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Above 3 items are released now, on the "Barks" thread: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21740-english-subtitles-for-ai-barks/&do=findComment&comment=483331

Instead of that, you could, in that time period, start learning your own missions and in doing so become more active on the forums, learning from others. It's also great to understand how things work in the engine, when you play. It might spoil some immersion though.. Or learn to build games with other engines, like Godot for example.

Made 2.09b the default version. I hope at least a few people have installed and played it I'll finish the release process tomorrow (tags, source, pdb, etc.)

@Dragofer, I'm wondering what template tags to give to this page, besides the usual "Editing". I'm tempted to add "Physics", but are force fields really considered part of the physics engine?

There is no SS3, how can they do a remake? And thank god they got rid of unity, that engine is total trash garbage on anything over 60 fps. Just spend 5 minutes on steam forums for Unity project games, and there's just thousands of people complaining about poor performance, stuttering etc.

Thanks, but I wonder why we use the rockets anyway. I guess this came with an update and taaki was too busy switching them off or configure them to something useful. But it seems like it doesn't really bother anyone else, so I might have to install that Addon you mentioned.

@wesp5that looks very good as an addon and maybe even as something that can be optionally enabled in the official client with enough polish. The wildest thing I've done with the gui scripting system so far was turning a single-mission briefing into a multi-mission one, so I hardly know yet what I'm doing, but I've identified 5 possibly relevant .gui files (mainmenu_success, mainmenu_objectives, tdm_objectives, tdm_objectives_core, tdm_objectives_defs) and did some early experimentation. I'll describe what I've done in a reproducible manner: In tdm_objectives_core.gui I duplicated the objectives title & placed it below the original objectives title (windowDef ObjectivesTitle2 and rect 0, 138, 580, 20*SIZE_MULTIPLIER). Now I have 2 titles onscreen. Lifted a statistics item from mainmenu_success.gui (windowDef StatisticsText1) and put it in a temporary .txt file Swapped the "text" entry from the statistics item to the duplicated objectives title (#str_07312 replaced by gui::listStatistics_item_0). This is the first item in a list called "listStatistics", defined in main_menu_success.gui. Unfortunately the text no longer shows up. As a test I inserted: #include "guis/mainmenu_success.gui" before the objectives title. Still no visible text though Then I inserted: set "cmd" "loadStatistics;"; before the objectives title. Now TDM crashes at startup. Looks like the problem is with accessing items from listStatistics. Maybe it's because the list is in a different .gui file from the objective .gui files, or the list hasn't been created/loaded/populated yet? Calling @grayman or @greebo as I can see by all the comments that you've both done extensive work with TDM's guis. On another note, actually a scriptobject would be good for my posted script after all - the init function of a scriptobject gets called at mapstart, so that can be used to spawn the message entity. Then the main function can be simplified to do nothing but update spawnargs and trigger the message. Well, what's done is done. @kcghost thanks, and yes, a way to differentiate between FM-specific scripts and addon scripts would be great and, it looks like, take nothing more than adding an extra line to tdm_main.script and a blank .script file as you suggest. When this thread has come to a close a feature request should be opened in bugs.thedarkmod.com

For the addon thing, how are you calling the script? Are you using a map script or a object script? For a addon type of thing imo a https://modwiki.dhewm3.org/Script_object would be a better option, because you can make the object with the script into a prefab that mission makers just put on their maps.

I'm trying to fix the warnings on my end, but remodelling the models is out of my league, so you're going to have to fix the stairs model on your end: "WARNING:ConvertLWOToModelSurfaces: model 'models/darkmod/architecture/stairs/set01_stairs.lwo' has 17/8108 nontriangular polygons. Make sure you triplet it down" Edit Also there's this model, which is probably a modelling issue as well: "WARNING:ConvertLWOToModelSurfaces: model 'models/darkmod/misc/clipmodels/pickaxe_cm.lwo' has bad or missing uv data" I still have hopes for script-hotfixing the following warnings: "WARNING:Couldn't load image: tdm_tongue [map entity: atdm_ai_townsfolk_female_1] [decl: atdm:ai_head_female02_base_brunette in def/tdm_ai_heads_springheel.def] [decl: female_head02 in def/tdm_ai_heads_springheel.def] [model: models/md5/chars/heads/npcs/female_head02.md5mesh] [decl: tdm_tongue in <implicit file>] [image: tdm_tongue]” (Edit: I hotfixed this issue and attached the hotfix in the tech support forums. The "tdm_tongue" shader should simply be renamed to "tdm_character_tongue".) “WARNING:Couldn't load image: models/darkmod/wood/boards/wood_brown_dull01 [map entity: func_static_53] [decl: old_plaster in skins/tdm_models_architecture_modules.skin] [decl: models/darkmod/wood/boards/wood_brown_dull01 in <implicit file>] [image: models/darkmod/wood/boards/wood_brown_dull01]" (Edit: I hotfixed this issue as well - see the tech support forums - but I think you should still go over this file, because there are a lot of other suspect textures in there as well.)

Probably the .script file that's needed, but unfortunately can't be included with a prefab. Maybe there's a comment somewhere in the prefab (or in the wiki or forums) that says what script it needs and where to find it. (The similar combination setup I used earlier doesn't involve "slot", so clearly uses a different script that I what I have.)

@JackFarmer Just looking to make things even better and more fun. Been working on a new FM and it got me paying attention to all the nice new things happening and wanting to further them. I offer to implement some features where I can, testing them in the process to the extent that I can at the surface. One idea with combining items is giving the player certain tools if they found the right components in different locations, which among other things would encourage exploration. Players could also choose to create different items out of different mixtures made available in the world, thus it lets the player choose what to give themselves when they have multiple components and options. It's also a little satisfying to know you make your own stuff. As with other things I can do it as an addon first if I decide to give this a go. Though if I do I'd likely implement it via an item, such as a crafting kit: Using it opens the GUI for crafting and stuff can be done there. Can try it sometime if anyone else finds this suggestion interesting, would rather spend time on other ideas too if not.

Since it already has been mentioned in the forums, I'd like to announce a small project of mine. A few weeks ago I was playing Legend of Grimrock and it struck me that their level design is extremely simple and modular, and yet, the player can spend quite a lot of time in the game. And it looks pretty, too! So I wondered if it wouldn't be possible to create a modern "Dungeon Crawler" (solve puzzles, fight monsters, collect loot, progress your character, upgrade your equipment) type of game inside the TDM engine. The engine already supports a lot of things one needs for this, and the overal structure and assets work, too. And with prefabs, one might get the level layout done quickly. However, building a few test prefabs in DR is easy, but creating a full mission out of them is quite painful. Not only needs it a lot of planning, but you can also spend a lot of time "upgrading" things later on. For instance if you later want to add a grime decal to the walls, you have to revisit the entire map. Even worse is if you find out later that your block size must be bigger or smaller. So the idea was born to create a sort of framework that can assemble missions from prefabs. Preferable while getting the description of the mission from a text file. So far, this has been a lot easier than I thought. Here is what I got working so far: Overview: You can describe your mission in a (Unicode) text file. This contains overall options, different locations (each location can have its own ambient light, music,name, fog), and the connections between the locations. Each location can have multiple "floor levels", these are stacked on top of each other. The config file also specifies which symbol means "use this prefab". It is also possible to specify links (per location), which means you can say "this lever with the symbol A opens the door with the symbol D". The framework reads the prefabs, and then positiones them in the map. It also glues all the locations together, adds location_info entities, a player start, an exit, and an objective to reach the exit. The resulting map is then enhanced with script objects (all nec. assets are bundled together), and automatically dmapped via TDM. Everything then is packaged together into a working .PK4 file. My demo map takes about 20 seconds, where 15 are dmap. In addition to the "basic" stuff I also managed to get a few things working, like a pressure plate, portcullies, and also made some puzzles. Oh, and per location fog (fading from location to location). Different difficulty levels are also supported, one can specify "this prefab appears only on easy" etc. You can find more info and screenshots and demo here: http://bloodgate.com/swift/ There is also a developer diary where I will be posting interesting entries from time to time. Here is an DR shot of a sample level, consisting of small modular prefabs and one large (the large hall on the lower left): The next steps will be to add more randomness (either static at map generation, or at runtime, so the map is slightly different each time you replay it). Also, while it is already possible to "overlay" prefabs (e.g. "for this location, look first here before falling back to the default"), it is not yet possible to "reskin" prefabs. This would be something which is impossible in DR (you cannot really reskin worldspawn brushes, unless you live with the fact that it is all manual For now I'm quite excited!

I think that the existence of a dedicated bug tracker for this engine proves that I should somehow make it known when it crashes. I just figured that the tracker was an internal thing between developers, and that it was okay to instead report the bugs here, especially since I desperately needed help with it, and since you have two sub-forums mentioning that they're intended for reporting bugs. ...so why, when I report a bug, am I getting shamed for it? Why was the guy in the thread you linked getting shamed for not backing up his project, instead of the main dev acknowledging that there is a very deceptive button in the engine, that can remove fan mission folders when you press it? Blaming the reporter for not backing up his work, is certainly not how I would personally handle reports of entire projects disappearing, but I guess now I'm warned about how he sees these things, to the point where I'm wondering if it's a good idea to report any bugs I find in the future, at all, if I'm just going to be considered a bad person for it. "Hm, to my experience, crashes in free software is a regular thing. Try "Natron" and you will understand what I mean." I don't understand your point. If crashes happen frequently enough, should we treat them like Covid and just "try to live with it"? I'm pretty sure that the bind bug is easy to fix, but it's like you're saying that bugs have a right to exist too. "Lots of longtime DR mappers ask questions in the Newbie thread (myself included). Nothing to be ashamed of and by DR/DM standards you are a newbie (and you have not to be ashamed of that as well! )" So if I've programmed for 30 years, mapped for Dromed for countless years (since roughly the turn of the millenia), mapped for the Dark Mod for 1 year, but joined these forums just a few weeks ago, I'm a newbie. I think that by that definition, the word "newbie" has lost all meaning. Besides, reporting crashes are not the same as just asking questions. Anyone can reply to a question. It takes a developer to fix a crash issue. ...and it's like you don't expect the developers to even fix crashes, and I really hope that you're wrong about that. For example, since I updated to this year's version, Dark Radiant itself, hasn't even crashed once, and it used to crash all the time, and so I take that as evidence that development involves fixing crashes. "If you want to report a bug, then please use the Bug Tracker." Will do. I was just fooled by the subforum descriptions actually telling me to report bugs in them. "You wouldn't believe how many mappers lost WIPs because of defective hardware" Again: I don't see your point here, where you argue for not fixing defective hardware. When I'm told about a bug in my program, I just go "Thank you. I'll fix that.". I don't go "Well, weren't you a sucker for using my program.". That's not how I was brought up at all. "for somebody who expects Armageddon in the near future (and there are really good reasons for that), you have a pronounced need for communication. I think that does not fit, because: Why go on with communication when all hell will break lose the day after tomorrow?" Well, why not? Yes, I am so interested in mapping, that it's actually cutting into my apocalypse survival routines a bit, but that's just human nature, and a month's vacation from prepping, won't make that much of a difference. "I hope that you - despite of your own assessment - will finish your WIP and we all can enjoy a cool new mission in the future with your name in the credits." Well, for me, mapping is about pleasing myself - not others. Play The Beginner's Guide, and you'll see what I mean.

Thank you for a great puzzle fm! I'm having real trouble with the TDM v 2.10-64bit on Linux Mint 21.1 Link to the guide supplied by V-Man339 https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/15844-fan-mission-the-gatehouse-by-bikerdude-goldchocobo-updated-02112014/page/7/#comment-429405

Which is kind of the point: If you were the player hiding from a guard, you wouldn't be eating chips next to them. Granted chips existed in the TDM universe, I'm sure the Inventors Guild figured it out This should be thought of similarly to VR support which is a good comparison... on that it would especially make sense with VR. Fair enough: Like I said I don't expect there to be an engine developer willing to work on this, especially unless many players express wanting it. It's in the same boat as VR again: Few people will use it, but some will seek it out for the sake of added immersion, and at the end of the day I think the effort spent on creating a VR branch of the engine is very much worth it. Hard to say how many would end up using it in the end, could be more depending on how it works. I can add one thing on that: If this were implemented in the engine, I'd offer to code the AI functionality, granted it's as a script. I'm not an engine dev but good with scripting: If I had one $player1.getMicVolume() call exposed to the script engine, I should be able to do everything as far as AI responses go, including the mic calibration settings based on just two extra cvars... my code could be integrated into core after first being tested as an addon. This way devs and mappers could come up with more innovative ideas to use the microphone in their FM's.

I agree. I'm copying this idea over to the https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21741-subtitles-possibilities-beyond-211/ thread. Related: I'll probably do some more experiments with the current TDM font & size, to understand max char count versus field width.

A few days ago in the thread discussing the flash arrow I implemented, someone uttered the word "minimap". Since that day my thread has been off-topic discussing the pros and cons of such a thing, as I struggle to find anyone willing to test and offer feedback on the mod in cause. Though this isn't a feature I normally intended to bring up, I'm opening this to move the discussion and get mine back to its original subject... and admittedly because the debate got even me intrigued in the idea. You wanted minimap, let's talk minimap Let us begin with the possible implementations as I see it. There's an easy way which is less than ideal, and a hard way that would be far better. The easy way is having the mapper draw the minimap image for their map, only enabling it if the FM includes this asset. That would require the least development effort, but moves the burden of minimap support to the FM creator who already has a lot of work to do. A small plus is the author has full control over the style of their minimap... this would however result in inconsistent styles, while the mapper needs to carefully trace every wall and building so it lines up with the brushes in the map which would be tedious to say the least. The biggest downside yet is none of the existing FM's would support it: It would only be a feature for future maps or updates to old ones, IF and WHEN the author chooses to use it... this makes it intermittent and even in the future only some missions are likely to benefit. All in all this solution feels pretty meh, though better than having no support at all? Then there's the harder way: Automatically generate the minimap image. The engine learns to scan for walls and sketch them from a top-bottom perspective, including both worldspawn brushes as well as every static entity that never moves (everything func_static at a minimum). This would be harder to code but takes the responsibility off the shoulders of mappers. Best of all it automatically works in every FM, no need to update old maps to include minimap images! The style would also be consistent across missions, the player able to customize the colors and appearance for all missions to their liking (via cvars). Another bonus is we can generate multiple minimaps for different locations and switch between them as the player enters / exits certain areas, possibly based on zones separated by info_location delimiters, which helps avoid overlap and confusion for different heights and floors; You see the minimap of the city when outside, then switch to a minimap of the building when entering a home. The ideal solution would be dmap generating the minimap image(s), but one problem then is dmap would need to be reran for all existing FM's. If precompiled the minimap image(s) should probably be stored in a "minimap" subdirectory in tga or dds format (eg: "darkmod/fms/myfm/minimap/info_location_1.tga"). As trivia I can point out this is what the game Xonotic does, with its own map compiler q3map2 generating a minimap.tga file from brushes. With either approach the minimap should be a menu option the player can disable and at least adjust the size of. I'm also thinking of making it item dependent: It should be possible to make it show up only if the player owns the compass item, or possesses a map readable meant to represent the map for that area... on this I'm kinda neutral and would go with the compass option for ease and consistency. Guards and important items could show as markers on the map depending on circumstance: It's debatable what and when should have a marker for AI or items / objectives, as marking something indicates the player has knowledge of that item and its location. As I said on the other thread where this discussion was thrown, I don't consider minimap support an emergency especially if no developer has the time or energy to put into it, but would find it an interesting and modernizing feature if it happened. Since some people seemed eager about the idea, share your thoughts on it here please! An image was shared in one of the posts... I take it an edited screenshot rather than an addon someone made for a real FM, but will end this post with it to give a basic feel of what we're looking at.

Some years ago i succesfully downloaded the wiki with wget, for TDM dvd. I dont know if this method wikl work now. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19998-tdm-collection-dvd/#comment-437887

Not necessarily a bad idea? Probably easy to implement with a particle effect. That might make everything too simple and lazy for the player still. Anyway it's kind of its own feature and discussion which would involve all of the arrows. Minimap doesn't sound like a horrible idea in theory, I just don't see anyone struggling with the effort of implementing something so hideously difficult from multiple points of view. As for icons above AI, those would only make sense if complex dialogue and interaction with AI is ever implemented... something I maaaay do as a mod now that I'm such good friends with the scripting system, I had certain ideas in mind such as trading with AI But this too is its own separate discussion... might open a thread since it would be worth talking about it before I'd decide to spend time working on another addon.