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"...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!

New script for mappers: my flavour of a fog density fading script. To add this to your FM, add the line "thread FogIntensityLoop();" to your map's void main() function (see the example in fogfade.script) and set "fog_fade" "1" on each foglight to enable script control of it. Set "fog_intensity_multiplier" on each info_location entity to change how thick the fog is in that location (practically speaking it's a multiplier for visibility distance). Lastly, "fog_fade_speed" on each foglight determines how quickly it will change its density. The speed scales with the current value of shaderParm3, using shaderParm3 = 1000 as a baseline. So i.e. if shaderParm is currently at 1/10th of 1000, then fade speed will be 1/10th as fast. Differences to Obsttorte's script: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/14394-apples-and-peaches-obsttortes-mapping-and-scripting-thread/&do=findComment&comment=310436 my script uses fog lights you created, rather than creating one for you. Obsttorte's script will delete the foglight if entering a fogfree zone and recreate it later more than one fog light can be controlled (however, no per-fog-light level of control) adding this to the map requires adding a line to your void main() script, rather than adding an info_locations_settings entity with a custom scriptobject spawnarg in my script, mappers set a multiplier of fog visibility distance (shaderParm3), while in Obsttorte's script a "fog_density" spawnarg is used as an alternative to shaderParm3 smaller and less compactly written script fogfade.scriptfogfade.map

Biker is working on a small update that incorporates volumetric lights and other fixes. He is asking for a few beta testers:

Oh yes: I have both sight and hearing set to Forgiving. I didn't think that would be related: IIRC it only affects the multiplier for how much being seen in light or heard while making noise increases the alert level per event. I should test on a higher alert level too just in case: I tend to be sloppy and impatient thus I used that for years so I wouldn't get caught all the time on more difficult FM's (lots of guards in tight areas with lights you can't turn off). I have noticed an aspect that does work well: If you're making noise by running even in darkness, alert AI will head toward your direction while searching, they won't go around randomly but actually care where the impulse came from. The problem is that this doesn't seem to scale over larger distances: If they briefly see you in broad light at a distance enough to draw weapons, AI won't head toward your general direction but begin searching their own vicinity... and at least on Forgiving the same happens if you shoot a broadhead arrow at a guard's helmet: I still think the guard should actively run toward your location instead, not exactly where you are but they should go to that road or barge into the same building.

Here's my first FM. A small and easy mission, inspired by Thief's Den and The Bakery Job, where you must find and steal a cook's recipe book in order to save a friend from going out of business. Download: Mediafire (sk_cooks.pk4) TDM Website's Mission Page The in-game mission downloader Thanks to: The people who helped me get this far, both in the forums and on Discord. The beta testers: MirceaKitsune, Mat99, Baal, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, jaxa, grodenglaive, Acolytesix ( Per the author in the beta testing thread. ) Skaruts has given permission to the TDM Team to add Subtitles or Localization Strings to this mission. (No EFX Reverb.) If anyone from the Community or TDM team wishes to create these we will gladly test them and update the mission database.

With TDM 2.12, after the credits finished, the "Mission Complete" screen did not display. I found that the screen was black and I could hear my footsteps when I tried to move around. I think the reason for the mission not completing successfully was that the "Do not kill or harm allies" objective was never marked as "1 = STATE_COMPLETE" instead it was left as "0 = STATE_INCOMPLETE". Note, I didn't use noclip throughout the mission. Same as: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18054-fan-mission-the-accountant-2-new-in-town-by-goldwell-20160509/&do=findComment&comment=458491

How about using TDM automation framework (and maybe pcem/qemu)? More info see: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19828-automation-features-and-discussion/

I opened DarkRadiant and am now trying to understand how the sun lights were supposed to work. No idea thus far. Looks like an awful experiment with massive caulk overuse.

@stgatilov Can answer this one. I think there's an argument for having this as a material effect to make assets stand out but I am not sure about "tying it to the ambient" light when we eventually plan to have those lights globally render proper fresnel at some point.

To cater to both audiences. I mentioned LibreGameWiki as one example. nbohr1more mentioned other uses. Explicitly allowing reuse and spread will help TDM reach a wider audience and would hopefully attract more volunteers. More volunteers which can help improve both TDM versions. There are several benefits for a project of being in the Debian repo. One is that TDM Debian-users can report defects on any package directly to Debian (no need to register on separate forums). Debian may then fix the issue themselves (in their "TDM-libre" package) and will offer the patch upstream to TDM, who can then choose to accept or reject the patch. I envision "TDM-libre" to have the same capability of downloading any mission as regular TDM. The only difference is that "TDM-libre" would come packaged with the regular engine (which is GPL+BSD) and an included mission that has libre media/gamedata. When I play TDM by myself, I want the unlimited-play and can accept commercial restrictions. But if I were to promote it somewhere, or charge for a stream when playing online, or make a video, I would want a version without commercial restrictions (and can temporarily accept limited-play) to make sure I don't violate anyone's copyright. Perhaps. That's what I'm trying to find out.

I suggest you use the term "I", to make clear that it is something YOU want, and that you speak for yourself. But, as wesp5 mentioned, I don't really know what this is about, at all. And, I'm also wondering about all the newly registered people lately, who just arrived at this forum, and already want to revolutionize this mod. This is a thing I noticed 2 or 3 years ago, and which hasn't been present in the 15 years I play this mod and frequent these forums now. Really seems like a common thing these days, to not knock on the door, but kick it in, and stomp right in.

When talking about a possible libre version of TDM (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22346-libre-version-of-tdm/) it seems we believe all media/gamedata included in TDM is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA. I am not familiar with how the process of adding new media/gamedata works today; I have seen files uploaded to the bugtracker which developers then commit to SVN, but I don't know if there are other ways. It may be a good idea to implement a process that when new components (media/gamedata included in TDM) are added, the contributor is asked to be explicit about the license (a choice which may defaults to their previous preference, for usability). It won't fix the past, but it may help in the future. This will make it easy for contributors to add future data under a more permissive license if they choose. Libre media can be added and its license can be tracked, rather than assumed to be CC-BY-NC-SA. I suggest looking at how Wikimedia Commons has implemented this: the contributor state the source and license at the time the data is uploaded. This can be done either by providing urls or by saying "It's my work and I choose this licsense". The first step could be to add a way to keep track of each filepath in SVN, author, license, sources. Start by setting the value for each file's license to "(default/legacy CC-BY-NC-SA)". Possible implementations for a user interface for new additions are: * Use our own wiki, which runs Mediawiki (same as Wikimedia Commons). I see several benefits of this, but we also need a way to accept uploads of batches, not just single files. * Look at how other open source projects have solved this. There may be more appropriate solutions available. ... but I'll leave the implementation open. Suggestions are very welcome! If the author of each file already in SVN can be tracked, then it may be possible that the author is willing to give a blanket permission for all their past files in one statement, and all their files in SVN can be updated in one commit. A productive contributor willing to release some of their work under a more permissive license could make a big change. If Dark Radiant would support letting mappers search media/gamedata by license (does it already?), it would make it easier for mappers to create a completely libre mission, which would help facilitate a TDM-libre release. If I understand things correctly. This post does not address all details and it may contain misunderstandings or assumptions, but it's a start. Also relevant: * Is there a compiled and maintained list of recommended or deprecated resources for mappers to use? * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20311-external-art-assets-licensing/

Dragofer's teledoor also has a fade to dark effect, which could be useful. You could combine that with an ambilight-style Presence Lamp, so that if you come close(r) the wall lights up around it.. Just kidding.

If you disable VL by spawnarg, I believe they act like normal lights. Pretty sure you could use lod_bias args so that moonray patches show at low and lowest detail settings while VL would render at normal to highest. https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=LOD_Bias Still, VL performance hit is pretty low in 2.11 and newer.

They don't work with stencil shadows. If a player has stencil shadows enabled, the volumetric lights have forced shadow maps enabled, while other lights have still stencil shadows. So it will just work. I think it will have a performance hit (also because the mentioned forced shadow maps I assume), but the mission overal is not very demanding? Afaik volumetric lights is enabled with a spawnarg. So via a trigger/script this setting can be changed? Not sure.

I am considering to replace the fake moon beams in Sir Talbots Collateral with volumetric lights. But I need information on some issues: Do you they work well enough now? Are there issues with stencil shadows? I remember early posts mentioning that. What performance/quality options are there? I use a weak notebook a lot, and want to keep the mission running on it. Can I turn of volumetric rendering without disabling lights? Any other things I need to be aware of?

I did play Thief and FMs, but I don't play it any more, except for major things like Black Parade. The clunky movement and antiquated Dromed editor is what discouraged me from interacting with it over the years. I regularly play and sometimes make content for TDM, because it has much better movement model than Thief. I know that most missions don't use it well, but if you construct your geometry (gaps, ledges, distances) using power of two measurements, movement and mantling feels fast and snappy. There's no need for regression in that regard, in my opinion, there's a need for assets and missions made with the movement model in mind, to showcase its strengths properly. Even if TDM originally intended to "simulate the stealth gameplay of Thief, many things will be familiar to veteran Thief players" the actual mod history was a bit different. The team came up with a mission platform that has its own identity when it comes to mechanics. The way assets were made might have been a huge mistake, but that didn't prevent the platform from growing. Since you like anecdotal evidence, noone other Skacky once said that TDM movement model was super clunky, after playing The Painter's Wife. It was really hard to convince him that if a mapper places geometry this poorly, and isn't aware what spatial measurements play to the strengths of a movement model, no movement model will save his mission. And there is no fixing of this problem on the engine side, although it's not the first time when TDM team tries to address the asset problem with engine changes, which I suspect will ultimately lead to even more problems down the line. In game development, things like core mechanics and player tools are locked-down first, in one of the pre-production phases, because all the levels will be constructed around them. Making changes in core mechanics in a project this mature is very risky, I assume you don't plan on going through all playable spaces in all released TDM FMs to check for errors. Instead of making incremental changes in fundamental mechanics, I'd encourage you to create a fork, or some kind of major version bump candidate, like 3.0, where all things could be revamped: movement, player tools, UI, new frob mechanics, perhaps with UI contextual icons, new training map to incorporate all that, etc. Once all new elements fall into place and create something new, with a map or maps to back it up as relevant changes, it will be easier to convince existing player/author base that it was worth it. I assume the existing fanbase is already fragmented, as a result of all those heated discussions around the topic. But with multiple versions available for download, the transition to hypothetical "TDM 3.0" should be easier. It could be similar to UE2 and UE3, and you could also use this as an occasion to draw the line for backwards compatibility. I know there are old systems and variables kept in place just in order not to break existing missions. This way you could e.g. redo the LOD system, implement lights using math functions instead of textures, etc.

TDM has tons of textures from "free" texture resources that do not allow redistribution and cannot be incorporated into a commercial project. Someone would need to create a huge replacement pack of textures that do not break the look of existing missions and do not infringe on the copyrighted textures. Also, many artists who contributed to this project do not want 3rd party entities to use their work in commercial projects. They intended the models, textures, sounds, animations to be exclusively used for Darkmod content. You would either have to replace ALL assets or contact every contributor and ask them to re-license their assets. Many contributors are no longer active with the project and haven't visited the forums in years so it would be no easy feat. I cannot speak to Debian policy but I think that they treat installers that add non-free content the same as non-free content itself. One could argue that Steam is such an installer but I guess Debian would counter that there are a few fully Libre games on Steam. I think Debian, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint need to consider a repo that allows for games (etc) that include non-libre content but intentionally offer this content for free to the community with no stipulations other than "don't try to sell it as a product".

This post differentiates between "gratis" ("at no monetary cost") and "libre" ("with little or no restriction") per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre * A libre version of TDM could: ** Qualify TDM for an article on the LibreGameWiki *** TDM is currently listed as rejected https://libregamewiki.org/Libregamewiki:Rejected_games_list because "Media is non-commercial (under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0). The engine is free though (modified Doom 3) (2013-10-19)" ** Qualify for software repositories like Debian *** TDM is currently listed as unsuitable https://wiki.debian.org/Games/Unsuitable#The_Dark_Mod because 1) "The gamedata is very large (2.3 GB)", and 2) "The license of the gamedata (otherwise it must go into non-free with the engine into contrib)" and links to https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/LICENSE.txt Questions: 1) tdm_installer.linux64 is 4.2 MB (unzipped), which is far from the 2.3 GB which is said to be too large. Yes, the user can use it to download data that is non-libre, but so can any web browser too. If the installer itself is completely libre, does anyone know the reason why it cannot be accepted into the Debian repository? 2) If adding the installer to the repository is not a viable solution, would it be possible to package the engine with a small and beginner friendly mission built only from libre media/gamedata into a "TDM-libre" release, and add user friendly functionality to download the 2.3 GB media/gamedata using "TDM-libre" (similar to mission downloading)? 3) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for the Debian repository? 4) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for LibreGameWiki? 5) Would the work be worth it? * Pros: Exposure in channels covering libre software (e.g. the LibreGameWiki). Distribution in channels allowing only libre software (e.g. the Debian repository). * Cons: The work required for the modifictions and release of "TDM-libre". Possible maintenance of "TDM-libre". I'm thinking that the wider reach may attract more volunteers to work on TDM, which may eventually make up for this work and hopefully be net positive. 6) Are there any TDM missions that are libre already today? If not, would anyone be willing to work on one to fulfill this? I'll contribute in any way I can. 7) I found the following related topics on the forum: * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16226-graphical-installers-for-tdm/ (installing only the updater) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16640-problems-i-had-with-tdm-installation-on-linux-w-solutions/ (problems with installation on Linux) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/17743-building-tdm-on-debian-8-steamos-tdm-203/ (Building TDM on Debian 8 / SteamOS) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18592-debian-packaging/ (Dark Radiant) ... but if there are other related previous discussions, I'd appreciate any links to them. Any thoughts or comments?

The gamepad implementation allows for a great degree of flexibility to personalize settings, aside from a few minor issues that I mentioned here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22337-gamepad-bindings/ I would say that playing TDM with a gamepad works very well, especially considering that it was implemented as experimental and hasn't been changed since then. If I could, I'd go back to 2021-you and congratulate you on buying that gamepad. I notice that your DarkmodPadbinds.cfg looks very different from mine...

It seems like more and more "thief" and "thief players" is becoming a short hand to dismiss community members earnest desire to improve the game - which happens to be a barely legally distinct "thief style" game which was made by thief fans for thief fans and is "designed to simulate the stealth gameplay of Thief". Who is the predominant player base of the game supposed to be beyond fans of the thief games? Is there some better avenue to find feedback for the game beyond this forum? FOSS and linux forums? I have seen maybe half a dozen posts from that segment. I am a thief fan, I play thief fms, my association with those games is what drives me to play and make things for this game. Are we supposed to pretend the original games are not a huge reason why most of us are here at all? TL;DR version:

Snatcher and myself argued for ages to make shouldering long frob, but as this was completely blocked and the issue for me at least is consistency, I now would like to have the other special actions fit to the shouldering scheme. As you said, from the new perspective of a new default, short frob should extinguish any lights and eat any food. - Bodies: short > shoulder, long > move - Lights: short > extinugish, long > move - Consumables: short > eat, long > move - Loot and items: short > take, long > multi take (this was always different to the others) This leaves all other physical items for which short frob means moving, which could also be helpful in the sense that if you short frob something and it is moved, it has no special action.

No, I remembered the old system, but I also was using my patch so I suspected at first I messed something up before I remembered that the handling of bodies and lights are so counter intuitive right now. I could easily add my own patch solution to make extinguishing lights short frob again, but I would rather see a consistent version of it in the core game! To provide some background information, I had just finished both the Cyberpunk DLC and The Outer Worlds DLCs, both of which use short-use and long-use systems too so my mindset somehow was expecting something more consistent ;).

It is already implemented. This is exactly what my extension of the new control scheme does. tdm_holdfrob_drag_all_entities Have fun, mate! EDIT: Correction: Sorry, I misread your post a little bit. Only for extinguished lights and food remains, the hold-type-grabber is used with my extension. For lit candles and food, short frob is still grabber and long frob is extinguish / eat. The thing is that there are plans to keep only one control scheme on the long run, which I am totally against, 'though, see below. I have already commented/suggested internally that the frob-code needs refactoring anyway, and if we were to do that for 2.13, we might as well introduce a simple switch. Basically, the code would determine if short frob or long frob has been pressed and then decide which action to perform based on the chosen control scheme. And for your information, my preferred solution has always been to keep the original controls, but have long-frob as a shortcut for frob + use. This might be an option with the proposed refactor. Let's try to keep the discussion constructive, please. There is no need to make it more heated.