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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

Currently if you are implementing EFX in your map, you need to maintain an .efx file: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Setting_Reverb_Data_of_Rooms_(EAX) If you are using presets only, all this is is simply a 1:1 mapping of location entities to an EFX preset. Doing this in a file is kind of tedious and error-prone, as you have to check each location entity in your map, and then check the file to make sure you got the location entity name correct, or didn't leave one out, etc. Would it be a worthwhile feature request to be able to just set the EFX preset with a spawnarg on the location entity itself? Something like: "efx_preset" "WOODEN_SMALLROOM" Also, the location entity has other zone-related information, like ambient sound, ambient light, etc. It would just make sense to have the EFX here as well. This would only make sense for the presets, since you just need the preset name. If you wanted to do anything more complicated, the file could still be used. If both are used for the preset, one could take precedence over the other (the spawnarg pehaps). I don't think anything would need to change in DR either, as it's just a new spawnarg on the entity.

I wanted to bring this up for a while and am sorry I took so long. As such this thread is based on an old observation, I didn't retest recently but from what I know this limitation still exists with the latest code. If others confirm it and the issue is considered solvable I may post it to the bug tracker as well. EFX for spatial sounds are an amazing addition we had in recent years, however they suffer from a noticeable limitation: Reverb only accounts only for the location of the player and not that of sound. Sounds originating from a place with reverberation will not cause any echo if the player isn't standing in that room... oppositely sounds coming from outside will be heard with the full extent of the reverb effect in the room you're hearing them from, they should be echoing less due to not originating from the reverberating hallway. Example: Let's say there's a Builder church with a large hallway containing a reverb definition, inside there's an ambient sound of chanting. If the player is standing in front of the church door, they will hear the chanting without any kind of echo: Only once they step through the door and walk inside the echo suddenly makes itself heard. In a realistic scenario you'll hear the reverberation of any sound coming from a room that causes it, even if you're standing far outside that room hearing this noise in the distance. The simple solution would be a mixture between the location of the player's camera and that of the sound source: Each sound gets 75% the reverb defined in the room it's originating from, then on top of that all sounds being heard by the player anywhere have 25% the reverb of the room the player's standing in (current functionality). The more realistic but also more complicated option would be to use the portal tracing already implemented for sound attenuation and make each sound pick up reverb from each EFX room it passes through, accounting for the room of origin the room the player's standing in but also the rooms it's passing through; That way a noise emanating on one side of a building and passing through open windows in a corridor to reach the player on the other side would still echo, even if both that sound and the player are located outside in an area without reverb.

I have created an efx version for the next mod release. I have also fixed several minor optical glitches and fixed several defective Visportals. It would be great to get one or two dedicated fans of the mission for testing. Please sign up here before I start a beta thread in the respective subfolder. Thank you.

Hey there, I was just trying to implement some EFX presets into my mission update to make it ready for the current feature set. I love the system of EFX / OpenAI. However I tried many of the available presets (room types and room sizes) but almost always the echo is too strong. It seems that big rooms just have a loud echo and a longer delay and small room presets have a loud echo and a shorter delay. However my problem is the echo loudness. Did somebody find out if there presets with a decent echo? I also read in a thread from Peter Spy that you're able to edit the current presets in a text file. However I'm not sure where to do that. If there's no subtle echo presets, I would be happy if someone could point me into the right direction. Thank you in advance for any help

With TDM 2.06 mappers and players can use OpenAL EFX system, which is basically an open-source software replacement for systems like EAX, which, at the time, was available only for dedicated hardware by Creative. This allows us to set reverb definitions for rooms, and in my opinion, it's a game-changer for TDM FMs. If you ever played old Thief games with EAX-enabled hardware, you know what I mean. Otherwise, try playing Kingsal's Volta and the Stone with EFX On and Off to see the difference. It's a new life for game environments. The EAX reference page in the Wiki can be quite intimidating though, there are many values to tinker with. I have some basic sound recording experience, but I'm not an audio guy. The purpose of this thread is to create clear guidelines for other non-audio guys. If you're an audio guy, these values will be familiar to you, because you can find similar parameters in Reverb plugins, e.g. for Adobe Audition. (Btw. feel free to correct me whenever I'm wrong about something.) First off, your map has to use location system. EFX system needs location names, and it will define reverb per location. It also needs location separators touching visportals to make proper transition between reverb for different locations. Create 'efxs' folder in your project root folder, create a text file map_name.efx, and open it. Now, first thing EFX system needs is a version number, so every .efx file needs start with Version 1 (I don't think any other number works). So, a typical .efx file with room definitions looks like this: Version 1 reverb "location1_name_here" { values here } reverb "location2_name_here" { values here }etc. And that's it. It seems like you don't need to include every parameter you see in the Wiki reference. Some variables don't do much or hardly do anything. Even if you delete something, the system will use the default value. You can have an empty set like above, and you won't break anything. You can also change the order of parameters, e.g. if you have your own workflow. Even then, making efx presets for all your locations manually can be really time-consuming. I bet a lot of mappers will want to make this as fast as possible, so they can move to more important things. That's where default presets come in handy. I prepared a set of general-purpose presets you can use in your locations. I tested them both on headphones and speakers, and they tend to sound quieter on speakers. If you think a preset is too quiet or too loud for your location, just put a "room" parameter in your definition, to change the volume. -1500 is the default value, and the volume range is from -5000 to 0 where 100 equals 1 db. Also, feel free to modify these presets as you wish: // Castle courtyard "environment diffusion" 0.6 "room hf" -1500 "room lf" -2000 "decay time" 2.13 "decay hf ratio" 0.61 "decay lf ratio" 0.23 "reflections" -500 "reflections delay" 0.16 "reverb delay" 0.36 "echo depth" 0.37 // Castle bathroom "environment size" 1.5 "environment diffusion" 0.75 "decay time" 1.8 "decay hf ratio" .5 "decay lf ratio" 2 "room hf" -4000 "reverb" 500 // Sewer pipe "environment diffusion" 0.8 "room hf" -1500 "room lf" 0 "decay time" 2.81 "decay hf ratio" 0.14 "reflections" 0 "reflections delay" 0.014 "reverb" 600 "reverb delay" 0.021 // Cave "environment size" 1.3 "environment diffusion" 0.75 "room hf" -200 "decay time" 3.5 "decay hf ratio" 1.5 "reflections" 400 "reflections delay" 0.015 "reverb" 1000 "reverb delay" 0.022 // Forest "room hf" -2000 "decay hf ratio" 0.54 "reflections" -1500 "reflections delay" 0.162 "reverb" -4300 "reverb delay" 0.088 "echo depth" 1 // Short stone corridor "environment diffusion" 0.6 "room hf" -400 "decay time" 1.2 "decay hf ratio" 0.75 "reflections" 400 "reflections delay" 0.004 "reverb" 1000 "reverb delay" 0.003 "echo time" 0.06 "hf reference" 5168.6 "lf reference" 139.5 // Small stone room "room hf" -400 "decay time" 1.15 "decay hf ratio" 0.75 "reflections" 0 "reflections delay" 0.006 "reverb" 600 "reverb delay" 0.005 "echo time" 0.06 "hf reference" 5168.6 "lf reference" 139.5 // Medium stone room "room hf" -400 "decay time" 1.5 "decay hf ratio" 0.75 "reflections" -1000 "reverb" 800 "echo time" 0.12 "hf reference" 5168.6 "lf reference" 139.5 // Large stone room "room hf" -400 "decay time" 2.2 "decay hf ratio" 0.75 "reflections" -2800 "reverb" 750 "reverb delay" 0.03 "hf reference" 5168.6 "lf reference" 139.5 // Short wood corridor "environment diffusion" 0.6 "room hf" -600 "room lf" -1600 "decay time" 1.75 "decay hf ratio" 0.5 "decay lf ratio" 0.87 "reflections" -650 "reflections delay" 0.012 "reverb" 200 "reverb delay" 0.024 "hf reference" 4705 "lf reference" 99.6 // Small wood room "room hf" -1200 "room lf" -800 "decay time" 0.79 "decay hf ratio" 0.32 "decay lf ratio" 0.87 "reflections" -500 "reflections delay" 0.032 "reverb" 0 "reverb delay" 0.029 "hf reference" 4705 "lf reference" 99.6 // Medium wood room "room hf" -1000 "room lf" -650 "decay time" 1.47 "decay hf ratio" 0.42 "decay lf ratio" 0.82 "reflections" -650 "reflections delay" 0.049 "reverb" 0 "reverb delay" 0.029 "hf reference" 4705 "lf reference" 99.6 // Large wood room "room hf" -600 "room lf" -650 "decay time" 2.65 "decay hf ratio" 0.33 "decay lf ratio" 0.82 "reflections" -650 "reflections delay" 0.066 "reverb" -400 "reverb delay" 0.049 "hf reference" 4705 "lf reference" 99.6 // Cathedral "environment diffusion" 0.87 "room hf" -1800 "room lf" -2400 "decay time" 9.48 "decay hf ratio" 0.19 "decay lf ratio" 0.1 "reflections" -500 "reflections delay" 0.09 "reverb" 0 "reverb delay" 0.042 "echo depth" 0.12 "hf reference" 2854.4 "lf reference" 20 // City streets "environment diffusion" 0.78 "room hf" -600 "room lf" -750 "decay time" 1.79 "decay hf ratio" 1.12 "decay lf ratio" 0.91 "reflections" -750 "reflections delay" 0.046 "reverb" -1000 "reverb delay" 0.028 "echo depth" 0.2 // City - abandoned "environment diffusion" 0.69 "room hf" -200 "room lf" -100 "decay time" 3.28 "decay hf ratio" 1.17 "decay lf ratio" 0.91 "reflections" -1200 "reflections delay" 0.044 "reverb" -1800 "reverb delay" 0.024 "echo depth" 0.2 "air absorption hf" -3.2 // Museum "room hf" -1800 "room lf" -1800 "decay time" 3.28 "decay hf ratio" 1.4 "decay lf ratio" 0.5 "reflections delay" 0.039 "reverb delay" 0.0034 "echo time" 0.13 "echo depth" 0.17 "hf reference" 2854.4 "lf reference" 107.5 (...) Now, if you're more interested in how the system works and how you can adjust values to get what you want, take a look at these values. Main values "room" Value Range: -10000 to 0 (-100 to 0 db) Master volume (gain) for both early reflections and reverb. Default value sits around -1500. Lower values actually decrease natural sound reverb. "reverb" Value Range: -10000 to 2000 (-100 to 20 db) Reverb gain parameter. Default value is 0. Higher values feel like you're in a medium or small room with reflective surfaces. Lower values actually decrease natural reverb of the sounds. "reflections" Value Range: -10000 to 0 (-100 to 0 db) Early reflections gain. The louder and less delayed these are, the more it feels like you're closer to the wall (inside a small empty room). "decay time" Value range: 0.1 to 20 (0.1 to 20 seconds) Time for the reverb to decay. Helps determine the size of a room. Average small rooms will have a reverb decay around 0.35 sec. A cathedral or a cavern will have 4-6 sec. Default value is 1.49. (...) Values for fine-tuning "reverb delay" Value range: 0.0 to 0.1 (0-100 ms) Creates delayed reverb effect. Default value is 0.011. "reflections delay" Value range: 0.0 to 0.3 (0-300 ms) Delays early reflections. Default value is 0.007. (...) Example workflow: 1. Use "reverb" to define how dead or live the room is. Add some delay with "reverb delay" if needed. 2. If the room is large (think cavern, canyon, or cathedral), use "decay time" to define bigger space. 3. Use "room" if you want to make "reverb" or "decay time" sound louder or quieter than the default (-1500). 4. Use "reflections" to tweak early sound reflections. (...) Notes / tips: 1. For volume / db parameters, don't bother with testing very low values. In real life, good self-noise characteristics for microphones and recorders is around -60 db. That means most people won't hear that noise. So, whenever you have ranges from -10000 to 0 or 2000, using values below -6000 probably won't do much. 2. If possible, use closed headphones for testing and tweaking, and then see how it holds up on your PC speakers. (...) As you see, this is work in progress, I will update this post with new information and useful things we come up with.

http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4688 I have a concern about EFX. There seems to be general agreement that EFX is currently affecting sounds that it shouldn't affect, like gui sounds. But we've had no discussions about what the full list of unaffected sounds will be, or how mappers will specify this. For example, what about ambient sounds? Clearly we don't want it to affect ambient music, but what about ambient noises? Many of these, like the random sewer sounds of rats, already have strong reverb baked in and might sound too distorted if affected by EFX. But not all do. How does a mapper have EFX affect some ambient sounds but not others? My concern is that if we don't establish some rules now, then we'll be in a situation for the next update where we're locked into not doing things that will break new maps, or mappers will have their carefully-planned sounds changed by the new rules.

The sound system in TDM version 2.06 has been switched to OpenAL on all platforms. It means that the environmental effects (formerly known as EAX) can now be used by everyone with no requirements on sound hardware. This wiki page explains generic pipeline about setting EFX in your map. Also see this Judith's post for some ready-to-use presets. For now the best approach perhaps is to copy/paste these presets into EFX file. If you have any problems or questions regarding EFX, the most suitable people to ask are: me and Judith. The Judith's topic is the recommended place for discussing EFX presets and properties. P.S. Do not forget to enable OpenAL EFX in the main menu

Not so long ago I found what could make a pretty good profile picture and decided to try it out on these new forums. But I couldn't find a button anywhere that would let me change it. I asked on Discord and it seems Spooks also couldn't find anything anywhere. So I logged into an old alternative account and, lo and behold, that account has a button. This is on the first screen I get when I: 1) click on my account name in the top-right of the browser -> 2) click on 'profile'. Compared to my actual account: Are you also missing this button on your account? It'd be very much appreciated if that functionality could be restored to any of the affected accounts.

Wasn't sure the best way to report or fix this is, but as I was recently trying to build TDM from the SVN source to get OpenAL sound output on Linux with reverb (the latest release doesn't seem to have it), and noticed a small issue in the source. In sound/snd_efxfile.cpp, there is this line which converts the "environment size" preset property to density: efxf(AL_EAXREVERB_DENSITY, (size < 2.0f) ? (size - 1.0f) : 1.0f);That's incorrect. The correct way to convert it, based on Creative's own EAX-to-EFX conversion tools and as adopted by the Dhewm3 port, is: float size = src.ParseFloat(); efxf(AL_EAXREVERB_DENSITY, idMath::ClampFloat( AL_EAXREVERB_MIN_DENSITY, AL_EAXREVERB_MAX_DENSITY, idMath::Pow(size, 3.0f) * 0.0625f ));This will help improve the quality of the reverb, making the presets sound closer to the intended response. Hope that's helpful.

Anyone interest in doing a (sorta) 3 month speed-build contest? I was thinking of a very loose (fall \ winter) theme and an emphasis on audio \ sound-scape. Any interest in a fall contest?

Hi, I need to know what the code is to use Spoiler Tags. I am using my tablet and I don't have the options to use anything, like spoiler tags, quote tags, text changes etc. Thanks