but I ran into it because of the want to mod something more accessible. At the time I was cutting my teeth on trying to learn Softimage XSI for models in the original Star Wars Battlefront. I wasn't a fan of needing some program called "Steam" to run it, however at the behest of a friend; I took first just grabbed the demo. I probably played that demo six times through before my copy of the Orange Box arrived at my buddy's house, I loved it that much. Up to that point I hadn't played anything that took it's physics or it's world experience that seriously. I think what still sells it for me today is how it feels like a single take experience, start to finish. It tries to realize it's environment as an actual place and continues to handle it as such. It both rewarded or punished the player if they did (or didn't) think ahead, so while being linear it still gave way to this feeling of play-it-how-you-want. Dishonored continued and expanded on that whole world realization in gaming, and given the heavy influence of Antonov; really explains that connection. You can probably imagine my disappointment when I couldn't continue the experience (Half Life Alyx) for my lack in VR gear.

Maybe a painting can be included as a reminder

It is often missed that Grayman was also Lead Programmer of TDM team for six years.

Hello, and thank you for coming over. First I want to express my sincere condolences for your loss to you and your family. Your father was a respected and beloved member of this community who always addressed any issues in a patient and rational manner. He was also a highly creative person who created content that brought others immense joy. These might sound like vague words coming from a stranger, sitting behind a screen in some obscure part of the world, that cannot in any way or shape represent what your father meant to you or your family. I only knew your father through his works and there is little else I can say. However, I can hardly think of any nobler goal in life than wanting to share such beauty with others for the sake of art itself and doing so consistently, with little interest in any form of compensation. This is a standard I want to guide my own life by, for it is one that makes the world a happier place to live in. And whether I make it or not, I would like you to know that your father was a source of inspiration not just to me but to everyone else around here. There is no greater power in life than being able to move others, and I hope it brings you joy knowing that your father achieved this. *EDIT* I've written a small article on Grayman for Gaming on Linux. You may find it here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/05/notable-developer-from-the-dark-mod-team-passes-away

I just wanted to share the sad news that grayman, long time developer and the author of the William Steele series, passed away recently after a battle with cancer. He was a pleasure to work with and did more for this mod than most people will ever realize. I am glad that his missions will live on.

I'd be interested in hearing about how many of our fellow mappers... ...are familiar with version control (Git)? ...are or have been using version control for their mapping projects? ...would be interested in using version control for their mapping projects? ...are or have been mapping alone, using version control? ...are or have been mapping in a team, using version control to collaborate? I know that frost_salamander used a Github repo for hosting the hare map, and angua and me are using a private one on Gitlab. We discussed a few features that could support common collaboration workflows in DarkRadiant, but I'd like to hear about others first.

People with various vision-related disabilities too can be unable to see information integrated into autostereograms, for instance a difference in eye perception between left eye and right eye, and having implants could also prevent to do so, at least it does in my case, so to use such images in TDM to hide some information in a mission it would be best to make sure that this isn't THE critical information needed to solve an enigma, but rather something like a little clue among other clues, or something like an easter egg: it shouldn't be vital information gameplay-wise

It really is true then, I'm so sad to hear the news. Grayman was always very open to working/advising with big and strange gameplay features I was throwing around. He was skilled in his craft but never placed himself over anyone else, and struck me as a very humble man. Be it the case, I am glad to have worked with him for the time that I did. He was always great to collaborate with and was very direct with any kind of models he needed from me. His presence will most certainly be missed here.

Going to look at the other thread as well, thanks for sharing. Letting DR save and load maps over Git / SVN would be a simpler version of this idea, perhaps even a precursor to it. But it does come with issues: Multiple mappers can't easily work on the same FM at the same time! Here's a more in depth analysis on how I see that working out: The biggest issue is that the moment two or more creators edit the same item, there would be a conflict once the changes are faced with each other and have to be reconciled. We could teach DR how to resolve map conflicts and pick one set of changes, but this means one author's version would be chosen while others have to lose their work. The problem doesn't even end there: Some changes can be reconciled in theory but still lead to inconsistencies in practice! Say one author moves the walls of a building while another handles its furniture entities; DR can agree on which set of changes to keep for each of those movements and everything would seem resolved to the code, however if they aren't made or solved together you're left with an empty house in one place and floating furniture in the other, which a person has to later notice and manually resolve. There may be ways to reduce this risk. One is attributing specific groups of brushes and entities to different creators: Only the person who spawned an item may edit it, no changes to other people's stuff allowed. This way anyone can push map changes to a Git repository at any point regardless of what other developers may have done during that time, the differences can be merged under any circumstance as no conflicts can occur. But it's a limiting approach since you can't help another mapper with their part of the map, while on the other side they can build over what you're doing and you couldn't get their stuff out of the way. A good way to take this approach would be allowing maps to be stored in multiple files during development, so changes don't need to be made to the same file altogether. This means that alongside the main myfm.map you can have myfm.bob.map + myfm.mike.map + myfm.alice.map and so on, when loading the main map content is also loaded from those additional files: Now you can push and pull the git repo at your own leisure, your work is always up to date locally while changes made by others become visible whenever you do an update and reload the map! This alone is unlikely to be noticed or used by many creators though, unless encouraged by additional Git tools in the interface; DR could support pushing and pulling changes directly from the toolbar, with an option to automatically update other authors files at an interval (say 5 minutes by default) then refresh the map seamlessly. While this would all be fun and easier for starters, the holy grail would be realtime editing at the end of the day. That way anyone can work on anything and always see the updated result on their end during all stages... without having to fear emerging conflicts that need to be reconciled later, unless someone's connection goes down and they make changes during that time which should probably be disallowed by the code. If designed properly we could have a powerful and unique system to work with here.

Regarding the FM series he was working on, this is my take on it: I definitely feel the nicest route would be continuing them rather than leaving them abandoned. Ideally by those creators who knew him and the stories well enough, thus know what he'd most likely make of them and the direction he'd want them to continue in. At least the existing / unfinished FM's for sure, but why not new episodes too if someone familiar could assume the series and become their new owner to develop them? Here's an extra idea if I may: In the next original episode, if anyone decides to produce one, add a memory of him in the world as a main plot point... like making him a character in the FM or something nice like that. There are many creators with inspiration here so I'm sure something remarkable could come out of such an initiative! This can be made into a moment of creating something nice that wouldn't have happened otherwise rather than letting it be just a moment of sadness, if that makes sense. Hope this thought helps.

Done, you should have mail.

Really sad news! I too never met him, but I played and loved his series. I hope, as his son suggested, at least the two almost finished missions can be completed in his memory, as otherwise all his work on them will be lost in time forever...

v 0.83 fake spec PBR path is back to adding to diffuse brightness again I was playing Now & Then, and the lighting inside the museum was bleached out looking. Wasn't sure why. Then I remembered I had to add diffuse texture to ambient fake spec PBR to keep water from spazzing out. So, I added diffuse texture to direct light fake PBR, and that fixed the lighting. But, then we're back to having... diffuse texture * diffuse light color * fake spec PBR .. and that adds to diffuse color once it's calculated diffuse texture * diffuse light color * diffuse brightness * kd ratio So, basically, it's back to factoring out to... diffuse texture * diffuse color * ( diffuse brightness * kd ratio + fake spec PBR ) Real specs can just multiply by their specular light color and be good to go. But, fake specs need to multiply by diffuse light color (as spec light color replacement) and diffuse texture. Not sure why. The BRDF takes the specular texture in, and generates an output that counts as the specular color texture / map & specular brightness already mul'ed together. So, it just muls by spec light color. But, for fake spec maps, it still wants a diffuse texture to make it look right. So, back to doing that. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ got rid of PBR_FAKESPEC_IS_REALSPEC (b/c of above reason) real speculars use 1-specular.rgb as roughness, fake specs use 1-diffuse.rgb .. this helps real speculars look a bit better added #define PBR_RIMLIGHTS to add TDM's default rimlight/rimshine even when PBR is on in order to punch up lighting more if end-user wants. PBR / BRDF takes rimlighting into account with fresnel. And, it does a decent job (eg: the columns on Training Mission have a nice crisp rimlight / rimshine .. walls tend to rimlight at an angle). But, other places it falls flat, like on ground textures that have fairly flat pavers. So, by adding TDM's default direct light rimlight/rimshine on top of what PBR does, it helps enhance the edge-lighting more to make things pop. This voids the warranty of the PBR being a "Conservation of Energy" model then, though. PBR's goal is to keep make sure the output light energy coming off a surface (as color & shine) doesn't exceed the input light energy coming from the light source hitting it. If we add in extra rimlight & rimshine, it voids that by magically creating more light energy out of thin air. But, there's no rule saying PBR can't get enhanced after-the-fact. This is a fantasy video game, so the lighting can get kicked up a notch to help enhance light & shadow for player immersion. The #define PBR_RIMLIGHTS is off by default (set to 0), so you'll need to change it to 1 if you want to switch that on. glprogs.stages.interaction.083.zip

@fllood@Dragofer May I have a look into "The Black Mage"? I would just check it and get back to you guys asap. Thank you.

In accordance with grayman's wishes, two of his unfinished, stand-alone missions have been conveyed to us by his son for adoption. The Black Mage A mountain abode with a sinister magical theme. Seeking Lady Leicester A mansion amidst canals. Both missions have extensive scripting, story elements and visual/audio assets in place. So far bikerdude has expressed an interest in taking over either of these missions right away.

I am not so long a member of this forum, to have known your father well. I have, however, really enjoyed the WS series, which are among my favorites. I also think that the last two missions, although incomplete, should be prominently displayed as a reminder of a great human being. I am old and my father died when I was still a teenager, but I remember and understand this trance very well. My condolences and a hug to you and your family.

You're father will be dearly missed and I am so very sorry for your loss. I lost my own father back in 2006. It leaves quite a void. Thank you for taking the time to come to the forums.

Grayman repeatedly said that if he does not have time to release these two FMs, then the story of William Steele ends on the fifth mission. I specifically asked him about it in March and here is his answer: So unless anyone wants to ignore his will, WS6 and WS7 are dead too.

As an amusing aside to this, does anyone remember those little "find the differences between these two images" puzzles that would appear in the newspaper or various magazines at times? I learned that you could do the eye-crossing maneuver on those two images and easily spot the differences in seconds. I would try to defocus my eyes to get the two images to "overlap" thus making a third combined image where the differences kind of shimmered and stood out so you could see them really easily. I never found any use for this other than nifty childish party-trick, but I thought I'd share.

I also had the issue with the spiders, but found it way more fun to just sneak around them instead of taking them down.

I remember when 5kb/s was considered (by me) as (relatively) fast. Edit: Actually, that was 5KB/s , so it's the same..

Having a beer at the bier outside the barn at the farm. My WIP will probably go by the name 'Lucy'. It's too large to be a first FM. The architecture is the easy part, and even that's very difficult to learn. I'm only now getting an inkling as to what goes into "building vertically" - so my FM is flat. Couldn't be flatter if it were steamrolled. But then there's lighting, audio, scripting, building a captivating immersive story... The architecture is getting close to finished. Or so I tell myself. The main plot, the core objectives, several optional side trips, are set down in outline form so there's a stable foundation. Lighting is passable. Ambient audio is very rudimentary or non-existent. Storyline audio is non-existent and at the moment the story is told mostly through notes tied to starting/completing objectives, and to fx. There are no intro screens/video/texts yet. I don't know if I even can finish the thing. Hmmm, now let's see how that file attachment thing works to send the pic

her face. Shiny. I like it!

I'd recommend author use monster clip liberally. They can still swing their sword through it, etc... So if you have a cramped little room, just clip it out more. The guard can still trap the player or whatever.