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Happy mapping on this beautiful, because rainy and cold, Saturday to all mapping taffers! kingsal's beastmen, regular pagans, a very fitting AI from another misson and selected mages will be populating this area. You cannot see it in this screenshot, but you feel the humidity when walking around ingame, I am already exhausted!

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.

DarkRadiant 3.1.0 is ready for download. What's new: The Texture Tool got its Free Scale operator now, allowing you to fit the texture with the mouse instead of having to type in the percentages. A lot of work went into the Declaration handling (EntityDef, Skins, Materials, Particles, etc.), which is now much more robust and more conformant to how the game is doing things (at least until TDM 2.10). The Material Editor got a plethora of issues resolved Improved the Model Export dialog and options For more things that have changed or fixed, see the list below. Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.1.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks go out to all who helped testing this release! And I'll gladly repeat myself, by thanking all the awesome people who keep using DarkRadiant to create Fan Missions - they are the main reason for me to keep going. Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. Changes since 3.0.0 Feature: DR doesn't consider wildcards in skins Feature: Reload Images eature: Texture Tool free scale Feature: Add "Show Definition" to all ResourceTreeView instances Fixed: "Reload Defs" doesn't remove entities that have been commented out Fixed: 'Reload Sounds' doesn't load new FM sound shader definitions Fixed: Reload Defs is not sufficient for reloading modelDefs Fixed: Models are reset to origin after reloadDecls Fixed: Skin Chooser doesn't preselect non-matching skins Fixed: Moving speakers deletes distance spawnargs if they're the same as in shader Fixed: Unable to select func_emitter with particle attached Fixed: Particle Editor Preview lacks vertex colours in lighting mode Fixed: Particle effects still visible when hidden via layers or filter Fixed: Entities referring to modelDefs should use the "idle" pose where possible Fixed: DR does not parse materials in def files Fixed: Modifier Hint Popup can crash when hitting Ctrl/Alt/Shift keys during shutdown Fixed: Insignificant digits displayed in Surface Inspector shift/scale/rotate values Improvement: Skin Chooser: show in which .skin file the skin is defined Improvement: Declaration Block Parsing overhauled Improvement: Python Interface for IDeclarationManagerImprovement: leave player start entity selected after placemen Improvement: Let Map Info show materials used by models Improvement: Renaming Declarations causes problems when saving it later Improvement: Light Texture Preview should display editor images if present Improvement: Remove comments about particle generator in .prt files Material Editor: New Material is locked if the default unnamed name is already in use Material Editor: allow to delete materials Material Editor: image browser's "cancel" button rewrites the material source text Material Editor: does not save manual edits to source text Material Editor: should show .mtr the material is defined in Material Editor: after "Reload Images", image previews are only updated when selecting a different material Material Editor: suboptimal preview for cubeMap materials Material Editor: preview object doesn't have smooth shading Material Editor: preview doesn't take "scale" into account in Textured Mode Material Editor: blend add stages are rendered separately in preview in lighting mode Material Editor: test frob highlight button not working Material Editor: doesn't remember settings from previous session Material Editor: image thumbnails use "scale" keyword from previously selected material Material Editor: frob highlight stage not updated correctly when changing diffusemap Material Editor: using Escape to close ignores unsaved changes Material Editor: Global Settings should be preselected Material Editor: some declaration text is lost while editing#6047: Material Editor: clicking "cancel" when selecting a light classname clears the classname field Material Editor: new materials always sorted last Material Editor: filter for image browser Material Editor: can't unlock editing on materials in "Other Materials" folder Material Editor: tries to save materials in DarkRadiant folder if no FM is installed Material Editor: allow to change preview backgroun Material Editor: preview renders shadows for noshadows materials 'Export selected as Collision Model' doesn't auto-create path folder and throws error Model exporter: manually enter export origin Model exporter: export origin choice should use a radio button Model exporter: only 1 entity's model is reloaded Model exporter: "Use entity origin as export origin" still uses map origin Model exporter: rename "Center Objects around Origin" The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Have fun mapping!

aye quite a load of scrapped mods over the years, most mappers dont seem comfortable in the editors avaliable for the quake engine and either choose something well known like unreal or drop it. The darkplaces engine itself is more than fine for making quality games but the mapping tools are sometimes a bit lackluster.

Hidden Hands: Vitalic Fever Filename : hhvf.pk4 Date of release: 20/07/2019 Latest Version: 3 (17/02/2021) Download via the in-game downloader or here: http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/fms/hhvf.pk4 http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/fms/hhvf.pk4 http://www.fidcal.com/darkuser/missions/hhvf.pk4 Known bugs: - stencil shadows do not work correctly (version 1) - sometimes, the character "Applefinger" cannot be knocked out when sitting on the chair without failing the mission. (version 1) Hidden Hands Series: I. Initation - II. Vitalic Fever Jack Farmer: mapping & drafts Amadeus: alpha testing, geometry fixes, performance checks, drafts for gameplay and objectives, revision of all readables, dialogues & narrator texts Grayman: AI fixes, gameplay fixes, trap fixes Duzenko: alpha testing, performance checks and improvement tips Beta Testers: - Joebarnin - Cambridge Spy - Boiler's Hiss (aka "The architect's darling") - Jedi_Wannabe (aka "The man of many voices") - Amadeus (aka "The Writer") Voice actors: Malasdair Narrator Jedi_Wannabe All four guards chatting about the guests, chickens, inventions and unusual job interviews New Horizon The educated Builder Goldchocobo The naive Builder Special thanks to: - Springheel, Sotha, and Fidcal for the tutorials. - VanishedOne, Stumpy, Destined, Grayman, Joebarnin and ERH+ for patiently answering my questions solving all the in-game problems. - PsymH (aka "Stringer Bell") for connecting me with the right guys on TTLG for additional voice acting. - Goldwell for teaching me how to integrate a custom video in a fms and helping me with troubleshooting during the integration of one of the Builder's voices. - all voice actors & beta testers for their great support. - all others not mentioned here who answered my questions in the Newbie thread or via PM. Contributors from the Inventor's Guild: - Destined wrote a new definition for the "spidsey-babsies", enabling those beasts to move through tunnels. - Grayman wrote a script enabling Halfrid to hold the quill only when it is needed. He also fixed several other AI problems with respect to path finding, damages and interaction with light switches. Pilfered items: - Portal sky with hills and trees originally developed and arranged by Sotha for "Thomas Porter: The Transaction". - Frobbox booster re-created from a map originally developed by Grayman All new ambient music and sound effects written, performed and mixed by Jack Farmer. Briefing video by SirSmokeAlot Pictures

Seems to confirm: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5718 does it happen in the latest dev build: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20824-public-access-to-development-versions/

Hey, Every time I've try to use the Full Editor when PM'ing someone, and every single time I get an error. Whoever is in charge of the forum, is it possible that this could be fixed? Thanks Neon

I think it is a good idea! Our ingame mission downloader and mission view has long been subject of multiple improvement suggestions. Due to the sheer mass of missions that have been released in the last 15 years, things got really cluttered and especially newcomers will have a hard time finding what they want. However, improving the ingame guis is quite a task, so a web-based application might really suit this scenario well. Maybe we could even add a linke to it from our ingame menus, so user can access it quicker. Some more things to think about Would users be able to add custom tags and downvote / upvote certain tags, much like the system of Steam? This would also allow to add tags like "beautiful", or "difficult". Actually, the more users can contribute to this system, the better, because it will be automatically maintained then. The browser should also contain a flag for whether the FM belongs to a connected series of FMs or not and have the capability to go to the previous or next FM in that series. There should also be a flag for fully fledges campaigns. Some might like a flag whether or not an FM is "ghostable".

So I've been on-off working on various missions of some description or another, and during the course of doing this I've been thinking about the process of bringing an FM together from start to finish. That is, maybe less the technical side and more: how does one go from an idea, to a fleshed-out concept, to a final product? There is some good stuff on the "Mission Design Tips" wiki page (http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Mission_Design_Tips), but I feel there's more to the mapping process that can be explored and expanded upon. So I was wondering, how does everyone here do it? Is there a particular mapping method(s) that works for you / that you'd recommend? Some things that might be nice to learn more about, just to start the ball rolling (provided this thread isn't redundant): 1. Where do you draw your inspiration from? How do you tend to come up with a mission idea? 2. What building techniques do you utilize? Free building? Planning everything on paper first? Bare-bones architecture first? Modular? Creating major areas, then linking them all up later? Something else? 3. What do you do to keep morale up / keep progress going, particularly when you've been working on the same mission for a long time? 4. What are some of the most important things to keep in mind when creating a mission? 5. Are there any particular mapping practices you'd argue for/against? 6. What are some of the most common issues you run into when creating a mission, and what are some ways you can overcome these issues? 7. Would something like a GDD for missions be useful? What about something like a cognitive model of TDM players?

I started working on my first TDM mission a few months ago, which I estimate is only a bit larger than the average map (excluding quickies in mapping contests). So far I'm slowly getting close to finishing the geometry and object placement... though the more I add to my map, the more I feel still lies ahead of me. Although I knew DarkRadiant doesn't do things magically, mapping is a lot more tedious than I first predicted. It's not the total amount of work that upsets me either... rather that if things were easier, missions could be released sooner, and we could create more content altogether! Now I'm not posting this to complain aimlessly; During my time mapping, I've kept track of the steps that seem to be most time consuming, and thought of how they could be reduced. I wanted to suggest a few ideas that came to mind, which should make mapping faster and less of a repetitive process. Disclaimer 1: I know that even if they're good suggestions, these ideas require someone to code them. I'm not demanding them or expecting that they happen tomorrow. Disclaimer 2: Some of these might already exists, as less obvious features or plugins. I can't know everything, so I discuss them as new ideas. - Model / Entity / Prefab placement: The first thing to stand out as time consuming and more difficult than it needs to be is entity placement: To put something on the map, you first right-click somewhere in a 2D viewport. A menu pops up, from which you browse a large selection of assets and choose the one you want. After inserting it, you first notice it's at an incorrect distance on the axis not addressed by that 2D viewport, so you must reposition it in one of the other two 2D viewports. To properly locate it in 3D space, you must find it in all 3 of the 2D views and drag it around until the object is at the right spot. Once that's done, you frequently want to rotate it too... which currently requires opening the rotation menu, introducing the number of degrees you want to rotate by, then clicking a button. I believe this could all be made easier with the following features: * Ability to click on a surface in the 3D viewport, and add an object with its origin located at the nearest point on the grid. That way there will be no need to find and reposition everything in the 2D viewports, just click directly on where you want them to appear and voila! The object should be facing toward the camera at either 0* / 90* / 180* / 270* of rotation. * I work a lot with Blender 3D. One thing that makes it easier to setup a scene is that you can move / rotate / scale objects via simple shortcut keys, whereas there are also fields in the sidebar where you can easily edit these numbers for the selected object. For example: If you want to move an object by 50 units on the X axis, you simply press "G" (grab) then "X" (the axis) then type in "50" (the amount) and press "Enter". No mouse needed, which makes it easier to move things around compared to dragging them in some circumstances. * A better way to find the assets you need: TDM has a lot of models and textures and sounds that mappers can use, which is a great thing... but unless you learn in which directory structure each is located, you'll waste a lot of time looking for the perfect model or texture to place somewhere. The first and easiest solution would be a "last # used" section, in which the last say 10 entities you placed are listed... making it easier to go back and forth between the last few things you're placing in a given area. A similar idea is a customizable favorites / bookmarks menu, where the user can create their own directory structure and order entries in a way they can easily learn... similarly to bookmarks in web browsers. Beyond that I think making better use of previews would be helpful, such as showing the 3D model of all entries in the selected directory rather than just the selected entry. Here is a great example: - Flexible camera movement in the viewport: Camera movement has always been a pain in all Radiant editors, as you can only take control of the 3D viewport in a 1st person perspective: Right-click to engage, use the arrow keys and mouse to move, right-click again to disengage. This is a bit slower than the movement in other 3D programs, and I believe it could be improved. * Allow a combination of keyboard shortcuts with mouse dragging to move the view. In Blender for example, you middle-click to rotate, shift + middle-click to move, control + middle-click to zoom (or mouse wheel, DarkRadiant has this one). Why not the same system here, with FPS control moved to a different shortcut? * A few other engines (such as Second Life) have an even better approach: You can control + alt + click on any spot of any surface to focus the camera there and change the pivot point. This makes it a lot easier to move around through space, which would be a great feature for DarkRadiant as well. - Random generators for simple map structures: Another inventive way to help mappers get more work done would be to offer the possibility of the software doing part of the work. Of course this isn't possible when it comes to creating complex structures, but it could be used to simplify a few basic tasks. What I'm thinking about precisely includes: * Terrain generator: Just select a patch mesh with enough columns and rows, and its vertices are randomized to create a nice heightmap terrain! * Room generator: The user creates a single brush representing the body of a building. The plugin then asks the user for the following data: The texture(s) to be used by the floors ceilings and walls, the thickness of the floors / ceilings / walls, how many floors there should be, how many rooms there should be. The plugin automatically generates a mix of walls that align against each other, producing the basic interior structure. The artist can next modify the layout as they see fit and start placing the decorations! Taking the idea further, the plugin could automatically place doors and windows, create stairs between floors, and even add various entities correctly to rooms. * Random entity placement: Another plugin that could be useful is randomly scattering a set of models / entities across a surface (similarly to particle systems). The user selects the brushes or faces that should be accounted, a list of entities (with configurable probabilities / counts?), then the entities are randomly spawned and distributed across the surface. This would be especially useful in outdoor areas... where you can then select the terrain, a set of trees and rocks and foliage models, and let DarkRadiant generate a forest for you!

Today I am happy to announce the release of my first FM for The Dark Mod. After 6 years of using this lovely game creation engine, I'm finally able to contribute my own project for it! It took roughly two weeks of non-stop work to do everything from start to end... there's always some little detail to come back to when mapping, thus there were a few little things left out to prioritize others, but at the end of the day this came out almost exactly as I envisioned it. In this mission you play as the typical professional thief. You've been hired to retrieve a scroll containing forbidden knowledge from the mansion of a wealthy noble, put there by the builder church who is close to its owner and found it a more suitable spot. A banquet is being thrown by the lord who owns the mansion which is the perfect opportunity to make your move. Nothing out of the ordinary: You're to retrieve this scroll and get paid for your work... simple, right? Notice: Performance in some areas may be poor. I optimized the lighting setup as much as possible, trying to use as few long range light sources as I could. To achieve the desired theme however I had to leave parts of them map relatively open. Hopefully this won't be a hindrance to anyone... if it is you may need to lower some graphical settings. For people who don't like surprises and may be sensitive to certain themes, read the spoiler below. If you're okay with anything don't as it will ruin the experience! For people who are stuck and don't know how to proceed, instructions are provided in the spoiler below. Only read them if necessary. A tip that needs no spoilers: The key in this FM is exploration and reading everything carefully. There are secrets to be found: Always look everywhere and closely at everyone! I'm eager to hear what your experience with this FM is. Use spoilers when referring to specifics, but do let me know what your thoughts are! Especially with this being my first FM I could use tips, including technical ones if you look at the map in DarkRadiant. Here are a few screenshots of the main areas (intended for the installer): And finally the download links. Unzip and place the main directory inside your fms folder, this should get it to show up in the mission list. Mirror 1 Mirror 2

Thank you so much for playing! The blunt direction of “get in, grab stuff, and get out” was half my direct approach to objectives and half learning the ropes of DR. I’m glad your playstyle benefited from my mapping style. The sword in the display case in the lounge is definitely lootable, as well as that servant with the coin purse that wanders into the dining room. Play around with windows of opportunity in the patrols, and maybe a gas arrow or two might help. Few have found the loot in the foyer contained in the painting(s) and chandelier; good eye! Again, thanks for playing, it really means a lot! While I’ve begun work on the next chapter, progress is admittedly slow; my dang S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly addiction is getting out of hand.

TTLG? That's Through the Looking Glass Forums. A looking glass fan community. Has been around for a long, long time. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/

I comprehend but you do lose volumetric effects with stencil but only the really recent missions have volumetric lights. Btw In reality there's a big difference between what shadow maps are capable off and stencil maps are capable off, unfortunately because of backwards compatibility with old missions and the fact that for a long time, only stencil was available, TDM team add to limit shadow mapping capabilities mostly to what stencil can do.

Leaky geometry, particularly portal leaks, happen all the time to everyone. Annoying and time-consuming as they are, they're absolutely not a sign of being bad at mapping. I'm looking forward to seeing your mission- I don't think we have any with a Wild West feel yet.

I just read@motorsep Discovered that you are able to create a brush, then select it and right click "create light". Now you have a light that ha the radius of the former brush. Just read it on discord and thought it may be of use for some people in the forums here too.