Search the Community

DarkRadiant 3.7.0 is ready for download. What's new: Feature: Skin Editor Improvement: Script Window usability improvements Fixed: Hitting escape while autosaving crashes to desktop Fixed: Def parsing problem in tdm_playertools_lockpicks.def Fixed: DR hangs if selecting a lot of entities with entity list open Fixed: Float Property Editor's entry box is sticking around after selecting a float key Fixed: Spline entities without model spawnarg are unselectable Fixed: Entity window resets interior sizing forcing resize each time it is opened Fixed: Spline curves should not be created with a model spawnarg Fixed: Newly appended curve control vertices aren't shown at first Fixed: Light entities are zoomed out in preview window Fixed: Entity inspector spawnarg fields not always updated by UI windows such as Model Chooser Feature: Skin Editor (see video) Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.7.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks to all the awesome people who keep using DarkRadiant to create Fan Missions - they are the main reason for me to keep going. Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Keep on mapping!

Yes, it does. Which makes it interesting that you yourself explicitly said that it's interesting nobody had complained here on the official forums: I did, which is why it stood out to me so much that even though you yourself had personally been involved you would reply claiming nobody had complained here on the official forums. I'm not colorblind at all. Does that make people pointing out that almost no modern games have proper colorblindness support hyperbole? Just because it doesn't affect you, or you choose not to pay attention to the discussion of something, doesn't make it hyperbole. Pick pretty much any modern FPS and you will find plenty of discussion about the near universal disregard for FOV and camera movement as accessibility issues. Denigrating those as hyperbole because you personally don't feel the affects is as bad of a look as demeaning people who bring up the importance of valid allergen warnings like gluten or colorblindness and deafness support.

Obsttorte was interested in what I learned while making the LQD with the modular building technique, so I'll write some words about it here. What is modular building? It is about reusing every piece you build. In the old building technique you make things by hand. Then you move elsewhere and make things by hand. Every time you start from scratch and do a lot of work until you have a small area that looks good. In Modular Building Technique (MBT), you make parts you need by hand, make them into .ase models and then clone them. You spend a lot of effort to make a single pretty detail piece. Once it is done, you can easily clone it. Also you can easily make derivatives of the existing piece. Ie. first make a wall. Then use the wall and make it into a 90 degree corner. And a wall with a doorway. And a T-junction. And a Wall with niche etc etc. Every piece you make, you create with the intent of making it reuseable. It takes a bit longer to make a single piece, but once you have a library of pieces, you can create good-looking rooms in few moments, just by cloning and bashing the modules in place. Some history I first thought about large scale modules, whole rooms and corridor pieces. The module would contain everything: worldspawn walls (the sealing geometry) and the details. In LQD the first floor was built with this principle. The corridors were repeatably cloned: straight corridor module, straight corridor module, straight corridor module, 90 degree corridor module, straight corridor module, T-junction module and so forth. When I reached the 2nd floor in LQD I started build smaller modules. Straight wall model piece, 90 degree wall model piece... Like seen in the LQ's study and this tutorial, for example. I personally feel this small module approach was far better than the large module one. The reason is you get more from the pieces: build sealing geometry, then clone the models in. Or the other way around if you prefer. Cloning entire rooms (mixture of worldspawn and models) is a bit clunky and error-prone. It is easier to make the location from several small reusable model pieces and then draw the sealing geometry around it. How to build modular? 1) Decide a grid size. This is THE MOST important phase. Try out different scales and decide what size factor your map will be. In LDQ I decided that the grid will be 144x144. It felt right for a castle. 2) Design the pieces so that they fit together and in to the grid. Here is a single example, which shows how the module pieces fit with the grid. Remember to leave room for sealing world geometry! That is, the worldspawn walls and floors marked in the screenshots below: The above example is in 2d. I mean the module pieces touch in XY plane. If you design your pieces properly, you can also make them fit in the vertical dimension too. That means you can mix and match pieces you build to have more variety: wall type A, ceiling type B and so forth. See below how the ceiling module fits on top of the wall modules. Pay special attention to the texture alingment. Remember, that the textures cannot be shifted anymore in an ase-module piece. Thus the texture alignment must fit nicely when the module is designed. 3) Build! Once you have the pieces ready, all you need to do is clone them and create the room. You might want to make the pieces into ase-models for lower memory impact (a model is loaded only once, cloning func_statics will eat more memory) and to protect your func_statics from DR corruption bug. 4) Decal modules! You can also make decal modules. When I built the wall modules seen in the screenshots above, I also retextured them with dirt decals and saved them into ase models too. This means I can simply clone a decal module on top of the actual module, thus griming it up with a single cloning. See screenshot below, actual module and it's decal counterpart. This simplifies griming things up a lot! You can also make modules for various other things, like wall damage, windows, vaults and the like. When you need a piece, you build it, make it into a module and place it. Then when you need a similar piece later, you just clone and place. No point in doing wall damage by hand, as you can just quickly clone a piece you made earlier and paste it all around the place: 5) Skins! Note also that this is not the limit. By writing a skin file, you could have variation within the modules, like the wall paper in the screenshot below: Summary All in all, you spend a lot of time designing the pieces. I would recommend building the pieces in a separate modules.map. This way you have a factory: you build pieces there, it is quick to dmap and jump in-game to inspect you work. Once you are sure your piece is perfect, you make it into an .ase model. Then open your map and mash the pieces you have together quickly and minimal effort to create a good looking location. Keep on mapping with the pieces until you need a new one. Then go back to you module factory and build a new piece. Make sure it is perfect, make it into a model and continue. Look at the wall in the above screenshot. Building that by hand via the traditional way would take a while. In the modular way, once you have built a single unit of that 3 unit wall, you can built the whole wall in seconds. Or any wall of any lenght! That is the power of the modular approach. Good looking details with low amount of work. Downside is that you are locked to a grid and you need to spend a lot of time with the modules initially. Also you need to have the discipline to plan your map a bit so that you won't waste time building modules you don't want or need. Special considerations: Note the part where the different modules touch each other. Pay special attention to this spot. You have to be very careful how you align your textures. There should not be a seam there. You could avoid the seam making the texture 'mirror' between the touching module brushes. This is very critical part in your module design so pay attention to it. Larger modules can be good too. For example, the spiral staircase towers (there are two in LQD) were a single module containing all the worldspawn and func_static walls. I made one tower and then just cloned it and placed it into the other location. Two towers at the expense of one. If I'm gonna map in the future, I'll just grab the tower from LQD and retexture. Assuming the next map uses same grid, that is... And one more benefit. Sticking to the grid makes later adjustments really easy. In LQD, there is the bedroom that was converted to a storeroom next to LQ's study. Initially this room was just sitting in the end of the corridor and there was no access from the spiral staircase tower into it. When I was drawing the in-game maps I felt that there should be an third option for accessing the second floor. Then I just added a corridor module between the store room and the staircase. Changed the wall modules into doorway wall module and the connection was ready. Hopefully this helps other mappers to explore alternative mapping techniques.

As far as I know the most up-to-date one is the script I maintain (there is a single tdm_export script which supports both ASE and LWO export). However I haven't specifically tested with the latest Blender 3.4 series, so it's possible that it will need an update. I believe this information is out of date. The problem of LWO losing smoothing information was caused by the Blender exporter itself ignoring object-specific data and enforcing a hard-coded smoothing angle. This is now fixed in my latest version, although the old behaviour is selectable at the time of export if you don't want to deal with object smooth groups. As far as I can recall, when I was testing this, the smoothing options did take effect in the engine (although I couldn't say whether they were 100% mathematically correct).

Yeah, but also for vehicles. Vehicle is MD5, terrain is ASE.

Solid 1, if no collision surface is available, will use the model geometry itself for collisions (search for combat model in the code also), so yes is not the best approach, doing a custom collision model is always preferable for performance, but doing it on DR is something I personally don't do and IMO is at most, best for simple box like collision models. Like I said the best is to create the collision surfaces in a 3D Tool like blender, you can use the shadow model for it, just change the material from "shadow" to "collision" or even the lower poly LOD model, can't be easier. Btw isn't AFEntity for ragdool physics? I thought that was only for skinned MD5 models not static ASE or LWO models.

Is there an LWO exporter that works with Blender 3.4.1 ? I use some rogue ASE exporter and while it seems to work fine on small low poly models, it seems that it doesn't export properly larger higher poly models

There is no such model format as "CM". A CM is either an OBJ, ASE, or LWO with a collision texture. The cm data in the map compile cannot be natively manipulated, it is the result of a dmap operation.

Well, I am not sure where you get your information from, but I couldn't export selected ASE mesh in the map as CM model. It's either a bug in DR or the limitation is that only brushes can be exported as CM (which is in fact how dmap generate .cm files - only from brushes)

I think it is a good idea! Our ingame mission downloader and mission view has long been subject of multiple improvement suggestions. Due to the sheer mass of missions that have been released in the last 15 years, things got really cluttered and especially newcomers will have a hard time finding what they want. However, improving the ingame guis is quite a task, so a web-based application might really suit this scenario well. Maybe we could even add a linke to it from our ingame menus, so user can access it quicker. Some more things to think about Would users be able to add custom tags and downvote / upvote certain tags, much like the system of Steam? This would also allow to add tags like "beautiful", or "difficult". Actually, the more users can contribute to this system, the better, because it will be automatically maintained then. The browser should also contain a flag for whether the FM belongs to a connected series of FMs or not and have the capability to go to the previous or next FM in that series. There should also be a flag for fully fledges campaigns. Some might like a flag whether or not an FM is "ghostable".

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!

Hey, Every time I've try to use the Full Editor when PM'ing someone, and every single time I get an error. Whoever is in charge of the forum, is it possible that this could be fixed? Thanks Neon

No. The Aeden's staff optional objective is the hardest of the game. To point out directions here, though, is getting into an area of heavy-duty spoilers ... so I'm constrained in my response just as I was constrained in my responses to the "endless keyhunt" complaints because to show the rather simple direction would be a huge spoiler. So I had to bite my tongue and take it. Aeden's staff is different, though - harder. I've never tried a no-KO ghost playthrough. Because I'm clumsy and have slow reflexes. I think it might be possible to do a stealth no-alerts playthrough. Are you allowed to KO? I think I've gotten the staff a few times in my playthroughs without alerting the builders in that room. The only switchable lights in the FM are table lamps. The cylindrical style wall lamps aren't extinguishable. The other fire and gas wall lamps are extinguished by water. In the Ox all waiters and commoners in the common room and outside are friendlies - except for the waitress in the upper lounge which is filled with enemies. You need water arrows. Moss arrows. Rope arrows. I've never used a gas arrow in a playthrough of the FM but one would make things easier, for sure. I'm going to replay the area and check through the locations that you mentioned - the loop etc. - then if it's OK with you I'll PM you with some info, tho' I'll ask you if you want the info first. So's not to spoil it for others who get that far in the game (few and far between!). I find it almost impossible not to click the "reveal spoiler" tags and read the info ... and, y'know, spoilers do spoil the real deal.

DarkRadiant 2.12.0 is ready for download. Feature highlights include a new customisable GUI and the first iteration of the Material Editor GUI. Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/2.12.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks go out to all who helped testing this release! Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. Changes since 2.11.0 Feature: Customisable GUI layout Feature: Extended MaterialManager scripting interfaces by manipulation methods Feature: Material Editor GUI Feature: Same origin / duplicate detection script Feature: 3D grid feature Feature: Show light_radius on 'other' entities Feature: Show attached (light) entities Improvement: Better support for stage transform keywords in idTech4 materials Improvement: ESC to close dialogs with Cancel Improvement: Add portal_sky filter to default filters Improvement: Copy model/entity/prefab paths to clipboard (context menu in tree views) Fixed: Material stages with alpha test are incorrectly rendered as translucent Fixed: ASE importer needs to handle shared vertices with different normals Fixed: Ambients don't light sides facing away Fixed: Table lookup evaluation is not producing the same results as in the engine Fixed: Attached light radii are the wrong colour if "Override light volume colour" is active Fixed: Add missing image dimension reads to Quake 3 legacy brush parser Fixed: Opening the Create Entity dialog a second time will present an empty tree view Fixed: "Toggle 16x16 grid" function in the Particle Editor broken Fixed: Use of BITMAP field in ASE differs from TDM Fixed: Newly added or imported items don't use the location of previously selected item Fixed: Newly drawn brushes don't use height of previous selection with "Show Size Info" switched off Fixed: Rotation widget does not re-center on selected object Fixed: Duplicating model and moving with Alt-arrow results in pivot on original model when trying to rotate afterwards Fixed: Brushes with no visible surface towards orthoview "camera" are invisible in orthoview Fixed: Can't select one-sided models in certain 2D views Fixed: Twosided models can only be selected from one side The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Have fun mapping!

I'm using the version from kcghost. I just tested and I can't see any difference inside the inventory. On the stats itself it doesn't show the different loot types (still seen in the inventory), but instead gives more info on stealth score. Edit: I see Dragofer made an updated version of his script. I have to check that out. Edit2: That version works: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=21272&key=02755164a3bed10498683771fe9a0453

I looked but didn't see this video posted in these forums. It's pretty cool.

Announcing the Release of 'Requiem' for The Dark Mod! Download Download the latest version of the Dark Mod here: http://www.thedarkmo...wnload-the-mod/ Download the mission here: Mediafire: http://www.mediafire...u89/requiem.pk4 Southquarter: http://www.southquar...ons/requiem.pk4 Fidcal.com: http://www.fidcal.co...ons/requiem.pk4 Create a folder in your Dark Mod install with the path "darkmod/fms/requiem" and place the downloaded .pk4 file inside. When you load up The Dark Mod, the mission will appear on the "New Mission" page. Requiem can also be found directly using the in-game loader. Gameplay Notes While this mission is playable in TDM 1.8, for an optimal experience please download and play in TDM 2.0 (or higher). Most inventory items in the game can be dropped, so no need to carry them around after they are no longer of any use. Note that If you use noclip or other console commands while playing, there is a good chance that you will break the intended flow of gameplay. Credits Mapping and Readables: Gelo R. Fleisher Voice Acting: Goldwell Additional scripting: Obsttorte Additional textures and assets: Flanders, Sotha, Grayman, Springheel, Bikerdude, Obsttorte Additional map optimizations: Bikerdude Testers: Bikerdude, Obsttorte, Gnartsch, AluminumHaste, Baal, nbohr1more, PPoe Custom Soundtrack: Leonardo Badinella - http://leonardobadinella.com/ Additional Music: Lee Rosevere - http://freemusicarch...c/Lee_Rosevere/ Marianne Lihannah - http://www.funeralsinger.net/ Vox Vulgaris - http://www.last.fm/music/Vox+Vulgaris/ A note from the author Hi all. While I've been involved in indie game development for a while now, I'm first and foremost a writer. My most recent project has been a novella that tries to capture the visual feel and tone of the Thief series (you can find the link below). As I was writing, I found myself playing a lot of Thief and Dark Mod fan missions, and got to thinking that maybe I wanted to make one myself, as a companion piece to the book. When I finished up writing, I had a bit of down time and decided to take the plunge. Having never done any serious mapping before, my plan was to make a small mission that I could bang out in a month or two and call it a day. Well, as sometimes happens, the project got a little bit bigger than I had planned. Ten months, and lots of elbow grease later, Requiem is finally ready for you to play. I'd like to thank everyone who helped pitch in to help make Requiem come alive, from those who took the time to answer my many questions on the forums to those who actively contributed to the FM. I especially want to thank Bikerdude who served as my mapping mentor, and Obsttorte whose clever scripts really turned what was in my head into the game that you are playing. Above all, I want to thank you for downloading and playing Requiem; I hope you enjoy it. Links of Interest Author's Blog: http://gfleisher.blogspot.com/ Companion Novella (Amazon): http://www.amazon.co...k/dp/B00BYEW02M Companion Novella (Smashwords): http://www.smashword...oks/view/298956