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I was so enchanted by this FM, I had to sign up to the forums the same day I finished it to come thank the authors Genuinely, truly incredible work! I was so overwhelmed in places that I resorted to just shouting joy at my monitor two, three, maybe four entirely separate times while playing. Exploring, puzzling, finding something new, trying to use it, and finding it does a whole new, separate, wonderful thing! There aren't enough words inside me to describe the feeling. It was breathtaking. I don't have any specific feedback that hasn't come through this thread before Thanks so much for making this, for all the inspiration and ingenuity and effort it took. If I never play another level this good, in any other game, in my life, I'd be fine with that.

Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock By Sotha The mission starts some time after the events of Ulysses: Genesis, and continues the story of Ulysses. It is a medium sized mission with a focus on stealthy assassinations and hostage liberation. BUILD TIME: 12/2014 - 05/2015 CREDITS The TDM Community is thanked for steady supply of excellent mapping advice. Thanks goes also to everyone contributing to TDM! Voice Actors: Goldwell (as Goubert and Ulysses), Goldwell's Girlfriend (as Alis) Betatesters: Airship Ballet, Ryan101. Special Thanks to: Springheel and Melan (for proofreading). Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraRGduUWlVRmtsX3c/view?usp=sharing Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

@datiswous, made that correction fm_test.subs --> fm_conversations.subs @stgatilov, about srt naming and file location, would you be OK with the following edit? New/changed stuff in italics: srt command is followed by paths to a sound sample and its .srt file, typically with matching filenames. An .srt file is usually placed either with its sound file or in a "subtitles" folder. The .srt file format is described e.g. [1]. The file must be in engine-native encoding (internationalization is not supported yet anyway) and have no BOM mark. It contains a sequence of text messages to show during the sound sample, each with start and end timestamps within the sample's timeline. It is recommended to use common software to create .srt files for sound samples, instead of writing them manually. This way is more flexible but more complicated, and it is only necessary for long sounds, for instance sound sample of a briefing video. It's a simple enough standard that it can be shown as an short example, demonstrating that subtitle segments can have time gaps between them. And the example can show correct TDM usage, without requiring a trip off-site and picking through features that TDM doesn't support. Specifically, the example shows how to define two lines by direct entry, rather than using unsupported message location tags (X1, Y1, etc.). And skips other unavailable SRT font markups like italics, mentioned in the wikipedia description. The example would also show the TDM-specific path treatment. The example could be inserted before the sentence "It is recommended to use common software...."

I do usually make test FM archives for each asset, as it helps make sure that all custom assets are in place. When I release an asset it's basically that archive minus the maps folder. I could try to dig the maps up again. The assets are usually made for missions, so you can also find the assets in there (presence lamp in Painter's Wife, camgoyles in Written in Stone, automaton station in The Anomaly, the audiograph and teledoors feature in WIPs).

Awesome mission! Been playing it for an hour or so and it's the type of mission I like, full of areas to explore but not so much it becomes overwhelming, a manor to investigate, and a mystery. I don't know if there's any technical features being used, but based on what I've played so far there's a bunch of assets I've never seen before that look like they're some of the ones listed here: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=What's_new_in_TDM_2.11#Assets

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.

That Discord discussion isn't directly related to the topic, as it was about a TDM dev team member who modified and released updates to a core mod mission by another dev team member, without turning to him first. He asked another team member instead, because...? At least to me, this is very weird, since the mission author is around. That's an argument against using community's common decency and trust as grounds for anything, as people have very different standards when it comes to that. IMO you can use the 'bad communication' excuse forever. But obviously, this is a core mod mission, so it's not about putting it in encrypted package, nor it is about doing the same with core mod assets. It's more about giving content creators options on how to release their work, and it also opens up possibilities for mappers to use different (and higher-quality) assets in their missions while honoring their respective licenses. For many music tracks, even free ones, this is a baseline requirement, actually, to have it distributed as part of unopenable package. There are many different scenarios here, but I guess the overall question is: would you like to play a mission with some fine content, that may be unique to this particular mission only (or it may appear in other missions, but won't be integrated in the core mod), or you'd rather not experience such content in a mission at all? Perhaps not literally, but there are more coders here than content creators in general, and that also applies to idtech4 world as a whole. If you take a look at idtech4 discord, there are many coders, and everyone and their mother wants to have their engine fork, but that didn't translate into a game with great assets or a mapping community. Everyone's still testing their ideas on core Doom3 assets. Content creators are elsewhere, doing stuff for engines that offer some basic control over your work. Speaking strictly from a personal perspective, I have a small FM in the works with full-quality assets I post here from time to time. It runs the same, if not better than an average mission with stock TDM assets, due to certain optimisation tricks and best practices I know and use in my modelling. I don't want these assets to be mixed with stock TDM assets, as I've already seen that with my previous asset pack. They don't mesh well. Instead, I'd like to release a separate asset package, e.g. without specular materials, perhaps with some textures downscaled, so they blend better with everything else. Without any choice on how I can release my stuff, you force me to downgrade it for the mission release. I guess I should also stop posting pictures of such assets, at least in full quality, as this would be false advertising.

Far from crazy. Just like with any other project we must start somewhere: settle on some basic rules and start naming core objects. The rest will evolve naturally. 5 people * 20 names per day (each) = 1000 assets in 10 days.

How you can help depends a lot on what skills you have. I can Record Video Recording "Let's Play" videos or simple walkthroughs of existing missions and posting them to Youtube is great exposure for the mod (see example .) Be sure to let us know so we can link to them. If you have some editing ability, Video tutorials, where you explain how the mod works, or how to use specific tools, would also be great. Video trailers, showcasing interesting places and features, are also great for publicity. An example is . I can Write Writing reviews for missions are always nice, especially if they include good screenshots. Not only does it give us something to post on other forums, but it makes mappers feel good when their mission gets attention (especially if it's positive). We have a collective thread to post reviews in: http://forums.thedar...s-walkthroughs/ Writing reviews of the mod as a whole, targetted an an audience that doesn't know much about TDM, is also very useful. You could also try offering your services to mappers to create interesting readables, or to proofread for their mission. I can Act and Record Audio We are always on the lookout for good quality audio recordings for vocal sets. If interested, you can pick a few different lines from this script: http://wiki.thedarkm...t:_Average_Jack and send the recordings to Springheel, who then writes a script based on the type of voice you have. I can Translate We could always use translations of our menu/hud into more languages. Also, only a few FMs are aavailable in more than one language, so there is a lot of work there, see the I18N Translator's Guide in the Wiki. I can Model Great! Take a look at the model request thread:http://forums.thedar...-requests-here/ and pick something that interests you. Or just post a, "Hey, anybody want a model?" thread in this forum and I'm sure mappers will get back to you. I can Animate Fantastic. We can always use more good animations. Our current character rigs use a Maya skeleton. PM Springheel for more info. I know C++ Have a look at our coding section in the wiki, pick an issue or feature from the bugtracker of the mod or the leveleditor, download the recent sourcecode release (or better ask for an SVN checkout) and get cracking. Make sure nobody is already working on that specific issue and feel free to ask questions. I can Edit Images We can always use completely new textures and/or improved versions of older textures. How to get started and how to import them into the mod. I can Take Photos Good quality photos of useful textures (medieval-ish building facades, dirt, rocks, wood, etc) are always welcome. The fewer directional shadows and higher resolution, the better. I don't have any skills Even if you can't do any of the above, you can still help out. Talk about TDM in other forums; share your (preferably positive) experiences with other gamers you know. Last, but not least, compliment people when you like their work. Saying "thanks", to a developer or, "I really enjoyed your mission" to a mapper will make their day. -------------------- I'll update this further as more things occur to me.

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

(I apologize for the odd poll question layout. I wasn't able to add five yes-no questions, because polls are limited to three questions.) Hi everyone, I've recently been working on some patches for issues that I've read about from players on the TDM and TTLG forums — and Discord. My goal is to make it as easy as possible for players, especially new players and those who need usability/accessibility options, to find what they need in order to have a better TDM experience. I've already written the GUI and game engine code for these settings, which I've been using in my personal build. The reason for this poll and discussion is to both guide the finalization of my work and collect data to help inform the dev team. Which patches I submit depend on the outcome of this poll, discussion, and what the dev team agrees to accept. Once decided, I can coordinate with the dev team. I've attached screenshots of what the new settings menu would look like if all of the settings are accepted. Below, I have detailed each menu setting, so you can have an easier time understanding each one. Very important to keep in mind: None of these settings change TDM default behavior. They are all opt-in. If you are already happy with the behavior of 2.10, 2.11, etc. and these menu settings are accepted, nothing will change for you. Rename "Always Run" to "Run Mode" with options "None, Always, Toggle" After 2.11 was released, @i30817 requested that "toggle run" be added to the settings menu. Its cvar is already in TDM as "in_toggleRun" (same as Doom 3). I propose renaming the "Always Run" setting to "Run Mode" with options: "None", "Always", and "Toggle". None = in_alwaysRun 0; in_toggleRun 0 Always = in_alwaysRun 1; in_toggleRun 0 Toggle = in_alwaysRun 0; in_toggleRun 1 Show Blackjack Helper @Wellingtoncrab suggested that the new blackjack helper be added to the settings menu. Its cvar was added to 2.11 as "tdm_blackjack_indicate". More info: It's the new blackjack helper added to 2.11. When the game detects that the blackjack can be used for a successful hit or KO, the blackjack will rise slightly. I propose a "Yes/No" setting for this. Slider for "View: Head Bob" @ChronA requested a way to disable head bobbing, because a viewer watching him play was having severe motion sickness. Also, there was a bug in TDM that made setting the head bob in the console not stick after loading a saved game. (Even with 2.11, if a mission overrides the "tdm_player_thief.def" file and sets "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", "pm_bobup", and other cvars, it will override player preferences.) As far back as 2008, players have had trouble setting head bob. Another one from 2018. At the end of 2022, @Shadowex3 registered just to voice the need for a way to control head bob. I propose that a slider be added to adjust the amount of head bob. This would use a new "pm_headbob_mod" cvar with a value between 0.0 and 1.0 (default 1.0, no change). The "pm_headbob_mod" would be a multiplier for "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", and "pm_bobup". The advantage to this approach is that missions like Volta 2 and Hazard Pay would not need to adjust their "tdm_player_thief.def" files for head bob to work properly. And, the player can still adjust "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", and "pm_bobup" as they like. Slider for "View: Mantle Roll" This is similar to head bob for those who are sensitive to motion. Its cvar was added to 2.11 as "pm_mantle_roll_mod". A Thief player on Discord said, "2.11 will have a cvar to tune down the mantling animation at last." I propose that a slider be added for "pm_mantle_roll_mod". Auto-Search Bodies @Zaratul requested the "auto-search bodies" feature from Thief 1 & 2. Its cvar was added to 2.12 dev16783-10307 as "tdm_autosearch_bodies". I did a poll on the a Thief Discord server and roughly 20% of players there use the Thief auto-search bodies feature. I propose a menu setting for this, so that players coming from Thief 1 & 2 can easily find it.

I would say if DR monitors assets, it should monitor all of them: both core assets and FM assets. I'd definitely skip monitoring files inside zips, since it is a very different story. But if there are some unpacked core assets, it would be better to monitor them too (at least TDM devs would be happy). DarkRadiant should have the set of paths where assets are searched for, the most correct approach would be to monitor them all. As for monitoring too many files. I used watchdog module in Python, it watched over 20K core assets without any problem on Windows. Perhaps it depends on which OS API is used by the library of choice. I hope you do use some third-party library for watching over files, don't you? Speaking of preferences, I would prefer having one checkbox per type of assets. This way we can avoid arguing over what should and what should not be reloaded automatically. As for TDM game and game connection. The best approach would be to automatically reload assets in TDM when they are reloaded by DR if game is currently connected. Implementation-wise, DR functions for assets reloading should emit events like "I have just reloaded skins". The game connection should subscribe to these events when it gets enabled, and unsubscribe when it gets disabled. On such event, it should execute reloadSkins or reloadDecls or whatever other console command. P.S. I must warn that my opinion is hardly decisive: I'm neither DR developer nor a mapper.

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

Are there any maps that feature assets such as torturing devies? Hooks, meat chains, racks, you get the idea. And if yes, What are the chances of using them into a Doom 3 custom map? Credit given of course

Edit: This mission has been updated to fix this. Thanks @nbohr1more! Yes, see the following post. Use a ZIP utility to extract the def/tdm_shopitems.def file from tdm_defs01.pk4. Copy that file to darkmod/fms/fever_<verson>/def/tdm_shopitems.def. Edit that file. Replace this line: "inv_icon" "guis/assets/game_maps/map_of" With this line: "inv_icon" "guis/assets/game_maps/map_of_icon.tga" Note: Because this is a def file, you'll need to restart the mission to see the changes. A saved game will have the previous def values.

That's the thing I've been thinking about the other day; how do you teach players what is waist-high exactly, and what margin of error is okay? In commercial games this is usually done with visual language; a set of distinct assets and decals that are immediately recognizable throughout the whole game. But TDM has all kinds of assets made by different people. My worry is that it would be more of an exercise in frustration for players, who will have to try and guess the rules by trial and error. And what is perhaps more important, you can't force mappers to recognize the new rules and use them consistently in their designs. Hell, there are still veteran mappers that don't care about being consistent about a similar thing, but with the jump and mantle height, making objects like bookshelves that look climbable but are just slightly out of player's reach

We are proud to announce the release of: The Dark Mod 2.11 ! The Dark Mod 2.11 is primarily a bug-fix release. The majority of development time was dedicated to fixing or improving long-standing bugs or problem areas with the project rather than focusing on new features. That said, some of the improvements that were introduced to address these issues could very well be classified as new features in terms of the amount of changes required to bring them to life. A full changelog can be viewed here, but some highlights include: Major gameplay improvements! For players, Stealth Score and AI alert behavior has been improved to better detect tactile contact with AI and proximity. An older TDM release introduced a grace period feature that was overly broad and made some AI ignore players that were right in front of them. This has been substantially improved so stealth scoring and AI reactions should be a lot more consistent and logical. Players will also have a new Blackjack experience with better cues about whether a blackjack attack will succeed and improvements to the way that the blackjack attack is executed. Players can more smoothly transition from climbing as the player is now permitted to be crouched during the climb. There is a new multi-loot feature which allows you to pickup multiple loot pieces by holding down the frob button! Performance Improvements! The new volumetric light feature has been improved via a new blur phase. This means that you no longer need to increase the samples to reduce or remove banding and performance should be substantially improved. Before 2.10 ( dithering and low sample count): After 2.11 ( blurred and higher default sample count ) : Soft Shadows now utilize scissors and tile-based evaluation in stencil mode so that Anti-Aliasing no longer need be applied to the entire shadow buffer. Shadow Maps have improved mipmap, LOD and texel utilization. There should be fewer artifacts and better performance. Large models are now evaluated via a BVH structure so that they can be split for lighting and culling optimizations. AI think cycles have been optimized and perform less work per-frame. GLSL programs have been rewritten to have better performance on AMD graphic cards. Included mission improvements! Mission 1: A New Job now features subtitles! Mission 2: Tears of Saint Lucia has been improved with EFX reverb and a few bug fixes! Asset fixes and additions! Dragofer has fixed hundreds of assets that were missing setup definitions or other components that would cause the console to flood with errors on TDM launch or on the launch of missions. In addition, he has added hundreds of new and old assets from both TDM team members and members of the TDM community. Improvements for Mappers! The Engine now supports Obj model format Material Shaders no longer require you to add frob stages. Frob is now auto-generated. You can still add custom frob effects to materials if preferred Missions can now include decls that override those in the core TDM without using an override file to replace the entire core file. GUI scripting has been overhauled with better syntax and error reporting Dmap precision has been increased and Dmap T-junction performance has been optimized Please see our Moddb article for the full developer blog entry: https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/news/the-dark-mod-211-is-here To update, simply run the tdm_installer.exe file in your darkmod folder. Note that tdm_update.exe is no longer supported, but you can download the new installer from the Downloads page if you don't have it yet. Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.11, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first!

My own take on the beta process is that devs on one side commit to adding and improving features, but also to ensuring that the new releases are, as far as reasonably achievable, free of bugs and that the new features aren't broken on release. To balance that we have a general policy to freeze the code when the beta starts, where code changes should primarily be fixes to issues detected in the beta. Exceptions are made on a semi-regular basis for changes that go further if they can be justified. That's mainly the case when there's still enough time left in the beta to get the changes properly tested and reviewed, or the risk of breakage is low i.e. because you're adding, but not changing things. For example, I worked extensively on assets this release cycle and didn't manage to get all the work done before the beta, so I was still busy until about the middle of the beta phase. However, I prioritised my work so that asset changes were ready ahead of the beta, while asset additions (which won't break anything) were made during the beta. I also treaded particularly carefully when adding the new assets to compensate for their shorter beta testing time. I might not have been around as much lately, but I only heard of Daft Mugi's slew of patches when we were discussing whether the next beta build should be the release candidate, which gets released as-is if no significant issues are reported. At that point any changes will either prolong the beta testing phase, or carry the risk of not working as intended. The plan was to reach this point at the end of january (if this was not prominently communicated somewhere it was a mistake). Personally I definitely see the value in trying to accommodate as many of these changes as possible because they make TDM more attractive to Thief players, Daft Mugi is even standing ready to introduce them to the TTLG community, and it looks like they're fairly simple changes. However, prolonging the beta comes with its own drawbacks. One is that players and mappers are delayed in getting access to all the other new features. Another is that the beta phase is a relatively draining part of the release cycle for the devs because new projects are mostly on hold while the focus is on getting to a stable build. One of the ideas behind dev builds was to shorten the beta phase by spreading out the testing. Ultimately, we've designated Stgatilov as the project lead so it's his task to call the shots on how to balance these demands.

Kingsal has graciously converted the highly map-specific animated grass from Arcturus' gorgeous "moonlit castle by a lake with grass plains blowing in the wind" demo map into something that can easily be used by mappers, now also featuring different varieties of grass, different sizes, 2 different wind speeds and LOD stages: I'd like to run a small beta of this asset here for mappers to try it out in their FMs, so feedback on it (i.e. animation, performance impact, looks) before it gets added to core assets would be very appreciated. I won't go too much into the details because the entity & spawnarg tooltips are part of the testing. You can grab the asset here and just drop the .pk4 in the folder of your FM, no need to unpack it. Look for the animated entities in the entity menu. Once the assets are in core you can just delete the .pk4.

Hello all, I am trying to compile and play The Dark Mod under my platform (Gentoo Linux). After patching the patchable to make it compile, it turns out that no rendering is shown on screen at all: black screen (with resolution change), mouse is responsive and I can hear the reaction of the GUI to its movement (clicks and all); also the background music (soothing, charming, beautiful... but that you know already) cuddles my ears. I started the bisection of the code from version 2.05 (I think... it was r6753) to r7203. It took me a while (none of the commits compiles out of the box, and different ones require different patches), and in the end I found that r6834 works for me (at least the menu screen!), while r6835 does not any more (as above). I have the output to screen of two runs. In thedarkmod-r6834.txt, I started it with no arguments, and then quit. In thedarkmod-r6835.txt, I started it with no arguments, then I switched to a text console and killed it (because I could not see the GUI to quit). The only files that changed between the two runs are thedarkmod.x86, gamex86.so and tdm_game02.pk4. Any suggestion for me to have this work?