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I just picked up on what nbohr1more posted here about building from prefabs. I was just wondering how easy could we make it for novices to plug together modules to make new simple FMs. OK, likely they would lack originality and have lots of weaknesses but they might draw in more mappers who would not normally map and not all maps need to be highly advanced 'super maps.' I can't work on this currently but we could spend a few months kicking ideas around so maybe one day... Many of my first thoughts likely won't work. Let's see what if any will. Performance: Keep it simple so performance is less of an issue. Do not optimise. You only normally gain tiny fractions anyway except in complex situations and the prefabs rooms can be kept small and simple anyway. Just cover up ragged edges and junk waste. Keep focus entirely on speed building. Start Map: Needs a new simple one just for this probably just extended objectives, tools, ammo etc. Needs some thought. Prefabs: So I'm thinking first of customisable 'rooms'. A 'room' is defined as one closed volume with 'doorways' whether it be an alley, a mineshaft, whatever. Each room built to a standard wall thickness and grid. Each prefab labelled, eg, 'plug in compatible'. Standard texture types of same scale and alignment so can easily change. Each prefab has distinctily named layers for ease of re-selection and re-texturing. Each room has doorways at set points, eg, always say at positions 0.25, 0.5 075 along any wall. So to connect any two rooms you can align them easily. Doorways designed so they can be blocked off easily. For instance, if all doorways have a frame that protrudes 0.5 units then a 'blocker' prefab can be dropped over it.. This might for instance just be a a big vertical brush. Possibly leave the doorway inside for quickness but disable any working door. Stair room connectors and stair units. AI and pathing: A set of prefabs each with one AI type and say 8 paths + waits linked in a loop. Waits set at say min 10, max 30. Easy to change. Mapper changes AI skin & head for variety. Paths dragged to where needed. You can't really have too many; a one corridor guard can have 4 at each end. Paths are just discarded if not wanted by removing the AI's first target. Don't waste time deleting - you might change your mind later. Sitter prefabs with seat Sleeper prefabs with bed Problems: Dark Radiant's multiple item rotation bug is a big problem. Rotating a complete room prefab is hopeless. 4 sets of every prefab is not practical. So anyway, the mapper just Starts with the start map Inserts prefab rooms so each connects with another at doorways. Forms a basic structure of rooms. Retextures if needed. Adds or moves or changes any furniture or other models (or maybe does this later Inserts AI and adjusts Inserts loot Inserts custom objects Inserts and modifies just a few ultra simple pre-made generic readables. Modifies simple objectives.

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 think you're saying is, with Groups, the rotation point (origin) is automatically determined and can't be changed, but with func_group, it can be. My chief concern about func_group is that you would move a func_group around loosey-goosey as an entity, but then it would end up off-grid when auto-converted to worldspawn, causing headaches. Unless you can snap a func_group to a grid? Otherwise, limits use in, say, modular building. Thanks for the feedback. I can add something about the custom filter, too. I'm not going to over-sell func_group

Okay, @Geep , I did a quick test and I've remembered it wrong, it seems to work for what it was supposed to do. It must be that DR's grouping was just sort of "good enough" for me and I forgot about these. I also re-read what I had written in the thread and I remember that my "100 groups" comment was clearly meant not as a wedge for instancing but as an aid in modular building. Because models don't seal geometry func_groups can be a good way to make brush-based kit pieces or at the very least standardized sets of caulking and monster-clipping brushes. If you have a good idea of what the scale of your map is going to be, you can copy-paste func_groups and conceivably greybox more efficiently, too. The one thing I figure you can add in the wiki page is mentioning that you can use func_groups to set a permanent rotation origin point on a bunch of brushes and do more advanced rotation that way. The bit about the entity filtering is also true but all the while I do still have, from back in the day, a custom filter that only shows func_groups. "Entity class .* hide", "entity class func_group show". Don't remember how useful it was, but it may also be worth mentioning that a user can just have a custom filter that shows only them and worldspawn (effectively "Filter All Entities Except func_group") - you only need to add a third rule that says "entity class worldspawn show".

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.

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.

Oh yeah, I should second this as well. A mission is not fun if it's designed to be painfully tedious in terms of dodging the visibility of the AI. I can't remember which mission it was, but the mapper must have been in a bad mood that day since too much of the interior of an important building was lit very brightly with non-dousable light sources, with few if any viable hiding areas to obverse patrol routes. I don't know what the intent was, maybe it was a challenge for elite players or something, but it wasn't fun and I resorted to my power move of the "notarget" command just to make it bearable. Forget even looking for loot in such environments.

I think the reason the dev forums exist is to provide a place where the implementation of features can be discussed without getting mixed up with other debates when someone believes what the devs are doing is wrong. We often post public discussion threads for features with subjective elements like the frob outline, because community feedback is very important. But there will always be vocal defenders with strong views for or against certain features, or how exactly it should be implemented in their opinion. At some point a decision has to be made and be carried through, which is what the dev forums are for. Almost all of the threads are very technical, basically explaining and discussing recent or potential code changes with other devs. Its hard to say. Its a hobby the devs do in their spare time, so people come and go when they're in the mood and when they have the time. The team page is mostly accurate except for some relatively newer additions like myself.

I suppose it depends on mission goals. If the primary mission objective is to steal a certain item, an additional loot goal on top of that could be a bit superfluous. If it's a more open-ended exploration mission, where the point is just to break into houses and burgle everything, it's a lot better. I don't think I've seen anyone make use of the difference between loot types. When was the last time you saw a mission that wanted you to steal 500 in gems? The new "secrets" functionality effectively adds an objective to missions without being official or mandatory, which is nice. When I put a loot goal in, I don't decide how much it should be until I've finished building it. Then I think something like, "On Easy mode, the player should be able to find half the loot excluding the secrets" and round that off to the nearest nice number. For Expert it might be 70 or 75%.

OLD HABITS I'm happy to finally come up with my four week taking one-week-speed-rebuild of my first FM OLD HABITS Some of you may have already played the original mission. The basic story and layout is quit similar, but there are also a couple of things that have changed. I hope you have as much fun playing it as I had building it. A great thank you goes to my ... betatesters: Bikerdude, Oldjim and Springheel which found a whole bunch of glitches language correctors: Moonbo and simplen00b, who were punished to endure my english Additional thanks goes to the Dark Mod Team for creating this Mod and the whole community. NOTE: This mission is difficult ... really. (Another Note: as the rebuild differs from the original, I would like to keep the original version online, too, if possible). And here is the link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/u2gwucibh17c45a/oldhabits.pk4 Enjoy!

If you've been working on a mission for 2.05, and you've been using SVN for your assets, please switch to the beta package of 2.05. Some assets that appear in SVN won't be included in 2.05. For example, I was using this material for a curtain: textures/darkmod/fabric/ship_sails When I switched to 2.05, it disappeared. The material is part of the airship, which is being excluded from 2.05 because it isn't finished. (No, I'm not going to provide a list of what's not included in 2.05. Just make the switch and find out what's missing. )

Yes, I'd make sure to emphasize both the head turning and the more realistic peripheral vision on NPCs (and would support the latter being made toggable), both are significant departures from other stealth-based games I've played. I still object to that being a factor in that particular room since its defined purpose is not even related to detection by sight, that hurts the modular structure of the tutorial and just confuses things for the people it's designed to help.

The Transaction is a small/medium sized map in which aspiring thief Thomas Porter delivers the cryptic book, 'De Vermis Mysteriis' to a bookstore owner named Victor de Grenefeld. It is the fourth mission in the Thomas Porter series, continuing from where The Glenham Tower ended. The mission was created by me, Sotha and I wish to thank BrokenArts, Melan and Ocn for playtesting and Bikerdude, BrokenArts and Ocn for voiceacting. An enormous thanks goes also to the fine people who created TDM and are still working hard, bringing it ever closer to perfection. Thanks also to the community for helping with my mapping efforts. Extra thanks to freesound.org -contributors who make excellent quality sound effects available for free. Trailer (thanks to ocn!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBdEsKoqWl4 Briefing: Ah, the town of Glenham. I never really thought I would be happy to see its shabby wooden miner dwellings, but after the nightmares of the Glenham Tower I'm happy to see any kind of civilization. During my return trip from the tower the ghostly mist veil transformed into an intense thunderstorm and heavy rain. My clothes are soaked and I'm dreadfully tired of the harsh tribulations of the past few days. My task for tonight is simple. All I have to do is to get the strange and incomprehensible book I obtained from the tower, 'De Vermis Mysteriis,' to the bookstore owner Victor de Grenefeld. And more importantly collect the hefty sum the bookstore owner promised to pay me. With that kind of sum I can sit back and relax for a while. I'd better stay in good terms with my customer and not steal from him. I have the hunch that de Grenefeld is a well connected man so staying on his good side might be beneficial for me in the future: maybe they'll need a skilled adventurer like me and I could turn legitimate. I could earn my keep and I wouldn't need to constantly hide from the city watch. At any rate, I've got it all planned out for the remainder of the night. I'll visit the bookstore, drop the book to de Grenefeld and collect my fee. After that I'd better hide in the basement of an abandoned building I've spotted near the town north gate and get some well deserved rest. I don't think the city watch would think a cloaked and armed person like me would be on honorable business in a stormy weather like this so it would be wise to avoid all confrontation with the guards. I do not need any misunderstadings with the city watch right now. The undead horrors in the Tower forced me to expend most of my tools and I desperately need more equipment if I intend to continue my budding adventuring career. I should get some extra gold for new gear and maybe a few holy water potions just in case. There is a Builder church nearby where I might be able to find some. I suspect those fanatics might have gold hidden there as well.. It is time to move in the town and get the things done quickly. Somehow I have a bad feeling about all this. It's probably nothing, probably I am just jumpy because of the horrors in the Tower and sleep deprivation. Tomorrow I'll sleep long, relax and eat well. UPDATED LINK: Use the ingame downloader to get it. Bikerdude was added in the author, I forgot him. No other chages. Could The Powers That Be make sure that this version ends up in the ingame downloader? Thanks! Known bugs: One betatester experienced an error ("ERROR: Failed to spawn player as 'atdm:player_thief'"), which drops the player back to main menu upon map load. If you experience this scenario, please turn EAX off in the options menu. That cleared the problem for the tester. Warning! There is ALWAYS someone who fails to use spoiler tags appropriately. I recommend you read this thread further only after playing the mission! Avoid spoilers.

I just found this thread on ttlg listing Immersive Sims: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151176

I don't wanna sound lazy or spoiled by asking this question: I enjoy mapping, and DarkRadiant helps in not making the process all that hard! At the same time though, it is a lengthy and straining process, so I figure knowing this wouldn't hurt either. After all, scripts and prefabs and other contributions are shared throughout the community, so why not map chunks? But yeah: My question was whether any TDM contributors also publish any complete large structures for other mappers to use. By this I mean full buildings (with interiors), playable base landscapes, maybe even whole towns! I'm thinking of generic area templates that mappers can easily add characters to for their story, in case someone doesn't want to create their map from scratch. For instance, a whole town map with all roads and buildings laid out, entities for paths and doors and all other things, just no objectives or stories or characters as you add those yourself. Another problem is that if people abuse such templates, too many missions will end up looking the sane, which would of course get easily boring. This might be helped if perhaps just important pieces could be offered as prefabs... for instance various types of complete buildings, but it's still the player who makes the roads and places each one in each spot. Has anyone ever made and posted such a thing, and what do you think of the idea? This isn't a request thread mind you, unless merely bringing this up inspires anyone to do it... I'm only asking if anyone else's thought of this before. The reason I think it's a fun thought is that some missions have a few really nice areas, which are definitely created by talented mappers... therefore I wonder if bits of maps could be shared in a way that makes them easy to combine with one another, so that other missions can reuse good parts if of course their authors want that.

I think you didn't understand my answer, I can make the old maps appear in your missions, I only need to know which they are, except from IRIS. Due to the modular design of TDM this really isn't a problem and I will honor your request!

Recently revisiting the forums after a longer period of time I wanted to check the unread content. I don't know if I am doing this wrong since.. ever... but on mobile (visiting the unread content page on my smartphone) you have to click on that tiny speech bubble to go to the most recent post in a thread. If you don't click correctly you'll hit the headline and end up at post 1 in the beginning of the thread. It's terrible on mobile, since not only the speech bubble is really small and was to miss. But also the thread headline is just millimeters away from it so you go right to the first post that was ever made instead of the most recent ones. Am I doing it wrong? I just want to go through u read content a d the to the newest post from that topic.