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I understand. Thank you for the explanation. I agree about the third person model. I do not know how the stealth calculations work behind the scenes, but if they do use that model then there will be some discrepancies, particularly when compared to the view the player has in first person. The crouch model seems at least a full head taller than the first person perspective portrays. I can only imagine that it is rather difficult to animate a model like that, especially considering all of the dynamic movements the player can make. The rigid shoulders do look kind of silly when you see yourself but I can certainly look past all of that considering how rarely the player actually does see themselves. The important thing, I imagine, is that the stealth detection matches what the player sees on-screen.

I'd be more than happy to give it a go as well.

This is purely personal so take it for what its worth (not much) but I have only been playing with TDM for a couple months and really like the current system. I tend to play ghost and hardcore AI hearing/vision so I enjoy a degree of difficulty. Any easier would kill much of the fun in my opinion. It makes sense that a guard is going to see you with your head sticking out. That said, there is definitely some discrepancy between first and third person views that may be contributing to issues. That picture I posted above with the players head sticking above the two high box pile in 3rd person looks like this in first person... The picture above in my prior post that is in 3rd person looks like at least the entire head of the player is visible, but in first person it does "look" like you are hidden. To be clear, I feel I am actively looking for an issue here when I'm not certain there is one, but this is the most I can see.

At two boxes high the player is far too tall. I think you may be having issues with the perspective. The players head would still be clearly visible at a two boxes high. Furthermore, I am unsure what you are trying to achieve at this point of the mission? The key needed to progress is actually behind you on the wall and clearly reachable without any boxes or light manipulation even with the AI vision and hearing set to hardcore, simply by leaning.

I don't know, it really seems like a perspective thing to me. Looking at the player next to the pillar, either standing or crouching, and it just seems that the pillar is too small to hide behind. Just my opinion.

Hey there! I've been using your shaders rather extensively for a bit now after whetting my appetite using the very excellent fresnel mod and eventually desiring a more pronounced effect. These shaders certainly provided that and I have to say that I find them basically a necessity now. Really great work here. I enjoy being able to make out finer details in the dark, like the texture of a surface, but still have that sense of being in extreme darkness that simple gamma/brightness adjustments completely obliterate. For me, with some tweaking of the settings, this totally achieves the look that I personally love. Compared to most games these days, TDM FMs are rather heavy handed on the darkness (for obvious reasons) and tend to have completely pitch dark areas. That may look great for mood/atmosphere but being completely blind really hurts immersion and gameplay for me. Darkness is rarely ever pitch black, especially outdoors. Eyes adapt and the moon/stars can provide a shocking amount of light. I live in a pretty rural area and most clear nights I can make out individual blades of grass in the complete absence of any artificial lighting. I really love that look in darkness which is rarely present in games, probably because it is ludicrously difficult to achieve, especially without losing the sense of darkness completely. So, yeah, thank you so much for this! It runs great on my hardware (core i9/RTX2080 super) with no noticeable loss of fps. Even managed to play through The Painter's Wife it. I also can't say that I experienced any artifacts or black squares on some textures or anything of the sort. Absolutely great experience!

I'm sitting at 39 myself. I remember being told that playing video games was a thing that one would/should outgrow. What a dreadful thought.

Well, since this thread got started I may as well chime in. I've been playing TDM for only a few months now and deeply regret not finding it earlier. This is one of the most amazing and underappreciated stealth experiences available today. Truly. I know it is not intended to be a Thief sequel, but in my humble opinion it is a far more faithful interpretation than either Deadly Shadows or 2016 were. I love the little liberties taken to improve and modernize things yet keeping it pretty rooted in that classic gameplay loop. I have never been more immersed in a game than I have here. What the developers of TDM have managed to do is nothing short of astounding. Phenomenal work on the engine but I don't want to leave out the mission creators. To my mind it seems that level design is particularly important to TDM and there are some amazing creations available here ranging from peak classic Thief's Highway and Manor missions to completely nontraditional parkour and horror gameplay. There are some exceptionally creative and talanted individuals behind all of the parts that make up TDM. It really isn't enough, but I want to express my unmitigated gratitude and respect to all of the individuals involved in the development, maintenance, and artistry of The Dark Mod. Keanu Reeves put it best when he said, "you're breathtaking!"

I personally like a somewhat more open ended "resolution" to things. Especially horror. The more clearly or concrete you understand something, the less you fear it. The choice of taking or leaving the primary loot, the thing you came here for in the first place, was a really nice touch. Especially in a Thief type of game. I think this mission did just enough setting up of expectations only to turn the tables on you in the end. For example... I felt the story, the history of the stone and the events that happened with the family, was implied enough in the various readables scattered about. I like the very simple "Forgive me..." note in particular. Where it is placed and its obvious implications really set an ominous tone. Its clear from the start that nothing good happened here.

Haha, the joy of immersive sims. Yeah, things like that happen at times. Here's a pic of it so you know exactly where it was...

@MrMunkeepants The chapel office key is in a really hard to miss spot. I have a feeling you're not gonna like the answer. I've had tons of moments like that myself playing through a mission completely missing something crucial to progression only to find out it's been right in front of me the whole time...

Did you find out the fate of the witch?

While it may not be the best example of traditional gameplay, it is still very much a TDM/Thief style mission. Any "warning" provided would without a doubt spoil the atmosphere and feelings of tension that the first blind playthrough of this mission invokes. Not every mission will appeal to every player but I assure you that this one does indeed have a lot to offer and fits quite well with a certain playstyle. You don't have to like every map and valid criticism is always helpful, but calling this mission a waste of time is just plain wrong and probably more than a little rude.

I've been playing with the most recent build for a while now and it looks very nice. I do feel the effect is just a bit too subtle for my personal tastes. I play with SSAO on high and max out the AA and Texture Anisotropy (actually the only thing I don't use is sharpening) so I like the contrast of a slightly greater fresnel effect than the current version. I guess it all comes down to personal tastes at this point and I'm very grateful for whichever version you decide to go with.

Yeah, you're right. I apologize, that was a rather stupid statement and most players are rather set in their ways. I hadn't intended to imply that there was a problem with the game or that the author's had done anything that needed to be fixed. So long as I am familiar with the genre, I tend to skip over a game's training missions or tutorials unless I have a specific issue or the game states quite explicitly "hey you're gonna be completely lost if you don't complete this." Even then, many modern games offer a bare bones or poor quality training mission compared to TDM's. The forum is definitely the only option for some problems. As a new player I've been able to find solutions to my issues at times without needing to post thanks to others who already had the same issue, resolved it, and discussed it here.

I'm a relatively new player to TDM and I found the training mission absolutely invaluable. Really explains all the little things that are not immediately obvious if coming from Thief. The candle thing is actually what drove me to try the Training mission in the first place. I kept trying to put the lights out quickly but ended up flinging the damned thing across the room instead. Funny, but it kills a ghost run. Might be worth mentioning somewhere obvious just how vital that training mission can be for new players. I found the blackjack and sound alert to be rather helpful as well. I cranked the AI seeing and hearing up to hardcore like a moron the first time I played and that particular training really helped me grasp just how that works. All the little differences and quirks that made me initially prefer Thief are now exactly what I find most engaging about TDM. So, yeah, don't throw candles and do the training missions.

Looks great to me, but I liked it before as well so. If you consider the most recent build essentially a "fresnel-low" setting, would you consider the build prior a "fresnel-medium" then? I haven't tried the new build yet but I quite like the effect, particularly on certain maps, so if there isn't any significant changes other than intensity I may just stay where I'm at. Thanks for all of the work on this.

That google drive link above is the smaller 170mb version (the v1.2 beta) I'm pretty sure. The one currently in the in-game downloader (v1.1) is the huge ~500mb one.

I played the beta for this and absolutely loved it. Amazing tension. Can't wait to try out the release. Congratulations!

Wow, this is really a nice change. I'm obviously rather new here so I would expect my opinion to hold little weight, but I felt compelled to say how much this improves the illusion of depth especially in darker areas. I particularly like the look of some outdoor areas. Some maps are a bit unnaturally dark for a full moon bright starry night, which is never pitch black in reality. This really makes things look much better to my eye. Thanks for this! Playing through Penny Dreadful 3 was a joy.

Absolutely stellar mission. I love the little notice board side quest system. Very innovative. I have to try the astronomer's challenges yet. I did run into that game breaking lever bug. Very abrupt end to the immersion, though the mission is still one of the best. I initially thought that the note mentioning the code could be changed was some sort of hint and spent quite a whiles trying different things, rereading the readables and searching everywhere only to realize it was a bug in the end. Still, thanks for the work you did here. Missions like these are among my favorites. EDIT: I figured out that it is connected to the "Open Doors on Unlock" option. You can see the effect in game by toggling it on or off and attempting to open the door both ways. If the option is on, as I prefer to play, then the door does not seem to work properly. If the option is set to on, as is default, then all works as intended.

I agree with this. I play a lot of FPS type games, both retro and newer, and always use the same monitor setup. Most games I crank up to about 100 fov and things look pretty good for my setup to my eye. TDM looks higher than that at its default of an apparent 90 degree fov. Its the only game I actually turn down to 80, even 85 makes a surprising difference. It does feel somewhere slightly over 100 by default to me as well.

I apologize for the necro post but I am unsure where I should post this if not here... While playing through the mission and reaching the Builder's temple area, there is a puzzle lock machine that makes an appearance here in TP4 (and is also used in TP1) where I noticed a pretty strange thing about the glass on the machine. I'm sure everyone here knows exactly which machine I am talking about, but just in case It is the apparatus that has several gears behind a glass pane and several levers that control rods extending to the gears. You have to be able to see the gears to manipulate the rods using the levers so that all of the gears can spin freely. And there is the problem, I cannot see the gears... I'll post a pic to better demonstrate what I am talking about, but it seems that the reflection that gets rendered in the glass is a green blur. Its not so terrible in the light, but when snuffing the nearby torches so I could more safely toggle the levers and solve the puzzle lock, the green blur becomes opaque and I can no longer see the gears inside the machine at all. I am playing on a Windows10 pc, core i9, 2080super and currently using the Dark Mod 2.09 beta5, but the same thing happens on a fresh install of the 2.08 release using the default config. I guess the effect could be intentional? I am unsure so I thought it best to ask here if anyone knows or has encountered this before. I am new here so all apologies again if I am posting improperly in any way or have not included all of the relevant information.

I've only been playing TDM for a couple months now so I may not be the best person to listen to, but I can confirm the quicksave flicker. It doesn't happen in 2.08 and has been happening in the beta of 2.09 since the beginning. I just tested on a fresh install using the default generated configs and it is not noticeable in the 2.08 release, is present in 2.09 beta 1, and seems a bit more noticeable in betas 3 & 4, though there is a bit of randomness to its severity. Definitely not a huge issue and I probably would not have mentioned it were it not being discussed, but it definitely exists. Windows 10 x64 btw.