Petike the Taffer

Not really a visual bit of inspiration, but a good bit of narrative/plot inspiration to mission makers nonetheless. Recently, I stumbled upon the following article on archaeological and ethnographic research conducted in Poland: Apotropaic Practices and the Undead: A Biogeochemical Assessment of Deviant Burials in Post-Medieval Poland These are one of those archaeological finds where contemporary scientists can clearly see the influence of period folk culture and folkloric superstitions even on burial practices. Throughout European history, there was a bit of a recurring fear in many cultures about deceased people becoming undead and haunting the living, either physically or in semi-ghostly form. This was doubly true for individuals suspected of dabbling in magic, cursing others, etc. Some of the latest examples of such public hysteria occured in the early 18th century in central Europe, including Poland. In fact, despite the medieval period often getting a bad rep about being all obsessed with witchhunts. Here's an intriguing excerpt from the beginning of the paper's abstract: I suppose this could work in a mission where the protagonist arrives in a village or small town where locals desecrated the freshly or already burried, just to "make sure they won't become undead and eat us in our sleep" or something similarly morbid. Maybe the author could add a plot twist, where some suspected deceased person really is just a red herring and victim of the locals' superstitition, all the while real undead/vampiric/beastly/whathaveyou monsters lurk in the surrounding wilderness. Given the esthetics of TDM's setting and society, an idea like this could be worked into a mission's plot fairly easily.

Just finished watching the video. I love all the new object variety that's now available for modular building ! This exact style of piecing together smaller sceneries reminds me a lot of what Frictional did with their level editors for Amnesia and SOMA. I have experience in both, so I welcome we'll now have further accessories like this for smaller-scale building in Dark Radiant. I always fret creating bigger buildings from scratch, after already mucking about with the base level. This will help alleviate that minor "wish I could do this a bit swifter" annoyance.

I'm definitely in favour of this, as long as Fen expresses interest now or in the near future.

Quite an interesting semi-industrial design. I especially like the two water towers.

Whoever lives there, needs to repair that poor facade. At least on the terrace.

Finished it, on Easy difficulty. Really, really excellent and thorough design, with some great use of ambient music, a well-paced gradual revealing of the narrative, plenty of originality in the environments, new types of adversaries and their weaknesses. It deserved its win in that SE/Eidos official contest you sent it too. I think the mission only has two flaws (subjective from my point of view): Also, P.S.: My stealth score for this mission wasn't exemplary by a long shot, but after having finally finished it, I'm sure I'll do a bit better when I retry it some time in the future.

Glad you've found those manor houses interesting, guys. If I find any other uniquely looking ones, I'll post them for sure. I was in fact pondering about setting my planned abbey-focused FM in a place like that. I'll probably give it a different ground plan, though, as it's meant to be down in the lowlands, instead of up in the mountains. It wouldn't make sense for it to be relatively constrained in terms of space, but I still plan to give it token fortifications (it's better at maintaining the "edges of the world" illussion anyway). Funnily enough, a few years ago, I also theorised over at TTLG that the ground plan of the library building from The Name of the Rose's abbey was an inspiration to the TDS devs when they made the Keeper Library mission. Replay it if you want to, you'll notice it has the same basic octagonal layout. Some other guy also noted parallels between NotR and TDP a few years before me, though not ones pertaining to architecture.

I already recommended that one a while ago, but thanks for bringing it up again.

Some cute smaller manor houses from Slovakia: Oponice Klátova Nová Ves Fričovce

Well, after GWX Conteol Panel has served me well for the last few months, I decided to also enable the deletion of any Windows 10 related programs that might have been left on my HDs. I made a point of return beforehand, just to be sure. GWX CP found the little GWX folder in System32 (only a few kilobytes of files) and deleted it and its contents completely, much to my joy. Luckily, the last update of said folder was in early March, so the Windows 10 nagware didn't get far before I stopped it cold back then (while not realising yet I already had a preliminary folder for it). I'll still be watching my Windows 7, but if nothing Windows 10 related comes up in the next few months, I suppose the brunt of the nagware crisis is over for me. I won't be uninstalling the Control Panel anytime soon, though. After the Windows 10 antics of the last year, I'm not very trusting of the current Microsoft management. All the more that Windows 10 seems to be a real shambles right now, even without these desperate and dishonest forced upgrades.

Awesome news. Seems Cyan are back in form as a developer. I'm thrilled they've finally succeeded with a proper new IP after so many years. A comeback well earned.

Quick question: Are there still any issues with downloading and installing 2.04 via the TDM updater ? Everything went fine for me back when I updated to 2.03, but all these reports about updating not working are making me worried.

Could anyone give me some advice ? Thank you for any timely advice. EDIT: Nevermind. I looked up the problematic bit on Cambridge Spy's playthrough video and I quickly realised what I was doing wrong. I think there's no major snag in my way now. I owe you one, CS.

I especially like the bluff and road model prefabs ideas. Sotha's made some good points about filling gaps in bush and bush-like foliage variety. Personally, I wouldn't mind something like a "surrounding forest" or "distant forest" type of skybox or background texture. Whether the skybox or texture should be static or maybe slightly dynamic/animated, I'm not entirely sure of. Depends on the capabilities of idTech 4 and on the result not coming across as too artiifical. From what I remember, Reap as You Sow is one FM with a rather convincing outdoor environment surrounding the estate the mission takes place in, even though the skybox with mountains looks a bit forced compared to the rest of the outside scenery.

I've read about that. I'm happy he's helping with such an ambitious project, even if I have my doubts about how successful the game will be in its goals.

I could have sworn I've already posted this, but maybe I forgot to hit Post... Oh well. What I wanted to say is that I've realised (after thinking a bit and noticing one part of a tutorial) that changing the Grid settings would be enough for fine movement adjustments to objects and entities I've placed. But thank you for reminding me of this too, it's much appreciated. You don't have to worry about me preferring the camera view, I use that mostly for orientation. The ortho views are definitely better for the work itself. It's really annoying being a newbie at times, with all these amateur mistakes and oversights I'm still doing even with basic DR functionality. Glad I can find refuge with my questions in this thread until I get the full hang of things, heh. I've gotten rid of the problematic readable at this point and I've also subsequently deleted the xd file from the xdata folder, just to get a fresh start on adding readables. If I keep running into issues, I'll definitely check the path preferences (I don't exactly remember whether I've set the Mod (fs_game) stuff before).

Congratulations to the new update. I've watched all the new additions in AluminumHaste's recent video already yesterday, and I'm especially pleased at the improved object grabbing mechanics and guards noticing weapons of knocked-out people. Excellent job, as always. I'm a bit mad at myself right now for not finishing my localisation on time, but hopefully, it'll get included in 2.05 at the latest. I really need to finish translating the base package files.

I've made quite a bit of progress in the last three days. I've figured out how to eliminate issues with unnecessary caulks, or with overlooking leaks. Now I feel like I have some grasp on a more efficient workflow. I've even built small enclosed structures in my test map, built my first working door, furnished one of the buildings, kept testing movable light sources and bodies of water, etc. Though one thing seems unclear to me in all the tutorials: If I want to finely move an object (be it model or entity) to have it nicely aligned with a floor, wall or ceiling, how can I set those parameters ? Moving or rotating by mouse can only get me so far, as it's either too grid-based in its movement, or too imprecise. I'd like to know if I could just fiddle with a few numbers and get a torch aligned nicely against a wall, much like I could a wall shelf. Thank you, this is interesting. My xdata folder is separate from the maps folder, and the xdata file for the sole readable I have consists of two different notes. I might delete both the file in the folder and the readable entity in the editor and try again. Both the "maps" folder and the "xdata" folder are in the "darkmod" folder. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the relations between the two to be certain if the xdata file should be elsewhere. I didn't create the folder, it just appeared by itself once I worked on the readable through the editor's built-in readable editor.

Hm, I suppose the following image might provide a clue to where I could have made minor mistakes: I'll have to test it now. First I'll try to build a new passage from a smaller room, then I'll try building from copied brushes. EDIT: Good news ! I've managed to make a passageway out of a smaller room. It works like a charm. Now I'll try the same with individual brushes again. Hopefully I'll avoid any overlooked gaps this time. One would hope... At least I'm finally getting somewhere, though.

The leaks are the only thing I'm currently stuck on and can't make any sort of progress. I'm actually not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong whenever I try to connect two different rooms. I always build along a clear grid, I make sure no brushes or textures overlap. I try to build the corridors between rooms in the same shape you get when you make a room out of an initial brush. Obviously, this involves moving the brushes into such a position, and making them fit tightly between rooms. No matter how accuratelly I snap the brushes to the grid between two different rooms, I keep getting leaks. And when I manage to make the side walls of the corridor "air-tight", it's always a caulk. From what I've read on DR level building, too many caulks are not recommended and they should be a temporary solution. There isn't much but the void outside the two rooms and the attempted passageway, but still... I don't want to rely on caulks. What if they cause performance issues ? The copying of wall and floor brushes might be posing a problem. I don't know why exactly, as I find the procedure easy and intuitive. But there's some issue. I copy, move and then resize brushes (copying them from existing wall and floor brushes). I make sure the brushes line up with each other at the exact same spots, so I can get an accurate passageway between two different rooms/sceneries. Even after I do that, I always get leaks. A thing I've tried is to slightly enlarge the brushes so that they cover each other even more thoroughly and more tightly (but don't overlap through each other). Not even that helped eliminate leaks. I'm just at a loss of how I can create an airtight passage, without a single leak, Maybe I should make a room that fits the gap between the two rooms, delete two of its walls and then just slide it into place like a tunnel ? I suppose it could work, but it doesn't seem like a very elegant solution to me. How should I use func_statics ? I was at first confused about the non-existence of the folder, but after looking at my TDM folder again, I've founded ! I just had no idea it would generate itself as soon as I'd tried to add a readable via the readables editor. I've taken a look at the xd file in the folder, and it contains both messages I've tried to add via the editor. Unfortunately, there's still some weird bug present. I originally tried a carryable readable, and after it created a bug where I can pick it up in the inventory and subsequently lose all interactivity, I decided to switch to a static readable. Not even that seemed to help, as I lose all interactivity as soon as I frob the readable and click on it. Not only does the text not show up on screen, my capability to select weapons and items, pick up objects and interact with them or the environment completely disappears. Same result as with the movable readables.

So, no advice on how I can avoid leaks and minimise caulks ? I also have a question about the editing of readables. One of the main tutorials on the wiki seems outdated (last edited in 2009, mentions some non-existent xdata folder) and it seems to contradict Fidcal's (admittedly, simplified) tut on readables from the A-Z guide.

Making doors and windows is my main stumbling block in TDM, though I've gotten better at it over the last few months. I still seem to be missing something crucial, though. Is there any way on building the sides of a simple door way without the pink "Caulk" highlight showing up on my building blocks ? I don't want to harm performance. I was just following komag's video tutorial and he doesn't seem to have the same issue when he copies bits of walls and resizes them to build hallways for doors and so on. I must be doing something wrong.

So, no advice, then ?

Personally, I use GWX Control Panel. I've turned on the most important blocks/filters in the program (especially the ones that eliminate that nagging GWX icon), but I haven't fiddled with it much since. Has anyone been using this software to deal with the forcing of updates on his Windows 7 Pro ? If yes, how has it served you so far and what further settings would you recommend ? I'd need to know more, so I could be sure I can set the program to ignore all Windows 10 related updates and only focus on genuine Windows 7 security updates. With Microsoft's regrettably sneaky tactics as of late, I'm rather worried whether I should install security updates. (I haven't installed any in over a month and even my antivirus is now nagging at me to install the Windows 7 security updates.)

I'm planning to get a better quality mic, connect it to my dictaphone, and try to tweak the settings until I get better results. I really need to muffle as much background noise as I possibly can in every recording.