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a good deal of id softwares employees now work for saber interactive it seems like tim willits. saber has allways been on the forefront of rendering tech in mho, just look at timeshift a game from 2007 with visuals that even today measure up quite nicely. The Saber3D engine was actually developed years before the timeshift release as i remember playing the demo on windows 98 xD around 2003, the first game that used the engine was "will rock". The engine was probably one of the first to fully utilize shaders and boy does it utilize them... each map runs about several thousand shaders and in an interview with saber it actually came out that at the time they had to partner up with both nvidia and ATI for driver support because the current at that time drivers took several minutes to compile the shaders when loading a level which was not viable. The engine is still used today in the halo series remakes and is updated constantly. funny at that time not even the unreal engine could muster up to it either and it can still hold its own against most modern engines. another funny thing is the engine is built in C not in C++ like most modern game engines today. my guess is it made sense for the id folk as saber3d was also used for quake champions not idtech.

I don't care much for ghosting at all since my style in playing a mission is basically leaving no one standing. I prefer clearing an area first if possible then doing a careful search. If I can't knock someone out I'll take them down with an arrow. No apologies there. Anyway, I've noticed that in the few TDM missions I've played so far my broadhead arrows have little effect really. Is this by design? It seems people recover quickly from an arrow instead of dropping.

EDIT - v1.1 can be found a few posts below ------------------------------------------------------------------ Nameless Objects Mod v1.0 Description: this mod adds names to almost all core objects players can grab and hold in their hands. ------------------------------------------------------------------- How to use: As of this moment the Mod only works if you have "Core Essentials", which is included in TDM Modpack v4.0. Make sure to have "Core Essentials" and then download the *.pk4 attached to this post and place it in your TDM folder. I try my best to provide stuff people can experience first hand to form an opinion. I suggest you try "Business as Usual" by Bikerdude since this mission includes quite a few items you can grab right at the beginning. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical: The mod consists in a couple of def files and a script. I had to include two defs because otherwise there can be issues related with inheritance. The script does most of the work and it will run in the background as soon as a mission starts. The script runs once but it takes its time (10 to 30 seconds) not to hinder performance. All this is transparent to you. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Future: I wouldn't like this to remain as a mod and I volunteer to add names to all core defs for 2.13. I would, of course, use the translation system so that names can be translated in the future to languages other than English. I can name all core defs in a couple of rainy mornings but the Development Team must guarantee this work won't go to waste. The idea is that we name all core objects today and we let it stay: nothing changes in the source code and nothing gets displayed on screen. We get stuff done in the background and someday perhaps, all or part of it sees the light in some form. ------------------------------------------------------------------ There are quite a few things that must be discussed and agreed before we get started but the first step is: yes or no. People that might be interested in supporting and helping with this initiative: @datiswous, @Geep. Cheers! z_nameless_objects_mod_v1.0.pk4

Creating a new thread for this as it was being discussed in an old beta-testing thread starting here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/&do=findComment&comment=490751 I suppose the main questions are: when should this spawnarg be used, if at all? why was it introduced in the first place? Can we get it documented properly on the Wiki so misuse isn't propagated? @stgatilov @Dragofer

Having completed all missions (except the very recent ones) I find TDM not challenging at this stage. If I want get any enjoyment on a second play-through of a mission I set my own rules and I roll-play it. Here is where optional skills / add-ons / challenges / fundamental changes come into play. I wish missions wouldn't resort so often to no BJ or no kills and allow me chose who I want to be in any difficulty. I wish TDM had real challenges built-in. @STiFU is up to something, and I am looking forward to his updates on the progress. What I really want to say is that mods - as long as they serve a purpose and work - will find their audience, regardless of whether you use them or not.

Nice little mission, I just finished it. I liked the amount of detail (something bigger missions often suffer from - lack of detail). Liked the theme, liked the humour. Not much not to like.

Hello taffers, The campaign "Hidden Hands: Blood & Metal" consisting of five missions is now basically ready for beta testing (the briefing videos are missing and there are still some "real" speakers missing, at the moment there are tentative robot voices in these places, hope to replace them in the next two or three weeks). Unfortunately, the project has become somewhat more extensive than originally planned. It took me about two hours to test each mission. So you should allow at least12 hours for all five missions on the first run. Beta testing shall start at the beginning/middle of next week. The difficulty level is somewhere between "The Anomaly" and "The Lost Citadel". Some things are easier, others are not, but proper exploration and usage of the available resources/objects should always pave the way to success. Sign in here, if you are taff enough! Jack Testing thread:

As a mere player, I have modified Far Cry 2 and Splinter Cell games. Of course it makes me happy to see folks documenting their methods, because I would not have known where to start without them. I don't have any coding knowledge, but simply follow instructions, and merely experiment a little. As for most of your questions - the more flexibility the better, for sure. Who wouldn't be happy? Always exciting to check in on what new possibilities modders have discovered, even if these features do not interest me, so yeah I have been regularly visiting certain mod pages (including yours). Idk what anyone gets out of flame wars. There was some drama around Far Cry 2 modders some years ago that was such a bummer to see, as the plagiarizing a-hole was the same guy who also actively introduced never-before-seen possibilities. TDM has left me content so far, so I haven't really cared about learning how to mod it, but now that 2.12 introduced a faster mantling which I do not like at all - I'd give it a go if it is not too demanding.

OK, so this is bothersome. Take any of the books or scrolls GUIs and the DarkRadiant readables editor will either show that they can fit text that is a line over or under what actually shows in-game. As an example, "guis/readables/books/book_hand_jd_hand.gui" will fit, in the preview, an extra line at the bottom that won't show up when I test inside the map. Now what I've noticed is that the GUIs in the preview and those in-game have a different aspect ratio. I play on a 16:10 resolution. Is it that the GUIs get stretched rather than centered, could that be the cause? So, in the end, is it really a problem on DR's side or on TDM's? This kind of mismatch is dangerous because you can type out text lines in-editor and have them get cut short for players even if you see them yourself (provided resolution stretching really is the issue). Imagine it's some mission critical information that's in the readable and you have yourself a soft-lock.

That bash script does not (as far as I can see) "extract all textures with specular maps". It extracts all materials to disk, then locates lines that include the word "specularmap" and blindly injects a couple of new material stages underneath. It does not identify the name of the material at all, and I'm not sure it will correctly handle materials where the specular map is part of a full stage block "{ blend specularmap ... }".

Looking at the code, the originals were "pm_mantle_pull 750" and "pm_mantle_pullFast 450". The new "pm_mantle_pull" value is "400". A "pm_mantle_pullFast" value of "450" would be slower than regular pull, not faster. With both being set to "400", they are at least similar. Other than that, it's subjective and the feedback from playtesters was positive. Also, referenced internally here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22256-movementcontrols-settings-in-main-menu/&do=findComment&comment=489158

It's a big project, so it's important to test everything thoroughly and run several tests. "The Lost Citadel" had a lot of bugs in the first release because I didn't test enough. I will not repeat this mistake. I have fixed all problems found during beta 2. Beta 3 shall include all subtitles and briefing videos. The problem is that I'm still missing some voices. This means we can't complete the game subtitles and produce the briefing videos. In the worst case, I'll have to do a new audition for this stuff, but currently I don't feel like it.

Taffers, Time ago @Obsttorte and I worked on an AutoHotKey script that allows to control the player speed with the mouse wheel. In a further attempt to reduce the amount of critical keys this game demands I also created back then a script that allows the Left Alt Key to act as a lean modifier: Left Alt + W = Lean forward Left Alt + A = Lean left Left Alt + D = Lean right I never got around publishing the script because it isn't as good as it needs to be but I think we can debate regardless whether such a Lean Modifier Key would be welcomed in the core game or not. The most interesting aspect in my opinion is that we can claim back important keys such as Q and E and use them for other purposes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Here below is the script in case anyone wants to give it a try (you must be familiar with AutoHotKey). The required key bindings for the script to work are: Move forward [W], Strafe Left [A], Strafe Right [D] Lean Forward [Numpad8], Lean Left [Numpad4], Lean Right [Numpad6] You can of course change the script to your liking.... #IfWinActive ahk_exe TheDarkModx64.exe ; run only when TDM is in focus <!w:: while (GetKeyState("LAlt", "P") && GetKeyState("w", "P")) { Send {Blind}{Numpad8 down} } Send {Numpad8 up} return <!a:: while (GetKeyState("LAlt", "P") && GetKeyState("a", "P")) { Send {Blind}{Numpad4 down} } Send {Numpad4 up} return <!d:: while (GetKeyState("LAlt", "P") && GetKeyState("d", "P")) { Send {Blind}{Numpad6 down} } Send {Numpad6 up} return Cheers!

I detect two use cases where the script is limited: Trying to blackjack AI on the move (players may want to lean forward) Trying to pickpocket AI on the move (players may want to lean forward) The proper implementation of a Lean Modifier Key should be: If the player is moving and the Lean Modifier Key is pressed, the player leans while moving. If the player is not moving and the Lean Modifier Key is pressed, the player simply leans.

You know what would be neat? If I could sort mission list. Not Download Mission list (it is sorted) Sort by size, by date completed, sort by author, grouped by author... by Plot. I mean... I look at my list right now, there are check marks, going going going and there is a break, because the mission I clicked said "Play this one first" but despite being "technically" connected by the same story, they're not in order on the list. Not labeled as "Nib the Nip" "Nib the Big Nip 2: Electric Avenue" "Big Nib of Nip 3: Here is a little smut for you and me" and so on. Yes, it's because of individual names, which is great mind you, but I'd like to see in which order story lines should be played. If there is an overarching plot, I mean.

Good work. I would use it myself because eventhough I'm not stressed for keys it makes the controls easier if it's nice and close like the delete button to my arrow keys.

I'm not aware of DMAP caring about atdm:mover_multistate_positions. If it does that would be good to know about though, where did you see that? If you're not sure just try it maybe? I thought DMAP only cared about stuff created with worldspawn, materials changing, pathfinding and maybe location entities?

I fairly recently got this Alienware x17 r1 laptop, on which I run Linux Mint x64. Between the I7-11800 and the RTX 3070, it rips through anything maxed-out at 1080p except, as I just realized, The Dark Mod. For TDM, I have to crank the settings way down, and even then my frame rate is poor. The game can't be seeing the RTX (for one thing, its fans spool up like a jet engine when it's under any sort of load), but I have no idea how to ameliorate this. Please assist, thanks.

When launching the game (from the OS desktop) with antialiasing turned on, there is a distorted frame before the main menu is shown. After the brief distortion, the main menu displays correctly and the game can be played without issue. I've included a photo of my screen that I took with a camera. With antialiasing turned off, I do not see any distortion when launching the game. Anyone else notice this or just me? Linux, Ubuntu 22.04 AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series OpenGL version: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 22.0.5 core Bug: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6150

Ambient atmospheres are in my opinion one of the best parts of the Dark Mod experience, not just for getting a mission to have the right feel but also for inspiration and to have them playing in the background when creating maps. The more the merrier, so here's a thread to collect all the links to ambient music and environmental sounds that could have a spot in TDM's setting. Ambients from the TDM forums Gast's Eerie Lullabies Magnanimous Merry's Miscellanea Orbweaver's Dark Ambients Spadey's Ambients Radioteque's Ambients Kyyrma's Composing Ambient Tracks for Dummies - Kyyrma shows how ambient soundtracks can be made from a set of sounds. Also contains some of his finished ambients. Request for more interior sounds - this thread is a very productive community session where members came up with a large and good selection of new ambients. Uncle Peti's Sound Den Dragofer's Ambients - post #6 in this thread SeriousToni's Ambients - posts #8, 12, 15 and 19 in this thread Ambients from the TTLG forums Custom resources list Gigagooga's Ambients 1 - possibly the largest pack of ambient musics and nature sounds, all of them high quality. Gigagooga's Ambients 2 - this pack puts more weight on shorter swells/hits/pads to be layered on top of a subtle ambient. Gigagooga's Ambients 3 Yandros' ambient loop Sephy's Ambients - a large collection of ambient pieces, including many shorter ones which will be valuable for anyone wanting to try a layered ambience approach like in the Thief OMs and Full Moon Fever. Internet databases www.freesound.org - some of the better composers in my opinion are ERH and BrandonNyte. www.purple-planet.com - a large selection of all kinds of ambient and musical soundtracks to be used freely. www.darkwinter.com - an internet label that publishes a lot of dark ambient music under a Creative Commons license. www.endlessascent.com - sister website of Darkwinter for non-dark ambients. Youtube Asatru Dark - also has very nice reference images for outdoor stone memorials, statue arrangements etc. #4 Void by Raffaele du Marteau & #6 Dreaming of Nowhere by Raffaele du Marteau - possibly the most forlorn pieces I've found on the internet. Alacazam - a prolific Creative Commons ambients composer . Cryo Chamber - for-profit label for dark ambient music with a large selection on offer. Going by their Youtube comments they're fine with people using their soundtracks for games etc., although you'd probably need to buy the soundtracks first. Dark Ambient Mixed Session - as much ambient as something to have in the background while mapping.

As everyone know, right now we have both stencil shadows and shadow maps in the engine, and the player is mostly free to choose whichever he likes more. Due to the reasons I provide below, stencil shadows will most likely be dropped in some future, but that future is definitely not here yet. Unlike shadow maps, stencil shadows do not support: Alpha-tested shadow occluders. Shadows on translucent surfaces. Volumetric lights with account for shadows. Soft shadows with contact hardening. Point 4 can be ignored, point 3 has an automatic workaround by forcing lights with volumetrics to shadow maps. Points 1 and 2 result in major difference in behavior between the two modes. For the reference, we have one more technical difference: Front faces cast shadows in shadow maps mode, but don't cast them in stencil shadows mode. I recall how initially volumetric lights had their shadows disabled in stencil shadows mode, and mappers were not happy because that's a big difference in behavior. One issue was that every mission has to be beta-tested in both modes. That's why right now I mostly follow the same strategy: Alpha-testing is disabled when rendering shadow maps (since 2.12), unless you enable r_shadowMapAlphaTested. Shadows are disabled on translucent objects (since today's 2.13 dev build), unless you enable r_shadowMapOnTranslucent. I wonder if this is still what majority of the mappers think is best?

I've been involved in the TDM community now since before we had a game, since way back when we were arguing over lock picking methods lol Finally, I'm finished with Briarwood Manor - my first Fan Mission for The Dark Mod. I've been hatching this for a year so I'm wrapped it's finally done. Briarwood Manor Crowind - made the Briefing for the mission: This is the HD version. Briarwood Manor is a old manor house built and added on to over the years which gives it it's design. The family part is the original home, and two other parts were added on later. Inspiration came from an image in the TDM Editors Inspiration thread. Available through in-game downloader. - available also in the link below. Update Version 1.93 - Fixed a few issues that surfaced, and added a sign to the Armory because people were missing it and thinking the mission was very thin on resources. Remaining Issue: - DO NOT BE SEEN BY THE STEWARD AT ALL! Update Version 1.91 - Removed an erroneous LARGE file that had accidently been in the mission blow the mission size up dramatically other assorted bugs fixed that were pointed out by the Community. Thank you Also replaced the missing script file that controlled the Drop Key which I accidently deleted. LOL Update Version 1.9 - Fixed a bug caused by roof projecting into the sleeping maids room upstairs. Update Version 1.81 - Fixed a bug caused by a faulty newspaper readable that I couldn't fix, so I converted it to a static model that is no longer frobbable. Update Version 1.8 - Fixed a problem with a patch that somehow got misaligned in the previous version of the level creating a ceiling shadow. Update Version 1.7 - Fixed some brush splitting, and a problem with the stairs. Also fixed a readable problem, and a few other minor problems. Added little more detail around the woodshed. Update Version 1.6 - Fixed problem with Crowleys Diary, and a screwed up shadow in the old well. Update: Version 1.5 - Resolved the problems with the Steward and the Dropkey. They should never be a problem again. Unless you decide to hit him, then you are going to break him from his route lol. Fix an sound issue, and fixed a problem where the player could get into places he shouldn't until the right time. lol Improved the performance for the garden area. It should be playable for low end PC's now. If you get stutter issues, drop your video settings, especially the LOD setting. With LOD set to Very Low, Fog will be gone, and detail will be dropped a lot at a distance. The higher you raise your LOD the more you get. ie at LOW LOD Fog comes back. Experiment so you get a setting your PC is happy with. You can use the console command com_showfps 1 to see what FPS you are getting. 30 and above are acceptable. Enjoy. Update: Version 1.4 - Resolved (partially the drop key issue - save before you go into Stewards room, fixed many other minor problems picked up by Abusimplea. Added a new room, made the map a bit more open, solved some of the difficulty issues people had. The map should now be ghostable. I hope. Should be added to the in game downloader within a day or so depending. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I_-ZJDGUtK7P4-b5zsGsEcYAH0vYdgnw/view?usp=sharing If you download from this link, top right arrow pointing down, is how you download it. Click it. A few things to note: 1+ Hour of gameplay - Easy Difficulty is intended for new players. Hard/Expert for most of the TDM Community. This is a challenging map for new players. Use your tools Features a custom intro (above) and a few custom sounds, and some voice acting. Warning: This mission is not for low end PC's. The house is fine, but the garden will make lower end PC's grind. The map has been made sensitive to LOD settings. So if it's grinding you're PC drop you're LOD settings for it, then you can return them to normal once you've finished. On my Medium PC gtx 760 with Normal LOD I get 30 to 60 fps in the garden. I upgraded to GTX 1070 and get pretty good 60 fps in the garden. Briefing Video made by Crowind and I can't thank him enough. He did an amazing job of this. I was so lucky to have him do this. Cast: Voice Actors (Intro) : 1St Merchant: Crowind, 2nd Merchant: Mykel19XX Corbin: Goldwell Voice Actors (Mission): Corbin played by Goldwell, Morgan Crowley played by V-Man, Giles MacCadie (Steward) played by myself Thank you to my Beta Testers: Cambridge Spy, OldJim, V-Man, Jaxa, duzenko and Bikerdude. Cambridge Spy and OldJim did most of the hard grind in finding problems, so thank you both so much. If you are stuck or need help, fastest way to reach me is message me on my youtube channel (link bottom of this post). Use the resources you were given and you should have no problems. Otherwise post spoiler free in this thread. TIP: Don't be seen by the Steward, or he might glitch out. Credits: Crowind put my briefing text into a more thiefy style for Goldwell to voice. He also helped with refining the trailer for the mission. Bikerdude (did the coal door for me and let me use his moonbeam method) and sorted the performance side of things out and thereby taught me how to do performance., grayman for providing a script to handle the drop key (Abuseinplea for fixing it from bouncing) and grayman for solving some conversation problems. EHR+ or showing me how to do the double secret door and Fidcal for his Fidcal's A-Z tutorial for Dark Radiant. Without this starting point I would not have started. Changes 1.2 to 1.93 - Added a second way to get into the building - Dining Room and Parlour doors now pickable, to make it bit less linear - Electric Light in Lobby dropped it's luminosity from 240 to 220 Little bit darker. - Door on the landing (catwalk) is now unlocked - Spider no longer walks down to the ladder, or clips into the floor. - Opened up the level more so you can choose more how you want to tackle it; except for family rooms (top of stairs) - Fixed a graphical bug with the back stairs caused by TDM upgrading to 2.06 - Added some plants around bottom of garden wall alongside cart. I don't like seeing planes meeting. lol - Made some changes to the fog in the garden. - Fixed a problem with the newspaper that was allowing the no frobbing bug to occur. Enjoy Neon PS: Why does TAB key no longer tab? It drops to the bottom of the page. I have to say I hate this editor.

I have an elevator with a button: When the button is pressed it tells the lift move to an atdm:mover_multistate_position entity, which it does by targeting the elevator while having the spawnarg "position atdm_mover_multistate_position_1" to tell it where to go. This works well but I need it to do something special: When an objective is completed, the button needs to make the elevator go to a different position when pressed from that point on. I don't know how to do this: If I target the trigger_relay that runs when the objective is completed to the button, that will only make the button press itself. I can't use an atdm:target_changetarget either since it's not the button's target I need to change but its position spawnarg. I don't want to make a script for something this simple so I'm hoping there's a special entity I can use to get the job done. One solution would be two buttons: Completing the objective makes the first one invisible and unfrobable while making the second one visible and frobable. But I'm not aware of a way to make buttons visible / invisible either. At worst I'll use an atdm:teleport to swap the buttons, that's an ugly solution so making sure there's no better option first.

There's a group of players who have meticulously tested and adjusted ghosting rules for The Dark Mod. Please see: Official Ghosting Rules: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148523 Ghost Rules Discussion: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148487 Why alienate an established group of dedicated players?