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sure - I would only ask that you follow the thread to make sure you don't report stuff that has already been mentioned: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/

IMO there's some benefits to using "" around paths, one it permits you to put spaces in your paths (thou I don't recommend that at all), second it breaks your paths into easier strings, for the text parser to read/deal with, it also help us visually distinguish what's is what better. They aren't a rule you can ignore them but imo using them maybe decreases the probably of parsing errors. About lower case, I'm not sure but unless you are comparing strings, I don't think the parser itself cares about the case of character in a string. Thou because of portability to linux and other OS's idSoftware recommended, no spaces in folder names and no higher case letters in a path, the engine even has a warning message just for that. But like you see above, even I forget that sometimes, is why I have plenty of warnings about non portable paths in the console!

Are all the files and folders lowercase? Probably. I was wondering something. TDM's core skin files all have "" around file paths, but you don't see this in material files and on the skins wiki it is also not really mentioned as necessary. Whould it matter to include or not include them?

Are you sure that's the materials' names? Usually materials that use textures from the props folder dont have paths in their names. You can look them up in the DR media browser or in the model chooser for that model.

heh i was thinking the same though it might just have been a glitch when writing the names are pretty similar. But for correctness it is called the dark engine and the newer version that allows us to run these beauties on win10/11 is called newdark. newdark is kinda interresting as it just suddenly popped up on a french forum some time ago by an anonymous developer with the alias le corbeau who allegedly got his hands on the original source code and started updating it for modern OS. this was the original thread i believe -> https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140085 bikerdude was on that forum to when the patch hit i noticed hehe.

Okay, I had no idea, I have googled it up now and you are right, to my own surprise. Done, I´ve put some paragraphs which were previously not in spoiler tags into spoilers.

Thebigh is right. The pronunciation tripped me up too, but that is apparently how Leicester is pronounced. Also @TarhielI'm glad you are loving the FM but do you mind putting spoiler tags on your post please

Yep, add this to your darkmod/materials folder: tdm_decals_misc.mtr

In the main darkmod folder

And what a treat it was! Everything about the mission was most enjoyable from start to finish. I can tell lots of passion and care went into making this map. It shows. The mission is very atmospheric and impressive in all aspects I can think of. Verticality, several paths leading to your goals, extra objectives, hidden loot, impressive sound and visuals, tight stealth, and a gripping storyline. Instant classic. The craftsmanship is sensational, with many new assets to make the mission very appealing to the eyes. The visuals are particularly stunning once you do the thing. The story was engaging also, with lots of readables to help the player unveil what was happening. It starts as a possible murder mystery in the making and turns into a murder mystery with a twist. I've got to give props for the writing, really. The characters came to life through their notes and journals and I really liked finding out their motivations and hidden agendas. Completing the mission took me a bit over 4 hours, missed 1k loot, so there is another reason for me to replay. I did encounter a few small bugs, though all have been mentioned here already. The mission ran very well with all settings maxed on my old GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. No noticeable FPS drops or stuttering. You did a great job at optimizing it. Thank you!

We will look at some of this stuff, but SPOILER tags, please!!!

This may make sense in that the performance impact of the volumetric effect can scale with how much of the effect is filling the screen. We shipped with a “performance mode” but had to setup the entities by hand to do it (so it’s not perfect). If you change the LOD detail settings to “Low” or “Lowest” this will disable certain lights, particles and such that can be very heavy to render. You can try these settings and see if you notice an improvement. If not sending us some pictures of heavy areas (with spoiler tags please) will be helpful with tuning these “performance modes” in subsequent patches. Thanks for playing!

Interesting, although I'm not sure what to make of that. One of my favorite games (The Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena) was published by Atari, and, they don't even seem to care to keep the activation servers running much. Or remove/change the copy protection, which doesn't work at all on Windows 11. I really hope that Nightdive delivers at the end of May... I'm not one of the shit storm crowd (it's absolutely horrible on the Steam forums...), but, 7 years of development is a long time, and delaying the release obviously has become a bit of a habit, to say the least.

(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.

Nice to see that you're happy with that... Did you know you could save screenshots inside TDM? Press (default) F12 key. Screenshots can be found in the screenshots folder in the root directory of TDM.

yeah, you're not the only one that has experienced this issue. It's a strange problem, because most of our beta testers didn't have this issue, but a few did. We quadruple-checked the file paths and everything. Something funky is definitely going on, sorry about this. Lucky the issue only seems to be present to very few players and only in this particular area (he says, hoping not to jinx it) EDIT: Fixed now, uploading the version 1.0001 hotfix :D

Another utility program, "findToolLongSubtitles", is now available, which scans a directory for .subs and .srt files, and checks the length in characters of each subtitle line against a maximum fieldwidth expressed in characters: Win executable C++ source code file It is more fully described in the latter as: findTooLongSubtitles.cpp By Geep, March, 2023, for The Dark Mod, under the terms of its open-source license. Purpose: Given a particular subtitle maximum fieldwidth, evaluates TDM subtitles - contained in .subs and .srt files - and reports those that don't fit. Assumes a maximum 2-line subtitle field. If a subtitle doesn't currently fit (or suboptimally relies on auto-word-wrap to fit), but could be made good by inserting or adjusting a linebreak, locations where that break could be positioned are shown. This program only examines a single folder at a time for contained .subs and .srt files. If your FM has these files in multiple places, run this program more than once. For an "inline" subtitle, a string-embedded "\n" causes a manual linebreak. When shown in this program's output, that subtitle has 2 lines, as in the game. This allows use of a common output routine for inline & srt subtitles. Console program invocation: findTooLongSubtitles -m maxSubtitleCharsPerLine [default is 42] -d dirWithSoundFiles [default is current dir] -o output file [default is stdout] Build: Requires C++ 17 or later For example outputs, evaluating subtitles found in the 2.11 releases of FMs New Job and St. Lucia against a proposed 42-character fieldwidth, see here.

@Goldwell This missing material I found in TDM 2.03: This does have vertex program code (arb?) still in it, not sure if really needed. This is how it looks ingame (when I add the material to the fms material folder): Not sure if this is how it's supposed to look, but better than nothing. This texture now shows up fine (previously I reported there was a black square on it). Maybe Dragofer fixed it for 2.11:

I hadn't tested the importer yet but looking at it now, it indeed looks to just be the FBX converter that Greebo integrated. @greeboCorrect me if I'm wrong but I don't think the Dark Radiant model converter supports OBJ yet? Because yeah, datiswous brings up a pretty good point as I don't think DR can handle OBJ files directly right now. @datiswous In this case I'd recommend the FBX to LWO batch converter for heavy use. I wouldn't expect anyone to really know about it, as I don't think we've really talked about this anywhere yet. I'd intended to write an article on the wiki to document how to set it up, but that kinda fell by the wayside since Greebo directly incorporated it into DR. In the FBX to LWO batch method, you just export your models to a mirrored folder structure. It's hierarchy is identical to the folder paths that your final models are contained in, within the target FM's model directory. So all you have to do is export to your FBX folder, run the batch file and it automatically replaces the meshes in the output directory. Big thanks to Greebo on the converter system! I originally had reached out to him over the idea a while ago and he made it into a full fledged feature. I can't tell you how much time this saves when working almost entirely with models in a level. If anyone would like to see the setup on that, lemme know and I'll try to get a wiki page made to document the process.

Automatic subtitles generation with Whisper I found a far better alternative to auto generate almost perfect srt files: Whisper. https://openai.com/research/whisper https://github.com/openai/whisper For example I did a test with file Simeon3.ogg, a 44 seconds voice file from fm A house of locked secrets. By using command in terminal: whisper Simeon3.ogg --model small.en After a very short time (could be due to it using nvidia cuda, not sure) it creates a bunch of export files, including an srt file with contents: (be warned that you will read the contents of an audio file of a mission, potentially spoiling something) This is almost exactly how it is supposed to be. Not only does it pick up the language all perfect, it also creates full sentences with punctuation. This is far better than the VOSK method in Kdenlive, which I had to edit afterwards. After that I load it in Kdenlive together with the sound file and make a couple of easy corrections to the flow. Basically you have to make sure that in the gaps in the audio file the subtitle sentences also stop. See example below: This is probably a 10x faster workflow. Edit: You can also list all the files in the command. For example (from dir with voice files): whisper Carlotta1.ogg Carlotta2.ogg Carlotta3.ogg -o ./../../subtitles --model medium.en -f srt This command generates the subtitles from these 3 files and saves them in the subtitles folder in (only) srt format. If you want inline, you copy them over from the srt files. Instead you can just use srt for all voice files. Edit 2 Currently I use this workflow: In the folder with voice audio files I make a folder subtitles. Then I open a terminal window in the voice folder. Then I do the following command in the terminal: whisper Carlotta1.ogg Carlotta2.ogg Carlotta3.ogg -o ./subtitles --model medium.en -f srt Afterwards I move the subtitle folder to another folder with voice files and repeat steps 2 and 3 or if I'm done I move the folder to the root folder of the mission.

Here I release the subtitles I made for this mission. The subtitles are only for the opening conversation which starts in the first 3 second of loading the mission. Therefore it's quite easy to test if it is done correctly. Unzip the 7zip file into the root of the fm. It adds the subtitles folder. It would be nice if people can test it. subtitles_BC.7z

Above 3 items are released now, on the "Barks" thread: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21740-english-subtitles-for-ai-barks/&do=findComment&comment=483331

Instead of that, you could, in that time period, start learning your own missions and in doing so become more active on the forums, learning from others. It's also great to understand how things work in the engine, when you play. It might spoil some immersion though.. Or learn to build games with other engines, like Godot for example.

It is a nice start. dont forget to cleanup your binary folder. === For the ones who want to try this launcher: download the 7zip package open the 7zip file with 7zip extract only file "TDMLaunch.exe" from folderlocation "TDMLaunch.7z\TDMLaunch\bin\Debug\" to your tdm folder. Run a mission: When you start this launcher, click on tab "settings", select the needed folders and hit button "scan fm". This will fill-up the missions table, in the launch tab. double click on a mission to select it and click on the "Run mission" button.

Keep in mind also that mission size, and complexity have increased dramatically since the beginning. For a lot of veteran mappers, it can take over a year to get a map made and released. The last dozen missions have for the most part been pretty massive, with new textures, sounds, scripts, models etc. We seem to be long past the point of people loading up the tools, and banging out a mission in a few weeks that's very barebones. We still do see some of those, but I noticed in the beta mapper forums and on Discord, that mappers seem to make these maps, but don't release them, and instead use the knowledge gained to make something even better. Could just be bias on my part scrolling through the forums and discord server though.