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Hi all, So I have a bit of an unusual request for the community. I'm currently nearing the end of my Master's degree, and need to complete my thesis before I can graduate. Being that I'm in a games program, I had to construct a level for user testing; since I'm very familiar with Darkradiant and didn't want to wrassle with Unity, I ended up building my level using TDM. After some preliminary user tests, I'm ready to begin a short iteration phase where I improve the level before final testing, and I thought I'd open my terrible tiny level up to the mod community for feedback from folks who are familiar with TDM and the stealth game genre. My research specifically pertains to environmental storytelling, so that's what I'm aiming to do well. Any advice on improving performance would also be appreciated (my exterior is kind of a mess), as would advice on creating good-looking diegetic lighting that sufficiently highlights both important narrative elements and where to go to progress (especially for inexperienced players).

If anyone would like to test the audio, here's an updated version. Siegeshop Changed: Added OpenAL EFX to all locations. Tested fine for me and 'efxs/siegeshop.efx' was added to the .pk4 file. Fixed fog at waterfall inside the cave. Moved a guard's starting position and another guard's rit corner. Increased density of plants and added one grass variety (more & moving grass to come). Added a torch near the balloon and moved the existing one. Changed & moved torch above cave waterfall to make it easier to aim a rope arrow. Changed the weird little support for the end of the drawbridge. Added a plant (yes, just one) to the moat bottom. More to come. Tried to make the web of the (harmless) cave spider more visible. Also updated: Samhain Night Added OpenAL EFX.

Story Tease On the run from her husband, me and my girl. With a bribe to a ship's captain, we're away. What could go wrong now? Oh, dammit. Links "Away 1 - Air Pocket" Version 1.0 is available from the in-game downloader and its mirrors. As well as here. There are two extra documents contained in your installed .pk4 and also conveniently available here - For gamers needing hints, this Q&A uses "invisible ink" to selectively hide the answers: Air Pocket - Hints and Spoilers [Jan. 29, 2020].docx For understanding what's under the hood: Maintenance Guide to Away 1 - Air Pocket [Jan 29, 2020].docx For more about the innards and interations, see this FM's Beta Testing thread. Author's Note This is my first substantive TDM FM, a nautical adventure, and what I hope will be part of a longer story arc. Enjoy. Gallery Credits & Acknowledgements Thanks to TDM community members for encouragement - and assistance with newbie questions - while building this, my first FM (not counting an earlier nanoMission). Kudos in particular to Dragofer for the wonderful ship models (modified here), newly-created ship davits, and assets like kelp models from 'Down by the Riverside'. Also a custom cannon-ball hole through the hull, and much helpful guidance. The skybox is adapted from 'lagoon' by Hazel Whorley (CC BY-NC; hw_lagoon.zip at www.custommapmakers.org/skyboxes). Finally, my deep appreciation to all who tested or assisted during the beta: Biene, Cambridge Spy, Dragofer, duzenko, peter_spy, and stgatilov

Thank you for the high praise! CoS 3 is coming along well, and will hopefully be able to live up to this mission while tying up the loose ends.

Thanks for playing! 5 missions underway atm.

You guys sure you know how to use the Internet? That exchange was far too civilized! Anyways, good mission overall. Short but quite detailed. Make another one!

Dopefish, glad you liked some aspects. I understand regarding "underwhelming". Some of the existing FMs have wonderful deep playability. I think of these as big novels, like "War and Peace". I'm only able to manage a novella at the level of effort and skill I can provide. This one took me a year (of calendar time, not manhours), and if it took significantly longer, I'd get discouraged and bag it. So, better a bit short (and quirky) than nada. That said, with more experience under my belt, maybe future episodes can offer more to do (but I still hope for some good quirkiness).

Steal a silver sword that belongs to a Witcher? Or come across sheet music composed by Dandelion(Jaskier)? JackFarmer gave me that idea in HH:VF; there was some Peter Gabriel lyrics lying around, loved it. FMs need more Easter Eggs.

Now this is one fancy apothecary's near where I live:

These look and sound great! I'll try to get more testing done tomorrow. (I have my own flame-glare mod installed so I'll need to test performance without it.)

OK. The OpenAL reverb effects have been implemented and tested. Sounds good! I just used the presets, which made it really easy. Now time to tweak some other things and see if I can get the moving grass back in.

How dare you!!! Don't you know TDM is the only life you need?!?

I've also created a few alternate zombies, to add a little variety to your local necromancer lair. The first is a fairly straightforward variation that uses the hunched over animation set Kingsal created for his beastmen. Unlike typical zombies, these are fast runners.

IIRC, If your cam view is an overlay, as part of the request to create the overlay, you can give the overlay a layer number. Perhaps you can look at the def of the message overlay to see if you can give it a higher layer number than the cam view?

I'm looking for a solution to this, but don't have much hope. That is already in the tdm_sfx_world soundshader. I tried doing it custom with no luck. I also tried raising the volume with no luck. Though... I did this to the basic frob_loot sound. I did not look further for a frob_loot_underwater or such... To be continued... Nope, no such thing.

Ah, sorry, that's a feature, not a bug. As an optional objective, finding the jewelery is worthwhile, but as you have seen, has its risks. You didn't heed a warning, and paid the ultimate price. There was a small hint at the end to confirm why you died. Details:

There is something so delightfully odd about this problem and its "solution" makes for a hilarious mental image. TDM universe's own version of quantum entanglement phenomena... spooky action at a distance, indeed. Anyway, thank you. I'm glad to have been of some help.

Tracked this as issue 5157. It will be fixed properly in future release. Thank you for providing a savefile and for your patience!

It seems your suspicion was correct - starting a new game fixes the issue. The savegame file is too large to be uploaded to the forum, so here's a link to google drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uK81votGdXCbYjJRu6rqUWtyCAtGu-6i/view?usp=sharing

Thanks so much to everyone who's volunteered, I appreciate it a lot! I'll go ahead and prepare a thread in the beta-testing forum

You could override that particular material by copy pasting it into your own .mtr file (renamed from .txt), fix the inconsistency in it and provide it with your mission. As for fixing it, I'd look first to see if at one place it points to diffusemap x and another to diffusemap y. Can't look at this myself atm as I'm not near a PC.

Like chakkman already said last week, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is one of the free games this week and the other one is Aztez. You obviously just get the basic version of KC and have to buy any DLCs you'd like. The Royal DLC bundle, which has all the DLCs, isn't that expensive though IMO. One of the biggest issues people have with KC is the save system, but as far as I know there's a mod that allows unlimited saving whenever the game normally would let you save. There are a few other issues, but all in all most people just love the game and from what I've seen I definitely agree with that. Aztez is a game set in the Aztec Empirte with beat-em-up combat and turn-based strategy. The combat system is lauded but the punishing rules (start over a whole campaign when you die and don't have more lives for example) are seen as cons. https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/kingdom-come-deliverance/home https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/aztez/home

Good to hear. Yup, not running out of air is one of this mission's motivators. In earlier iterations of this FM, you could swim into the lower fully-immersed bunks and easily get stuck and drown. Those bunks are blocked with debris now (and player clip) to solve that.

Oh absolutely, I wouldn’t dare be so blazé as to specifically say it belongs to a Witcher, that’s a trademarked proper noun and would be TOO obvious. Maybe have a silver sword with an accompanying “diagram” (some readable)that merely says it belonged to a monster slayer. Just vague enough. Certainly not a main objective but a secret loot.

Yeah, this website has more shots showing the ceiling and other details around the place: https://www.apotheke-adhoc.de/nachrichten/detail/apothekenpraxis/berlins-aelteste-apotheke-berlinapotheke-am-hackeschen-markt/

Bienie, this had to be one of the best TDM missions I've played. So damn good. Please make more like this. Nothing about it I didn't love

I always put some kind of easter egg in all the levels I've made. Not references to other things really, just hidden items or secrets or objectives.

Sure

Def sounds like a loop problem. Will check tonight.

No sure what's the progress with this, but you can always add no_efx keyword to your version of the frob soundshader.

Another thing, maybe TDM-wide: frobbing notification sound is EFX-affected. It's classy and a bit nostalgic (you know, those good old A3D/EAX days now long gone ) but underwater not very good.

After some time (1 minute?) standing on the wood platform the waterfall sound disappears, please fix! (I'm testing with the self compiled trunc version) Moving around the corridor and turning back -> sounds reappears. Loop problem?

Back on track!

A general question: Is it possible to playback a "full screen" video clip for a cutscene in a FM, as opposed to a live puppeteering of AI? If so, this would have some advantages. The dev could - - pre-record (using a screen-recording tool) multiple takes of AI action that is a bit unpredicable, selecting the best take - do rapid, multiple quick edits (using a video editor) that would be tedious to do with TDM scripting and camera placement - possibly incorporate elements beyond TDM game assets (e.g., models of giraffes, children, dirigibles, etc.; crowd scenes, and so on )

Feb. 7th it got released.

Got the windows version of DR working in linux. Installed the 64bit version via Steam 'non-steam-game' installation and running it with steamplay/Proton 5.0-1 (wine). So far I have only opened a map and looked around. Hopefully DR will work properly.

Now I'm trying to compile a new darkradiant so I can get to fixing shiegeshop. And having no luck running it after an error-free build. And not enough debug info to know why it's crashing.

Yeah. It's been a long time. Been very busy with daily life and hobbies, etc.

OMG, this is the Internet I'm on? No wonder I couldn't figure out where to stick the postage stamp! Yucks aside, thanks for the encouragement.

TBH, I've grown tired of this thread since the first post. I don't know what motivation and agenda people have to prevent people from using the OS of their choice. It's ridiculous, and defining for some people's attitude these days. And, when I have to read then that people should use Linux instead, I have to laugh hard. Because I have 8 years of experience running Ubuntu on several machines. It's as if people need to invent dozens of alternative religions these days. And smite all non-believers.

...or maybe not. I've "over-egged the custard" there with that PR poster concept. But thanks for the interest in further episodes of the story arc, where l hope to have more ship (and ashore) exploration. joebarnin, the getting-stuck issue you noted, in the waist hold next to the galley, wasn't reported during beta testing. Was it near the surface, or down in the debris?

Thanks, everyone for the congrats. @JackFarmer, @joebarnin, maybe I should hire you guys as blurb writers, say...

Located in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, Hutheesing Jain Temple was constructed in 1848 and is dedicated to Lord Dharmanath, the fifteenth Jain Tirthankar. The plan of building a grand temple was initiated by Shet Hathisinh Kesarisinh. Unfortunately, he died before the completion of the temple and hence, his wife had to come forward to complete the formation of Hutheesing Jain Temple. Designed by the architect Premchand Salat, this wonderful masterpiece costed more than a million dollars at that time which was a huge sum in the 19th century. The sheer dedication of the architect and artisans is reflected over the beautiful walls and designs of the temple. It took around 2 years to complete the overall formation.

I have to thank you Dark One on your review of my mission, Briarwood Manor. It's really cool to read a really honest review. I thought everything you said was very fair. I agree with just about everything you said. So thank you. As for Corbins bit in the climax scene in the library. That was very tough for him, because it required him to do something he's never done before, try to pull out some real emotion. Not an easy thing to do. Still, I think over all your review was spot on. Thanks Neon

Mappers could replace the run animation with the old animation if they want the slow run.

This is a new wrapped corpse model, kindly created for the campaign mission by epifire. There are multiple versions, including a sitting version, and a couple piles of bodies. The City is now ready for the plague!

I've created a walking flame-bearer skeleton as a security device for crypts or mage towers. The held brazier is part of the md5mesh, and the mapper binds a flame to it. The skeleton is a functioning AI, but he can't attack or let go of the brazier, so if alerted, he will search for and track the player, but won't be able to do damage. He works best when combined with other AI for that reason. You can set them to a neutral team to the player if you don't want them to react, and I've included a static model as well if you don't want any AI functions. The only thing about the current implementation I don't like is that the flame stays burning if you kill them...it would be nice to have it go out like a dropped torch. Probably just requires a script, so if anyone feels inclined to add that, feel free.

I also have a feeling that excluding some clearly non-EFX sounds won't take much time. I mean, at least, all menu/UI sounds, all ambients.

Yes. Maybe. I think there is not too many sound shaders, putting no_efx flag to some of them won't take much time, but testing them can take days. Mappers would have two options: Leave all sounds with EFX, as if this discussion never happened. Completely override every sound shader that they don't like to be affected by EFX. I.e. put same-named shader file info their pk4, which I suppose would create FMs with unchangeable sound shaders.I have a feeling that second options is even worse that the first one in the long run. Anyway, I need to know: should the "no_efx" flag be added to 2.06 or leave it for 2.07?