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Here's my first FM. A small and easy mission, inspired by Thief's Den and The Bakery Job, where you must find and steal a cook's recipe book in order to save a friend from going out of business. Download: Mediafire (sk_cooks.pk4) TDM Website's Mission Page The in-game mission downloader Thanks to: The people who helped me get this far, both in the forums and on Discord. The beta testers: MirceaKitsune, Mat99, Baal, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, jaxa, grodenglaive, Acolytesix ( Per the author in the beta testing thread. ) Skaruts has given permission to the TDM Team to add Subtitles or Localization Strings to this mission. (No EFX Reverb.) If anyone from the Community or TDM team wishes to create these we will gladly test them and update the mission database.

TDM conveniently has a spawn_arg to add sound effects when an item breaks (snd_broken), but this causes the game to crash unfortunately, so I had to add the sound separately.

Here's one I made just using spawn_args and a couple effects on a custom streetlamp. The arrow has a S/R set to trigger the lamp. [EDIT]: S/R is not required, the arrow will inherently break a glass object that has the break and broken spawn args.

The fisheries have had a bad year. Unemployed roam the streets and crowd the pubs. The merchants sleep with one eye open and keep a tight grip on their property amid the unrest. A thief, even a skilled thief like myself, has a hard time finding good, worthwhile work. I began looking for more... unusual tasks. I set my eyes on Thornton Hall, remote and cut off from the outside world. These outlying manors are difficult to find, let alone reach, but they're bound to hold precious trinkets and family heirlooms untouched by anyone. Not few are said to be haunted by one dreadful apparition or another. But it's common for the lords themselves to spread these rumours, to keep unwanted visitors away. This mission is in two parts. Once youre done with the first, on to the next. Download Dropbox- river3In-game downloaderClick continue at the bottom of the login screen if you use the Dropbox link but don't have a login, then place the mission archive in the fms folder of your Dark Mod installation. Changelog, v3, December 14th, 2016: Changelog, v2.5, November 23rd, 2016: Changelog, v2, October 27th, 2016: Notes In response to a question about the relation of this mission to One Step Too Far: This mission started its life as a standalone mission for a Halloween contest, so it takes place in a different setting and begins with its own story. There is, however, a strong link thatll become apparent during the mission. From a mapping perspective it contains areas and ideas that I had originally intended for Of Brambles and Thorns, which is the bonafide sequel, but realised that they wouldn't have space there anymore. So this could be described as being neither sequel nor prequel, but certainly a part of the series that began with One Step Too Far. Solutions Part 1 Part 2 Credits - Inspiration, Story: The Terrible Old Man by H.P. Lovecraft, a short story which leaves much to the imagination. - Inspiration, Setting: Right Up There in the Mountains by Troutpack, a fan mission for Thief 2 which left its mark. - Betatesters Round 1: Abusimplea, ankai, Ryan101, Oldjim, bikerdude - Betatesters Round 2: nbohr1more, bikerdude, crowbars82, jaxa, dunedain19 - Custom voice work: AndrosTheOxen, bikerdude, Goldwell - Custom models: Atheran, epifire, Dragofer - Custom paintings: Airship Ballet - Custom AI path setup: Sotha - Custom ambient tracks: gigagooga, spady, bottle_rocket_fx, dobroide, Dragofer, augustsandberg, bosk1, 01sound - Custom sound effects: kyyrma, cgeffex, speedenza, cabro, joelaudio, robinhood76, klankbeeld, benjaminharveydesign, vate - Bikerdude for not allowing me to stray from the highest standards and perfing troublesome spots - John Atkinson Grimshaw, Ivan Aivazovsyk and William Bradford for paintings used in the briefings and loading screens

The Black Mage ============================================================= Title: The Black Mage Filename: black_mage.pk4 Authors: Grayman, Jack Farmer Testers: datiswous, joebarnin, Shadow, Amadeus, madtaffer, wesp5 Release date: 24.12.2021 (version 1) - 05.03.2022 (version 2) - 23.12.2023 (version 3) Version: 3 (available via in game downloader) ============================================================= Grayman - Mapping, scripting & text for briefing video JackFarmer - Additional mapping & scripting, drafts for readables, conversations and in game comments Amadeus - Revision & editing of all readables, conversations and in game comments Dragofer, joebarnin, datiswous - Troubleshooting ============================================================= Voice Talents (in alphabetical order): AndrosTheOxen - Worried father / Counsel Lester Morlan (fincancial advisor to the lord) Bikerdude - Sami "Sausage" McNulty (the castle's chef) BoyLag - Percy Lockhard (the castle's chronicler) Goldchocobo - Robert (the son of the worried father) / Colton (a fallen Builder) Jedi_Wannabe - Friend of the worried father / Bennett (a fallen Builder) Malasdair - Lt. Godric (chief security officer) New Horizon - Lord Ewan Davenport (the Black Mage) Purgator - The Thief ============================================================= Paintings: New paintings provided by OGDA Grayman avatar painting created by Zerg Rush ============================================================= Assets: New kitchen equipment models provided by STRUNK ============================================================= Geometry: Selected cave architecture orginally created by Bikerdude & Dram for "Blackheart Manor" and later modified for "The Gatehouse" (rearranged with the orignal authors approval) ============================================================= Sound: Wind_rusting trees sound (main menu) taken from freesound.org produced by funwithsound "Madrigal" (briefing video) performed by Anthony Holborne Pub audience sound (briefing video) taken from freesound.org produced by yap-audio-production Footsteps sound (briefing video) taken from freesound.org produced by Nox_Sound Stand up from chair sound (briefing video) taken from freesound.org produced by kupp2 Tape-deck-startup sound (phonogram recording) taken from freesound.org produced by soundjoao Short metal scrape sound (phonogram recording) taken from freesound.org produced by Timbre Chains sound (phonogram recording) taken from freesound.org produced by arnaud-coutancier All other new ambient and sound fx recorded and produced by JackFarmer sometimes with altered sound effects/ambient sounds orginally produced by Gigagooga ============================================================= Video: Story board and sound arrangement by JackFarmer Briefing video produced by SirSmokeALot ============================================================= Known bugs: If you quicksave too soon after killing a fire elemental (within 4-5 seconds), the quickload crashes. (2.09 and 2.10) ============================================================= Production notes: Graymans's son gave this work in progress to the Dark Mod community according to grayman's will in June 2021. After discussions with Dragofer, I overtook this mission in June 2021 and started working on it in September 2021. Since I didn't know what else Grayman had planned, I made up my own story from the end of the briefing. The voice actors did an incredible job. Everyone I asked immediately agreed to complete this work of Grayman. This has now led to a fabulous eight voice actors taking part in this mission - from England, Ireland, Canada and the USA. ============================================================== Let's raise our glasses in Grayman's honor. Otherwise I wish you all happy holidays. Take care of yourself, your loved ones, and all of your friends.

So what did you choose? So I think this can both be done with gui transition effects, so you don't need a video for that. If only we had a visual editor for making such gui-based briefings.

Inn Business It's business, at an inn, over three nights. Development screenshots: Download: https://drive.google...dit?usp=sharing Update 1.48 uploaded March 8th, 2014, one change: patches key rarely not being frobable in one of its possible spots Big thanks to my beta testers: Airship Ballet, Kyyrma and AluminumHaste! Development supporters of note: Sotha, Springheel and Obsttorte. Also thanks Sotha, for urinating in my mission. ;-) And thanks Kyyrma for the title screen! My appreciation to all forum/wiki contributors, without whom, this wouldn't exist. Thanks to positive commenters on my previous mission too, extra motivation helps! :-) Note this uses campaign features, what you use the first night, impacts subsequent nights. And to quote a tester, "...the level is maybe best experienced in more than one sitting". If you do pause between nights, please be sure to save, you can't begin partway through effectively. (If you accidentally start a night you already completed, just fail the kill objective to switch to another night.) If your frame rates are too low facing the cemetery, please reduce your "Object Details LOD" setting. It was designed with "AI Vision" set to "Forgiving", to be able to sneak through with minimal reactions, if you want more/less, adjust your settings accordingly. There are several random, conditional aspects, and ways of going about things, so others might have slightly different experiences. Post here if you discover hidden objectives for extra points! My condolences to loot completionists, I made a bit on the third night hard, you've got your challenge cut out for you! Speaking of which, there's a TDM bug that mission complete totals too high, here are the real amounts per night: 2026/970/202. Oh, there is something that in the U.S. would be rated PG, in case you play with kids in earshot. I hope you enjoy playing it, feel free to let me know you did, and I'm glad to respond to inquiries (like how stuff was done, nothing was scripted). (Note which night you are referring to if it's something specific.) (Please remember spoiler tags to not expose things meant to be discovered by playing.) Like so: [spoiler]secrets[/spoiler] Developed for TDM 2.01. PS: Thiefette, good news, no spiders! Springheel, if you find an optional objective you can skip...you might find it immersion breaking. Others, no undead! There are a couple other interactive critters though. :-) Edit note: Some posts below were from users of an unreleased version of TDM 2.02 which broke several things, they do not reflect regular game-play.

http://k.min.us/jCfGA.jpg "At night, they say, the Builders' hand comes loose from his mighty hammer and creatures wander out from their hiding places while he slumbers. But tis this night, above all others that unholy vapours cloak the land with gloomy curtains and night creatures dance and sing in the twilight. I can't say I'm looking forward to my endeavors this night.... I've been given a job by a Priest to retrieve two holy artifacts from an abandoned cloister in Eldin woods north of the city, simple job I thought, but the priest failed to mention the placed was haunted." Build Time: - version 1.0 was about 5 weeks, but we are now upto version 3.11. Thanks: Respect to the Dark Mod team for putting up with all my questions and knocking up the various updates in short order!. Special thanks to Flanders and Springheel for their models and my testers for helping me squash all the bugs etc. Testers: Flanders, Jaxa, nbohr1more, Aluminumhaste, Baal,l Oldjim, Cookie, Obsttorte, lux, Mat99, AluminumHaste, thebigh Readables: Darkangel/Flanders/b1k3rdude with special thanks to Flanders for his original story.. Resource: Flanders/Springheel - art direction and models. Misc: This is a homage to the original Thief2 mission from 2001 (The Cathedral of the Damned) Download: - The latest version is now available via the in-game downloader. Info: This version has been heavily updated from the original, this came about as a result of need to be compatible with TDM 2.10+ Repeat after me, "Read and explore, Read and explore" The mission is fully l10n ready. (thanks Tels) The mission now has EFX Reverb The mission now has Volumetric Light effects The mission now uses LOD settings for different detail levels There is now a script event related to the "Curse" A few new surprises... Known issues: This mission will have less than optimal fps at a few points on the map, but most of my testers with lowish end rigs (P4/HD4650) are getting 30fps+ at the worst spots) For very low end PCs I recommend the following settings: V-sync is off, AA is off, Aniso is 4x or lower, advanced settings are simple/default & Post processing of disabled and as a last resort the command line arg ' r_skipFogLights 1 ' (turns off the fog)

Yep... just what I was thinking of, except it's even worse than I remember now that I see it. Biggest limitation with stencil is you can't have alpha texture shadowing, so stuff like plants had to have their shadows turned off. I'd say this is the most important reason why enabling map-only effects was a good decision, followed by other improvements and potential future features like transparent / colorized (stained glass) shadows.

Ah, pity I wasn't reading the forums back in February. I'm fond of that game, along with Bugbear's other early title, Rally Trophy. I was never too good at FlatOut, but it was always a hoot to play.

If shadow maps support more detail that stencil shadows can't offer, I'm absolutely in favor of enabling them: It makes sense to use them for obtaining new details and effects that weren't possible previously. Geometry based shadows are technically a legacy thing anyway, I imagine that once every player and their hardware work well with shadow maps then stencil shadows may someday be deprecated.

After playing various Dark Mod FM’s, I become hooked to the game, like I was with Thief (and its FM’s). So, like I do to all games I love, I tried to find ways to improve it. Since my first contact with DM and after playing T1 and T2 with the fantastic “HD Mod”, it became apparent that graphically, TDM struck me strange. Of course, it is clearly a BIG improvement over T3 and it’s not worse then Thief 2014 -- if you remove all those post processing effects, the textures are actually very bad for today standards – but it could be a little bit better. So I started to change a texture here, a texture there, whenever I found a texture that could be improved. Initially, I made this for my own amusement, while i was playing, but as the changes increased, I started to think I it would only be fair to share it with the community. As a note, I really appreciate the amount of work done by the contributors to TDM. It’s amazing how an open source project of a game whose genre is unfortunately condemned to target a niche player base could attract so many talented people to work together and create what essentially is the Thief 4 we never had. So this is in no way a mean to disrespect the contributors and their work. What changed and how Currently, around 530 files were changed. The changes end up in one of the following categories: NOTE: “texture quality” noted below is subjective and represents only my point of view. Again, It is in no way a mean of disrespect for the original author and its work. The texture is good but is in a low resolution – upscale it using AI image enhancement methods. The texture is poor and low res, with poor AI upscale results – try to replace it using various free PBR or raw Image sources (1) or create my own. If necessary, adjust the image using (colors, saturation, contrast, …) The texture has a good resolution and its not quite good but can be improved – improve using gimp (ex: on textures with bur, use sharpen, noise reduction or/and other features) (2) The texture depicts an horrible stew – change it to a decent and delicious stew, because my Portuguese roots forced me to do it. Additionally, specular and normal maps were added to some textures. (1) Free textures and PBR sites already discussed on this forum (texturehaven.com, 3dtextures.me, cc0textures.com and so on). (2) Finding the right texture is not always easy. I always tried to follow the same “feel” and appearance of the original image, but i confess that this is not always the case. Again, very subjective. New version 2021.01.08 * Around 170Mb of textures processed Some tree barks enhanced Stucco change more enhancements on doors, paint paper, fire places, ground textures, curtains .. and much more Screenshots and Comparisons It’s obviously undoable to show the comparison for all changed textures, so keep in mind that the following screenshots are just a very small example of the whole project. Also, very important, keep in mind that there is so much you can do with screenshots and in game the differences are much more clear than what is shown below. Sir Talbot's Collateral https://imgsli.com/MTI2NDE https://imgsli.com/MTI2MzY https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mzc https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mzg https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mzk https://imgsli.com/MTI2NDA WS3: Cleighmoor https://imgsli.com/MTI1OTE WS1: In the North https://imgsli.com/MTI2MTY https://imgsli.com/MTI2MTc WS2: Home Again https://imgsli.com/MTI2MjM https://imgsli.com/MTI2MjQ https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mjc https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mjg https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mjk https://imgsli.com/MTI2MzE https://imgsli.com/MTI2MzM New (version 2021.01.08) Briarwood Manor https://imgsli.com/MzUwNDY https://imgsli.com/MzUwNDg https://imgsli.com/MzUwNTE https://imgsli.com/MzUwNjc The Builder's Influence https://imgsli.com/MzUxNjM https://imgsli.com/MzUxNjQ No honor among thieves: forest https://imgsli.com/MzU0ODE https://imgsli.com/MzU1NTQ https://imgsli.com/MzU1NTk How to install 1) download the pk4 file from here 2) drop it on your TDM game folder (where all the other pk4 files are) 3) Play! Uninstall Just remove z_TDM_HD.pk4 file from your TDM install folder. Disclaimer If you are a purist, please don’t use this texture mod. Don’t bash it for not being “exactly the same as the original ones but hires”. If you find some texture that is copyrighted, please let me know and i will replace it. Fell free to suggest changes, but please don't make requests. Understand that i am doing this while playing and if i start feeling that i'm working instead, i will probably start to loose my interest. PS: I really don't know if this is the right thread to make this post. Let me know if i need to change it to another thread.

I think the default gamma was raised to 1.2 to reduce banding and color precision artifacts at the low end of the brightness scale. There are probably some confounding factors that make that a questionable decision. 1) At the time of this discussion, I believe TDM's bloom settings were generating extra contrast and thus lowering gamma 2) By the time that soft gamma was implemented, we also were using a new bloom system that does not tie the bloom effect to other post processing effects 3) There was some attempt to make TDM shaders compliant with industry gamma defaults but that attempt to adhere to standards may have caused problems because most games are much brighter than TDM so using calibration established for use in brighter games may cause unintended results. These days, I normally set gamma to 1 ambient gamma to 1.1 and set my postprocess color curve to 0.2 or 0.3 which darkens gamma back to something similar to 1. Maybe someday I'll purchase a monitor calibration machine and try to sort out the ideal default state.

When talking about a possible libre version of TDM (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22346-libre-version-of-tdm/) it seems we believe all media/gamedata included in TDM is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA. I am not familiar with how the process of adding new media/gamedata works today; I have seen files uploaded to the bugtracker which developers then commit to SVN, but I don't know if there are other ways. It may be a good idea to implement a process that when new components (media/gamedata included in TDM) are added, the contributor is asked to be explicit about the license (a choice which may defaults to their previous preference, for usability). It won't fix the past, but it may help in the future. This will make it easy for contributors to add future data under a more permissive license if they choose. Libre media can be added and its license can be tracked, rather than assumed to be CC-BY-NC-SA. I suggest looking at how Wikimedia Commons has implemented this: the contributor state the source and license at the time the data is uploaded. This can be done either by providing urls or by saying "It's my work and I choose this licsense". The first step could be to add a way to keep track of each filepath in SVN, author, license, sources. Start by setting the value for each file's license to "(default/legacy CC-BY-NC-SA)". Possible implementations for a user interface for new additions are: * Use our own wiki, which runs Mediawiki (same as Wikimedia Commons). I see several benefits of this, but we also need a way to accept uploads of batches, not just single files. * Look at how other open source projects have solved this. There may be more appropriate solutions available. ... but I'll leave the implementation open. Suggestions are very welcome! If the author of each file already in SVN can be tracked, then it may be possible that the author is willing to give a blanket permission for all their past files in one statement, and all their files in SVN can be updated in one commit. A productive contributor willing to release some of their work under a more permissive license could make a big change. If Dark Radiant would support letting mappers search media/gamedata by license (does it already?), it would make it easier for mappers to create a completely libre mission, which would help facilitate a TDM-libre release. If I understand things correctly. This post does not address all details and it may contain misunderstandings or assumptions, but it's a start. Also relevant: * Is there a compiled and maintained list of recommended or deprecated resources for mappers to use? * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20311-external-art-assets-licensing/

Not to start a discussion on this but just for correctness, that is not true at all, unless you are using a really low polygon shadow mesh, if you see a pixelated shadow with stencil, then that is a shadow map or a mix of both stencil and shadow maps. Stencil shadows are crisp and well defined, they have no resolution setting or quality setting (besides turning off shadows), because they are literally geometry (triangles) being projected unto surfaces, while shadow maps are pixels (textures) so you can control how sharp they are. TDM has a mix shadow system, where some effects even in stencil shadow mode, will use shadow maps, for example volumetric lights shadows, are shadow maps. Stencil shadows Shadow maps

ok fair enough but you have still not seen TDM using shadow maps to the full potencial, so I would wait until then before making a final decision but ok. Also unlike stencil that looks crisp at any quality level shadow maps only look good at res beyond 1024 and up and also dependes on the tech used, some have noisy edges by nature, because of low res penumbra effects. But to me today they look good enough and the fact they may look less than equal to stencil, maybe the particular TDM implementation, with all respect for those that implemented them. I have played a ton of games with shadow maps that look good at lest to me. Stalker for example: Metro 2033 Dead Space Call of Juarez Arkane Prey made on Cryengine and many many more.

Is it possible to use recent versions of Maya to create dynamic effects/simulations for use in TDM? Even if they're just cached sims? Sparkles, dust, smoke, steam, sparks, splashes, fluids, magic, etc. For example, create nParticle sims (including instancers), Bifrost, and/or MASH simulations in Maya to be used in missions. I've played around with the effects editor in DarkRadiant, and it can do some neat things. Was just wondering, though, if it's possible to use Maya sims somehow. I have a lot more experience with Maya, mainly nParticle and MASH, and just feel it would be neat to make some sims someday.

Introduction A project is underway, led by Geep, to eventually provide English language subtitles (or if you prefer, "closed captions") for all the non-story phrases (e.g., barks) of the stock AI characters. The non-story phrases are identified by the "verbosity speech" subtitle tag. The hope is that these subtitles would be distributed as part of the future TDM 2.12 core and so available to all FMs, both old and new. Since there are 5-10K such phrases in total, this project will take a while. Let me know if you'd like to help. This forum thread can be used for project coordination, and to provide info about - What subtitle sets (e.g., for particular AI) are underway and completed Emerging tools or methods for bulk testing Style guidance for TDM subtitle authors. To support this project, a style guide will be developed as experience accumulates. While motivated by providing some consistency to English speech-tagged subtitles, it may be of some interest to FMers creating story-tagged subtitles, and those subtitling in other TDM-supported languages. Potential improvements to TDM's subtitling system - particularly those that would involve engine/GUI changes - can be discussed in this companion thread: Subtitles - Possibilities Beyond 2.11 Current Status - Subtitles for Barks All TDM vocal sets planned for TDM 2.12 have been delivered. New: Fixup Needed to Run These Under 2.12 Beta 3 The Thug - Update May 6, 2023 released as testSubtitlesThug2 FM. This takes advantage of new 2.12dev features and changes to style guidelines. The Lord - Update May 4, 2023 released as testSubtitlesLord2 FM The Wench - Two postponed April versions - Nov 25, 2023 released as testSubtitlesWenchOriginal and testSubtitlesWenchPatched FMs. Two versions because of Bugtracker 6284. IMPORTANT: See final version at end of this list, released Jan. 14, 2024. The Young Builder (Builder 4) - Update May 30, 2023 released (again) as testSubtitlesYoungBuilder FM. (Corrects error in briefing syntax of original May 17 release.) Average Jack - June 8, 2023 released as testSubtitlesJack FM. The Pro - June 23, 2023 released as testSubtitlesPro FM. The Maiden - July 8, 2023 released as testSubtitlesMaiden FM The Grumbler - July 24, 2023 released as testSubtitlesGrumbler FM The Mature Builder (Builder 3) - August 15, 2023, released as testSubtitlesMatureBuilder FM The Lady (aka Noblewoman) - Sept 9, 2023, released as testSubtitlesLady FM The Moor - Sept 14, 2023, released as testSubtitlesMoor FM The Commander - Sept 30, 2023, released as testSubtitlesCommander FM The Simpleton - Oct. 21, 2023, released as testSubtitlesSimpleton FM Builder 1 & 2 (shared vocal set) - Nov. 8, 2023, released as testSubtitlesBuilder1and2 FM The Critic - Nov. 25, 2023, released as testSubtitlesCritic_FM Manbeast - Dec. 10, 2023, released as testSubtitlesManbeast FM NEW! Lady02 - Dec 21, 2023, released as testSubtitlesLady02 FM. Assisted by datiswous. NEW! The Drunk - Jan 6, 2024, released as testSubtitlesDrunk FM. Assisted by MirceaKitsune. NEW! The Cynic - Jan. 13, 2024, released as testSubtitlesCynic FM. Incorporates early demo subtitles by Dragofer. NEW! The Wench, Final Revision - Jan. 14, 2024, released as testSubtitlesWenchFinal FM . Assisted by Dragofer. See also original May version (released in November) in the list above. All TDM vocal sets planned for TDM 2.12 have been delivered. Thanks, @nbohr1more, for integrating these into the release. All AI vocal sets, including additional ones for future consideration - perhaps as "verbosity effects" - are listed here. Current Status - Utilities buildSubtitleShader.exe - Latest release of April 10, 2023. This program fabricates a TDM sound shader file specifically for the testSubtitles... series of FMs used here. It does so by wrapping each sound file name in a directory into a sound shader with uniform incremental naming. While limited to a single directory, the latest release simplifies merging runs from multiple directories. @datiswous reports that this Windows console program also works under Linux/wine, where it is used with similar "testSubtitle..."-derived FMs for verbosity "story" subtitling. checkDurationsInSRT - May 6, 2023 Update (bug fix) This Win/console program scans a directory for .srt files, examines the subtitles, and warns about those phrases/messages that are potentially too short or too long in time, or that seem to require too high a reading rate, expressed in characters per second. It also looks for within-file subtitle messages that overlap in time. soundDurationsCSV.exe - March 7, 2023 Release This Windows console program scans a directory of sound files, reporting their names and (using pre-installed ffprobe) durations with millisecond resolution. The resulting .csv file can then be imported into a custom Excel spreadsheet for subtitle editing. For more, see also Feb 20th comments . findTooLongSubtitles.exe - Minor update, June 23, 2023 Release This Win/console program scans a directory for .subs and .srt files, checks the length in characters of each subtitle line, and reports those that exceed a specified maximum. analyzeFieldWidth of April 27, 2023 (release not scheduled; too idiosyncratic). Used to determine, for 12pt Carleton font, and a representative sampling of bark subtitles, how many characters might reasonably fit within a given gui field width. Later, parts of this code were used to build calcStringWidth.exe discussed next. calcStringWidth.exe - Oct. 11, 2023 Release. Calculates the display width of an input string, for 4 candidate subtitle fonts Carleton and Stone, uncompressed or 16:9 compressed. statsForSubtitles - June 25, 2023 Release. Starting with The Pro vocal set, this Windows console program automates the gathering and reporting of the basic statistics included with the announcement of every vocal set release in this forum thread. Current Status - Spreadsheets and Related Explanatory Documents, including Workflow and Templates Work by Geep on each vocal set starts with instantiation of a pre-configured Excel spreadsheet. This is used for subtitle editing and to do automatic calculations to help manage constraints and decision making. The announcement of each AI subtitle release here includes a link to the corresponding spreadsheet. At first, the spreadsheet's columns, formats, calculations, and highlighting (and its distillation into template form) would change quite a bit between each AI. As of June, 2023 and AverageJack, it has largely stabilized, and is now documented: June 10 Documents Explaining Workflow and Excel Spreadsheet/Template (for AverageJack) The v5 template was used for vocal sets from June's Average Jack to November's The Critic. Further clarifications are now available: Dec 7 Update of the "Explained" Doc for Spreadsheet Template v5 Subsequent vocal sets, through to 2024's The Cynic, use template v6: NEW! Jan. 10, 2024 "Explained" Doc for Spreadsheet Template v6 Current Status - Style Guide for Barks As of Sept 2, Subtitle Style Guide - Part 1 is now available. NEW! As of Jan 16, 2024: Subtitle Style Guide - Part 2 with more discussion and references. Current Status - Third-Party Tools For editing of "story" SRT files, datsiwous found "kdenlive" particularly helpful [to do: link to how-to below]. Geep has been working with the simpler, audio-only "Cadet" for barks.

Subtitle capabilities available in 2.10/2.11 are described in the wiki "Subtitles". For info about one new project using these capabilities, see the thread "English Subtitles for AI Barks". That project includes development of a TDM subtitle style guide. The thread here is mainly focused on ideas that would require future engine changes to implement. A. Automatic Switching Between Subtitle Languages Based on Settings This is a follow-on of a forum discussion between datiswous and Geep. It is desirable to have a standardized method for: subtitles to be authored in multiple languages, and so packaged and distributed as part of TDM and its FMs a gamer to dynamically select subtitles in a desired language The subtitle language choice might be controlled by the existing TDM language choice within Settings, or a separate "Subtitles Language" setting. B. Other Possible Improvements Requiring Engine Changes Most of these involve allowing the subtitle code to know something about game entities, and convey that to the gamer. Examples of useful knowledge: the ID of the speaker (or other source) the location of the speaker, relative to the player, the player's view, and other speaking AI. This type of information helps to disambiguate when there are multiple voices present. There are lots of ways such info is visually conveyed in other subtitle/caption systems, and might be added to TDM. C. Providing Subtitles for Existing FX These would have the "verbosity effects" subtitle tag. Beyond 2.11 capabilities, some of the location aspects of (B) would be pertinent.

@snatcher I understand that when you feel your work doesn't live up to your goals that you don't want it out in the wild advertising your own perceived shortcomings but that leads to a troubling dilemma of authors who are never satisfied with their work offering fleeting access to their in-progress designs then rescinding them or allowing them to be lost. When I was a member of Doom3world forums, I would often see members do interesting experiments and sometimes that work would languish until someone new would examine it and pickup the torch. This seemed like a perfectly viable system until Doom3world was killed by spambots and countless projects and conceptual works were lost. I guess what I am trying to say is that mods don't need to be perfect to be valuable. If they contain some grain of a useable feature they might be adapted by mission authors in custom scenarios. They might offer instructive details that others trying to achieve the same results can examine. It would be great if known compelling works were kept somewhere safe other than via forum attachments and temporary file sharing sites. I suppose we used to collect such things in our internal SVN for safe keeping but even that isn't always viable. If folks would rather not post beta or incomplete mods to TDM's Moddb page, perhaps they would consider creating their own Moddb page or allow them to be added to my page for safe keeping. Please don't look at this as some sort of pressure campaign or anything. I fully understand anyone not willing to put their name next to something they aren't fully happy with. As a general proviso, ( if possible \ permitted ) I just want to prevent the loss of some valuable investigations and formative works. The end of Doom3world was a digital apocalypse similar to the death of photobucket. It is one of my greatest fears that TDM will become a digital memory with only the skeletons of old forum threads at the wayback archive site.

After several months of hard work, we are proud to announce the latest edition of "No Honor Among Thieves"!!! EFX EDITION!!! EFX reverb has been added to all missions! NHAT has never been more immersive. From the dry woody reverb of the local pub to the sonorous and lofty echo of the Cathedrals, prepare your ears for a auditory treat! PERFORMANCE!!! Several major sore spots that impacted performance in v3 and older have been substantially optimized. Players with less capable hardware will now be less frustrated traversing caves, courtyards, and forests. VISUALS!!! Many areas have been visually overhauled!!! Improved lighting, new scene geometry, new textures, new water effects ( thanks @Arcturus !!! ), more vertex blended terrains, and more. Some areas have been visually redesigned to better match the story and convey the key characters. GAMEPLAY!!! Some new play areas have been added. A little more rooftop action is available for climbers. A few new readables for side characters expand the lore of the mission. Improved AI scripted events in the final mission escape sequence!!! Other things: The ROQ videos have been converted to MP4 to make them more compatible with the latest TDM versions. This mission still uses 2.09 style API controlled videos, we will rework the menu gui to be 2.10 (beta) compatible shortly so that "Dev Build" players can enjoy the additional performance and improvements available in those builds. Credits: @Bikerdude for the majority of the mapping work in this overhaul @Dragofer for assisting with scripting and def setup @nbohr1more new cathedral textures and improved water material def setup, a few readables @Arcturus MD3 animated water and water textures Original crew: @Goldchocobo @RailGun @Mortem Desino who created the original version along with updates to versions up to v2.0. Thank you for permission work on this update! V4 Beta testers: @AluminumHaste @JackFarmer Screenshots: Hotfix release: Should fix two minor issues: Newest Hotfix: Gdrive - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e_LHa4RdZ0a1AD3FhgLq7OwvBmWUchJZ/view?usp=sharing Onedrive - https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuwAFc1gTZzehn0z9PsAVEIH0iFn?e=Gj0p6O ( Some additional performance optimization to the forest and fixes to other items found by Biker and Aluminumhaste in another round of testing.) For those of you who are testing the Dev Builds ( 2.10 alpha ), here is a 2.10 compliant version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyPwDQjMQH1TAH98Vd29UUiB0Nki1-7j/view?usp=sharing

NHAT v4.3 is available in the mission database! Changes include: Story subtitles courtesy of Datiswous Volumetric Lighting effects Improved water shaders Some new performance optimizations and LOD detail settings Lots of bug fixes for both new and old visual glitches such as z-fighting and model\prefab missing surfaces More work done to prevent players from climbing out of the map into the void

Congrats on the release! Remember to check ThiefGuild as well as the DarkFate forums (via Google Translate) for additional feedback.

Just curious, based on this discussion: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19239-soft-r-gamma/?p=427350