Search the Community

The TDM Unofficial Patch is a personal project of mine to modify some small details that annoyed me in the core game. It wouldn't be possible without many others, so thanks to the whole TDM community for discussions and help, but especially to friendly modders who directly contributed code for it, like Obsttorte, Dragofer, Kingsal, Goldwell, Destined, and snatcher! You can find it under the link below and while over the years there was little progress, in recent times many things have been improved that I never even thought of when I started and some might be worth to be included in the core game. https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/addons/the-dark-mod-unofficial-patch Version Changelog: ------------------ v1.7 20.08.2022 ---- Made loot icon change right back to last tool icon, thanks snatcher. Added new whistle player skill to distract NPCs, thanks to snatcher. Made more lights extinguishable and added info for 4 beta missions. Corrected container bottom fix messing up drawers, thanks Dragofer. Improved unlit behaviour of moveable light sources, thanks snatcher. Corrected lit lamps set to extinguished in maps, thanks to Dragofer. Changed western empire maps so the location of Bridgeport is vague. Added several major city names to the small map, thanks to Kukutoo. Fixed frobing animation not working with bound and carried entities. v1.6 23.07.2022 ---- Improved extinguishing oil lamps, thanks to Dragofer and Obsttorte. Added frobing animation, thanks to Obsttorte, Goldwell and snatcher. Fixed container bottoms and training mission chest, thanks Dragofer. Made doors open faster when running, thanks Obsttorte and snatcher. Added more player tools to training mission and improved text there. Fixed Holy Water doing no damage and Hazard Pay not starting at all. Made all five oil lamps in Sotha's "The Bakery Job" extinguishable. Added blow player skill to snuff out small flames, thanks snatcher. Changed Unarmed icon to make clear that the player always has a bow. v1.5 02.07.2022 ---- Created Invisibility Potion out of cut Speed Potion, thanks Kingsal. Increased arrow head shot damage to both living and undead enemies. Replaced slow matches with easier to handle flints, thanks Kingsal. v1.4 10.03.2022 ---- Replaced Frob Helper with dark Frob Outline and updated to TDM 2.10. Made electric mine stun elite guards too and improved mission names. Renamed mission installation/selection UI mishmash to "activation". v1.3 21.02.2021 ---- Changed flashmine to stunning electric mine and updated to TDM 2.09. Edited more mission names and made threefold candles extinguishable. v1.2 26.08.2020 ---- Updated to TDM 2.08 and fixed custom holywater script compatibility. Added Numbers Scroll showing stealth and loot info, thanks Dragofer. Edited more mission names to avoid truncated descriptions in menus. Added default keys info to training mission and repaired cut lines. v1.1 03.02.2019 ---- Moveable candles can be extinguished directly by frobing the candle. More blackjack immune enemies and inextinguishable candles modified. The key frob distance has been decreased to be that of lockpicking. Holy Water bottles must be thrown directly, but they do more damage. The controls settings menu additions have been updated for TDM 2.07. New mission names have been fixed to fix format and spacing issues. Added looking up and looking down controls for people without mouse. Pointed bad prefabs container open/close sounds to existing effects. Added version info to starting screen and edited some new missions. v1.0 06.05.2018 ---- Many enemies will not become immune to blackjacking when alerted. Oil lamps can be snuffed by frobing, thanks Destined and Obsttorte. The controls settings menu lists that "use" can work on held items. Mission names were syncronized between download and online lists. The controls settings menu lists that "frob" can get or drop items. Astericks were added to official missions to move them to list top. Minor text and format bugs have been fixed in some mission infos.

I hope that is not the new TDM version. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20784-render-bug-large-black-box-occluding-screen/

A Readable? I invite you to read the documentation, experience mods first hand and draw your own conclusions. It's ok. You did the right thing. Fair point but the Blow removes the need for Water Arrows which mission authors might provide for their stories. Justifying our decisions is a tricky business. Ok. No idea but I can tell you item sorting, except for weapons, is messed up: you have 4 keys and pick up another one: the 5th key gets listed first in the inventory but last in the inventory menu. Why? Who knows.

Hello folks, I wanted to share some work in progress comps for the main menu visual updates. (these were done a while ago) These are working in game, but are still just examples. I haven't looked into any of the more complicated menus (settings, mission downloader, slide show mission briefings, ect) Right now I am not planning on changing the UX, these are purely visual updates. EDIT: In-game menus have a requirement that we use the same text color. (so we dont break custom guis in-game) I'll post some mock ups of those soon. Let me know what you think! Using custom missions screenshot (curtesy of @Spooks) Btw this NOT volta 3 (i wish), its just a comp Using the default background art: Mock up of the store (needs some work to make more legible):

In considering my possible upcoming TDM projects, such as upgrading some fonts to Latin-1 or "TDM Latin", I reviewed the current status of support for European Latin-based languages. Basically, for FMs, the translation system has fallen into disrepair and disuse (or perhaps kicked into the grave). Neither "converted" (i.e., #str using) FMs nor Language Packs are now being maintained and distributed by thedarkmod.com. As to other sites, for Cyrillic/Russian, DarkFate provides such resources. Are there any such sites in native Western European tongues, say, German, French, Italian, that likewise offer translated TDM FMs? So, turning back to thedarkmod.com, questions - - is Western Language support (outside the main menu system) officially dead? - if so, maybe it's time to stop pretending otherwise. - if not, should the converted #str system be revived, with better infrastructure? - or an alternative translation system be devised... if so, what? I'm just trying to identify work worth doing. (I started to draft a doc with a litany of problems with Western language support, and possible sub-projects to address them, but TL;DR. And really, not pertinent if support is considered dropped.) Thanks for your thoughts.

I just made an interesting discovery. In my FM that's in beta I have custom main menu music, but it doesn't always work. Basically it works: When you first start the game (whether the FM is currently selected or if you change to this mission and the game restarts) during the text briefing It doesn't work (i.e. you only get silence) When escaping back to the main menu while in-game After quitting a mission and it goes back to menu As far as I know I had all the correct settings in mainmenu_custom_defs.gui: /// Menu music after startup (not in-game) #define MM_MENU_SOUND_CMD "music fs_muslim;" /// Played in main menu when in-game (ESCaping out of the game) #define MM_INGAME_MENU_SOUND_CMD "music fs_muslim;" /// Played during non-video briefing #define MM_BRIEFING_SOUND_CMD "music fs_muslim;" It turns out the problem was I had this line set in the sound shader: leadin sound/ambient/ambience/silence.ogg Commenting that out on a hunch fixed the problem. So you might be saying to yourself 'that's all very interesting but who cares?'. My point is: Just an FYI in case someone else runs into this I don't think there is anywhere on the Wiki that covers menu customization? @Geep you've done a whole bunch around GUI scripting recently - is there somewhere you can recommend I can stick this?

For the people eager to play with the latest state of development, two things are provided: regular dev builds source code SVN repository Development builds are created once per a few weeks from the current trunk. They can be obtained via tdm_installer. Just run the installer, check "Get Custom Version" on the first page, then select proper version in "dev" folder on the second page. Name of any dev version looks like devXXXXX-YYYY, where XXXXX and YYYY are SVN revision numbers from which the build was created. The topmost version in the list is usually the most recent one. Note: unless otherwise specified, savegames are incompatible between any two versions of TDM! Programmers can obtain source code from SVN repository. Trunk can be checked out from here: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/ SVN root is: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src Build instructions are provided inside repository. Note that while you can build executable from the SVN repository, TDM installation of compatible version is required to run it. Official TDM releases are compatible with source code archives provided on the website, and also with corresponding release tags in SVN. A dev build is compatible with SVN trunk of revision YYYY, where YYYY is the second number in its version (as described above). If you only want to experiment with the latest trunk, using the latest dev build gives you the maximum chance of success. P.S. Needless to say, all of this comes with no support. Although we would be glad if you catch and report bugs before the next beta phase starts

For free ambience tracks it's as Freky said: you look around on the internet for tracks with the appropriate license to be included in your FM. Fortunately, you likely don't even need to bother doing this as a beginner as there's an entire "Music & SFX" section of the forums full of good ambient tracks for you to use if the stock tracks do not meet your fancy. You might also be interested in Orbweaver's "Dark Ambients", which come with a sndshd file already written for you.

Thought I would compile a list of tweaks & fixes from multiple sources for this game in an effort to help people get a playable experience, I will update this OP as we go. Minimum Requirements - Processor: Dual Core or Quad Core CPURAM: 4 GBGraphics: AMD Radeon 4800 series or NVidia GTS 250DirectX: Version 10Hard Drive: 20 GBRecommended Requirements - Operating Systems: Windows 7, Windows 8 (32nit or 64-bit)Processor: AMD FX 8000 series, Intel Quad i7 Core or better CPURAM: 4 GBGraphics: AMD Radeon HD R9 series, NVidia GTX 660 series or betterDirectX: Version 11First recommened tweak for ALL 64bit Windows users - (dont know if this applies to linux users, yet) The latest update (1.2 b4116.4) fixes the slowdown issue but if people still having issue or have lower end systems there is not a tick box to force the use opf the 32bit exe.Second Recommended Tweaks for ALL 32/64bit Windows users - Enable "Exclusive FullScreen", this should improve your framerate across the board. - for me my FPS (min/max/avg) jumped from 32/62/53 to 41/64/58Graphics tweaks to Make the game run better - First things first - If you are experiencing bad graphics on a machine that can easily afford to run it better/smoother, set SSAA ‘Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing’ to low or off. The higher you set this setting, the more lag you will encounter in the game.Don’t take things for granted - The problem is the optimization of the game, even if your PC can handle everything max'd out, try keeping SSAA to low if you want a smoother gameplay experience.Flickering shadows, glichy graphics & disappearing menu buttons - If you are experiencing flickering shadows, glitchy graphics & disappearing menu items, make sure you are running the game on updated or the latest drivers for your gfx card.SLI/Crossfire fix - For now, make sure you run the game on a single GPU as SLI/Crossfire may be causing the disappearing graphics and flickering shadows.Framerate issues - There are a few things you can try to improve your FPS for thief. Firstly make sure that your GPU drivers are up to date and your system is not overheating or running hot. If you are running SLI/Crossfire, try disabling to see if there is a difference in performance. If you are using a laptop, make sure that your power adapter is plugged and your power setting in windows is set to performance.Common sense - It goes without saying that your system should be good enough to handle the game’s processing and rendering needs. If you are running any third party applications in the background like Dxtory, Shadowplay or FRAPS etc, your going to see a perf drop.Crashes after loading a stage - If Thief crashed after loading, make sure you verify the integrity of the game cache in Steam especially if you pre-loaded the game and tried to start it as soon as it unlocked.You may have to verify the files twice to make it work! If that doesn’t work, there is another workaround. I am not sure about this fix but it has helped a few to get rid of the crash, so I think it’s worth of a shot.The game crash can be associated with the virtual memory size. You should increase your virtual memory page file size to fix the issue.Game crashes to desktop and reboot - Make sure you have latest patch for the game installed. It fixes these random crashes and loading issues. If you pre-loaded the game, make sure you verify the integrity of the game cache. You may have to verify the files twice to make it work!Blackscreen when launching thief - can be one of two things - is associated with the missing files of the game. Verify the game cache and re-verify if the need be to get it running.Make sure Windows pagefile is enabled (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/w...#1TC=windows-7).Can’t Hear sound? No voices? (no, not the ones in your head) - Verify the integrity of the game cache. Download the language packs if need be. Make sure you have voices/music volume up in the sound settings of the game.You can also trying changing the advanced sound settings in Windows. Open Playback Devices, click on your Speakers and go to Properties. Now in enhancement levels, select CD/DVD quality and see if it helps.Thief won’t start? - Try logging into Steam after having logged out. It will help!Thief config tweaks - Disable motion blur - you will find relative file to edit in: Steam\steamapps\common\Thief\Engine\Config. You need to open the file by the name of “BaseEngine.ini” and then set the following values as such: "motionBlur=True" to "motionBlur=False""motionBluPause=True" to "motionBlurPause=False"Save the file and set it to "read-only".How to skip Intro Videos - Go to Thief\ThiefGame\Config and then Locate ThiefEngine.ini file and edit the following line"StartupMovies=PROG_GUI_Video.StartupVideoPlayer" to ";StartupMovies=PROG_GUI_Video.StartupVideoPlayer"Save the file and set it to "read-only".How to fix ‘Timed Fade’ option for HUD - While health, focus, inventory and ammo set to ‘Timed Fade’ option in game and HUD menu, the fade remains just 50% opacity. To fix this problem, go to ThiefGame\Config\ThiefUI.ini and find the lines- "mInvSelectionAlphaMin=XX" "mHealthAlphaMin=XX" "mFocusAlphaMin=XX" (XX being the default values) to "mInvSelectionAlphaMin=0.0f" "mHealthAlphaMin=0.0f" "mFocusAlphaMin=0.0f"Save the file and set it to "read-only".How to reduce Mouse Lag - The quick and easy fix to reduce mouse lag, run your game in Exclusive Fullscreen mode, go to graphic options and enable it. In case you don’t want to use this mode, then you must find BaseEndinge.ini and edit the following lines -"OneFrameThreadLag=TRUE" to "OneFrameThreadLag=FALSE"Save the file and set it to "read-only".Disable framerate smoothing - Go to Thief\ThiefGame\Config and then Locate ThiefEngine.ini file and edit the following lines"bSmoothFrameRate=TRUE" "MinSmoothedFrameRate=XX" "MaxSmoothedFrameRate=XX" (XX being the default values) to "bSmoothFrameRate=FALSE" "MinSmoothedFrameRate=0" "MaxSmoothedFrameRate=0"Save the file and set it to "read-only".Fix stuttering - can be done one of two ways -This tweak requires starting a new game, as changing the level streaming value will result in a crash upon loading if the save game file features a different level streaming value (such as starting the game with it on TRUE and changing it to FALSE along the way - switching from FALSE to TRUE will also result in a crash, so it's best to change this value only when starting a new game)! However, this should help eliminate both in-game and benchmark stuttering, as it does for the other games based on the UE3 engine.Go to Thief\ThiefGame\Config and then Locate ThiefEngine.ini file and edit the following lines -"bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming=XX" "UsePriorityStreaming=XX" "OnlyStreamInTextures=XX" to "bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming=FALSE" "UsePriorityStreaming=FALSE" "OnlyStreamInTextures=TRUE"Save the file and set it to "read-only".Improve texture streaming - Go to Thief\ThiefGame\Config and then Locate ThiefEngine.ini file and edit the following lines -"MipFadeInSpeed0=0.3" "MipFadeOutSpeed0=0.1" "MipFadeInSpeed1=2.0" "MipFadeOutSpeed1=1.0" to "MipFadeInSpeed0=0.0" "MipFadeOutSpeed0=0.0" "MipFadeInSpeed1=0.0" "MipFadeOutSpeed1=0.0"Save the file and set it to "read-only".Disable in-game fog - Go to Thief\ThiefGame\Config ThiefGame.ini and then find [Engine.WorldInfo] andgo to line 66And then change mbEnable=TRUE to mbEnable=FALSE and then save the file as read only.Reducing choppyness, aditional fix - Some users have reported that disabling Vsync the game is noticeably more fluid when compared to the default setting of double buffered.Game file hacks - (found on https://www.deadendthrills.com/forum/discussion/137/thief-tools-tweaks) 1. Goto Steam\steamapps\common\Thief\ThiefGame\CookedPCNG\ 2. Make a backup of thiefgame.u just in case 3. Download this utility: decompress.zip and unzip decompress.exe, put it anywhere. 4. Drag thiefgame.u onto decompress.exe you should now have a new thiefgame.u in \Steam\steamapps\common\Thief\ThiefGame\CookedPCNG\unpacked\ 5. Open \Steam\steamapps\common\Thief\ThiefGame\CookedPCNG\unpacked\thiefgame.u in a hex editor. (For example HxD) Disable Shroud and white flash - Goto Steam\steamapps\common\Thief\ThiefGame\CookedPCNG\Make a backup of thiefgame.u Download this utility: decompress.zip and unzip decompress.exe, put it anywhere.To disable shroud: Search for Hex-value: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 CD CC 4C 3F 36 3D 00 Replace with Hex-value: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 36 3D 00To disable white flash: Search for Hex-value: 3E 9C DE F4 3E 9C DE F4 3E CD CC CC 3E A4 3D 00 Replace with Hex-value: 3E 9C DE F4 3E 9C DE F4 3E 00 00 00 00 A4 3D 00Tweaking "in shadow" proxy light: - disabling this is not recommended, so I added tweaks to reduce the range of the light instead. Search for Hex-value: 00 00 00 00 00 B4 43 14 38 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 for half range (180), Replace with Hex-value: 00 00 00 00 00 34 43 14 38 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 for 1/4 range (90), Replace with Hex-value: 00 00 00 00 00 b4 42 14 38 00 00 00 00 00 00 28To Disable "in light" proxy light: Search for Hex-value: 00 00 00 00 00 96 43 14 38 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 Replace with Hex-value: 00 00 00 0A D7 23 3C 14 38 00 00 00 00 00 00 28Save and fire up the game. Dxtory and other tools not working - Fps monitoring/benchmarking tools cause the game to crash - For the time being, may I suggest that you try running the game without these tools. And if you have any fix of your own related to the issue, please post your finding.Trainer with NOCLIP mode - tbc

Does this look like sorted? Does a true A-Z sorting look that bad? Technical: to get these examples I just commented out most of the stuff in MoveArticlesToBack() in file \framework\I18N.cpp

Thought it would be a good idea to collate a useful list for new and old mappers alike and this post will update as we go. Abandoned works: Any WIP projects that were abandoned by the original author - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12713-abandoned-works/ Darkradiant & Darkmod shortcut settings: Some example settings for new mappers - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15152-darkradiant-and-darkmod-shortcut-folder-settings/ Darkradiant howto, must knows, tips and faqs - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12558-usefull-important-editing-links/?do=findComment&comment=272581 Info for Beginners: Newbie DarkRadiant Questions - http://forums.thedar...iant-questions/ Dark Radient Must Know Basic Intro - http://wiki.thedarkm...now_Basic_Intro Editing Tips for Beginners - http://wiki.thedarkm...s_for_Beginners Editing FAQ (Troubleshooting & How-To) - http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Editing_FAQ_-_Troubleshooting_%26_How-To Sotha's excellent Mapping Tutorial series: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18680-lets-map-tdm-with-sotha-the-bakery-job/ Springheel's New Mapper's Workshop: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18945-tdm-new-mappers-workshop/ Inspiration: Collection of screenshots and images people have found online - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/11610-darkmod-inspiration-thread/ Mapping Resources: List of Voice actors available for voice recording - http://modetwo.net/d...6-voice-actors/ Lengthy collection of city reference pictures - http://modetwo.net/d...rence-pictures/ Collection of texture resource sites - http://modetwo.net/d...ture-resources/ Free Ambient Tracks - http://skeksisnetlabel.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/10-songs-for-free-download-vol-10-full-moon-over-noricum/ Mapping Tools: 3 useful tools for texture creation - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18581-must-have-tools-for-the-descerning-mapper/ Modular Building: What is Modular building - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14832-modular-building-techniques/ Working example tutorial on modular building - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18680-lets-map-tdm-with-sotha-the-bakery-job/ Springheels new modular models - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18683-using-springheels-205-modules/ Some related mapper recipies - Easy Vaults - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14859-easy-vault-recipe/?hl=%2Beasy+%2Brecipe Easy Outdoors - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/16159-easy-outdoors-recipe/?hl=%2Beasy+%2Brecipe Easy Caverns - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14469-quick-caverns-recipe/?hl=recipe Easy Alert Ai - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17157-easy-alert-ai-recipe/?hl=%2Beasy+%2Brecipe Easy Alert Ai Custom Behavour - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17160-easy-alert-ai-custom-behavior-recipe/?hl=recipe Tutorials: Collection of video tutorials for DR - http://modetwo.net/d...in-darkradiant/ Using Lighting and detail effectively: - http://forums.thedar...l-and-lighting/ Voice Actors list: List of available voice actors - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12556-list-of-available-voice-actors/ Usefull Console commands: A list of console commands for testing in-game - http://wiki.thedarkm...Useful_Controls

It's true, there's no real place on the Wiki for menu customization... it relies on comments in the mainmenu_custom_defs.gui. So I'd guess I'd recommend you do a bug report, to either add a comment to that .gui file about it, or, if it's really a bug, fix it.

============== -= IRIS =- ============== WELLINGTONCRAB TDM v 2.10 REQ Ver. 1.2 *For Maureen* -=- "Carry the light of the Builder, Brother. Unto its end." -Valediction of the Devoted "What year is this? Am I dreaming?" -Plea of the Thief Dear Iris, I am old and broken. When we were young it felt like the words came easily. Now I find the ink has long dried on the pen and I'm as wanting for words as coin in my purse. I can tell we are nearing the end of the tale; time enough for one more job before the curtain call... ============== -Installation- Requires minimum version of TDM 2.10 -Iris does not support mods or the Unofficial Patch- Download and place the following .pk4 into you FMs directory: Iris Download ============== *Thank you for playing. Iris is a large mission which can either take as quickly or as long as you are compelled to play. I hope someone out there enjoys it and this initial release is not completely busted - I tried the best I could!* *Iris both is and isn't what it seems. If commenting please use spoiler tags where appropriate. If you are not certain if it would be appropriate a good assumption would be to use a spoiler tag* *Support TDM by rating missions on Thief Guild: https://www.thiefguild.com/* ============== WITH LASTING GRATITUDE: OBSTORTTE - Whose gameplay scripts from his thread laid the foundation which made the mission seem like something I could even pull off at all. Also fantastic tutorial videos! DRAGOFER - Who built upon that foundation and made it shine even brighter! And whom also provided immeasurable quantities of help and encouragement the past couple years on the TDM discord. ORBWEAVER & GIGAGOOGA - For generously offering their ambient music up for use. EPIFIRE - Who lent me his fine trash and trash receptacle models. AMADEUS - Who was the first person who wasn't me to play the damn thing and provided his excellent editorial services to improving the readers experience playing TESTERS AND TROUBLESHOOTERS: AMADEUS * DATISWOUS * SPOOKS * ALUMINUMHASTE * JAXA * JACKFARMER * WESP5 * ATE0ATE * MADTAFFER * STGATILOV * DRAGOFER * KINGSAL * KLATREMUS - What can I possibly say? Playing this thing over and over again could not have been easy. Deepest thanks and all apologies. -=THANKS TO ALL ON THE TDM DISCORD AND FORUM=- ==SEE README.TXT FOR ADDITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS & INFORMATION== HONORABLE MENTION: GOLDWELL - If I hadn't by chance stumbled into Northdale back in 2018/2019 I would probably still be trying to get this thing to work in TDS, which means it probably would not exist - though more details on that in readme. ============== Boring Technical Information: *This mission makes use of volumetric lighting in several scenes. While optional if you wish to see this feature enable the "maps" lighting model and I recommend you also disable image sharpening. If you do not like the effect or are concerned about performance use stencil shadows* *Iris is a performance intensive mission and I recommend a GTX 1060 or equivalent. I find the performance similar to other demanding TDM missions on my machine, but mileage may vary and my apologies if this prevents anyone from enjoying the mission.* *Iris heavily modifies the behavior of AI in the game, how they relate/respond to each other and the player. So they may act even stranger than they do typically in TDM. Feedback on this is useful - as it can potentially be improved and expanded upon in future patches.* -=- This is my first release and it has been a long time coming! If I forgot anything please let me know! God Speed. 2.10 Features Used:

For the FM? For beta 1 it's here: https://drive.proton.me/urls/H1QBB04GA0#oBZTb1CmVFQb I've already done around 100 fixes though, so you might want to wait for beta 2 which should be ready in a couple of days hopefully. All links are in the first post of the beta thread here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22439-the-lieutenant-3-foreign-affairs-beta-testing/

Any news about this project? I really like those changes for the Main Menu.

I created discussion here and mentioned authors (maybe I missed someone though). Unlike the previous thread about main menu GUI overrides, I think the new one does not look aggressive . The main question there is why this was done, and how to adapt to avoid this problem now and in the future. Indeed, all the missions will be fixed by 2.13 even if some authors don't respond. Dev builds regularly break something, although usually it is done unintentionally. I added "known issues" point on the dev build, which happens pretty rarely. I apologize for the negative emotions this change has caused. Sometimes I am too rough in communications. Moreover, I am not a creative kind of person, I'm more a technical type of person. Thus I believe in interface boundaries, so in my mind the blame for breakage is always on the side that violates these boundaries. Anyway, I know I'll have to fix the breakage, probably myself if necessary.

On Debian (testing) dev17035-10724 runs very "laggy" for some reason (even the menu). Last time I experienced the same "laggyness" was on a non-accelrated VNC connection to another machine.

Since due to the nature of this forum, file/image sharing is used quite frequently, I thought to present some alternatives to the widely used Gdrive, which I don't like so much, especially since the last TOS change. File Sharing To share large files there are several options that also do not require registration. The first is File Hosting Online, which supports files up to 25 Gb, encrypted and also includes a Virus Scan that ensures safe use Another good option is Gofile, free to use, privacy focused and unlimited Bandwith. No refistry needed. While the files are accesed or downloaded at least one time a week, they are never deleted, otherwise inactive files are deleted after 10 days. If you prefer to use P2P, that means to share files directly from PC to other, without a hoster in the middle, there are also very good options, which permits to share files and folders without limites of type and size. The most easy to use is O&O File Direct, a small Desktop app (sadly only Windows), very easy to use 1 Open the app and drag the files/folders you like to share in its window 2 Optional adjust the days and amount of permited downloads and if you want a password 3 Share the link which apears in the app Done The only limits are, that the receptor only can download your files, when your PC is online, on the other hand this permits that you can stop the download in any moment, going offline or shutting down the PC. The other limit is, that the files to share can't be in a protected folder. Her are an Example with a list of Search Enines (Html file 423,56 Kb). While I am online, you can download it https://file.direct/f/pmjVFnjfkjFTKTt5 Videos One of the best options is Streamable (need a free account, inactive videos are deleted after 90 days in the free version) Alternatively you can use Streamja, a simple Video sharer with good privacy, free account optional (nick, mail) Images Ok, there are a lot of Image sharer, most used the known Imgur, because of this I add only one which offers some advantages over Imgur. ImgBox (free account) is a reliable platform to share and host images like Imgur, but it make it very easy to upload and post dozend of images simultaneous, selecting all the images you want and drag them on the window, offering coresponding bulk codes from the selected images to post them with one click for forums (BBcode), Html and others, fullsize or thumbnails. More since Imgur used since some time the hated webm formats for gif images, hardly accepted in most forums.

There's been talk over the years on how we could improve texture quality, often to no avail as it requires new high-resolution replacements that need to be created and will look different and add a strain on system resources. The sharpness post-process filter was supposed to improve that, but even with it you see ugly blurry pixels on any nearby surface. Yet there is a way, a highly efficient technique used by some engines in the 90's notably the first Unreal engine, and as it did wonders then it can still do so today: Detail textures. Base concept: You have a grayscale pattern for various surfaces, such as metal scratches or the waves of polished wood or the stucco of a rough rock, usually only a few highly generic patterns are needed. Each pattern is overlayed on top of corresponding textures several times, every iteration at a smaller... as with model LOD smaller iterations fade with camera distance as to not waste resources, the closer you get the more detail you see. This does wonders in making any texture look much sharper without changing the resolution of the original image, and because the final mixture is unique you don't perceive any repetitiveness! Here's a good resource from UE5 which seems to support them to this day: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/adding-detail-textures-to-unreal-engine-materials Who else agrees this is something we can use and would greatly improve graphical fidelity? No one's ever going to replace every texture with a higher resolution version in vanilla TDM; Without this technique we'll always be stuck with early 2000's graphics, with it we have a magic way of making it look close to AAA games today! Imagine being able to see all those fine scratches on a guard's helmet as light shines on it, the thousands of little holes on a brick, the waves of wood as you lean into a table... all without even losing much performance nor a considerable increase in the size of game data. It's like the best deal one could hope for! The idTech 4 material system should already have what we need, namely the ability to mix any textures at independent sizes; Unlike the old days when only a diffuse texture was used, the pattern would now need to be applied to both albedo / specular / normal maps, to my knowledge there are shader keywords to combine each. Needless to say it would require editing every single material to specify its detail texture with a base scale and rotation: It would be painful but doable with a text injection script... I made a bash script to add cubemap reflections once, if it were worth it I could try adapting it to inject the base notation for details. A few changes will be needed of course: Details must be controlled by a main menu setting activating this system and specifying the level of detail, materials properties can't be controlled by cvars. Ultimately we may need to overlay them in realtime, rather than permanently modifying every material at load time which may have a bigger performance impact; We want each iteration to fade with distance and only appear a certain length from the camera, the effect will cause per-pixel lighting to have to render more detail per light - surface interaction so we'll need to control the pixel density.

I'd like to announce the release of my 2nd fan mission: In Plain Sight. "You are an intelligence officer tasked with revealing the source of a political uprising in the city of Watchgate" Mission Type: City Missions Credits: @Frost_Salamander: Author @Airship Ballet: All custom content, including signs, loading/menu screens, in-game map, menu music and creative input. Also sets the standard for beta testing. W10 (my son) and @Frost_Salamander: Mission briefing Beta Testers: @AluminumHaste @nbohr1more @Obsttorte @Mawerick @madtaffer @wesp5 @Airship Ballet @Acolytesix @Cambridge Spy @jaxa @prjames Notes: TDM 2.10 required This FM rewards stealth play, although it can be done without KO'ing anyone Read the readables! They trigger some mandatory objectives that aren't initially visible. Follow this and you shouldn't have a problem figuring out what to do next. There are multiple ways to access some parts of the city. Some are riskier than others! If you are finding it too hard, maybe there is an easier way The only differences between the difficulty levels are the (optional) loot objective, the availability of some player tools and the difficulty of the bank objective. There is an in-game map. It's found in a location near the start. This FM contains 5 secrets (hints below for anyone who's given up ) Secret hints: Secret spoilers (did you mean to look the hints above instead?): Download link until the mission database gets updated: https://github.com/FrostSalamander/tdm-fm-inplainsight/releases/download/v1.4/inplainsight_v1.4.pk4 Screenshots: https://www.flickr.com/photos/196169449@N05/albums/72177720301116716 NOTE: Some of the initial versions have bugs. Ensure you have the latest version (currently 1.4)

A famous painting is on display at the local museum. Steal it, of course! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An update, version 2, is now available: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ciesyfcqu1ct6pj/nowandthenv2.pk4?dl=1. This fixes many of the problems found by those who played version 1. Besides general clean up, the primary goal of this version is to Special thanks to Bikerdude, whose did a quick beta test of this version and whose suggestions I mostly (but not completely) implemented. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Title: Now and Then Filename (version 2) : nowandthenv2.pk4 (download) Author: joebarnin Date of release: 08 September 2020 (Version 2: 25 January 2021) Version: 2 EFX: Yes Requires: TDM 2.08 Author: joebarnin Custom ambients: JackFarmer Gameplay notes Thorough investigation is encouraged. Scary AIs: No spiders, skeletons, undead, or ghosts. One live rat and one dead one. Makes use of the 'peek' ability, allowing the player to peek through a keyhole by leaning forward. The use of this ability is optional (it is never necessary resolve the mission). Thanks to: Beta Testers: Cambridge Spy, thebigh, JackFarmer, Amadeus, Kerry000, wesp5 Voice actor: Mike Components: Builder Compound models & textures - Peter Spy (dr.judym81@gmail.com) Museum painting lights - Grayman Gramophone with record - Goldwell & Epifire Custom ambients - JackFarmer Main menu screen & music - JackFarmer Ambients - Orbweaver Many many modules - Springheel https://freesound.org/people/LucasDuff/sounds/467697/ https://freesound.org/people/humanoide9000/sounds/422245/ Thanks to Springheel, Sotha, and Fidcal for their tutorials. I keep going back to them and I always learn something new. Notes Slight spoiler: Fun fact: I have released 3 missions, each almost exactly one year apart: Mission of Mercy - September 14, 2018 The Heart of St. Mattis - September 10, 2019 Now and Then - September 8, 2020. Not by design, it just worked out that way. So I guess look for my next mission in early September next year! Hints (contains spoilers)

I'm looking for the setting that controls the number of difficulty levels in the options menu. The current "hardcore" setting is not challenging enough for me, and I'd like to make it more difficult, like this one for thief. I can edit the Darkmod.cfg file and would like to know if I can create a separate *.pk4 file with this file, removing everything unnecessary except the parameters I need. Will the game load the default settings from the game root and the additional data from my file? Of course, it would be better if you could tell me how to create an additional difficulty setting. I've searched through all the archives and couldn't find what I need. Thank you for your help.

TDM Modpack v4.0 This new version of the Modpack is intended to be a long-term release. The Modpack is mature and stable enough to stay for some time how it is today, right where I want it to be: the foundation on which you build your favorite set of Mods for The Dark Mod. Good care was put to make sure the mods included in the Modpack stay true to TDM and neither the missions nor the gameplay are altered in any relevant way. Yes, we have more tools and skills at our disposal but it is up to you, the player, to make use of them or not. Play The Dark Mod your way. Compatible with 2.12 ONLY If you have previous versions of the Modpack I suggest you start fresh: disable and delete old mods. Use the mods included in version 4.0 from now on. TDM 2.12 introduces a great new feature and we can now have different mods from different sources running in parallel. Thanks @MirceaKitsune for pushing! Thanks @Dragofer for opening this door! What's more for 2.12 internal resources for mods have doubled and we can now load more mods than ever before and we are grateful for this! Thank you, @stgatilov! What's new in version 4.0? Starting with this release I am getting rid of the individual versioning and all mods are now at the same version (4.0 in this case). "TDM Modpack" is now the name of the project and the previous main "pack" has been split into two standalone mods: "Core Essentials" and the "Skill Upgrade". (The Skills are further split into their own packages and if you don't want a particular skill just look for the relevant pk4 and remove it). SHOULDERING BOOST - Decommissioned In TDM 2.12 we can now mantle while carrying bodies and the "Shouldering Boost" mod is no longer relevant and it has been decommissioned. In this new release of TDM we can also mantle while carrying objects therefore double thanks to @Daft Mugi for these quality of life improvements. Truly appreciated, thanks! SIMPLE SUBTITLES - New! Work on the subtitles is in progress and for the next version of TDM it is expected that players will be able to customize how subs are displayed on screen but until then, this new standalone mod offers an alternative for players looking for a rather simplistic presentation. Enable "Simple Subtitles", go to the audio settings and set the scope you prefer: Story [default]: Story only On: Story and general speech (Give it a try!) Off: Disable subtitles You can find more details of the mod in the opening post or in the readme included in the download. We must thank @Geep, @datiswous and @stgatilov (among other contributors) for the good work on the subtitles so far! Well done, guys! SMART OBJECTS - Present and Future Sometimes it is difficult to tell if an object is being held or not and the "Smart Objects" mod (now part of "Core Essentials") gets a little update and whenever you manipulate an object three dots [...] are displayed on screen: These three dots are a placeholder for real names, something I plan on addressing as a separate mod in the coming weeks... Here is the relevant topic: Nameless objects... a missed opportunity Stay tuned. INVENTORY MENU - Reworked The TDM user interface suffers from gigantism in some areas and the inventory menu has been re-worked and it is now delivered in a more compact format: The menu is 15% smaller and while the text has the same size as before item names are sometimes cut and I added a tip at the bottom to make sure the full name is always available. The updated menu is part of the "Core Essentials" mod. MINOR TWEAKS In each release of the Modpack I always tweak something and in for 4.0 I changed many things internally. You shouldn't notice any of the changes but it is worth giving the improved Whistle Skill a try... Here is the full changelog: • v4.0 New release - Major reorganization and global revision: Compatible with TDM 2.12. - All mods now share the same version (4.0 in this case). - Previous "Modpack" split into "Core Essentials" and the "Skill Upgrade". - Skill mods presented in their own, standalone pk4. - CORE ESSENTIALS: New, re-worked inventory menu. - CORE ESSENTIALS: New high mantle sound for our protagonist. - CORE ESSENTIALS - LOOT ANIMATIONS: Added scroll animation for paintings. - CORE ESSENTIALS - SMART OBJECTS: Display onscreen a subtle signal (...) when holding an item. - CORE ESSENTIALS - SHOULDERING BOOST: Mod decommissioned (alternative included in TDM 2.12) - SKILL UPGRADE - MANIPULATION: Improved script, smaller footprint. - SKILL UPGRADE - DISTRACTION: New approach (again). - HUNTER BOW: Increased radius of gas arrow effect. - BASIC SUBTITLES: Initial release. That's pretty much it for now. Thanks site admins, developers, mappers, modders and members of the community but more importantly, thank you taffer, for playing and supporting The Dark Mod. The download can be found in the opening post. Cheers!

When you press Escape to see the main menu, the sound effects from nearby electrical lights, like buzzing and crackling, will keep on playing. Doesn't seem to happen with gas lamps and torches. I don't know if this has been reported, but it has been around for a long time. (I'm on version 2.12)