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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'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.)

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

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.

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.

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

I guess the best image-to-normal conversions I've seen here in the forums are via njob. I am curious about this AI thing though: https://github.com/HugoTini/DeepBump has to be installed into Blender as a plugin?

No, not really, have only seen him on the forums many years ago. He deserves a lot of credit for providing the SVN infrastructure in the beginnings of the project, it's been only later when we transferred this to a hosted server. Memory is blurry, but I think my time working on TDM and his don't overlap that much - I had been getting more active, and he pulled back a bit. He bootstrapped quite a few important systems, IIRC he's been working on light gem and the first Stim/Response and Inventory implementations. From what I recall, he gave the project an organisational backbone in the technical department which is crucial to keep things together. Folks like Spring and NH who have joined long before me could give more insights, I guess. (Looking at my join date makes me feel old either way. From TDM's current view point, the year 2006 seems like right at the beginning, but actually the mod had already been existing for two years by that time I joined. With the first release in 2009, 2006 is rather in the middle. Heck, I haven't touched the mod code for at least 10 years - and I can still remember a few things, which is a testament of how much it occupied my thoughts back then).

There are other complications though. How much fall damage should player take, if they decide to jump off a rope with the body? Should the player let go of the body or not? Also, right now it's much harder to jump off the rope with the body than without it. Why? And last but not least, how would you teach players these things, possibly without much hand-holding and text prompts explaining the rules? I guess I'm with @STiFUon this one, if you restrict dropping the body, you'll save yourself (and mappers) a lot of headaches. But even that doesn't solve all the problems, I know I'm in the minority in these forums, but as a player, I really appreciate the beauty and efficiency in simplicity of the design. Not overthinking everything and adding more and more rules for the sake of realism (or anything else).

Interesting to learn that TAA applies a jitter. Reading about TAA and its focus on motion I could never understand why TAA looks so good in Elder Scrolls Online even when I wasn't moving, but I guessed it must be doing some kind of "simulated motion" when the player is standing still. At work I implemented a basic jitter-based antialiasing for our spline rendering years ago (four samples for every frame in a fixed pattern), but never really thought of it as "TAA" — perhaps we should advertise it as such. Personally I wouldn't choose to use FXAA but I have no objection to it being available for people with lower-end video cards, if someone wants to implement it.

Yes, FXAA isn't the only method: There are a few other alternatives to MSAA, which are all worth exploring and testing to see which gives the best results at the best performance with our engine. I believe most are shader based but use different passes to achieve the effect, which IMO is the right way of going about it. I agree that in theory MSAA is the correct way of doing this. Its problem is that it requires multiple samples per pixel which is a great way of wasting GPU power. If we could have everything running in the most accurate way, our dream of a lighting system based on realtime raytracing would come true... on existing hardware that would run at 1 frame per minute. Point being that sometimes it's better to use estimations, especially when they can offer roughly the same result as the more realistic method. MSAA should always remain an option... only wishing that other alternatives could be available for those who need the performance benefit. Ideally they can all be put under one slider or drop-down menu, so you have a list that looks like "FXAA, 2x TAA, 4x TAA, 2x MSAA, 4x MSAA, 8x MSAA, 16x MSAA" (prolly a silly example but you get the idea). Something I forgot to add: I took inspiration for this suggestion from Red Eclipse, the latest version of which uses Tesseract engine (previously Cube). It has all sorts of AntiAliasing options available in the menu, from FXAA to Temporal AA to one I think they created just for that engine. I played with them and FXAA seemed to give the best results, whereas enabling all others at the same time still didn't affect performance as much as enabling MSAA alone.

Here are some useful resources on the matter, sharing in case they make this easier to accomplish. https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/custom-srp/fxaa https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/advanced-rendering/fxaa http://blog.simonrodriguez.fr/articles/30-07-2016_implementing_fxaa.html https://iryoku.com/smaa https://www.geeks3d.com/20111101/smaa-enhanced-subpixel-morphological-antialiasing

This is basically "do include my work ASAP because I worked so hard, or else *sulk*". This is similar case: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21679-beta-testing-211/page/10/#comment-482352 This is neither a commercial product, nor a phishing email. That sense of rush and pressure is artificial. These releases typically do take long, and even then, there are often many things broken by mistake or omission. Often there aren't enough people to test stuff, or they're not competent enough, etc, etc. There's little point in hurry.

Had a problem with the web server yesterday that led to a crashed table in the forum database. This has now been repaired and things seems to work again. I was on travel so it took a while before I was able to fix it. Merry Christmas!

I can get on the main forum now but still get an error when trying to load posts. Anyone else?

I was thinking about how I've been a bit of a pessimist whenever I post stuff in the off-topic section of The Dark Mod Forums, and whilst I do stand by the fact that it's healthy to face unhappy realities of the world in order to provide discussion so that people will spread that discussion and the problems are eventually gained notice of and fixed, I also realize that it's kind of depressing, talking about war and strife. So, I decided to talk about a topic of how we can make the lives of people who are sick and dying happier, and help them experience things they wouldn't be able to otherwise due to their conditions, such as elderly in retirement homes or cancer patient children undergoing chemotherapy or other people who can't go out and travel much. I was thinking about how I haven't gone to the Zoo, Aquarium, or Museum for over a decade, and how I haven't gone to an amusement park, water park, or the beach in summer since covid started. Then I thinks to myself, at least you've done that in your life, some people aren't as lucky or well-off as you've been in life; some people never got around to doing that sort of stuff in their life and now they're stuck in a nursing home, or some are still young but stuck sick in the hospital, and may not live long enough to do that stuff. So I got to thinking, I've seen people on The Dark Mod Forums who've discussed making a VR version of The Dark Mod. And I wonder to myself, hey, you don't know how to program any of this for the less fortunate, but you like to suggest stuff to people, plant seeds in their ears like, so I decided to suggest this to you guys: What about making VIrtual Reality Experiences for the less fortunate? Zoos, Aquariums, Amusement Parks, Carnivals, Circuses, Fairs of the normal and medieval variety, Museums, that sort of thing. And they don't just have to be based on reality, with V.R. you could create a zoo full of unicorns, dragons, zombie animals, aliens, demons, and other fantastical beasts, or make Amusement Park rides that aren't feasibly safe with modern technology, like a roller coaster that reaches up into outer space and through an asteroid belt! I know this comes out of nowhere, but the idea hit me and I'd feel guilty if I didn't share it.

The issue for me is that you're opening one thread after another full of nonsense and/or vulgar ranting about one thing or another and otherwise only seem to engage minimally with the TDM theme or community on these forums. Have you tried playing some fan missions and posting your thoughts on them in the forums, or maybe teaming up with an FM author since you seem to have quite a lot of ideas? That would be much, much more welcome participation than the endless ranting which effectively amounts to trolling and as nbohr1more said can be grounds for a ban. If those things are your primary interests you'd be much better off finding somewhere else that's designed for hosting those kinds of discussions.