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OK I think I've got to the bottom of this. I've created this forum thread (with bug report): https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22221-bug-drowning-ai-in-shallow-water/ I can apply a workaround, although it won't be perfect and the bug itself needs fixing in the engine. There are a few other things that need fixing so will put an update together soonish.

If any mappers have encountered weirdness with kill objectives not working with drowning AI, I think I've found out why. I don't think it would be a particularly difficult one to fix either. I've raised this bug report: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6323 Some context here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21837-fan-mission-the-lieutenant-2-high-expectations-by-frost_salamander-20230424/&do=findComment&comment=487316 I think this is a bug, but just raising here in case some people think otherwise.

I dom't use it, i found it here with the filter set to OpenSource. the TOS and PP isn't excluding for an OpenSource app, if they use ads mean that they also need to pay an server for this online service. OpenSource is not synonymous with free either, perhaps after the beta phase it is no longer free, so perhaps you can take advantage of the fact that it is still free to create a series of textures that can be used or search another one in Futuretools. AI generated textures and assets, by definition, don't have any copyright, so you can use them as you want. https://www.futuretools.io/?pricing-model=free|open-source&tags-n5zn=gaming

@stgatilov, attached is a screen shot of what I'm calling the "sound source cue" or "sound source oval" directional indicator. Unlike the previous Photoshopped mockup, this is implemented as a prototype in gui script. It shows a cropped screenshot of the 3 stacked subtitle slots, with a red dot indicating the direction, respectively (from the bottom slot) left of player, straight in front of player, and straight behind player. Those locations are simply hard-coded by local float variables dot0_x, dot0_y, dot1_x, dot1_y, dot2_x, dot2_y. I need the engine to supply those as gui globals instead. (You can change the names as you wish). Once I have a 2.12dev update with those variables (and please, the verbosity enumeration too, that we talked about), then I'll do another pass to optimize the art and tweak the dot positioning and size. That's better done when dynamic dot movement is available. For the next go around, it might be sufficient if the engine just provided the direction as a unit vector, in which case the engine-side assert is: square_root(dot_x^^2 + dot_y^^2) = 1.0 Later, we could play around and see about encoding distance too. In which case the "=" in that assertion would be replaced by "<=". Do you think that "sound source cue" should be something the user can turn on or off as an option? If so, that's another gui global to pass, probably a cvar.

This is a good point that I had not considered. Can anyone remember any specific missions that require this contrivance of having the player carry a candle as a light source to progress? I feel like maybe "In Remembrance of Him" used it, and it was one of many factors that made that FM almost unplayably frustrating, despite having very nice art. If there are others that used it better, I might change my position. The counter argument would be that needing to move an extinguishable candle for light was always a problematic mechanic. If the player needs to emit light, then level makers should give them a lantern. Plus for those rare cases where an extinguishable candle needs to be carried for light, you can always quick-load if you put it out by mistake. Quick-load excuses many sins.... I'm less persuaded by this argument. As AluminumHaste pointed out, the difference between 1 keypress vs 2 or even 3 (because you also need to put the candle down) is only a few milliseconds. If that routinely makes the difference of whether you are caught, and that thrill of walking on the razor's edge is what you live for, then bravo, you are an exceptional player! But I don't think most people are playing TDM that way, and if we give them this I'm confident you can find other ways to keep the game challenging.

I think first mission one and two were A pawn in the game and The art of revenge. Then the campaign was introduced (which is still 3 seperate missions), which includes the prequel The angel's tear and the original missions got renamed. But I think this isn't correctly updated in the mission database. So here is a screenshot of vfat1 in the mission downloader: And here is vfat2 listed in the mission selection screen (after downloaded): Clearly this is the same mission. In the mission listing the darkmod.txt is used, in the mission downloader something else is used. But you're right that vfat1 is "The angel's tear".

Hello TDM-ers. I am encountering an issue where textures seem to partially disappear. I tried searching the forums, but, I don't know what to search for. The missing textures are a worldspawn brush acting as a roof with {for now} flat iron texture. There are other worldspawn brushes right below to create an attic ceiling with roof framework board texture. These gaps appeared a few edits ago. I can't "undo" to get back before whatever edit did this. The gaps are only visible during play and are not visible during editing. Closing and reopening DR and TDM do not fix anything. Some of the brushes overlap in areas behind the play area but I have never seen an issue doing that. The attached image has the effect I am now seeing. Ideas on where to start debugging this? Very much appreciated. Clint

Awesome! Post is up! https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22200-beta-testing-the-house-of-delisle/#comment-487365 Thanks!

Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8:

The *DOOM3* shaders are ARB2 ('cause of old GeForce support) carmack plan + arb2 - OpenGL / OpenGL: Advanced Coding - Khronos Forums

Seems to confirm: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5718 does it happen in the latest dev build: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20824-public-access-to-development-versions/

I just read@motorsep Discovered that you are able to create a brush, then select it and right click "create light". Now you have a light that ha the radius of the former brush. Just read it on discord and thought it may be of use for some people in the forums here too.

Weird old adventure game with interesting art. It's from the company who also made the Gobliiins series.

I just found this thread on ttlg listing Immersive Sims: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151176

Recently revisiting the forums after a longer period of time I wanted to check the unread content. I don't know if I am doing this wrong since.. ever... but on mobile (visiting the unread content page on my smartphone) you have to click on that tiny speech bubble to go to the most recent post in a thread. If you don't click correctly you'll hit the headline and end up at post 1 in the beginning of the thread. It's terrible on mobile, since not only the speech bubble is really small and was to miss. But also the thread headline is just millimeters away from it so you go right to the first post that was ever made instead of the most recent ones. Am I doing it wrong? I just want to go through u read content a d the to the newest post from that topic.

A@datiswous Ah yeah, well sorry, I was quiet busy and only visiting discord. First time here on the forums since months now I think.. Thank you for the subtitles. I encourage everyone who is interested in using them to download it from here as I'm not sure when I'll be able to implement them myself into the mission. Again, thank you for your work.

As other users have pointed out it's at least as much if not more an art "problem" as it is a technology one. While I could definitely see mipmaps helping, as I have mentioned I am not aware of any normal maps in core assets which are compressed and leverage mipmaps. I think it comes down to the overall intensity and then the frequency of detail in the normal map relative to the scale of the texture and lighting in the scene. The art of the game was made to suit the technology of the game. This means the intensity of the normal maps in many stock assets are tuned to present detail from small often transient dynamic lights and they do not hold up as well under these kinds of lighting conditions or when used outside of their intended texture scale. This one is probably intended to be a large stone floor which is probably lit by a torch instead of small platforms lit by giant spotlights. This was within our power to "fix", but we didn't consider it a priority admittedly in the context of all the work to be done to finish and release the mission.

@MirceaKitsune I don't say this to be discouraging, but a developer has already responded that replacing the AA in the game is not arbitrary and has no ETA so not sure what else you are looking for? Even if the engine is overhauled to the point TAA is an option, there is still no perfect AA solution. The image quality of the most modern games often reveals shortcomings under scrutiny - there are always trade offs. So how helpful is your suggestion which paraphrased is basically: "we need a bespoke AA solution that cheaply provides perfect results" when it comes to actually solving this problem? In a game where the image is typically dark and there isn't much high frequency detail it does not take much AA to provide an acceptable image in 95% of circumstances imo. It is we mappers who ultimately control what you are seeing in a given mission, and these scenes in SLL are very brightly lit with large volumetric light volumes. This for example reveals a lot of limitations in the resolution of shadow maps for these lights and presents normal map interactions that are not typical for the game, all that were quite obvious in development. Ultimately we liked the overall effect, so we accepted the trade offs. While there will always be room for improvement and advancements (just look at the VL light quality improvements coming from 2.10 to 2.11) it is that overall presentation, including those compromises, that is what real time game art is all about.

I can guarantee you that some actual artists are using AI as a tool that complements the human mind. You can feed your sketches or finished work into it (image-to-image) to generate more details, and the best AI art seen today often involves an digital artist cleaning up the AI mistakes by hand (Photoshop). But in general, the artistically unskilled/uninclined are having their human creativity amplified by AI. People have ideas, and now they can make them a reality without hiring anyone or spending 10,000 hours learning how to draw. Exercising their creativity might inspire them to learn the basics of art, to become better at using the AI. I think you will see a drop-off in low effort content that is spat out instantly by AI, whether that's images, videos, or symphonies. In a sea of AI-generated content, the best or most interesting (viral) will rise to the top, and that will tend to favor the things that had some effort put into them. You might not even realize that AI was part of the process. If you listen to a symphony or other music created partially/fully by AI and you enjoy it, what then? Is it "bad" once you know AI was involved?

I have no idea why there's such a hype over such A.I.'s. A computer always has been something for me which should complement the human mind, not replace it. When I read that A.I. composes symphonies, and does other art stuff, then I shake my head, and think of sci-fi movies, not of something which is actually useful. Human creativity is the antithesis to anything machine made. Especially when it's simply based on a database of collected knowledge, nothing which is based on actual human behavior (yes, I know, they try to "simulate" that, but, it's still very basic). I would say "Wake me when you're through", but, like with so many things these days, I'm afraid that it's a long-running craziness, not something which is done tomorrow. For me, it's the completely wrong direction, and a total waste of time.

Of course, it is one of the reasons for the decline of online forums, since the advent of mobile phones. Forums on a mobile are a pain in the ass, but on the other hand, for certain things there are no real alternatives to forums, social networks cannot be with their sequential threads, where it is almost impossible to retrieve answers to a question that is asked. has done days ago. For devs for internal communication, the only thing offered is a collaborative app, such as System D (not to be confused with systemd). FOSS, free and anonymous registration, access further members only by invitation, full encrypted and private. https://www.system-d.org

Ignoring is somewhat inadequate as you still see other members engaging in a discussion with the problematic user, and as Wellingtoncrab says such discussions displace all other content within that channel. Moderation is also imperfect as being unpleasant to engage with is not in itself banworthy, so there is nothing more to do if such people return to their old behaviour after a moderator had a talk with them, except live with it or move away. I'd be more willing to deal with it if it felt like there were more on-topic discussion, i.e. thoughts about recently played fan missions or mappers showcasing their progress, rather than a stream of consciousness about a meta topic that may or not have to do with TDM. I guess the forums already serve the desired purpose, or they just compartmentalise discussions better.

I don't recall a system for noise masking. It sounds like it'd be a good idea, but when you get into the details you realize it'd be complicated to implement. It's not only noise that that goes into it, I think. E.g., a high register can cut through even a loud but low register rumble. And it's not like the .wav file even has data on the register of what it's playing. So either you have to add meta-data (which is insane), or you have to have a system to literally check pitch on the .wav data and paramaterize it in time to know when it's going to cut through what other parameters from other sounds. For that matter, it doesn't even have the data on the loudness either, so you'd have to get that off the file too and time the peaks with the "simultaneous" moment at arbitrary places in every other sound file correctly. And then position is going to matter independently for each AI. So it's not like you can have one computation that works the same for all AI. You'd have to compute the masking level for each one, and then you get into the expense you're mentioning. I know there was a long discussion about it in the internal forums, and probably on the public subforums too, but it's been so long ago now I can't even remember the gist of them. Anyway the main issue is I don't know if you'll find a champion that wants to work on it. But if you're really curious to see how it might work, you could always try your hand at coding & implementing it. Nothing beats a good demo to test an idea in action. And there's no better way to learn how to code than a little project like that. I always encourage people to try to implement an idea they have, whether or not it may be a good idea, just because it shows the power of an open source game. We fans can try anything we want and see if it works!

If my ears don't deceive me, the narrator's voice. By the way, I don't have a horse in this race, and don't want to hold a discussion about it, but, how do you keep it? Let's say there is a mission planned and multiple parties are involved. The mission is on hold for years, due to people formerly involved in the mission don't work on it anymore, have gone inactive, or else. Someone chooses to pick up on it, and continues to work on it. Will he be free to do what he wants with the mission, granted the people originally onvolved are OK with it? Do you expect to be credited when the mission is done? Do you see your work or art as closed source, unless someone asks for permission to use it? I always thought, with the mod being open source, and so many openly available contributions to the assets, it would more or less mean that people are also allowed to work and pick up on old, discontinued missions, and don't have to ask for everything. Maybe I'm naive in thinking that.