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Changelog of 2.13 development: beta213-05 (rev 17312-10946) * Removed back menuLastGameFrame feature because of random texture popup (post). * Console font minor tweak to avoid artifact under P. * Minor fix for Catalan language. beta213-04 (rev 17306-10940) * Fixed bug with compass + X-ray glasses combination. * Fixed two buttons displayed in menu objectives during game (post). * Added new smoking animation. * Added menuLastGameFrame image to show game footage in in-game main menu (6608). * Changed install/uninstall mission to select/deselect in main menu. * Fixed editor images for HD carpets (6607). * More fixes for Catalan language. beta213-03 (rev 17294-10935) * Fixed crash in WS3 due to script name collision in invisibility potion. * Added praying animation. * Fixed heat-haze shaders with nontrivial Render Scale. * Restored back tonemapping in the menus. * Allow settings hotkeys for gasmine, slowfall, invisibility, made strings translatable. * Fixed double-cursor in game console on 1920x1080 (post). * Applied noise reduction to new vocals for drunk "jack" AI. * Added support for Catalan language. * Fixed UV maps on stove models (6312). beta213-02 (rev 17281-10932) * Fixed HOM-like artifacts in AT1 Lucy and trash frames on TDM start on Linux (post, post). * Disabled tonemap compression curve and reverted settings to 2.12 defaults (post). * Added menu options to disable volumetric lights and parallax mapping. * Fixed varioius issues with largesquare01 materials (6579). * Fixed several issues in the new parallax materials (6604). * Deleted plain_redgreen_design_HD material which references non-existent textures (6601). * Some main menu buttons during game start replaced with generic "Next" (post). * Climbing sounds now depend on material (4991). * Added shaded_lamp_with_grill model (6589). * New fabric_ornate and fabric_fleur materials. beta213-01 (rev 17262-10927) * Improving the fonts continued (thread). * Fixed unwanted mine deployment when player eats the last bit of food in hands (6598). * Removed old hack to fix for scripted savegame crash (4967). * Added a model ext_timber01_window01_empty.lwo (6600). * Fixed missing skin for atdm:ai_revenant_spirit (6595). dev17251-10920 * Added slowfall potion. * Added invisibility potion. * New tonemap settings are now default (post). * Added Texture Quality settings in the main menu. * Added pipes_industrial_modular models. * Minor adjustments to colored versions of gen3 environment maps. * Default value of inv_count is back at 1 to fix issues with inventory counts. * Fixed rare crash on loading collision models (post). * Refactored heatHaze shaders. dev17234-10914 * Added many new high-res materials, half of them with parallax mapping. * Implemented optional HDR compression in tonemapping + other improvements (post). * Implemented interactionSeparator syntax in materials (post). * Added new entityDef: atdm:radio. * Added colored versions of gen3 environment cubemaps for metallic materials. * Added new environment cubemaps: sparkles, studio, blurry. * Added coat_commoner_hanging and coat_inventor_hanging models. * Added mantle_clock_ticking sound. * Improved lightgem calculations while leaning (post). * Fixed regression with double-sided materials (5862). * New sorting of inventory grid items (6592). * Reduced font size of mission list, which allows to see more missions and longer names (post). * Added scrollbar to "notes" of a mission in the main menu. * Optimization: don't render interaction groups with black diffuse & specular. * Improved "scepter" material (thread). * Fixed normal map of ornament_relief_mold_eaglelshield (6585). * More tweaks to starry2 materials. * Made material noshadows: moon_full_shaded, shooting_star, moon_glow. * Added "inv_count" "1" spawnarg to atdm:playertool. * Gas mine now costs 125 instead of 75. * Added min/max builtin functions to game scripts. * Added script events about gravity, health, in-air movement. * Added script events setUserBy, setFrobActionScript. dev17171-10894 * Added entityDef archery_target01 with hit detection, it is now used in Training Mission. * Fixed missing steam_pipe02_straight in Training Mission. * Hiding mouse cursor during briefing in official missions (6576). * Cleaned up the code for extracting interaction groups in material. * Parallax mapping: supported "translate", self-shadows are disabled properly (6571). * Fixed meshes generator_big, generator_small, generator2, warehouse_front_doorframe (6581). * Fixed material on model stove_open02 (6580). * Fixed decals on ext_timber01_window01 (5782). * Improved largesquare01 materials with bumpmap and specular (6579). * Added skybox materials clouds3 and clouds_4_small + prefabs. dev17152-10890 * Major update of Training Mission, including vine arrows (4352). * Added TDM version + engine revision in lower-left corner of main menu. * Experimental implementation of parallax mapping (6571). * Fixed frob interaction with candle holder that's initially extinguished (6577). * Better icons for scrollbar thumb in menu, fixed author search (6339 6570 6449). * Fixed hiding mouse cursor during video briefing/debriefing (6576). * Fixed map immobilization not applied if opening map with inv use key. * Forbid adding missions to download when download is in progress (6368). * Skip disabled bump stages in environment mapping (6572). * Disabled texture compression for light images: falloff and IBL cubemaps. * Minor change in shadow map acne / blur radius computation (6571). * Added banner01_edgar and banner01_viktor banners, along with long versions. * Fixed UV map for longbanner_ragged model (6573). * Added missing jack/drunk_idle13.ogg sample (6507). * Fixed handle_curved02_latch prefab, deleted pull_handle (6286). * Replaced normal map of cobblestone_blue_black with high-res version (6574). * More detailed editor images of some materials (6575). * Added small_dresser_openable prefab. * Added banner_sword + tdm_bannerlong_sword materials. * Increased size of secret message overlay GUI. dev17121-10869 * Massive improvements in mission select & download menus, added search (6339 6570 6449). * Improvements and fixes for "builder priest" animated mesh. * Improvements of idle01 animation. * Improved newspaper01 model (6568). * Added gas mine to "map start pack" prefabs (6559). * Fixed text alignment in save/load menus. * Minor CI/build fixes. dev17104-10844 * Enabled the new system for tracking light value by default (6546). * New light value tracking integration covers ropes and doors + optimized shadow rays (6546). * Added atdm:playertools_gasmine (6559). * Workaround for compiler bug which broke particle collisions with texture layout (post). * Fixed r_showTris: color, values 2 and 3 (6560). * Minor improvements to drunk vocals (6507). * More tweaks to sculpted/girard_relief_pho. dev17095-10833 * Major improvements in drunk AIs: setting "drunk" spawnarg is enough now; new sounds, animation improvements, greetings, etc. (6507). Fixed drunk women AI (5047). * Incorporated stone font updates by Geep (thread). * New footstep sounds for ice and broken glass (6551). * Fixed light culling bug on elongated models with non-identity rotation (6557). * Added new system for tracking light value of entities (6546). It is disabled yet. * Technical change in loading of particle collisions (6546). * Now AI follower settings can be set as spawnargs, added prefab (6552). * Added proper dmap error message if map file contains an entity before worldspawn. * Fixed water_medium_running sound (5384). * Fixed window/metal_irregularpanes_moonlit material. * Fixed wood/boards/rough_boards_scratched (4157). * Fixed wall/ship_wheel model (6549). * Fixed gaps in awning_cloth_01_large model (6550). * Added weather particles with static collisions enabled (6545). * Added a pack of new factory_machines models (6537). * Added fabric/cloth_baize materials (red and purple). * Added window/diamond_pattern01_moonlit_bright material (6133). * Added AO and specular maps to sculpted/girard_relief material. * Added musicbox sound, added prefabs for it and for victrola. * Added wood/panels/mary_panel model. * DarkRadiant now knows about parallelSky param (6496). dev17056-10800 * Supported "efx_preset" spawnarg on location entities (6273, thread). * Fixed rendering of volumetric light and particles in X-ray views (6538). * Fixed rendering of particles in mirrors (6538). * Improved volume estimation for subtitles, very quiet subtitles are hidden (6491). * Fixed bug in idClip::Translation of non-centered models. * Third-party integration greatly reworked for better integration with conan (6253). * Stone/subtitle font improvements by Geep. * Fixed sleeping sounds for drunk AIs (6539), and other sounds for them too (6507). * Fixed missing shadow on endtable_001 model (6288). * Added girard_relief material. Known issues: * Shadows of Northdale Act 1 does not start (6509). (mission has been updated) dev17044-10746 * Supported mission overrides for cvars which are tied to gameplay state (5453). * Fixed crash on start with 32-bit Windows build. * Rebuilt all third-party libraries with conan 2 system (6253). * Reverted improvements of capped FPS to fix video/audio desync (5575). dev17042-10732 * Restored ability to create cvars dynamically, fixing bow in missions (5600). * Fixed issue where .cfg files were saved every frame (5600). * Added sys.getcvarf script event for getting float value of cvar (6530). * Extracted most of constants from weapon scripts into cvars (6530). dev17035-10724 * Support passing information between game and briefing/debriefing GUI via persistent info. Also changed start map & location selection, added on_mission_complete script callback (6509 thread). * New bumpmapped environment mapping is now default (6354). * New behavior of zero sound spawnarg is now default (6346). * Added sound for "charge post" model (6527). * Major refactoring of cvars system to simplify future changes (5600). Known issues: * Bow does not shoot in some missions: thread (only in this dev build) dev17026-10712 * Nested subviews (mirrors, remotes, sky, etc.) now work properly (6434). * Added GUI debriefing state on mission success (6509 thread). * Sound argument override with zero now works properly under cvar (6346 thread). * Environment mapping is same on bumpy and non-bumpy surfaces under cvar (6354 thread). * Default console font size reduced to 5, added lower bound depending on resolution. * Added high-quality versions of panel_carved_rectangles (6515). * Added proper normal map for stainglass_saint_03 (6521). * Fixed DestroyDelay warning when closing objectives. * Fixed the only remaining non-threadsafe cvar (5600). * Minor optimization of depth shader. * Added cm_allocator debug cvar (6505). * Fixed r_lockView when compass is enabled. dev17008-10685 * Enabled shadow features specific to maps implementation (poll). * Auto-detect number of parallel threads to use in jobs system (6503). * Improved parallel images loading, parallelized sounds loading, optimized EAS (6503). * Major improvements in mission loading progress bar (6503). * Core missions are now stored uncompressed in assets SVN (6498). * Deleted a lot of old rendering code under useNewRenderPasses + some cleanup (6271). dev16996-10665 * Environment mapping supports texcoord transforms on bumpmap (6500). * Fully disabled shadows on translucent objects (6490). * Fixed dmap making almost axis-aligned visportals buggy (6480). * com_maxFps no longer quantizes by milliseconds on Windows 8+. * Now Uncapped FPS and Vsync are ON by default. * Supported Vsync control on Linux. * Added set of prototype materials (thread). * Fixes to Stone font to remove stray pixels (post). * Loot candlestick no longer toggle the candle when taken. * Optimized volumetric lights and shadows in the new Training Mission (4352). * Fixed frob_light_holder_toggle_light on entities with both skin_lit and skin_unlit. * Now combination lock supports non-door entities by activating them. * Added low-poly version of hedge model (6481). * Added tiling version of distant_cityscape_01 texture (6487). * Added missing editor image for geometric02_red_end_HD (6492). * Added building_facades/city_district decal material. * Fixed rendering with "r_useScissor 0" (6349). * Added r_lockView debug rendering cvar (thread). * Fixed regression in polygon trace model (5887). * Added a set of lampion light entityDefs.

BEHAVIOR CHANGES: g_lightQuotientAlgo --- which light estimate system is used by AI (0 = old system). g_showLightQuotient and g_les* --- can be used for debugging of the new system. r_envmapBumpyBehavior --- selects visual behavior of bumpmapped environment mapping (0 for the old behavior, 1 for the new one). s_overrideParmsMode --- selects the behavior of zero value in sound emitter parameters (0 for the old behavior, 1 for the new one). r_materialNewParse --- how are material stages grouped into interaction groups (0 for the old behavior, 1 for the new one). r_shadowMapAlphaTested, r_shadowMapOnTranslucent --- enable some shadow effects which can only be implemented with shadow maps, and don't work with stencil shadows. See also this post. TROUBLESHOOTING: r_lockView --- a debug cvar which freezes culling, so you can fly around and see what is rendered in the frozen frame (thread). r_subviewMaxDepth --- limit on depth of nested subviews. Worth trying to lower this if performance is suddenly awful. dmap_outputNoSnap --- control flag for the latest fix in dmap. Ideally, you never need to change it, unless you try to understand why dmap works differently in 2.13. r_skipEntities, r_skipParallax --- new debug cvars, might be useful to detect performance issues. s_levelLoadParallel 0 --- disables parallel loading of sound samples. jobs_numThreadsRealtime, jobs_numThreadsNonInteractive, jobs_maxHddThreads --- various cvars to tweak parallelism across threads/cores, mainly affects level loading. OTHER: r_postprocess_compress --- controls the new compression curve for overbright colors in tonemapping. r_postprocess_compress*, r_postprocess_overbright_desaturation, r_postprocess_desaturation --- tweak the specifics of this addition. Please read this post! r_tonemapOnlyGame3d 1 --- tonemapping is disabled outside 3D game (e.g. in main menus). tdm_subtitles_volume* --- how volume of played sound is converted to opacity of the location ring on subtitles. CMDS: printPersistentInfo --- debug command that prints "persistent args" to game console. These arguments are used to pass information between missions in a campaign. setm/unsetm --- commands that set mission override value for a cvar, equivalent to setting cvar value from game script.

PLAYERS Implemented new system to estimate light for AI purposes. Players usually try to hide bodies in dark places so that guards don't see it when passing by. However, the old light estimate system does not properly account for shadows, so what is dark for player can be fully bright for AI. The new system considers all the details including: shadows, projected light textures, cubemaps, blinking and multistage lights, invisible skins (thread). There are many improvements to mission lists in the main menu. It is easy to search mission by name/author prefix, more missions fit into the visible area, several lists can now be scrolled. Default settings should no longer cause any extra micro-stutters, because Uncapped FPS and Vsync are enabled by default now. Other improvements include: support for Vsync on Linux, better implementation of FPS limit on Windows 8 and later. Level loading is further accelerated with better utilization of multicore CPUs and parallel loading of sound samples. Loading progress bar has been reimplemented to reflect all the optimizations of the past years. Subtitles got some improvements as well. The volume estimation is much better now, subtitles for too quiet sounds are no longer shown. Visual appearance of the subtitles font has been greatly improved. Tonemapping has been altered to improve appearance of overly bright colors. Such colors are no longer clamped at value = 1 and they desaturate at high brightness. Finally, brightness slider should be much more useful now (post). The training mission is further updated with vine arrows, EFX reverb, and better performance. New footstep sounds added for broken glass and ice. MAPPERS Added support for parallax mapping. This effect can be used to fake highly detailed geometry in some cases. (wiki, thread) Major overhaul for drunk AIs. Mappers now only have to set the "drunk" spawnarg to "1" on any AI in order for that AI to appear "drunk", and better yet, there are several customization options available to mappers to make their drunk AI more unique. In order to make this happen, we added two new drunk vocal sets for the Drunk Moor and Drunk Jack, respectively. In addition to several bug fixes, there are now improved drunk animations and drunk greetings, female AI and manbeasts can now also be drunk, and drunk idle bark times have been improved. Supported GUI debriefing screen on mission success. Previously mappers could set up debriefing video, but could not make arbitrary interactive GUI like they could do with briefing (thread). Also, mapper can pass information from GUI briefing to game and from game to GUI debriefing via persistent info. Previously it was only used to pass info between missions in a campaign (wiki). Finally, missions are allowed to modify cvars in relatively safe way. This is possible due to the new concept of "cvar mission override", which are part of game state. They can be set by script function sys.setcvar and by game console commands setm / unsetm. Beware that most of cvars are still internal and are not fixed for the sake of backward compatibility! (thread) Also, the cvar system has been cleaned up a bit and is thread-safe now. Major improvements in bumpmapped environment mapping: texcoords transforms like translate and rotate do work now, it is OK to have several bumpmap stages toggled on and off dynamically. The visual appearance has also been changed and is now similar to non-bumpmapped case (thread). The behavior of zero sound spawnargs has been changed: now it indeed sets the volume to zero, while previously it had no effect compared to nonexistent spawnarg (thread). The interaction groups in material are now extracted differently. Most importantly, you can split material stages across interactions using the new interactionSeparator syntax (thread). Some features are now enabled for shadow maps despite them being impossible to implement with stencil shadows: shadows on transparent surfaces and alpha-tested shadows (poll). Nested subviews now work properly: mirrors, remotes, sky, etc. They cost tremendous amount of performance, so this is not a feature to rely on. But it is still better than to have a large mirror turn black whenever a small water puddle with mirror material gets into player's view. It has become easier to set standard EFX settings with the new efx_preset spawnarg (thread). Several new player tools have been added: slowfall potion (thread) gas mine invisibility potion (from @kingsal missions) BUGS * Fixed dmap making almost axis-aligned visportals buggy (6480). * Fixed bug in idClip::Translation of non-centered models. * Fixed light culling bug on elongated models with non-identity rotation (6557). * Fixed rendering of volumetric light and particles in X-ray views and mirrors (6538). * Workaround for compiler bug which broke particle collisions with texture layout (post). * Fixed rare crash on loading collision models (post). * Fixed map immobilization not applied if opening map with inv use key. * Fixed frob interaction with candle holder that's initially extinguished (6577). * Fixed frob_light_holder_toggle_light on entities with both skin_lit and skin_unlit. INTERNAL The system for third-party dependencies has been moved to Conan 2 and extended. Now the CI server regularly builds TDM and its dependencies completely from source code.

We are currently sticking with 1024x1024 for all tiling textures. For characters models or complex assets, it is probably OK to bump up to 4096x4096. Just so there is no confusion, the old Doom 3 "heightmap" is just a grayscale image that gets converted to a normalmap and usually has lower image quality due to only having one channel of color. The new "heightmap" in 2.13 beta is for "Parallax Occlusion Mapping" ( POM ) and thus should at least have enough resolution to represent the 3D contours of the underlying texture. ( Maybe 512x512 min for a 1024x1024 texture? )

Those hand animations are very nice to see, especially the compass animation. Can you make animation for holding / showing the map, like in sea of thieves? (Also asked for in https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21038-lets-talk-about-minimap-support/#findComment-463678

I'm not sure what is "GPU time %". FPS on Vsync off is much more sane performance metric. Did you check that quality is about the same when looking at the same distance? How did you set texture size for parallax mapping? Downsampling it might help performance.

On the other hand... what if you specify the heightmap and some parameters, and the engine generates real geometry out of it? I'm interested in how geometry vs parallax mapping compete in terms of performance / quality on some typical scenario. Maybe we'd better thing about some auto-tessellation stuff.

Okidoki, I finally bit the bullet & went with a Recoil 17 from PC Specialist Specs I went for are Chassis & Display: Recoil Series: 17" Matte QHD+ 240Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1600) Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i9 24 Core Processor 14900HX (5.8GHz Turbo) Memory (RAM): 32GB PCS PRO SODIMM DDR5 4800MHz (1 x 32GB) Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4080 - 12.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1 External DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (3500 MB/R, 3200 MB/W) Operating System: NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED The case seems to be made of metal not plastic & there's an optional water cooling unit, which I didn't get For the OS I disabled fast boot & secure boot, loaded Zorin 17.2, used the entire disk, without any installation issues Zorin is a Ubuntu fork so Ubuntu & it's other forks shouldn't have an issue if anyone else gets one of these The only minor issue is the keyboard backlight isn't recognized by default, but the forums are full of info on sorting that out, not that I'm too bothered I've installed TDM & it runs beautifully I also copied my thief 1 & 2 installations from my desktop, I had to uncomment "d3d_disp_sw_cc" in cam_ext.cfg to get the gamma processing working but they run happily too The fans switch on when booting & switch off again after a few seconds, the machine isn't stressed enough to turn them on running TDM so far - this is not a challenge btw On the whole, I'm extremely pleased So thanks for all the advice

This is not real geometry tessellation this is cool but is a fake trick, a optical illusion, the surface is still flat, so it cannot do anything about the edges. Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM) is just a improved (and way more heavy) parallax mapping affect.

The good news is tone mapping is applied to those GUI's as well. This reduces the white value on readables and even the main menu, it actually makes them look pretty good! They're far more bearable and natural looking with r_postprocess_brightness 1.5, still can't go as high as 2 which looks good in-world but blasts the GUI in over-brightness.

Sad that r_tonemapOnlyGame3d doesn't prevent tone mapping from over-brightening in-world readables, only the main menu is fixed. Otherwise everything looks absolutely wonderful with r_postprocess_compress, no need to tweak anything else after turning that on: It's subtle but everything looks perfect to me, especially when it comes to handling bright areas and avoiding unrealistic pure white.

Yes, one of the best updates. Can't wait to check how tone mapping with range compression will look! Also thanks for offering a way to no longer apply post-process effects to the GUI, now I can finally crank up the brightness without the main menu and readables becoming completely white

Ok, let's suppose we only consider wall modules which should be rendered on one side only. Are they provided together with brushes which are supposed to seal the area? If they are just the models, wouldn't it be risky to force some specific engine optimization on them? You probably think they are always used as proper walls, but other people might think differently. Also my experience with portal diagnostics shows that occasional mapping errors are quite inevitable.

I started typing this on Discord but will move it here. I'd simply love for this to be added to vanilla TDM: The change is a wonderful Christmas gift for the next release. To make this more likely I wish to offer a few points and observations from my perspective, anyone feel free to add to this or correct if I'm wrong. For the record I'm not an official TDM developer though I spend most of my days modding / mapping or playing every FM as it comes out. First of all TDM has a culture of being careful with retroactive changes: If anything modifies the experience too much (especially for existing missions) we usually want it to be an option. I suggest designing your patch with a main menu setting; I'd add it to either "Settings - Gameplay - General" or "Settings - Video - General" whichever makes more sense. I propose giving it the following 4 options: Disabled: Never show POV hands even for weapons. If someone wants this for any reason we're also giving players an option to disable them entirely. Weapons: Only Blackjack / Sword / Arrows. Current functionality and can remain default. Weapons & Items: Also see your hands holding any selected item (lantern, compass, key, readable, etc) but hide them otherwise. I'm in favor of this being the new default if no one finds it too disruptive. Always: Show even the empty hands when nothing is selected, in which case you see the mantling / leaning movements. Likely too disruptive to default but I see myself using even that. I was excited to hear you plan to add them for individual items, that's something I've been dreaming to see years ago but lost hope we ever would. When it comes to items we'll likely need special animations for the default ones as they have specific purposes. Here's a list of the the important items... especially at this stage I don't want to suggest too much and overwhelm, I'll only add essential ones the player is almost always guaranteed to use: Lantern: Hand dangling the item down. Only the skin needs to change between lit and unlit lantern, all light entities have skins and it's easy to setup. This will look awesome with glow and fireflies Spyglass: Hand brings it toward the face when using and back down when unusing. Compass: Hand facing up holds the item in its palm. Wonder if the handheld compass can actually work and point in the right direction, wouldn't bother with it now but since we got it working for the inventory icon this should be easy to do later and will look really neat Lockpick & Keys: Poke the item toward the crosshair to look like picking the lock or inserting the key. It doesn't need to go toward the keyhole or anything, seems perfectly fine the way this was done in DeusEx where you'd see the hand flailing it in front of the door wherever you pointed. Health Potion: Move the hand toward the face and back down to appear like quickly drinking. Careful not to bring it too close to the camera as the minimum clip distance may cut off the mesh and let you see into it. Everything else: Generic hold animation with a basic jolt when using. This should fit most things: Not sure how items with different sizes will look and if we'll need different grips for each one, a book isn't held the same way as a sheet of paper, but especially right now I wouldn't worry about that. Remember that TDM allows mappers to define their own items. This includes builtin ones: You can make custom lanterns, lockpicks, spyglass, etc. The best solution seems like letting each item specify the hold & use animation it wants for the hands via spawnargs, matching the best grip and use animations the author thinks looks best. We'll also need spawnargs for the origin and rotation offset for the entity attached to the hand, each item's model is bound to appear in a different place and will need to be configured by trial and error.

I think we should first decide what do we want TOS for: To protect TDM from legal issues? To protect TDM team from angry mappers in case of conflicts? To guide mission authors in their work? In my opinion TOS should only cover legal issues, and wiki articles about making/releasing missions should cover author guidance. The chance of getting malware in a mission only increases after we write this publicly. Better don't even mention it, we are completely unprotected against this case. By the way, isn't it covered by "illegal" clause? I'm not sure this is worth mentioning, but I guess @demagogue knows better. By the way, which jurisdiction defines what is legal and what is not? Isn't it enough to mention that we will remove a mission from the database if legal issues are discovered? I think this is worth mentioning simply because mappers can easily do it without any malicious intent. We already had cases of problematic assets, so better include a point on license compatibility. It is a good idea to remind every mapper that this is a serious issue. I also recall some rule like "a mission of too low quality might be rejected". In my opinion, it is enough. You will never be able to pinpoint all possible cases why you might consider a mission too bad in terms of quality. And even the specifics mentioned here already raise questions. Having such a rule is already politics. I feel it does not save us from political issues but entangles us into them. If there is a mission which contains something really nasty, it will cause outrage among the community (I believe our most of active forum members are good people). If people are angry, they will tell the mission author all they think about it. And if the author won't change his mind, he will eventually leave TDM community. Then the mission can be removed from the database, perhaps with a poll about the removal. But it sounds like an exceptional case, it is hard to predict exceptional cases in advance. This is not even terms of service, but a technical detail about submissions. The mission should be accompanied by 800 x 600 screenshots. Or we can make them ourselves if you are OK with it. This is again purely technical, and I'm not even sure why it is needed. Isn't it how TDM works? If mapper does not override loading gui file, then default one is taken from core? Is it even worth mentioning? I think we should discuss mission updates by other people in general. This is worth mentioning so that mappers don't feel deceived. The generic rule is that we don't change missions without author's consent. But it is unclear how exactly we should try to reach the author if we need his consent. PM on TDM forums? Some email address? However, sometimes I do technical changes to ensure compatibility of missions with new versions of TDM. Especially since the new missions database has made it rather easy to do. Luckily, I'm not a mapper/artist, so I never fell an urge to replace model/texture or remap something. But still, it is gray zone. On the other hand, I think the truth is: we can remove a mission from database without anyone's consent. I hope it has never happened and will not happen, but I think this is the ultimate truth, and mentioning this sad fact might cover a lot of the other points automatically.

Yeah I'm aware of the use cases - I mainly used it for particles and preventing models from showing up through walls. The point of the thread was to reveal why it was even created, as the thread I linked contains advice from @stgatilov to NOT use it at all: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/page/10/#findComment-490707 If that's the advice, an explanation is needed and the Wiki updated.

A Winter's Tale By: Bikerdude "One of the few pleasures I have as a man of the thieving profession is to return to my old home town for the holidays and relax in the company of friends and relatives. But a local lord has been going out of his way to making the lives of the locals a miserable." Notes: - TDM 2.12 or later is REQUIRED to play this mission. - This is my entry for the speedbuilding jam. - This FM should play on the vast majority of systems. I have perf tweaked this map with low end players in-mind. And have moved the globale fog/moon lights to the ‘ better’ LOD level. - min recommended spec (as per beta testing) Intel Core i7(3rd gen), nvidia 1030 4gb (GDDR5), will get you 60fps inside and 45fps outside. - Various areas will look better with shadow maps enabled (SoftShadows set to medium/high, Shadows Softness set to zero and LOD set to 'better'), at the possible expense of performance depending on your system specs. - this mission continues the imperial theme, with this being a border town slightly further out from the main imperial lands than Brouften. - build time roughly 130hrs. Download Link: - (v1.4) - https://discord.com/channels/679083115519410186/1310012992867405855/1310022631415746632 v1.4 changes: I have been tweaking the LOD levels through-out the map - - Snow fall has been moved to LOD low/normal. - world fog moved to LOD better. - fireplace grills to LOD better. - world moonlight moved to LOD high. Other tweaks - - reduced light counts in all the fireplaces. - reduced the length of the looping menu video background. - Some new assets Gameplay: - added more ways for the player to get around. - tweaked existing routes to make some easier or more of a challenge. - and added an additional option objective. Credits: Special thanks go to - - Nbhor1more, flashing out the briefing and creation of readables. - Amadeus, Help w/custom objectives, script work, proof reading, mission design & testing. - Dragofer, for custom scripts and script work for the main objective. - Baal, for additional tweaking of the main objective and script work,. - Beta testers: Amadeus, Nbhor1more, Mat99, DavyJones, S1lverwolf, Baal & Dragofer. - Freesound.org, for ambient tracks, further details in sndshd file. Speed Jam Thread: - https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152747

Elite merc is one of the better looking NPCs in the game, but I think we can improve couple of things. New material looks like this: I modified the specularmap slightly. Since he has a sword i updated that too: The handle and blade use different cubemaps. There's no reason why elite guards shouldn't have polished shoes. Although the uv mapping on those is atrocious so don't look too closely. That's why the fronts of the soles are too shiny. Importing and fixing the .md5 mesh in Blender is practically impossible because of this issue: Not that I want to get into that. I think the excessive shininess of soles can be mitigated by creating a separate specularmap, as the boots and armor are in separate materials.

You think the missions in question were too difficult - other think they are easy. Both perceptions are valid because that is a subjective thing. In its core this is a stealth game and thus I design the missions for sneaking and there are multiple possibilities to do so by using moos arrows, water arrows, throwing items, extinguishing candles, looking for alternative ways, learning patrols, etc. . But we are going too much off topic here and as stated above I am with you when it comes to saving the game.

r_bloom_weight is set to "0.7" both in my 2.12 installation and in main repository. I never touched those values which means the default must be 0.7. Troy Sobotka is the original creator of AgX. He was active on Blender forums where he had long philosophical arguments about color with people. Also on Blender developer forums. I don't know if there's much more beyond those and his github page: https://github.com/sobotka Edit @stgatilov AgX however is a direct continuation of Sobotka's earlier 'Filmic', so there may be more about that: https://github.com/sobotka/filmic-blender https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/164991/are-the-technical-details-of-filmic-available

I'll need to look into it for that FM. Need to prepare a bit to run a proper comparison. Saw the tone mapping and fire glow on Youtube, definitely hoping they can make it into vanilla.

@MirceaKitsune Can you try pasting this code from the tone mapping thread into \glprogs\stages\tonemap\tonemap.frag.glsl file? v02: v01: And see how it changes those screenshots below? You can use reloadGLSLprograms command in game console to reload the .glsl file. You can also try replacing the fire particle with the stronger version: tdm_particles.mtr Turn bloom on and see how these look like (with the modified .glsl of course):

Currently Darkmod does not utilize the full potential of its high dynamic range rendering. When light gets bright colors get clipped. As I mentioned before, this makes highlights hard to manage and makes bloom option less useful (in my opinion). At least that's what I see on my old ass monitor that doesn't support HDR. I'll preface this with a disclaimer, that I have no idea what I'm doing. I also do not claim, that this code is ideal, or even good. I simply asked MS Copilot to modify the tonemap.frag.glsl file for me. It added a new color curve, that can be modified: Alternative set of ABCDEF values, should give slightly more contrast: All the footage and screenshots below were done with bloom set to the max.

I had an interesting idea in regard to how the TDM engine handles Z-fighting. It comes after my last FM where people reported terrain patches that were too flat causing visible Z-fighting with the ground brush: It seemed weird as both surfaces had the same shader and their mapping lined up, therefore even if the surfaces overlapped the same pixels should have been fighting with no visible artifacts. Turns out the engine makes it so even if the material and its relative mapping is identical, the surface also becomes brighter whenever there's overlapping. I was wondering if unless we're stopped by deep limitations in OpenGL, there is at least a way to get rid of this brightening effect. If we have the ability to control how Z-fighting is handled, I had an idea which could turn it into a great feature available in other engines: My suggestion is to mix the colors on all material maps, so instead of randomly adding them together we settle for the average of all Z-fighting surfaces per pixel. The reason this would implement an useful feature is if we could do it per map, we'd have support for mixing the albedo + normal + specular maps on multiple surfaces in realtime, something not currently possible unless done by the texture or material. Imagine a graffiti drawing on the wall: We could deliberately have the decal perfectly overlap the surface of the brush instead of having it suspended a bit in front... doing so would cause both the albedo / specular / normal maps to be combined, lighting would then follow the bump map of both the brick as well as the decal so both produce depth on top of each other on what would still appear to be a single surface. Even if my particular idea isn't possible, it would be nice if we could at least get rid of the brightening; Z-fighting would still occur, but at least it wouldn't be as obvious if you don't look closely.

Also, what I was able to achieve without parallax mapping, a few years back: