Dragofer

If I'm not mistaken, that spawnarg currently only exists in the lightholder scriptobject of the WIP version of the coloured flame asset pack. When the assets get committed to core, the updated scriptobject would be committed too.

This is a core bug that occurs any time an animation spawns and removes a prop. The function seems to be ok, but it generates console warnings.

Nato is a defensive alliance which does not invade neighbouring countries, unlike Russia. Failing to expand it would have achieved nothing (aka appeasement, or falling for the claim that Russia feels threatened by Nato) and only left more countries exposed, like Ukraine, to Russian special military operations.

The best is if you can update an existing installation. The new "installer", replacing the "updater", can easily transition between any version of TDM, only downloading the difference in data.

Technically the spectacles use a GUI overlay with a special "xray" material. This counts as a subview, like a camera screen or a mirror surface, and is able to render a second version of an entity that may use a different skin, model, colour etc. It's also able to hide or make transparent the original version of the entity, depending on blend mode settings. The spectacles use a custom scriptobject that runs various scripts when they're toggled on/off. These scripts control solidity/frobability of entities with xray-specific spawnargs. The xray feature used to exist in Doom 3, but became broken during the course of TDM's development. Duzenko had the idea to reintroduce it for 2.08 and, with my feedback as a mapper, developed it to become considerably more versatile than the original version. 2.10 saw it become fully fledged thanks to support for AIs, lights, particles and GUIs being added (rather than just for static models) and various other improvements. The core assets in 2.10 contain the xray materials (see Xrays wiki article), but not the spectacles themselves, since those required quite a bit of custom work to get done. The wiki does describe how to set up such an item, however. We've offered the spectacles to other contestants, whereupon Wellingtoncrab added them to Iris.

It seems that this mission and Iris require too much RAM to be played in a 32-bit .exe. Maybe @nbohr1morehas tips for how to reduce memory footprint to permit loading the map and playing without crashing?

DMAP usually freezes for me too, but in most cases it gets done eventually.

We are proud to announce the release of The Dark Mod 2.10! The Dark Mod 2.10 comes with considerable improvements to loading times as well as a slew of new visual and gameplay features for mappers to experiment with, such as volumetric lighting ("god rays") and more advanced security cameras! Many of these new features are prominently on display in the six new missions released for the 2.10 Connections Contest that are now officially available in the mission downloader! A full changelog can be viewed here, but some highlights include: PLAYERS Loading Times Considerable effort has gone into streamlining how textures are loaded, making more effective use of multiple CPU cores, and removing artificial delays. This even includes new handwritten algorithms for normalmap compression and mipmap generation so that TDM no longer relies on graphics card drivers. Performance Improvements As part of ongoing performance improvements, soft stencil shadows with anti-alising will be faster to render. Object Handling Afraid to grab a candle near a sleeping guard? Handling objects will now produce less noise, or none at all if holding down the "creep" button. You can also now control how far an item is thrown based on how long you hold down the "throw" button. Lastly, dragging unconscious bodies should feel better now (even if rats did their best to spoil the fun a little). Main Menu Interactions Tooltips have been added for many of the items found in the settings menu: a long-awaited feature! We've also reorganized the procedure for switching between missions to make it more intuitive for newcomers. Window / Input Changes The Linux build now relies on the GLFW library to create windows and handle the keyboard & mouse (thread), eliminating many of the issues with OS integration on Linux. On the Windows side, some minor changes were made to fullscreen/borderless modes. MAPPERS Entity limit is no more! What was once the bane of TDM's most ambitious mappers, the entity limit has now been raised eight-fold to 65,536. No longer will mappers need to spend long hours merging entities. Compilation Times To complement the faster loading times, compilation times have been brought down too. Optimizations were made all over the dmap code, adding new algorithms and data structures to improve both speed and precision. Advanced Security Cameras Security cameras have been reworked from the ground up with the aim of bringing them to the same level of polish as TDM's AIs, both in stealth gameplay and customizability. Most importantly, security cameras in new FMs will track the player or AIs and react to bodies. Wiki Volumetric Lights ("God Rays") Unlike adding fake translucent geometry around lights, volumetric lights automatically match their source light, including light volume geometry, projection & falloff textures, and even shadows. Note that shadowcasting currently only works in "shadow maps" mode. Wiki Xray Screens Xrays are a Doom 3 feature that has been reintroduced to TDM and developed further. The screens are able to change the appearance of entities seen through them, even making them appear or disappear if desired. Look out for them in future Inventor's Guild or magical-themed FMs. Wiki Subtitles Subtitles can now be assigned to sound files and have been added to the pre-bundled mission "Tears of St. Lucia". Note that we did not consider localization of subtitles yet. Wiki Tracking Secrets Secrets are now easy to designate, with no custom scripts required. They'll also be shown on the mission statistics screen at the end of the mission if the FM uses the new system. Wiki Main Menu GUI Customisation Mappers can change much of the main menu from a single purpose-built "customisation" .gui file instead of having to replace core files. You can find more details in guis/mainmenu_custom_defs.gui inside tdm_gui01.pk4. Since several missions had to be updated to this new system, their customisations will no longer work in 2.09 or earlier versions. Location Diagnostics During dmap Location overlaps should now be much easier to find and fix thanks to new console output and pointfiles created during compilation. Image Formats As a compact alternative to TGA for uncompressed images, PNG images can now be used in materials. Note that loading PNG images may be slower than TGA. DDS images can now be used in image programs, although doing so is discouraged because of the additional quality loss due to compression. New Script Events The mapper's scripting repertoire has been expanded by new script events for dealing with vectors and bounds, setting solidity, detecting surface type via trace, and reading more properties about entities and the player, such as "notarget" or the calibrated light gem value. ASSETS Fancy Wooden Furniture A whole new suite of fancy wooden furniture pieces including prefabs has been contributed by Wellingtoncrab. They can be viewed in the release thread. Automaton AI The semi-robotic AIs from Sotha's Ulysses mission have been added to the core mod, together with new prefabs for cosmetic recharging stations to include in patrol routes as well as a camera screen showing what the automaton sees. PROGRAMMING Tracy Profiling TDM's rudimentary GL profiling has been replaced with the Tracy profiler, which has its own cool viewer. It has already greatly helped the TDM development team in their optimization efforts. Mission Database The mission database has been moved to an SVN repository which automatically synchronizes all mirrors and makes backup copies of old versions of missions. More Technical Stuff A generic hash table has been added. "Clear" in the idlib method now works as most programmers expect and unit test integration has been improved. To update, simply run the tdm_installer.exe file in your darkmod folder. Note that tdm_update.exe is no longer supported, but you can download the new installer from the Downloads page if you don't have it yet. Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.10, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first!

Do you happen to have a save shortly before this happens? If so, would be good to know what 2.10 beta build you're on and to have your darkmod.cfg attached to a forum post.

Picking up some ragdolls, I noticed that they seem to oscillate slightly when they're in my grip. It's most noticeable with rats.

I dont think it makes a difference - just that playerclip will always make stone sounds. What I found to be especially prone to getting the player stuck is sloped surfaces with stuff around them, so I try to simplify the collision of surrounding stuff as much as possible by drawing nodrawsolid brushes.

To be honest contests are first and foremost there to get people to enjoy mapping together, the contest result is inconsequential (though Id definitely say the contest mechanism is an important part of the experience). We've already got a multi-author FM in a mostly single-author contest that literally builds on a released mission - so I think that ship has sailed. Let's let all join who submit missions before voting ends. My only conditions would be that each FM describes: 1) what other FMs their story connects to 2) what new TDM features were used, if any

There seems to be a general problem with the code for spawning and destroying attachments during animations. The animations assign names to these attachments so they can be deleted by later frame commands, but the TDM console always says it can't find the attachment. You can find this in any mission where AIs play cards, eat, urinate etc. Fortunately this seems to be a console-only bug, since ingame the animations work fine IIRC.

It would be "set frob_peer on head" actually. Anything with def refers to an entityDef (classname), while "head" is just some name given to this particular attachment on this body.

No, "set" commands for heads are a special feature that I added support for in 2.10. If you use "set x on head" on an AI it'll apply the spawnargs to the head even though there is no name_attach for it. Well, I dont think this applies to ragdolls since those are a completely different spawnclass from AIs (AFEntity with attached head). Would it be sufficient to place an AI and KO/kill it at map start?

It's a core bug of ragdolls. The best I can think of is to use "set frob_peer on head" "(name of ragdoll)" so that the head is a frob peer of the body.

The "Start this Mission" button has been moved to the top of the main menu in 2.10 in an effort to streamline the procedure for selecting&starting missions.

Just to make sure, this is the option you should select in the TDM Installer. There is no beta 2.50 or 2.6, only beta210-05 and beta210-06.

There's the double-door main entrance along the southern wall of the mansion, as well as various balconies fairly high up. It's also possible to get in from below via the sewers, but that's not the route I'd recommend.

As far as Im aware 2.10 only touched upon LOD for lights. I did notice moveables falling down when hide_distance kicks in (broadhead stuck in a LOD-enabled wooden beam), but when i reported it this was demonstrated to be an old bug/feature.

@peter_spyhas let us know that he intended to vote 3-3-3 rather than 3-1-3 in story-gameplay-visuals. Doesnt look like its possible to change your vote after its been cast, so just something to take into account when voting ends.

We actually have an update that's almost ready - only looking at a slightly more complex issue regarding stims emitted from special arrow types. Not essential, so we may just release it as is if we don't come to a viable solution soon.

Reinventing zombies (who were always just slow damage sponges) and giving the player the tools to deal with them creatively was a refreshing change of pace, similar to what we saw with Sotha's Ulysses series. Factor in an aesthetically appealing new environment and lots of ways to approach or get around stealth puzzles and you have an excellent mission. Also lots of great environmental storytelling going on, though I'd definitely have lapped up some more readables to learn some more about the world you built. Overall this makes this mission feel quite similar to Full Moon Fever (which is my favourite mission).