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About the corpse, I dropped it into the sarcophagus with half of it sticking out which didn't look dignified at all. About the orb, sadly this seems to be caused by my patch. After I removed it, this worked. Bug searching time... About the book, this is inconsistent with the orb handling and using it also makes it glow green. Should be fixed! I know that there was some kind of fallout with Bikerdude here, but although most of his missions are great, some could need a few minor updates, e.g. in this one I also found a lot of floating trees! Is there a way to get into contact with him? P.S.: I replayed using noclip and my patch doesn't seem to be the reason for the orb issue after all. Some particles went missing, but the teleport happened now...

Those hand animations are very nice to see, especially the compass animation. Can you make animation for holding / showing the map, like in sea of thieves? (Also asked for in https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21038-lets-talk-about-minimap-support/#findComment-463678

Okidoki, I finally bit the bullet & went with a Recoil 17 from PC Specialist Specs I went for are Chassis & Display: Recoil Series: 17" Matte QHD+ 240Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1600) Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i9 24 Core Processor 14900HX (5.8GHz Turbo) Memory (RAM): 32GB PCS PRO SODIMM DDR5 4800MHz (1 x 32GB) Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4080 - 12.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1 External DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (3500 MB/R, 3200 MB/W) Operating System: NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED The case seems to be made of metal not plastic & there's an optional water cooling unit, which I didn't get For the OS I disabled fast boot & secure boot, loaded Zorin 17.2, used the entire disk, without any installation issues Zorin is a Ubuntu fork so Ubuntu & it's other forks shouldn't have an issue if anyone else gets one of these The only minor issue is the keyboard backlight isn't recognized by default, but the forums are full of info on sorting that out, not that I'm too bothered I've installed TDM & it runs beautifully I also copied my thief 1 & 2 installations from my desktop, I had to uncomment "d3d_disp_sw_cc" in cam_ext.cfg to get the gamma processing working but they run happily too The fans switch on when booting & switch off again after a few seconds, the machine isn't stressed enough to turn them on running TDM so far - this is not a challenge btw On the whole, I'm extremely pleased So thanks for all the advice

Yes: A round patch should mitigate the effect of parallax being constrained to real geometry. Just make sure the material coordinates are perfectly aligned. For buildings my advice would be to have a pillar brush jutting out in corners. Which reminds me of my question earlier, still curious to hear answers: Can we have material based building modules with parallax, as an alternative to the building module meshes? The new building modules are great but I'm definitely running into my fair share of issues with them: Having depth-based beams and panels for both building exteriors and interiors could look really amazing!

I started typing this on Discord but will move it here. I'd simply love for this to be added to vanilla TDM: The change is a wonderful Christmas gift for the next release. To make this more likely I wish to offer a few points and observations from my perspective, anyone feel free to add to this or correct if I'm wrong. For the record I'm not an official TDM developer though I spend most of my days modding / mapping or playing every FM as it comes out. First of all TDM has a culture of being careful with retroactive changes: If anything modifies the experience too much (especially for existing missions) we usually want it to be an option. I suggest designing your patch with a main menu setting; I'd add it to either "Settings - Gameplay - General" or "Settings - Video - General" whichever makes more sense. I propose giving it the following 4 options: Disabled: Never show POV hands even for weapons. If someone wants this for any reason we're also giving players an option to disable them entirely. Weapons: Only Blackjack / Sword / Arrows. Current functionality and can remain default. Weapons & Items: Also see your hands holding any selected item (lantern, compass, key, readable, etc) but hide them otherwise. I'm in favor of this being the new default if no one finds it too disruptive. Always: Show even the empty hands when nothing is selected, in which case you see the mantling / leaning movements. Likely too disruptive to default but I see myself using even that. I was excited to hear you plan to add them for individual items, that's something I've been dreaming to see years ago but lost hope we ever would. When it comes to items we'll likely need special animations for the default ones as they have specific purposes. Here's a list of the the important items... especially at this stage I don't want to suggest too much and overwhelm, I'll only add essential ones the player is almost always guaranteed to use: Lantern: Hand dangling the item down. Only the skin needs to change between lit and unlit lantern, all light entities have skins and it's easy to setup. This will look awesome with glow and fireflies Spyglass: Hand brings it toward the face when using and back down when unusing. Compass: Hand facing up holds the item in its palm. Wonder if the handheld compass can actually work and point in the right direction, wouldn't bother with it now but since we got it working for the inventory icon this should be easy to do later and will look really neat Lockpick & Keys: Poke the item toward the crosshair to look like picking the lock or inserting the key. It doesn't need to go toward the keyhole or anything, seems perfectly fine the way this was done in DeusEx where you'd see the hand flailing it in front of the door wherever you pointed. Health Potion: Move the hand toward the face and back down to appear like quickly drinking. Careful not to bring it too close to the camera as the minimum clip distance may cut off the mesh and let you see into it. Everything else: Generic hold animation with a basic jolt when using. This should fit most things: Not sure how items with different sizes will look and if we'll need different grips for each one, a book isn't held the same way as a sheet of paper, but especially right now I wouldn't worry about that. Remember that TDM allows mappers to define their own items. This includes builtin ones: You can make custom lanterns, lockpicks, spyglass, etc. The best solution seems like letting each item specify the hold & use animation it wants for the hands via spawnargs, matching the best grip and use animations the author thinks looks best. We'll also need spawnargs for the origin and rotation offset for the entity attached to the hand, each item's model is bound to appear in a different place and will need to be configured by trial and error.

I think we should first decide what do we want TOS for: To protect TDM from legal issues? To protect TDM team from angry mappers in case of conflicts? To guide mission authors in their work? In my opinion TOS should only cover legal issues, and wiki articles about making/releasing missions should cover author guidance. The chance of getting malware in a mission only increases after we write this publicly. Better don't even mention it, we are completely unprotected against this case. By the way, isn't it covered by "illegal" clause? I'm not sure this is worth mentioning, but I guess @demagogue knows better. By the way, which jurisdiction defines what is legal and what is not? Isn't it enough to mention that we will remove a mission from the database if legal issues are discovered? I think this is worth mentioning simply because mappers can easily do it without any malicious intent. We already had cases of problematic assets, so better include a point on license compatibility. It is a good idea to remind every mapper that this is a serious issue. I also recall some rule like "a mission of too low quality might be rejected". In my opinion, it is enough. You will never be able to pinpoint all possible cases why you might consider a mission too bad in terms of quality. And even the specifics mentioned here already raise questions. Having such a rule is already politics. I feel it does not save us from political issues but entangles us into them. If there is a mission which contains something really nasty, it will cause outrage among the community (I believe our most of active forum members are good people). If people are angry, they will tell the mission author all they think about it. And if the author won't change his mind, he will eventually leave TDM community. Then the mission can be removed from the database, perhaps with a poll about the removal. But it sounds like an exceptional case, it is hard to predict exceptional cases in advance. This is not even terms of service, but a technical detail about submissions. The mission should be accompanied by 800 x 600 screenshots. Or we can make them ourselves if you are OK with it. This is again purely technical, and I'm not even sure why it is needed. Isn't it how TDM works? If mapper does not override loading gui file, then default one is taken from core? Is it even worth mentioning? I think we should discuss mission updates by other people in general. This is worth mentioning so that mappers don't feel deceived. The generic rule is that we don't change missions without author's consent. But it is unclear how exactly we should try to reach the author if we need his consent. PM on TDM forums? Some email address? However, sometimes I do technical changes to ensure compatibility of missions with new versions of TDM. Especially since the new missions database has made it rather easy to do. Luckily, I'm not a mapper/artist, so I never fell an urge to replace model/texture or remap something. But still, it is gray zone. On the other hand, I think the truth is: we can remove a mission from database without anyone's consent. I hope it has never happened and will not happen, but I think this is the ultimate truth, and mentioning this sad fact might cover a lot of the other points automatically.

Yeah I'm aware of the use cases - I mainly used it for particles and preventing models from showing up through walls. The point of the thread was to reveal why it was even created, as the thread I linked contains advice from @stgatilov to NOT use it at all: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/page/10/#findComment-490707 If that's the advice, an explanation is needed and the Wiki updated.

For newbie player I might recommend my own Unofficial Patch which makes some things easier. For example it removes the IMHO very illogical complete knock-out immunity guards get once they are alerted. It might be this what causes you problems to knock them out!

A Winter's Tale By: Bikerdude "One of the few pleasures I have as a man of the thieving profession is to return to my old home town for the holidays and relax in the company of friends and relatives. But a local lord has been going out of his way to making the lives of the locals a miserable." Notes: - TDM 2.12 or later is REQUIRED to play this mission. - This is my entry for the speedbuilding jam. - This FM should play on the vast majority of systems. I have perf tweaked this map with low end players in-mind. And have moved the globale fog/moon lights to the ‘ better’ LOD level. - min recommended spec (as per beta testing) Intel Core i7(3rd gen), nvidia 1030 4gb (GDDR5), will get you 60fps inside and 45fps outside. - Various areas will look better with shadow maps enabled (SoftShadows set to medium/high, Shadows Softness set to zero and LOD set to 'better'), at the possible expense of performance depending on your system specs. - this mission continues the imperial theme, with this being a border town slightly further out from the main imperial lands than Brouften. - build time roughly 130hrs. Download Link: - (v1.4) - https://discord.com/channels/679083115519410186/1310012992867405855/1310022631415746632 v1.4 changes: I have been tweaking the LOD levels through-out the map - - Snow fall has been moved to LOD low/normal. - world fog moved to LOD better. - fireplace grills to LOD better. - world moonlight moved to LOD high. Other tweaks - - reduced light counts in all the fireplaces. - reduced the length of the looping menu video background. - Some new assets Gameplay: - added more ways for the player to get around. - tweaked existing routes to make some easier or more of a challenge. - and added an additional option objective. Credits: Special thanks go to - - Nbhor1more, flashing out the briefing and creation of readables. - Amadeus, Help w/custom objectives, script work, proof reading, mission design & testing. - Dragofer, for custom scripts and script work for the main objective. - Baal, for additional tweaking of the main objective and script work,. - Beta testers: Amadeus, Nbhor1more, Mat99, DavyJones, S1lverwolf, Baal & Dragofer. - Freesound.org, for ambient tracks, further details in sndshd file. Speed Jam Thread: - https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152747

The improvement isn't just for one type of guard: It's for all metals, including other armored guards such as city watch and builder armor as seen in a previous video... also loot, weapons such as the swords, etc. If we create a custom skin and entity for all of those just for a basic reflection effect, I think that would be out of hand if anything. Some graphical improvements are meant to be universal; We didn't need to patch old missions when ambient occlusions or shadow maps were implemented just because there's a tiny difference to the way things used to look. If such a change could bother anyone, maybe we can have a cvar to toggle cubemap reflections universally, I'd find it comparatively cleaner and easier to manage.

Well, I think @Dragofer has to patch this mission at some point... In the meantime you can look here for a solution: You have to find that line in file river_fading_materials.mtr and put // in front of it (or just remove that line). You find the file in the materials folder of that fm.

Also even with my patch, which removes the KO immunity of alerted guards, you can't knock out anybody without stealth!

r_bloom_weight is set to "0.7" both in my 2.12 installation and in main repository. I never touched those values which means the default must be 0.7. Troy Sobotka is the original creator of AgX. He was active on Blender forums where he had long philosophical arguments about color with people. Also on Blender developer forums. I don't know if there's much more beyond those and his github page: https://github.com/sobotka Edit @stgatilov AgX however is a direct continuation of Sobotka's earlier 'Filmic', so there may be more about that: https://github.com/sobotka/filmic-blender https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/164991/are-the-technical-details-of-filmic-available

Thanks for the tip, I might use it in my patch. But as with many of our "hacks" shouldn't this be part of the core game?

Great to have this finally, I can remove a lot of stuff from my patch soon ;). One suggestion though: Maybe the font size should be reduced? As you can already see in the screenshot, most campaign mission names will probably be cut off!

A great little map! I always love it when simple missions have a story twist in the end and I liked this one. Like STRUNK I didn't find the intended way out though and used the same trick, so maybe you should add text to the priest's journal to hint at the lever? Also if you are going to patch the mission, I found a lot of floating rats and I agree with others that the flowing water is cool but should have a puddle at the bottom. Last not least there are some text issues unless it's intended that some notes are missing several words...

I may perhaps fix in a future patch that not all guards fetch lanterns. It has come to my attention that many players found it too challenging with all 5 roaming about with lanterns which I respect.

Yes: I believe I set the ambient_world to the clouds, the cubemap is a separate light, then comes the fog. Maybe I shouldn't be using them together like that, I just like the way they mix. Hope it can be fixed! The Z-fighting on the ground must be caused by the terrain patches. It's weird because all of them are bent slightly, that's why I placed them to get bumps, maybe some surfaces in a patch still produce completely flat surfaces if the vertices aren't far enough? The other strange thing is I pasted the shader of the ground over them, the pixels they're Z-fighting with should be identical... the way TDM handles this is a bit weird, it's like they become brighter instead of picking one surface or the other?

Welcome to the forums! Please feel free to ping me via forum chat.

If they dont contact you, there are locations where you info about this game. For example: wiki.thedarkmod.com and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Mod Forumtopic TDM in the news. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/15109-tdm-in-the-news/

I have installed F5-TTS with pinokio: https://pinokio.computer/ It's remarkable how fast this model is and how easy to use. Just find some longer voice clip and use it as reference audio. Under Multi-Speech you can upload more voice clips and give them tags/Speech Type Names, of use this for different voices alltogether, then simply start the scentence with {your tag}. {your tag2} etc. I took 4 clips from the moor tagging them soft, normal, angry and shout, then making them say the same line: YourCamel.mp3 It works very fast and the quality is very much the same as I got out of tortoise-TTS, but seems not as good in keeping the character of the voice.

I followed the directions on the Wiki, including using the decades-old 16-bit version of Terragen, which I still luckily had on an old mothballed computer of mine. Spent an hour or three getting the mountains and snow looking just right. Then when I made the snowy patch geometry for the nearer hills and rocks I fiddled with the outdoor ambient light to match the skybox as well as possible. Not perfect, but good enough. The moonlight is just a huge parallel light, obviously. It's bad for optimisation but in a mission as tiny as this that is unlikely to matter.

I uploaded new skybox prefab to the repository. I had to use couple new .ase meshes to get it to work. I added another patch / layer of clouds, the original starry prefab used only one, plus some clouds specifically for the moon. The moon is a round mesh, plus another one for the glow behind it. It's hard to manage the highlights in Darkmod. Using blending with negative values helped.

Installed the latest version of the patch. Had this mission installed before, even played it a bit. Now, when I try to activate it, it just goes to the "unofficial patch" menu and I can't activate the mission.

Thanks for the heads up. Combining the two FMs into the same archive is troublesome because they will try to share assets that are different between Tales of the Riverside and Down by the Riverside and will therefore break each other. I've changed the download link to one that I know should work. The book has a few hidden objectives attached to it that get completed when you reach certain pages. In any case, it's probably better addressed in the tech support forums and will need a copy of your savegame to trace back to what's causing the crash.