snowy

Moving to another engine killed a number of commercial game projects. Most recently it put System Shock 3 in a lot of trouble. And that project is coming from some of the people that gave us Ultima Underworld, Thief and Deus Ex. I think that instead of requesting more features and better tech, a better move forward would be simplification. Simplification of code, coding workflow and more accessible tools to create new content, especially for new content creators. A lot of companies use git for code. At least all the companies I've worked for and teamed up with, including companies that provide services for game studios. A git workflow allows anyone to submit code patches without any special privileges. A total stranger can contribute code. Then the core team can evaluate the code patches, provide feedback, accept or reject them. The DarkRadiant tool is excellent in the hands of a dedicated and talented content author. For new content authors, the tool requires a large time investment. Maybe there's also room for an easier and much more limited tool. A tool for new content creators that are less interested in visuals and more interested in story telling. Or simply creating and playing their own first missions quickly. And getting them excited for creating more advanced missions. For example, this tool could be a strict 2d editor instead of 3d. The author can draw his world on a 2d grid with a selection of prefabs that snap seamlessly on this grid. Then they can tell their story with it. If the author decides he or she wants more control over its game world, then they can move on to DarkRadiant. I wouldn't worry about TDM being based on an old engine at all. Look at a much much older community. The Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (FRUA) community. Their mods and missions use a game engine from 1987! They still have new missions coming out. The latest mission was added in november 2019. Their mission editor is also really easy to use and allows any story genre, so that might be part of their on-going activity. If their community can survive for 32+ years, then TDM will be good till at least 2032 ^^

I agree! I usually don't finish missions with undead, but for this mission I toughed it out because the experience was great! I don't know if Spoonman is still around, but you are, I want you to know I think both your Thief 2 and TDM missions are amazing. Your work is original and goes beyond what I'd expect to see in a Thief / TDM mission. You are a source of inspiration for me and one of the reasons I want to experiment with mapping for TDM. Thank you!

This is a great mission! It looks great, sounds great and was really fun to explore. Thank you, Dragofer!

For the correct texture scale, is it alright to use "Modify Texture: Natural" in the surface inspector? Or is that unreliable for a realistic texture scale?

How does this help us adding the missing and broken mission links on the wiki?

You can look up missions and sort them on the wiki. Then find that mission name in the in-game DarkMod mission downloader and install them. It's inconvenient, but it does work. I think your points are valid: I can't see any missions on the official mission page and it's been like that for a while. I think this page should redirect to the wiki missions page until it's fixed. I can't sort missions in the in-game DarkMod download page. This is a work-in-progress project discussed here. On the wiki I can't click on the mission titles, those redirects to the broken official mission page instead of the relevant forum mission thread that I'd expect to see. These links should be updated and link to the correct mission thread. On the wiki I can download missions up to 2013 through the B-icon, but other download links are broken or missing. For clarity, I think the B-icon should be changed to the word "download". Maybe someone can update these download links on the wiki if they have or know about a working mission mirror? Let's not overreact though. There are working alternatives for everything. The best possible solution is that every player can just fire up the TDM game and start downloading and playing missions without having to take the effort to go to a website mission page, a forum or wiki. This is what the project from point 2 is about. I do think that the official mission page is important to promote recent TDM content and show the variety of missions TDM offers for new players. From working on commercial online services since 2008, I know most customers don't take the effort to provide any feedback. If the service doesn't work, they just go away. It doesn't help to point the few customers that do complain the way around service problems, because you're still missing out on the silent majority. If I can compare The Dark Mod to such an online service, then I do think in its current state The Dark Mod is missing out on a lot of potential players.

Thank you! You both pushed me in the right direction. In media I found textures/darkmod/window/lamp_glass_lit_opaque_colorme that offers both a custom _color property and fake ambient light. I will use this definition.

I want to give a brush texture the illusion that it radiates light, but I prefer not to use a light source so I can cut down on the number of light sources in a scene. The texture just needs to be lit. It doesn't actually have to radiate light. Is it possible to have a brush face texture always fully lit, regardless whether a light source hits it?

Okay, before imaginations run wild, it's a kid-friendly show. But it does have snot and slime in close-up in several scenes, like Tarantino often has feet in close-up.

So this is technically easy to implement, but all the textures need to be reworked? Also, is the PBR shader mostly for metal surfaces and won't have much effect on stone and wood?

Agreed, save the clickbait titles for TDM missions. Like: Corbin the... [insert shock factor here] ?

You'll know it when you see it

If you liked the Dark Crystal movie, this is more of that. I think it looks great with a very good voice cast. For me, the show takes itself too serious, no comedy and I think some scenes are overly disgusting. I'm not going to continue watching.

It's easy to transition from working behind a computer to playing a game on the same computer. Likewise it's easy to transition from consuming media on a phone to playing a game on that phone. Although I think Quest is the right step forward, mobile VR is the best way forward. And even then, I think there are a few more problems. Something like Google Cardboard, Daydream or Gear VR are still separate devices just like Quest. A mobile phone would need easily hidden unfoldable VR flaps so anyone with just a phone could easily transition to VR content without having to take such content into account in advance and bring something along for that occasion. Finally, VR is both isolating and any VR goggles don't look styling in public. So no one will do VR in public even if were possible and easily accessible, while mobile gaming in public is not a problem. AR has much more potential as long as the goggles look stylish, like sunglasses. Nobody minds wearing those in public. And if they provide a friendly overlay showing highly rated places and a route to them, I can see that becoming very popular. It's not styling, reliable and cheap enough yet, but this is a step forward for AR:

Someone requested two other GUI features, as I understand it these are: Sortable table columns (by clicking on the column titles?), maybe for both the mission download screen and mission manager. Real-time text filter for mission titles (could also be used for both the mission download screen and mission manager) Is the number of downloads of each mission tracked online? If so, maybe it would also be interesting to see the number of times each mission has been downloaded in the mission download screen. For mission authors to see their download number going up after release, and for new player looking for popular missions by sorting on number of downloads. Similar to how on youtube you can see and sort videos on number of views.