MirceaKitsune

Oh, their assets are likely still proprietary: Technically even the old Doom 1 & 2 from the MS-DOS era are still copyrighted, although you'll find those on abandonware sites since realistically no one will complain about "pirating" the original Doom game in 2024 Only the engines were open-sourced per say. What I'm looking for are repositories of idTech 4 ready assets that are freely licensed. People made mods for things other than TDM, including vanilla Doom 3 or Quake 4 which TDM itself started out as. I think there were a few other projects based on the Q4 engine otherwise, though other than TDM I'm not aware of any major ones, just an experiment with an engine fork I've seen shared on the TDM Discord server.

Was thinking how as an alternative it's easy to build a bash or Python script to do it. The hardest part is scanning the map to figure out every resource used: Recursion is needed since a map may use an entity that has a model which uses a skin that itself uses a material and that material uses a bunch of texture images. In the meantime it's possible to do it all manually if you really want. As long as you're careful to not miss any packages and test your standalone distribution to make sure the console isn't reporting any missing data errors. A special mode for the TDM installer / updater could also work as an alternative, allowing you to install TDM with a particular FM and only the required core packages for running that FM: This would be an equally nice solution, as it would allow a FM creator to still distribute an executable for their FM which then installs itself similar to how a MMORPG or Minecraft self-update. And the engine has licensing limitations for hosting on platforms like itch.io? The code is GPL and most assets are CC-BY-SA-NC, so if you aren't selling it and post the project for free it should be good? I remember us having issues with Steam that didn't allow TDM to be hosted on it, but those were due to its ridiculously strict licensing terms.

Same, that's what I'm thinking: For simple standard FM's sticking to the mission download menu and this forum is ideal. My idea is for special projects, which are large and unique enough to be like standalone games and have their own project page on a game site; Even in their case they should definitely be in the mission downloader for TDM users to install normally, but can also be distributed in a place like itch.io for the non-TDM audience. It would also be fairly simple to implement: DarkRadiant already knows which resources a map is accessing, be it entity defs / models / skins / materials / textures / sounds: It just needs to extract those files from their pk4 and copy them to an install directory, followed by all core assets used universally like menu / player / etc, then just blend in the FM directory and set currentfm.txt to the project.

There is a simple but effective detail that could make TDM feel even more complete, which somehow was missed to this day; I think we should have HUD sounds for selecting tools, something unique for each vanilla item with the spawnarg available for mappers to set on custom items. Arrows have one for being selected or holstered but not items: I'm sure we can find what we need on FreeSound or OpenGameArt, if it helps I can dig for the best ones and look for something that feels satisfying to hear often. Examples: A wire sound when switching to the lockpick, a squeaky oil lamp noise when switching to the lantern, a bottle splashing when switching to the health potion. In addition the lantern needs sounds for being turned on and off, for now even using the candle sounds for lighting and extinguishing may be an improvement to the complete silence. Same for the spyglass, you should hear something as you activate and deactivate it. Let me know if there's other items lacking audio that I missed: Lockpicks for instance don't need it as the door manages the lockpicking sounds including an unique sound when you start picking. Lastly I think a simple animation for selecting and deselecting items should be included, which should be easy to do in the GUI definition. Right now the icon changes abruptly: I feel there should be a slight transition effect for fading / scaling / sliding the icon, which should be used on the weapon icon too when switching between the blackjack / sword / arrows.

Not sure if related but: My dream with creating a multi city hub FM was to allow the player to travel to different countries by ship. Part of the plan was having a few readables written in relevant languages, granted I can use Google Translate to obtain a few sentences in an Asian or Arabic or other language. Problem is that last I checked, readables only allowed english characters, everything else will appear as a rectangle: Most fonts don't even support symbols like French or Romanian characters (eg: ăâîțș). Too much work would likely be needed to patch the existing fonts, but maybe we can find and include a font set designed explicitly for those languages that special characters in readables can fall back to?

My take on this, at least as far as what I feel vanilla TDM could do: Offer an option in the main menu to see the name of every held object that has the "name" spawnarg set. Currently this is only done for bodies, if you pick up a dead or unconscious person you'll see their name at the bottom of the screen... for players that want this I'd support the ability of displaying it for anything else. Not sure how many of the default movables set it though. Like if every movable chair definition has "name Chair" configured. But that should be easy to solve in an update even if not, we just did subtitles for all AI barks so

I believe that many months if not years ago, I made a discussion on the limitations of the current weapon system. We're still using the old weapon slots defined by the engine and limited to 16 guns, when it would be much more flexible and ideal to define the blackjack / sword / arrows as items so FM's can add unique ones. This is unlikely to change anytime soon, but even with the in-engine definitions I think there's room for improvement. Firstly the player script should probably use all 16 slots and point them to an entity which can be null by default. That way FM's that add custom arrows won't need to override the entire player definition, just the unused slot TDM makes available. I created a custom flash arrow a while ago which I'd like to use in my FM's... been begging the team to take a look at it since I think it can be included into vanilla, but since that hasn't happened yet an easier way to include it myself would be most welcome. As for the default arrows I think they should be easy to override, of course the question is how. Custom vars seem necessary to do it right; As a general rule I don't think defining them should be forbidden since even map scripts might introduce custom settings you want to be able to define. I also agree with allowing weapon balance to be customized through settings, like the time it takes to charge the bow and how fast the arrow is sent flying and the cooldown after that and so on.

As someone focused on attempting special FM's with slightly unique stories and genres compared to most missions, especially when it comes to adding a blend of scifi to the mix, I could use a repository of readily available custom assets that deviate from the default theme. Obviously I can grab anything from OpenGameArt or BlendSwap, but for a lot of stuff converting models or creating materials might be a lot of extra work better spend actually getting a map done. I know there were a lot of mods for Doom 3 / Quake 4, which makes me wonder if any freely licensed ones were ever released: Almost everything made for vanilla idTech 4 should be compatible with TDM and possible to copy-paste into a FM, especially when it comes to decorative models or textures or sounds, they should be plug-and-play from any Doom based project: I'd only need to know they're freely licensed and at worst CC-BY-SA-NC like TDM. Only exception is AI: We use our own rig and animations, any custom character must have been made for TDM. Though when it comes to monsters, granted they have their own animations and IK for ragdolls included, I suspect any md5mesh can be easily adapted with a custom def based on the spider AI: Technically even humanoids might work since I don't think we're limited to a hardcoded rig... we do however have a lot of specific animations for those so any complex character would need anims for walking / attacking / using / more which can be remapped, things like firing the bow would be impossible as that must be precisely animated yet a generic swing might work for any melee weapon. I'd also ask if anyone's ever made custom AI that were never featured in any FM but are available for others to use, like the anthro characters I rigged ages ago but never got around to actually making a FM with. Only resource I can think of myself is the PhilipK texture set, one of the most popular texture packs for open-source projects: The pk01 and pk02 packages come with material definitions for Quake 4 builtin, they can be extracted and used directly in any FM... I think I already did that during my attempt to create a Cyberpunk mod and the materials work great in TDM.

Although aspects like the non-commercial license make this a bit different from an actual engine like Godot, I've always thought of TDM as a sort of no-code game engine for making single-player games, be it one centered around a fixed genre and default assets. Even if FM's can't be sold, I still pondered the idea of distributing special projects as standalone packages, which should of course be done in addition to having your FM in the installer which remains the ideal way to run them. As such I was wondering what others think about a procedure to pack your map with the TDM executable and relevant assets as a zip archive, which can then be posted in places where anyone can easily download it and run the exe. The idea is aimed at making distribution on platforms like itch.io / GoG / Steam easier: If you make an involved project based on TDM that you want to offer on your own website or service external to the normal TDM community, it's harder to tell your players "go to thedarkmod.com download and install the project TheDarkMod then look for the name My Fancy Mission in the mission installer to play this"; Folks these days will find that a bit convoluted, everyone is used to downloading a zip or an installer and running it in place. FM creators could have more reach by being able to share downloadable FM's elsewhere on the internet, even attract new players to TheDarkMod who wouldn't normally look into it but discover TDM from this one FM they saw on a blog. A good example is the RenPy visual novel engine: You can run a story with the engine in place, but if you want to distribute it you can do so with a copy of the engine embedded for all platforms. Without this ability RenPy users could still make novels with the engine, but would be limited to the RenPy community and people already running and familiar with it as a software: It would be hard to distribute it to people in other places who don't necessarily know what RenPy is and might not play it if they have to install the engine separately then plug your novel into it. How such a thing would probably be implemented: A menu called Distribute Standalone Package would be available in DarkRadiant. It checks which assets are used by the active map, for campaigns scan every map in the maps directory; Those assets are extracted from the core pk4's and copied to an install directory alongside core assets / game code / engine executables with the active FM set to your project. For example: If you use it on a test map that only has the dirt material and a citywatch AI, the install will contain a copy of the dirt material / texture and the citywatch models / textures / skins / defs / vocal sets followed by core stuff and of course the map itself.

Thank you, that sounds amazing! If it works well and fits in I presume we may see this make it into vanilla? Feel free to share a video in the meantime, curious to see it in action

I've actually thought of this exact thing as well! It would be both easier to manage and equally interesting as a mechanic. Very easy concept to implement too: Just add a stim that temporarily changes the light's sound shader for a few seconds before reverting back to normal one, give lights an s_shader_wet spawnarg and include a low volume flickering noise... it should make guards a little suspicious but less than the noise arrow in this case. Just remembered this was in fact a plan for my flash arrow, a custom weapon I've been asking to get included in vanilla but so far it's been forgotten. I believe the last version only blinds guards using the flash bomb effect, but one of the goals was to have lights temporarily turn off or flicker before coming back on after a few seconds, though this would require a custom script at best.

Hmmm. I still like my idea of shooting broadhead arrows at fragile lights to turn them off, but I like your idea as well! It's not like we couldn't use a new item, and it's something mappers would have control of by only placing it on levels where we want to have this behavior. But then we'll have to make all lights frobable by default so even this approach would be a little complicated.

Thanks for those fixes! They didn't affect me and any FM's I've been working on, but I'm happy to see a solution was found and you could help those affected so quickly. I like the idea of being able to customize arrow behaviors from cvars! Most open-source FPS's (eg: Red Eclipse) offer the ability to set weapon behaviors with custom configs and create your own unique balance. While I agree it's good to not have a ton of settings, I think the weapon slots should be customizable this way... at least for now as we remain stuck with the old in-engine weapon system and can't turn the blackjack / sword / arrows into items like everything else.

Part of my point was that breakable electric lights could have an interesting contrast: They'd attract attention while also making it harder for you to get caught. When broken they should create a loud popping noise that makes nearby AI walk to them and investigate the disturbance, if they see the broken lamp even draw their swords and do an alert search... however once they've calmed down and moved on, you're rewarded with the ability to sneak there without being seen. The player will have one of two typical strategies: Either wait until there's no guards nearby in order to shoot a lamp, or shoot such lights if it's better to have guards searching but not able to see you compared to the guards being calm but able to spot you in bright light. Mappers would themselves place those lamps in areas where they want to create this particular challenge.

I understand some changes that break backwards compatibility, long as they're kept minimal and hopefully don't render old FM's unplayable unless patched. We should keep in mind some maps may never get updated, especially ones who's authors might no longer be around... at the same time some things can't be easily improved because keeping it backwards compatible is more challenging, I felt a few things were limited for that reason a couple of times.