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

Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8:

Ever since I worked on "Chalice of Kings" with Bikerdude, I have wanted to get flame particles with new particle glares into the core mod. My reasoning was that the candles have glares and the un-glared torches look mismatched. This proposal was met with mixed reactions, so (knowing the history of TDM feature proposals...) I have created a technical demo. You may download it here: zzz_flameglare.pk4.txt (fixed) Just rename without the .txt extension at the end and place it in your Darkmod directory. Here are some screens. Using particles for this is probably the wrong way to go now that Duzenko has an emissive light feature in his branch: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19659-feature-request-emissive-materialsvolumetric-lights/

Depending what happens with the legal status of content produced by generative AI, some contributors might not only want to but be legally required to distribute their assets under a more permissive license. We have already seen AI generated textures in at least one FM. There is precedent from the US copyright office that all such works are automatically in the public domain and asserting any kind of copyright claim about them is fraud. That includes CC-BY-NC-SA, as all copyleft licenses still depend on asserting ownership over the work in order to set conditions on its use. Even CC0 is not actually the same thing as public domain.

"...to a robber whose soul is in his profession, there is a lure about a very old and feeble man who pays for his few necessities with Spanish gold." Good day, TDM community! I'm Ansome, a long-time forums lurker, and I'm here to recruit beta testers for my first FM: "The Terrible Old Man", based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story of the same name. This is a short (30-45 minute), story-driven FM with plenty of readables and a gloomy atmosphere. Do keep in mind that this is a more linear FM than you may be used to as it was deemed necessary for the purposes of the story's pacing. Regardless, the player does still have a degree of freedom in tackling challenges in the latter half of the FM. If this sounds interesting to you, please head over to the beta testing thread I will be posting shortly. Thank you!

The license.text (you can find it in the root of tdm install) says this: Anyway, I don't really understand what you want. I think enough has been said no? You posted about the stuff that you think needs fixing. Maybe someone picks it up and it gets fixed.

Is "assets" synonymous to "media/gamedata"? And are you referring to the 2.3 GB media/gamedata included in TDM at install? If all 2.3 GB media/gamedata were removed from the "TDB-libre" version, then no license change would be needed. Say then we have a small fan mission that is entirely libre, built entirely from libre assets and created to intentionally avoid using any of the current 2.3 GB media/gamedata. If we wanted to play that mission using only the source code, what media/gamedata components would be missing to do that? * GUI graphics and music? * HUD elements? * Any in-game sounds? * Inventory objects? * ... anything else that can neither be included in the mission's own media/gamedata, nor avoided during mission design? I'm assuming here that a mission actually can include its own media/gamedata (textures, sound, models), but I may be wrong and I'm grateful for any explanation that helps me understand. If you ask me, the TDM-installer works perfectly already today, and the instructions are brief and easy to follow. Installation from the Debian repository would be somewhat easier, but I also see other (perhaps greater) benefits which I mentioned earlier.

It's much simpler than that: TDM includes numerous 3rd-party assets which forbid commercial usage. Even if every single team member approved of a license change, it would still not be possible without identifying and removing all of those 3rd-party assets (and any derived assets based on them) and replacing them with free alternatives. They do. There are numerous easy ways to obtain and install non-FOSS projects on Debian. You can download and extract a tarball, run a dedicated installer, add a custom PPA from Ubuntu or some other source, install an AppImage, or install a FlatPak. You can even install non-FOSS projects directly from Debian using the non-free repository. At no point do they "force" anyone to do anything. What they don't allow is adding non-FOSS or otherwise restricted content into the main Debian repository, which is their right as a free software project.

GPL guarantees end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. It puts restrictions on any derivative work that it must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms, but it does not prohibits from making money.

@stgatilov: You also mentioned some relevant things here: "Maybe start with finding who are these "we" people who want to change the license to assets?..." So far I only know of myself. Others are free to agree or disagree. (It may be worth keeping in mind that the population of current TDM contributors is not a representative sample of the population of all potential contributors. Anyone who has already joined did so accepting the current conditions. If we offer options, more may want to join.) "As a programmer, I definitely do not want to maintain any additional packages." I understand. And since I can't do it myself it will never happen unless someone is willing to help. "And I do not want to get entangled into any kind of licensing questions." The strength of any collaboration can be evaluated by its ability to harness the talents and interests of each contributor. Any open source project, where everyone participates by their own free will, will have a hard time compelling any of its participants into doing something that does not interest them.

It is much easier to assume that we have single license for assets and all the contributors agree to distribute under it when they donate their stuff to the project. Otherwise you have to track metainformation for thousands of files, and surely there will be some errors made during tracking. If I don't care about the "TDM-libre" story, why should I bother?

Nowhere. I don't think it exists. I believe the engine source code and shaders are assumed to be under GPL (except for third-party libraries, which have their license but are essentially distributed in TDM under GPL terms). All the rest is assumed to be CC-by-nc-sa.

I'll put it at the top of my queue of missions to play, even if just to see the size of it. Is it explicitly said to be Libre with all its components? Mission story, models, textures, readables, and sound? If it is not, then I don't see that it would work to just change the assets it uses. If there is no mission that is explicitly said to be libre today, I see two options: * Ask if any author(s) would be willing to re-license one of their missions including its assets. * Try enlisting people interested in helping creating a libre mission from scratch. (Assuming it is even possible to play a mission which uses absolutely none of the 2.3 GB media/gamedata.) (Is it?)

Freedom is merely a feeling for most. I never understood the coherence with software. A license which allows modification is merely something practical, nothing I'd associate with "freedom" in any way. For some people, this is very political.

Because people don't understand that "freedom" is not a scalar quantity, and talking about "more free" or "less free" is just meaningless nonsense. A license itself is not "free", but it can try to protect freedoms for specific groups of people (users, developers, company owners, etc), some of which might directly conflict with the freedoms of other specific groups of people.

TDM should contain 2 storages, one that is gpl (the engine) and one with another or more than one license (content), maybe that's already the case? Via the installer you should be able to only install the gpl content? I don't know if that's possible. Everything pure code is gpl, or not? I mean everything outside of media files (images, video's, sound files, etc.). (edit: maybe also models?)

Maybe they are referring to the GPL licensed parts of the engine. Maybe they are referring to the CC-BY-NC-SA license for the media/gamedata. As I understand it, the game engine is libre (GPL+BSD) so no change would be required there. I'm trying to see if there is a way of releasing a "TDM-libre"-version (not changing regular TDM) as I describe in my question (2). Or if the TDM Installer can qualify as libre software (1).

Is there non-libre media/gamedata that every mission will absolutely require? Even a mission created completely from scratch and only using its own stand-alone models, textures, music, and sound? E.g. is the Lantern image on the HUD libre? Yes, I understand that it may not be doable to replace (or re-license) all current gratis but non-libre media/gamedata used by current missions, but that may not be necessary. Hence my question (2) about a "TDM-libre" version consisting of only the game engine, all non-libre media/gamedata removed, but include a basic mission using (stand-alone) media/gamedata that is libre. This will honor the will of contributors not wanting their work in commercial projects, and still make a limited version of TDM qualify as libre software for the benefits I describe. Does anyone know why? A browser like Chromium or Firefox qualifies as libre but can be used to view and download non-libre content. This is what I'm going for in question (1). If there are libre TDM missions available, then the TDM installer would be similar to Steam in that regard.

The real St. Alban was a pagan who became a celebrated religious personality, this All Saints Day 2010 The Dark Mod places its own spin on this mythical figure. Screenshots: Intro: "'Business' has been slow lately, even more so after most of my gear got snatched during a Watch raid... I've since been forced to hit the streets and pick pockets for a living. But my luck was about to change, last night I was approached by a red hooded figure with a proposition... As we sat down in a dark corner of a nearby inn, he told to me that the Builders of St. Alban's Cathedral in the Old Quarter had recently unearthed a discovery that might lead to the final resting place of some saint." " But before I do anything, I need to get my tools and stash from the evidence room at the local watch station." "with the hawks, doves will congregate they will drop honey from the cliffs wine will surge over the earth the sheep will wander harmlessly with the wolf then the wicked will rise, but to retribution" - 'scripture of St Alban' There is a new version out now, see the following thread St Albans Cathedral version 1.6 Build Time: about 2-3 months. Thanks:- Huge respect to the Dark Mod team for such a great mod and for all the hard work they put into it and continue to put into it. Special thanks to Fidcal, Serpentine and others for their help on the forums and to Testing:Ugoliant, Baddcog, Grayman, Lost soul, Bjorn and Baal (for doing all the Vp work in the town. Readables: Ungoliant and Mortemdesino for all awesome work on the readables. Resource: Fids, Grayman, Ungoliant - guis, models & images. Misc: Loren Schmidt - the author of the map I based the cathedral on. Info: # Like Thief2, some things are climable, pipes, wall vines etc.. You can also drop some of the keys, some door that are frobbabe mean there is another way inside - explore u taffer! # Due to TDM being a lot more of a resource hog than T2 I have been forced to limit the number of Ai in the mission, but they have better placement than my last mission. # On all difficulty levels the player starts with vertualy no tools/weapons, there are weapons to be found - read, read, read! # For the love of all that is holy, read the briefing otherwise you will problems completing the mission. Known issues:- # This mission will have less than optimal fps at a few points on the map, mid range DX9 card(X1900/GF7800) or higher required. # On low end PCs I recommend, V-sync is off, AA is off, Aniso is 4x or lower and that any and all background apps are closed.

A couple more: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21739-resolved-allow-mantling-while-carrying-a-body/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22211-feature-proposal-new-lean-for-tdm-212/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22198-feature-proposal-frob-to-use-world-item/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22249-212-auto-search-bodies/

Author Note: This is a brand new mission and a new entry into the accountant series. There are some different than usual puzzles in this FM, so if you find yourself stuck try to think about your pathway forward in a logical manner. And if you're still having troubles then pop by this thread and ask (preferably with spoiler tags). This FM is brand new and serves as the first installment in The Accountant series, a few years back there was a small prologue style mission released however I felt that it did not represent The Accountant series so I decided to go back to the drawing board and do a whole new mission that's larger, has a better level design and has a story that lines up closer to what I plan to do with the accountant series. The mission is medium sized and you can expect between 30-90 minutes to complete it depending on your playstyle. Beta Testers Captain Cleveland Crowind Kingsal PukeyBee Skacky SquadaFroinx Voice Actors AndrosTheOxen Epifire Goldwell Stevenpfortune Yandros Custom assets Airship Ballet Bentraxx Bob Necro Dragofer DrKubiac Epifire Kingsal MalachiAD Sotha Springheel SquadaFroinx Available via in-game downloader File Size: 233 MB - Updated to v 1.1 (01.06.2018)

Welcome to the forums Ansome! And congrats on making it to beta phase!

Yeah it would be cool to see some more detailed statistics and it’s a shame they aren’t really captured. Since we are talking about fan mission platforms, where players also make the content for the game, I feel like the best thing we’ve got is you can look at the number of content releases for the games. Keep in mind the graph counts campaigns as single missions - so for example NHAT and TBP both count as 1 mission. A good year for TDM has has approaching maybe 50% - mostly we’re 25-30%. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152494 You could also look at the number of ratings thief missions get on https://www.thiefguild.com/ vs TDM ones, but that is pretty iffy in that you could chalk that up to more awareness of the site in the thief community than TDM Out of curiosity is there a reason a thief player can’t be a new player? I kind of think a player is a player and new players would be ones who are playing the dark mod who weren't? Is there disagreement the base of players most likely to pick up the game are fans of the thief games? They are certainly the most fruitful place to find feedback on the game beyond the sphere of this forum that I have seen. When we were trying to finish up SLL there was a lot of discussion on the forums about how long it had been since there was a release for the game. I am thankful that the stats show at least some stability over the years in terms of releases for TDM, but the trend for all of the games is decline. Not doing anything is a valid response if that’s what the devs want to do - it is not possible to provide evidence that any effort will slow that inertia. As a player and content maker I would just prefer trying to find feedback where it is offered from players who were willing to try the game but ultimately could not engage with it and see if there is anything that can be done within reason to ease them into the game. The game has a lot to offer imo. All those players are potential contributors - contributions in turn attract players - it’d be nice to see the cycle go on as long as it can.

Builder Compound Pack will help you create better environments for your Builder-themed map sections! The aim of this experimental package is to provide high-quality models, materials, and other assets that don't put a big strain on the idtech4 engine. This early version is slightly more bare-bones than I wished for, as some modular sets (e.g. the roof) proved to be too complex and unfit for general use. Don't worry though, the set will be updated and expanded in future releases. Tweaks – Arch door and arch with hinges models have been removed. They were just static models, not actual door entities, and they weren't super useful, e.g. hey couldn't act as visportal closing entity due to gaps and transparent parts. – Detail texture stage added to selected materials (mostly those you can get very close to). As you approach a surface, you should see a slightly grainy layer that enhances the details. New content – Door01 and door01_frame have been added to both models and entities. This is a basic door for this corridor section. By default, it's locked (with easy lock) and AI will notice if it's left ajar. You may want to disable the latter (set ShouldBeClosed to 0) if you have a section with many AIs and doors, as it will probably disrupt AI patrolling too much. The frame will work with walls that are 16 units thick. Both door and the frame will work with grid of 8 and smaller. You can use the grid of 4 to change the door position within the frame. Look for grooves in the frame model. First of all, launch the map to see a simple section that was made with these assets. Use the menu or type map bc in the console to start the map. Noclip though the north wall, if you want to get to the staging area and see all pieces used to make this section. General info and tips: Make sure you have Rotate func_* entities around origin (Ctrl+R) enabled (Dark Radiant top icons) to use models efficiently. All models have custom pivot / origin point placement to make them snap to grid and geometry really fast. If you have keyboard shortcuts configured for RotateSelectionX/Y/Z and FloorSelection, placing these models around the map will be a breeze. I also recommend having shortcuts for SelectNudgeUp/Down/Left/Right, so you can move models in ortho views without using a mouse. DR detects models in a weird way, e.g. if your model is one-sided, or has some faces turned back to the camera in ortho view, selecting and moving it around will be difficult. Using keyboard is often more seamless and precise. You can select a model in perspective view, and then move it around in X/Y/Z plane using keyboard. Optimal scale for tileable materials is 0.125. This provides good pixel density vs repetition. Materials are optimized to be used both with and without post-processing, and the default gamma of 1.2. In some cases, specular hotspot might look slightly overblown with post-processing enabled. Correct look without post-processing was the first priority. Same principles apply to using lamp. The main idea behind this set is that you can use simple brushes for walls and floors, and wall panels have proper offset, so you don't need to use special surrounding BSP behind them. You can place panels right where your walls are, and there will be no z-fighting or clipping. Assumed basic measure for a corridor is 192 x 192 (length / width), but you can go lower if you don't plan to use arches and metal doors. The smallest wall panel piece is 24 units long. Use brushes to create basic space, then adjust it to what you can make with wall panels (combinations of 24, 48, 96, 192 etc.). DR's measurement tool is your friend. Default grid for placing most pieces is 8, but it goes down with smaller / more complex models and setups. One special case is matching metal doors to arch with hinges, this needs grid of 2. That's a mistake on my part. I didn't think of better pivot placement until it was too late. The example map contains a "staging area" where you'll find grouped arch, hinges, and doors, so you can use that as a template. As per The Dark Mod license, you may modify this pack's contents, although I'd advise against it. Most textures are compressed in lossy DDS format and compressing them again will result in loss of image quality. If you want to make changes, need alternative versions of a model or material contact me first. I'll see what I can do. Last but not least, I hope you'll find this pack useful and fun to work with, as I had plenty of fun while making it I already have a long list of models and features to include in subsequent releases, but I'm always open to feedback and suggestions. Thanks! Credits: Springheel, Obsttorte, Spooks, nbohr1more, STiFU, Destined and other TDM Forum members: guidance, encouragement, and fruitful discussions Epifire: asset feedback and critique The Black Arrow: inscription texts Plans for upcoming releases: Corridor: - Fixing the wall panel collision model, so strafing along it isn't wobbly Done. - Roof modular set Done. - Making metal door an entity with proper sounds and open/close times. Done, made proper door instead. - Floor switch model/entity for metal doors - Window set Done. Roadmap: All work is on hold for now. I'm working on a small FM that will use some of these assets plus many more. Some of existing assets will get reworked too. All links are taken down, and I have no release date yet, sorry.

Not this time though, the campaign is getting some PC press coverage, some major outlets like Rock Paper Shotgun included: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-black-parade-is-a-thief-mod-from-a-team-including-a-dev-at-arkane-and-an-original-thief-designer The TDM / cgtextures.com situation made me think though; maybe, instead of worrying what future license might include, there could be a steady effort to replace photo-sourced textures with hand-made / proc-gen ones? That list is huge, but the peace of mind in the end is priceless.