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It's one of those things that appears to be simple to do, but really isn't. At the end of the day, there are really only two ways to do it: Mark the highlight mesh in the stencil buffer, then draw an extruded version of the mesh, skipping any pixels marked in the stencil and thus producing the outline. Works with depth out of the box, but will typically produce a hard border, not a soft glow. However, creating the extruded mesh is not a trivial thing for any non-convex mesh. Might be that Unity has tools for this, but we don't, and spending the time to implement something like this for an effect that's already controversial, anyway, seems like a huge waste of effort. There are some techniques with geometry shaders that can be used here, but you still need to preprocess the mesh data for them to work. Do an image-based effect. Draw the object to a separate color buffer, then blur it to create a soft screen-space silhouette. Can then be applied to the original buffer, again using a stencil mask to cut away the insides of the object. This is what TDM currently does, it looks pretty decent and is relatively easy to do. However, it has no concept of depth, at all. I've tried some hackery on top to get it to respect depth, which is what r_frobIgnoreDepth 0 does, but it's not pretty. Might be able to do better, but that would eat more development time with uncertain outcome. In the end, the current implementation is what you can do in TDM with moderate effort. Anything better requires significantly more effort, and given the lukewarm reaction to the feature, I really don't think it's worth that development time.

id Studio did a poor job in defining its categorization of variable nomenclature, so in subsequent documentation and discussions there are divergent views (or just slop). In my series, I had to choose something, and went with what I thought would be clearest for the GUI programmer: Properties, which are either Registers (like true variables) Non-registers (like tags) User Variables (also true variables) I see that your view is more along these lines (which perhaps reflects C++ internals?): Flags (like my non-registers) Properties, which are either Built-in (like my registers) Custom (like user Variables) Also, elsewhere, you refer to "registers" as temporaries. I am willing to consider that there could be temporary registers during expression evaluation, but by my interpretation those would be in addition to named property registers. I'm not sure where to go next with this particular aspect, but at least can state it.

How you can help depends a lot on what skills you have. I can Record Video Recording "Let's Play" videos or simple walkthroughs of existing missions and posting them to Youtube is great exposure for the mod (see example .) Be sure to let us know so we can link to them. If you have some editing ability, Video tutorials, where you explain how the mod works, or how to use specific tools, would also be great. Video trailers, showcasing interesting places and features, are also great for publicity. An example is . I can Write Writing reviews for missions are always nice, especially if they include good screenshots. Not only does it give us something to post on other forums, but it makes mappers feel good when their mission gets attention (especially if it's positive). We have a collective thread to post reviews in: http://forums.thedar...s-walkthroughs/ Writing reviews of the mod as a whole, targetted an an audience that doesn't know much about TDM, is also very useful. You could also try offering your services to mappers to create interesting readables, or to proofread for their mission. I can Act and Record Audio We are always on the lookout for good quality audio recordings for vocal sets. If interested, you can pick a few different lines from this script: http://wiki.thedarkm...t:_Average_Jack and send the recordings to Springheel, who then writes a script based on the type of voice you have. I can Translate We could always use translations of our menu/hud into more languages. Also, only a few FMs are aavailable in more than one language, so there is a lot of work there, see the I18N Translator's Guide in the Wiki. I can Model Great! Take a look at the model request thread:http://forums.thedar...-requests-here/ and pick something that interests you. Or just post a, "Hey, anybody want a model?" thread in this forum and I'm sure mappers will get back to you. I can Animate Fantastic. We can always use more good animations. Our current character rigs use a Maya skeleton. PM Springheel for more info. I know C++ Have a look at our coding section in the wiki, pick an issue or feature from the bugtracker of the mod or the leveleditor, download the recent sourcecode release (or better ask for an SVN checkout) and get cracking. Make sure nobody is already working on that specific issue and feel free to ask questions. I can Edit Images We can always use completely new textures and/or improved versions of older textures. How to get started and how to import them into the mod. I can Take Photos Good quality photos of useful textures (medieval-ish building facades, dirt, rocks, wood, etc) are always welcome. The fewer directional shadows and higher resolution, the better. I don't have any skills Even if you can't do any of the above, you can still help out. Talk about TDM in other forums; share your (preferably positive) experiences with other gamers you know. Last, but not least, compliment people when you like their work. Saying "thanks", to a developer or, "I really enjoyed your mission" to a mapper will make their day. -------------------- I'll update this further as more things occur to me.

Hello TDM-ers. I am encountering an issue where textures seem to partially disappear. I tried searching the forums, but, I don't know what to search for. The missing textures are a worldspawn brush acting as a roof with {for now} flat iron texture. There are other worldspawn brushes right below to create an attic ceiling with roof framework board texture. These gaps appeared a few edits ago. I can't "undo" to get back before whatever edit did this. The gaps are only visible during play and are not visible during editing. Closing and reopening DR and TDM do not fix anything. Some of the brushes overlap in areas behind the play area but I have never seen an issue doing that. The attached image has the effect I am now seeing. Ideas on where to start debugging this? Very much appreciated. Clint

(I apologize for the odd poll question layout. I wasn't able to add five yes-no questions, because polls are limited to three questions.) Hi everyone, I've recently been working on some patches for issues that I've read about from players on the TDM and TTLG forums — and Discord. My goal is to make it as easy as possible for players, especially new players and those who need usability/accessibility options, to find what they need in order to have a better TDM experience. I've already written the GUI and game engine code for these settings, which I've been using in my personal build. The reason for this poll and discussion is to both guide the finalization of my work and collect data to help inform the dev team. Which patches I submit depend on the outcome of this poll, discussion, and what the dev team agrees to accept. Once decided, I can coordinate with the dev team. I've attached screenshots of what the new settings menu would look like if all of the settings are accepted. Below, I have detailed each menu setting, so you can have an easier time understanding each one. Very important to keep in mind: None of these settings change TDM default behavior. They are all opt-in. If you are already happy with the behavior of 2.10, 2.11, etc. and these menu settings are accepted, nothing will change for you. Rename "Always Run" to "Run Mode" with options "None, Always, Toggle" After 2.11 was released, @i30817 requested that "toggle run" be added to the settings menu. Its cvar is already in TDM as "in_toggleRun" (same as Doom 3). I propose renaming the "Always Run" setting to "Run Mode" with options: "None", "Always", and "Toggle". None = in_alwaysRun 0; in_toggleRun 0 Always = in_alwaysRun 1; in_toggleRun 0 Toggle = in_alwaysRun 0; in_toggleRun 1 Show Blackjack Helper @Wellingtoncrab suggested that the new blackjack helper be added to the settings menu. Its cvar was added to 2.11 as "tdm_blackjack_indicate". More info: It's the new blackjack helper added to 2.11. When the game detects that the blackjack can be used for a successful hit or KO, the blackjack will rise slightly. I propose a "Yes/No" setting for this. Slider for "View: Head Bob" @ChronA requested a way to disable head bobbing, because a viewer watching him play was having severe motion sickness. Also, there was a bug in TDM that made setting the head bob in the console not stick after loading a saved game. (Even with 2.11, if a mission overrides the "tdm_player_thief.def" file and sets "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", "pm_bobup", and other cvars, it will override player preferences.) As far back as 2008, players have had trouble setting head bob. Another one from 2018. At the end of 2022, @Shadowex3 registered just to voice the need for a way to control head bob. I propose that a slider be added to adjust the amount of head bob. This would use a new "pm_headbob_mod" cvar with a value between 0.0 and 1.0 (default 1.0, no change). The "pm_headbob_mod" would be a multiplier for "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", and "pm_bobup". The advantage to this approach is that missions like Volta 2 and Hazard Pay would not need to adjust their "tdm_player_thief.def" files for head bob to work properly. And, the player can still adjust "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", and "pm_bobup" as they like. Slider for "View: Mantle Roll" This is similar to head bob for those who are sensitive to motion. Its cvar was added to 2.11 as "pm_mantle_roll_mod". A Thief player on Discord said, "2.11 will have a cvar to tune down the mantling animation at last." I propose that a slider be added for "pm_mantle_roll_mod". Auto-Search Bodies @Zaratul requested the "auto-search bodies" feature from Thief 1 & 2. Its cvar was added to 2.12 dev16783-10307 as "tdm_autosearch_bodies". I did a poll on the a Thief Discord server and roughly 20% of players there use the Thief auto-search bodies feature. I propose a menu setting for this, so that players coming from Thief 1 & 2 can easily find it.

Awesome! Post is up! https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22200-beta-testing-the-house-of-delisle/#comment-487365 Thanks!

Thanks, I can also recommend gog galaxy. The idea of the custom tags is really nice, I'll have to try this out too!

YOU TAFFERS! Happy new year! Deadeye is a small/tiny assassination mission recommended for TDM newcomers and veterans alike. Briefing: Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JWslTAC3Ai9kkl1VCvJb14ZlVxWMmkUj/view?usp=sharing Enjoy! EDIT: I promised to someone to write something about the design of the map. This is in spoiler tags below. Possibly useful to new mappers or players interested in developer commentary.

I don't think there's a hard limit anymore, especially if you provide lower-poly versions of the mesh to use at a distance and a shadowmesh so that the engine doesn't need to calculate shadows on the whole mesh. For a character the highest detail mesh probably ought to aim for 7-8k triangles, possibly even more. Polys most likely refers to triangles.

** As of 2.11 many of these assets have been further optimized and incorporated into the core mod** *These are reposted from the discord server* Conversions of cc0 licensed assets from https://polyhaven.com/models: **POLY HAVEN CC0 ASSET PACK 01 "SEATING"** - REV4 - narrow seats. wide seats - red seats. blue seats **POLY HAVEN CC0 ASSET PACK 02 "GOTHIC"** - Initial Release - Even more furniture - Interactive prefabs: Containers, cabinets, drawers, "working" grandfather clock - Fully modular pier kit - A very nice bed ! But AI can't sit in the chair ! Notes on "optimization": many of these meshes are particularly tricky for a very novice modeller as they contain a lot of smaller detail geometry which ideally would be baked into a normal map. That's a bit beyond me admittedly, so a much greater emphasis was put into keeping a higher level of detail but having as few shadow casting triangles as I could manage. The shadow mesh is typically only 10-20% of the overall polygon budget of an asset in the pack with some exceptions for the large "hero" assets like the bed.

https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/tags <- directx 12 wrapper for dxvk https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/tags <- directx to vulkan wrappers D3D 9 to 11 eg. dxvk if you want to try it with horizon zero dawn you need to copy out dxcompiler.dll from Tools\ShaderCompiler\PC\1.0.2595\x64 and bink2w64.dll from Tools\bin and place them next to HorizonZeroDawn.exe. then copy over dxgi.dll from dxvk and d3d12.dll from vkd3d and place them next to it to. now fire up the game and let the shaders recompile -> profit.

The *DOOM3* shaders are ARB2 ('cause of old GeForce support) carmack plan + arb2 - OpenGL / OpenGL: Advanced Coding - Khronos Forums

@Klatremusthe condump didn't have much to say but in better news I was able to load this save with the stealth tools mod installed and can see the guard. He seems to have gotten completely outside the nav mesh (the numbered boxes on the ground) and is attempting to get to this patrol point in the opposite direction (to the arrow). Clearly that is the problem as he cannot navigate without a nav mesh, but not very illustrative of the cause as he has effectively gotten completely encased in a clipping volume intended to keep AI out and it's very hard to say how that happens or why it is happening with such regularity in your playthroughs. I did a fly through of the map in this state and couldn't find any other AI in this state - but given whatever is causing this occur has already started in this playthrough hopefully if I keep going I will run into some more along the way.

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.

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/

Hi there! Since modular meshes are a thing in TDM, and I already saw some general misconceptions in the forums on how to make them, I thought I should show you one of basic techniques to make proper modular meshes, especially if you want to release them for others to use. First off, if you're new to the concept, have some preliminary reading: https://docs.unrealengine.com/udk/Three/rsrc/Three/ModularLevelDesign/ModularLevelDesign.pdf The document is old, but the principles of modular design stay the same. It's always about building the game world as fast as possible, while trying to save on polygons, textures and resources in general, and making the environment look as unique as you can. These seem like polar opposites at first, but with creative use of modular meshes you will reach that middle ground. Now, I'm not going to discuss my modeling techniques in much detail, since that's whole other topic, but we will stick to some ground rules: 1. Your wireframe has to be clean. I know this is modeling 101, but you can never stress enough how important it is. Essentially, your low-poly model has to be made with polygons (squares or rectangles) which can be divided into triangles when you convert it to a mesh. So, any piece rectangular flat surface should be divisible into 2 triangles. That doesn't mean you can't have triangles in your model. You can, they just won't be divided further. This is very simple mesh with 3 rectangular surfaces, in other words, it has 3 polygons. And this is how it should look like after export to mesh and in your game editor. As you see, everything is fine, there are 6 triangles. Now, in TDM module library I often see something like this: This is not a clean wireframe. You're looking at 14 triangles instead of 6. That's 42 edges instead of 18. While it may not be game-breaking now, it's definitely a waste of triangles. If you're going to have a whole collection of meshes built this way, you may be wasting processing power and lowering the overall game performance. Engines using lightmaps would probably have shadowing problems with this kind of wireframe. And that's how we move to rule number two, which is: 2. Save polygons whenever you can. Get rid of the faces players will never see. Use geometry only to convey believable shape of a model. Use high -> low poly model workflow and texture baking process to imitate complicated geometry with diffuse and normal textures. You don't need a thousand-polygon wall module, if you can fake it with normalmap and little visual difference. This is not only helpful in terms of performance, but it saves a lot of time at the model UVW Unwrap stage (it's easier / faster with fewer polygons to deal with). It also can be a design decision: whether it's a distant / skybox art or closer to the player, etc., etc. Now the rule number three, which is probably the most important of them all: 3. The pivot has to be moved to a place that allows most flexible use of a model, in as many scenarios as possible, and with grid set to as high number as possible. While this is not obligatory for unique objects, decorations and clutter, architectural meshes have to be cloned, moved, rotated and snapped to grid, as fast as you can. Typically, this depends on mesh dimensions and pivot placement. Since this all may sound very technical and abstract, let's get down to proper example. For my mission, I needed a wooden wall panel, something in the Builder's cathedral aesthetics. While browsing through many references, I found something appealing to my taste, but way above my modeling skills: I was also taking screenshots of Dishonored. I liked the Overseers' HQ, and I wanted to have something similar in terms of modularity: Notice that you don't need any special columns for outward corners, or to break up panels that are next to each other. I thought that the easiest way to achieve something similar would be to have a horizontal tiling texture with sections. Since I'm using 2048 textures as a base, I knew that 128 x 256 units will be enough for a wall panel, and I'll be able to divide it properly later. I didn't want the low-poly mesh to be complex, so I thought all I need is an upper trim section, the main section with inset panels, and the ground trim section. Technically, I could probably use one trim section and overlapping UVs to save on texture space, but I thought that is a bit too far Besides, any dirt layer on that would have the same spots or scratches on both trims, and that might look weird. This was the initial basic outline of my low-poly mesh. I thought the trim parts will be 16 u high, to fit better with overall proportions. Besides, if I'd changed my mind and decided that it's better to scale the model down to 64 x 128 u, it would have looked good as well. Now, since my drawing skills are basically none, I decided to model parts and decoration that would end up as baked texture and normal. I started with the middle section. Since the panel would be 256 u long, it was easy to divide it into 8 sections, 32 u each. I added thin strips between each section to make things a bit more interesting. Notice that I cut the strip by half on each end to make it tile properly later. I made a few adjustments and started adding decoration for the insets: Since there aren't many Builder insignia concept artworks, I tried making something on my own. It's kind of too close to hammerite stuff, but I liked it enough to leave it that way. Now the trims. Actually, one trim for the ground that is reversed for the upper section: The final model wasn't even high poly, medium poly at best. You're looking at 5200 polygons. I unwrapped the initial low-poly mesh (well, a plane with 3 setions), so it was super easy to bake the medium poly mesh onto it. I was using only half of the 2048 texture space. I could crop the texture to 1024 x 2048 and reposition UVs, but I decided that later I'd make a column, or another variation of this panel, so this space would not go to waste. This was kind of crucial moment and time when fun began. First thing I did was to check the pivot. I aligned it with the plane, moved it to the left side, and placed it on the ground. This way the model would be much easier to manipulate, whether it's moving around, rotating, or snapping to brushes or other meshes. Then I had to determine the final shape of the mesh and its possible uses. I applied the baked AO as bitmap to see whether the texture tiles (it did), and decided to tilt trim sections a bit, so it reflects the shape of medium poly mesh a bit more. I knew that players wouldn't see the bottom part of the mesh, but I wasn't so sure about the upper part. I decided to make the upper finish and used the trim part of the texture for it. Then I built a few walls to see how the mesh would look placed against them. That was when I realized my mistake. The pivot was in line with the middle section now, so, when I snapped it to a wall, the middle section was z-fighting with a wall. Duh! I selected the polygon and moved it 1 unit to the front. When I made sure that I can safely snap the mesh to walls and its clones, I proceeded to divide it to parts. As you see, this is still 128 x 256 wall panel, it's not really flexible. We need different length variations. Since I divided the medium poly into 8 even sections, I could slice the low poly mesh into chunks. Since having 8 different parts isn't that useful in the long run, I decided to clone the mesh, cut off one panel, clone the result cut another panel, etc. This way I came up with panels that are 224, 192, 160, 128, 96, 64 and 32 units long, respectively: The question is: do you really need that many panel variations? Typically, no. Four should be more than enough. You can always have a panel going through a wall, where player will never see it, so you don't need to be that precise and have all the length variants. Still, there was one thing even more important: corner pieces. I cloned the two-inset (64-unit) version of the panel to cut it in half. Then I rotated the "right half" 90° to the left to see the result. It was far from satisfactory. I knew that I'd need to align the upper and lower trims to form the corner, but I completely forgot that moving the middle section 1 unit to the front (to avoid z-fighting with walls) would create half a unit gap in the corner. This is how it looked after I aligned the vertices: This is where I could go to making textures and testing meshes in the editor, but there's also a problem of having inward corners. Many developers don't even bother with these, there will be some z-fighting of the upper part, in the small corner where meshes intersect. Not a big deal, but you can have such corners if you want as well. I felt like I had complete package, so I made some preliminary textures and material, then I begun exporting all pieces in .ASE format. All in all, I managed to create 12 variants of one mesh to cover the whole variety of its uses. After a few iterations of _d, _s, and _n textures, I came up with something like this: Edit: after getting some feedback I reworked the trims to give them more depth and proper silhouette, so the final result looks like this: This also demonstrates how important it is to bounce your ideas off someone or to show your work for peer review. A fresh look and healthy criticism can have very positive impact on quality of your work. I hope you'll find this useful while designing your own modular parts, let me know if you have any questions.