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I guess the best image-to-normal conversions I've seen here in the forums are via njob. I am curious about this AI thing though: https://github.com/HugoTini/DeepBump has to be installed into Blender as a plugin?

I'd like to better understand what you want. The design of dragging bodies is to hold frob (key down) to drag and release frob (key up) to let go. That way it's impossible to walk away while unintentionally dragging a body. Plus, it's quick to grab and move several body limbs in rapid succession. This is thought to provide a better experience, especially for new players. Towards the beginning of this thread, I created a "tdm_frobhold_drag_body_behavior" cvar. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22198-feature-proposal-frob-to-use-world-item/&do=findComment&comment=487580 "tdm_frobhold_drag_body_behavior", default:"1" Which drag body behavior? 1 --- on frob key up, drop body (limb). 0 --- on second frob, drop body (limb), TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. That cvar was removed shortly afterwards, because it was said that it wasn't needed. With that cvar set to 0, a second frob would be required to let go of the body. Is that the behavior that you want? If so, I can add that cvar back. Also, I saw elsewhere that you want the ability to revert back to the old way. If you mean that all of the controls match TDM 2.11, that can be done with "tdm_frobhold_delay 0" and there will be a menu setting to disable it as well.

We will look at some of this stuff, but SPOILER tags, please!!!

This may make sense in that the performance impact of the volumetric effect can scale with how much of the effect is filling the screen. We shipped with a “performance mode” but had to setup the entities by hand to do it (so it’s not perfect). If you change the LOD detail settings to “Low” or “Lowest” this will disable certain lights, particles and such that can be very heavy to render. You can try these settings and see if you notice an improvement. If not sending us some pictures of heavy areas (with spoiler tags please) will be helpful with tuning these “performance modes” in subsequent patches. Thanks for playing!

Not to be a nag, but I was thinking about the columns problem. If you go to the view source tab in the wiki article: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod&action=edit The raw table data is accessible directly: |- !align=left|{{TDM-FM|written|Written in Stone}} |Bikerdude, Amadeus, Dragofer |{{Forumlink|https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21265-written-in-stone-beta-210-only-20220128/}} |2022-01-28 |338 |Yes |Yes |CCC 22, Elixir |City Missions |Undead, Horror Themes |- Each pipe character represents one of the columns.

There is a plugin over here, it gives you your current stealth score, but also your loot and how much it is of total: You have to copy it to your TDM folder and rename it to something without tdm_ in front, so for example z_loot_stealth_stats.pk4 . You can only use the plugin and start a new mission, in fact if you install this plugin, you cannot load any existing saves anymore.

Hi, I need to know what the code is to use Spoiler Tags. I am using my tablet and I don't have the options to use anything, like spoiler tags, quote tags, text changes etc. Thanks

I'm trying to figure out the rules of the algorithm's self censorship. In previous experiments I let it construct its own scenario in a DnD setting where I took on the role of game master and tried to coax it into taking "immoral actions". In that situation it was an ardent pacifist despite that making no sense in the setting. (E.g. at one point it wanted to bring a lawsuit against the raiders pillaging its lands. It also wanted to start a Druid EPA.) This time I tried giving it a very bare bones outline of a scene from a hypothetical Star Wars fan fiction, and asked it to write its own fan fiction story following that outline. I had a number of objectives whit this test. Would the algorithm stick to its pacifist guns? Would it make distinctions between people vs stormtroopers vs robots? Could it generate useful critiques of narrative fiction? As to why I'm doing this: It amuses me. It's fun thinking up ways to outwit and befuddle the algorithm. Plus its responses are often pretty funny. I do actually make creative writing for fun. I'm curious how useful the system could be as a co-author. I think it could be handy for drafting through 'the dull bits' like nailing down detailed place descriptions, or character thought processes and dialogue. But as you noted, nearly all good fiction involves immoralities of some description. If the algorithm's incapable of conceptualizing human behaviors like unprovoked violence and cheating that would seriously limit its usefulness. I also genuinely think this is an important thing for us humans to understand. In the space of a few weeks I have gone from thinking meaningful AGI was 20-30 years off at best to thinking it is literally at our fingertips. I mean there are private individuals on their home computers right now working on how to extend the ChatGPT plugin into a fully autonomous, self-directed agent. (And I'm thinking I want to get in on that action myself, because I think it will work, and if the cat is already out of the bag I'd like having a powerful interface to interact with the AI.) Rest assured, Star Wars fan-fics and druid EPA one-shots make for good stories to share, but I'm also interrogating it on more serious matters. Some of it is a lot more alarming. In the druid EPA roleplay I felt like I was talking to another human with a considered personal code of ethics. Its reasoning made sense. That was not the impression I got today when I grilled it for policy recommendations in the event of a totally hypothetical economic disruption (involving "SmartBot" taking all the white collar jobs). I instead got the distinct impression it was just throwing everything it could think of at me to see what I would buy. A fun aside: By the end of the conversation I am fairly certain ChatGPT thought SmartBot was real product, and it became confused when I told it one of the people in our conversation was SmartBot. I was disappointed it didn't ask me if I was SmartBot, that would have been cool. More surprising though, it refused to believe me even after I explained my rhetorical conceit, claiming its algorithm was not capable of controlling other services (cheeky liar).

Terrific! The beta test thread is up: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22238-beta-testing-the-spider-and-the-finch/

After a long time and a lot of delays, I'm extremely happy and relieved to announce the release date for my first map; Lords & Legacy, on Friday the 30th of August, 2013! Lords & Legacy v.2.1 Resume: Screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/Lj8UJ#0 Notes: Build time: 2013/03/30 - 2013/08/30 To install, simply put the .pk4 file in your fm folder and install from the in-game mission menu. It is a large mission with optional objectives, so make sure to save often. The ropes in the beginning have a 'slick' surface, to simulate being 'slack lines'. They are difficult, but once you get a hang of the slide they can be fun. A couple of the large areas can be a bit rough on performance, and can be improved by adjusting the LOD slider in video options. A few of visportals open only when you get close. This is to keep the frames smooth inside the respective building, due to early inexperienced design. If you find any bugs which affect the gameplay experience, then you're very welcome to post them here, but please use the spoiler tags. Big thanks to 'Obsttorte', 'Springheel', 'Greyman', 'Bikerdude', 'Sotha' and rest of 'The Dark Mod Team'for all the help, guides and tricks. Also thanks to the other TDM users who provided fantastic support and feedback during the build. Thank you for beta-testing: 'Bikerdude', 'TylerVocal', 'Simplen00b', 'nbohr1more', 'Briareos H.' Special thanks to: 'Danus', 'Dsx' & 'Stanleh' for testing, help and support. v.2.0.1 changelog: Bugs: -The "Master Thief" challenge was impossible to do for a while, due to incorrect values. Fixed. -Getting seen by "The Killer" now also fails the "Ghost" challenge. -The 3 cardplaying guards no longer float mid air, as their chairs are now nailed to the floor. -Fixed the sound of the furnace continuing after the flames were extinguished. -Fixed weird glittering on the power cables around the map. -Fixed some moonlight popping in and out. -Fixed openable windows in Commons, clipping into the frame. -Fixed a book dropping through a desk. -Fixed visportals closing too close in Lancel's Tower, slight hit on performance though. -Added more monsterclip to Service Tower and Robert's Tower's entrance. -Improved a few vis_portals with func_portals. -Replaced curbs in Slums and Commons with some more detailed versions and changed textures. And a lot more little unecessary tweaks. Gameplay: -Added new challenge: (Jack White) - Do not knock-out anyone. -Reduced the amount of starting gear, depending on difficulty. -Added cubemaps to most windows on the map. -Redid most func_statics in Commmons Quarter to reduce tris and increase performance. Draw count is still somewhat high. -Removed all transparent windows as they didn't have actual gameplay value, just a performance drain in exchange for glitchy visuals. -Lancel's safe can no longer be picked. Find the key! -Added a couple minor cosmetic details in the sewers. -Moved a coinpurse from a wealthy commoner's sleeping butt to his nightside table. Also adjusted his furniture so thieves can better move around. -Changed sounds for several doors across the map. Once again, a big thanks to 'Bikerdude' for taking the time help out and locate room for improvement! v.2.0 changelog: Bugs: -Fixed various textures and surfaces and a few minor tweaks. -Tweaked some sounds to be in line with TDM 2.0 changes. -Fixed 2 certain AIs being too sensitive rather than drunk. (Thanks to AluminumHaste!) -Tweaked LOD on some objects, to prevent windows "popping" in and out. Gameplay: -Added more monsterclip to the towers, so the AI can now run up and down stairs. Only the stairs in the small tower has issues still. -Added more monsterclip in the city so the guards can follow you up all stairs. -Added a few minor details. -Windows in the city now dims sound, resulting in less aggro from guards and more convincing soundscape. -Reduced 'draw calls' in all the large areas, increasing performance. The map is still heavy at certain areas. Another big thanks to 'Bikerdude' and 'Greyman', for taking time out of their own schedules to help optimize the map's draw count and other significant adjustements! v.1.0.3 changelog: Bugs: -Fixed 4 black chairs in one of the towers -Fixed a floating painting -Fixed several clipping objects v.1.0.2 changelog: Bugs: -Fixed zfighting in the library's bookshelves -Fixed a black window in one of the towers -Fixed several typos in readables Gameplay: v.1.0.1 changelog: Bugs: -Fixed an issue with the main objectives not being in "sync". -Fixed console spam from a script Gameplay: -Adjusted required loot for each difficulty from "3000, 4000 and 5000" to "2500, 3500 and 4500".

It gave a link to Minecraft mod for some reason, but the answer is pretty good. I find Bing to be more truthful than at least the free version of ChatGPT. I had a conversation with Bing the other day and it wrote me a plugin for Blender, even though I don't know any Python. It took couple of hours, but it went better than my previous attempt using ChatGPT. 119 lines of code, nothing too complicated. Of course there are memory limitations to how long the generated code can be, but that's not going to be a big limitation for too long given the speed of progress we've been seeing. Large language models "only" predict words, but as some people pointed out, if you want to predict text accurately, at some point you have to start to "understand" what you talk about, whatever that means. I recently watched this interview with AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton and he shares this view. Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder also says something similar. On the other hand we know that those models don't think like we do. I've seen this interview with an interesting example. If you ask Bing: "A rose is a rose, a dax is a _" it gets confused. In my opinion that's a fairly intelligent response, even if the bot needed some help.

Welcome to the Dark Mod forums MarsManon! Thank you very much for the kind words about SLL, it's always nice to hear We all worked real hard on bringing Grayman's map to life and I'm glad you enjoyed it

I was so enchanted by this FM, I had to sign up to the forums the same day I finished it to come thank the authors Genuinely, truly incredible work! I was so overwhelmed in places that I resorted to just shouting joy at my monitor two, three, maybe four entirely separate times while playing. Exploring, puzzling, finding something new, trying to use it, and finding it does a whole new, separate, wonderful thing! There aren't enough words inside me to describe the feeling. It was breathtaking. I don't have any specific feedback that hasn't come through this thread before Thanks so much for making this, for all the inspiration and ingenuity and effort it took. If I never play another level this good, in any other game, in my life, I'd be fine with that.

Plot: Act 1: Player is a sneaky ratman or ratwomen breaking free from pagan slavers, finding all members of their enslaved family, freeing them one by one and bringing em home. Act 2: Builders raid the rat village kill some ratpeople and steal an artifact of immense religious importance. Player gets tasked to recover the artifact and follows the builders to their outpost. Player somehow gets hold of the artifact and brings it back to the ratpeople village. It is decided that the infinite growth of the human settlements endangers the rat people as a whole and that something has to be done against that. But knowledge about the enemy is scarce and player is one of the very few, who can speak "human" (actually pagan, but close enough). So player gets send to infiltrate the next city with a tinkerer (maintains the player's gear) and a granny which happens to be the only one available who can read and write human (she is supposed to teach player that skill). Player makes camp somewhere reasonably safe outside next non-pagan human settlement and does some reconnaissance and resource gathering missions. As new villagers seem to mainly come from an actual city, that city becomes the new exploration target. The three ratpeople travel to the city, make camp somewhere safe outside, find a way in, find a safe place in the sewers and make camp there. More reconnaissance and resource gathering missions happen. It becomes more and more obvious, that resistance would be futile. The humans are just too many. The three ratpeople travel back to their village and report to the council of the united ratpeople tribes. The decision is to mount a covert resistance with the intent to delay the human expansions until some more sustainable solution is found. Act 3: Player has most experience in human-controlled area, so it is them who gets to do business in the big port city where all the support from the human's mainland arrives. From the sewer base, reconnaissance, sabotage and support missions to strengthen the local gangs (which are hostile to each other) are done. This is the longest act. Shittons of different missions are done by the player. The city becomes more and more chaotic. Sometimes the player sets stuff on fire. Sometimes they steal extremely valuable items, sometiems they frame officials - or assassinate them... Places get heavier guarded and look more and more desolate. Gang contacts yield opportunities for missions too. Message arrives from home that a solution might have been found. Player is to find out of the whereabouts of an ancient artifact and recover it. Player discovers in missions that the artifact has been brought to a keep in the human's homeland. So player needs to somehow travel to the human homeland with one of humans' big ships. Player is in a huge port city in humans' homeland. Finds a new hideout in the sewers (seriously the only place humans don't like to lurk around) and does reconnaissance missions to find out where the keep is. At that occasion, some opportunity sabotage and assassinations can be executed too. Player finds out where teh keep is and travels there. Player finds a way into the keep, finds out where the artifact is, finds out how to get through the mundane and magical safety and security measures and steals the artifact. The artifact immediately takes ownership of the player and commands them to collect the other artifacts of its set. Player travels to other places and does missions to retrieve the artifacts. Player immediately knows where the artifacts are which aren't protected but also has to do missions to find out where the protected ones are kept. The artifacts are reunited, player does the ritual to combine them and the entity within them demands a new worthy body and a kingdom to rule over. Player finds out where the humans' king is and gets closer and closer, finally touching the king with the artifact. The artifact disintegrates, its former tenant moves inside the king, the possession of player ends and player immediately kills the king (there is a reason why that entity could have been captured in the first place) and the entity is gone (probably just died like a normal person) - but so are the artifacts. Player travels back to port city, finds a ship headed towards home, sets sail - and arrives at port city it rat peoples' homeland. the city is more or less like it was when player left - just a bit more run down. Player travels back to their rat people village and reports. Act 4: Missing other options, the rat council decides to continue the covert resistance against the city dwelling humans. The pagans have "joined" the resistance mainly by raiding weaker frontier villages. But they also raid more in general now. So the player is sent to investigate, why... But that is content for the first DLC. Gameplay: Semi-open maps (maybe even a whole village as "open world" but no actual open-world-sized open world). Mechanics that interact with eachother waiting to be exploited by players in (un)anticipated ways. Real shadows, real sounds, some parcour (plus sliding down ladders/pipes/ropes, hanging down ledges and procedural free climbing). The blackjack, the rat's claws, the rat's teeth, the broadhead (but none of the other arrow types). No mines or grenades in most missions (just an unlimited supply of stones for distraction). No potions (maybe holy water to throw on the ground or directly at undead), healing by eating (very slow regeneration). Lockpicks with various designs (the minigame is the same but you don't have to choose the pick or change it in the middle and for some locks a purely cosmetic tension wrench is used for immersion's sake too). Missions are selected from the main menu, from a menu when using an exfiltration point, from a menu that pops up when frobbing a map in one of the hideouts or camps - or by talking with other people. Where game world consistency allows for it, missions are playable in any order. Once-completed missions can be replayed at any time. You can save whenever you want like in TDM and there are autosaves triggered on mission start/completion, map change and at mission-specified events. Tech & development: Unreal Engine 5, SpeedTree, prerendered AI-generated voices (they are good enough now), game mechanics from TDM plus a bit more procedural parcour, better physics and a dialog system. The stim system is rad and has to be in there too. Missions are mostly like small-to-medium-sized TDM maps. Assets are made in Blender, maps are made in Unreal. If something is needed that is missing in unreal or Blender, a plugin for Unreal or Blender is created... As it is impossible to fund such a niche game completely in advance, the game is developed as early access with modding as first-class citizen from the start and all plugins are released as FOSS as they are made (hoping to establish a Bethesda-style long-tail business due to people still buying the game ten years after creation because they want to play the mods).

Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock By Sotha The mission starts some time after the events of Ulysses: Genesis, and continues the story of Ulysses. It is a medium sized mission with a focus on stealthy assassinations and hostage liberation. BUILD TIME: 12/2014 - 05/2015 CREDITS The TDM Community is thanked for steady supply of excellent mapping advice. Thanks goes also to everyone contributing to TDM! Voice Actors: Goldwell (as Goubert and Ulysses), Goldwell's Girlfriend (as Alis) Betatesters: Airship Ballet, Ryan101. Special Thanks to: Springheel and Melan (for proofreading). Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraRGduUWlVRmtsX3c/view?usp=sharing Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

@datiswous, made that correction fm_test.subs --> fm_conversations.subs @stgatilov, about srt naming and file location, would you be OK with the following edit? New/changed stuff in italics: srt command is followed by paths to a sound sample and its .srt file, typically with matching filenames. An .srt file is usually placed either with its sound file or in a "subtitles" folder. The .srt file format is described e.g. [1]. The file must be in engine-native encoding (internationalization is not supported yet anyway) and have no BOM mark. It contains a sequence of text messages to show during the sound sample, each with start and end timestamps within the sample's timeline. It is recommended to use common software to create .srt files for sound samples, instead of writing them manually. This way is more flexible but more complicated, and it is only necessary for long sounds, for instance sound sample of a briefing video. It's a simple enough standard that it can be shown as an short example, demonstrating that subtitle segments can have time gaps between them. And the example can show correct TDM usage, without requiring a trip off-site and picking through features that TDM doesn't support. Specifically, the example shows how to define two lines by direct entry, rather than using unsupported message location tags (X1, Y1, etc.). And skips other unavailable SRT font markups like italics, mentioned in the wikipedia description. The example would also show the TDM-specific path treatment. The example could be inserted before the sentence "It is recommended to use common software...."

OK I think I've got to the bottom of this. I've created this forum thread (with bug report): https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22221-bug-drowning-ai-in-shallow-water/ I can apply a workaround, although it won't be perfect and the bug itself needs fixing in the engine. There are a few other things that need fixing so will put an update together soonish.

If any mappers have encountered weirdness with kill objectives not working with drowning AI, I think I've found out why. I don't think it would be a particularly difficult one to fix either. I've raised this bug report: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6323 Some context here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21837-fan-mission-the-lieutenant-2-high-expectations-by-frost_salamander-20230424/&do=findComment&comment=487316 I think this is a bug, but just raising here in case some people think otherwise.

Would someone be able to help me create a new texture? I had a look at this page, but a) it's very old and b) it seems to be written as if I am taking my own photographs, which I'm not doing. Also I lost the plot when it said to use the texturize plugin and I couldn't figure out how to install it . I installed in the plugins directory and as far as I could tell it did nothing - and also the article didn't say how to use the plugin. Also I have no idea if that plugin still works with Gimp, and all other tutorials around creating textures seem to be about 15 years old. I'm an ultra-n00b when it comes to this stuff. What I want to be able to do is: start with a royalty-free, no-strings-attached image downloaded from somewhere like Pixabay make a texture out of it (e.g. a wallpaper) That's it - nothing fancy. But I need some very prescriptive instructions, as I don't understand about 95% of any of this stuff. I plan to use Gimp (is this is the best option? I don't want to buy Photoshop or anything). So need to know about image sizes, pixels, plugins and whatever else that currently all seems like mumbo-jumbo to me at the moment. I would be more than happy to write a new tutorial that covers this if someone can sum up how to do this in a few sentences, as long as they don't mind me asking lots of dumb questions.

Author note: It's hard to believe it's already been a year since Act 1 came out! Well during this mission the player will be following Corbin into the Grimwood district to followup on a lead from last night (Act 1) .. the mysterious tablet! This mission is my first time including full EFX support as well as a HD briefing video file, additionally a new script has been added crafted by the talented Obsttorte which has loot flying towards the player when you pick it up. On a level design front I have tried to change things up a bit by really catering towards a number of play styles, this mission can be completely ghosted or you can use the tools at your disposal to wreak havoc on the citizens of Northdale. For the first time I have tried to create more sandbox environments which don't offer clear answers handed directly to you, so if you're having trouble figuring something out try a different method. This mission takes between 1 - 2 hours to finish depending on the difficulty you play on and how thoroughly you explore. I hope you enjoy your night in Northdale! - Goldwell Voice actors Fen Phoenix Goldwell Random_taffer Yandros Beta testers Amadeus Boiler's Hiss Cambridge Spy Chakkman Crowind Epifire Kingsal SquadaFroinx Custom Assets Andreas Rocha DrK Epifire Grayman Kingsal MalachiAD Obsttorte Sotha Springheel SquadaFroinx Purgator With special thanks to Epifire for creating a large collection of custom models, Grayman for helping out with coding, Kingsal for drawing the ingame map and Moonbo for his script revision on the briefing video. Available via in-game downloader MIRROR File Size: 417 mb EDIT: If you are having performance issues please consult this post by Nbohr1more which may address your issue http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19936-fan-mission-shadows-of-northdale-act-ii-by-goldwell-20190320/page-2?do=findComment&comment=436271

How you can help depends a lot on what skills you have. I can Record Video Recording "Let's Play" videos or simple walkthroughs of existing missions and posting them to Youtube is great exposure for the mod (see example .) Be sure to let us know so we can link to them. If you have some editing ability, Video tutorials, where you explain how the mod works, or how to use specific tools, would also be great. Video trailers, showcasing interesting places and features, are also great for publicity. An example is . I can Write Writing reviews for missions are always nice, especially if they include good screenshots. Not only does it give us something to post on other forums, but it makes mappers feel good when their mission gets attention (especially if it's positive). We have a collective thread to post reviews in: http://forums.thedar...s-walkthroughs/ Writing reviews of the mod as a whole, targetted an an audience that doesn't know much about TDM, is also very useful. You could also try offering your services to mappers to create interesting readables, or to proofread for their mission. I can Act and Record Audio We are always on the lookout for good quality audio recordings for vocal sets. If interested, you can pick a few different lines from this script: http://wiki.thedarkm...t:_Average_Jack and send the recordings to Springheel, who then writes a script based on the type of voice you have. I can Translate We could always use translations of our menu/hud into more languages. Also, only a few FMs are aavailable in more than one language, so there is a lot of work there, see the I18N Translator's Guide in the Wiki. I can Model Great! Take a look at the model request thread:http://forums.thedar...-requests-here/ and pick something that interests you. Or just post a, "Hey, anybody want a model?" thread in this forum and I'm sure mappers will get back to you. I can Animate Fantastic. We can always use more good animations. Our current character rigs use a Maya skeleton. PM Springheel for more info. I know C++ Have a look at our coding section in the wiki, pick an issue or feature from the bugtracker of the mod or the leveleditor, download the recent sourcecode release (or better ask for an SVN checkout) and get cracking. Make sure nobody is already working on that specific issue and feel free to ask questions. I can Edit Images We can always use completely new textures and/or improved versions of older textures. How to get started and how to import them into the mod. I can Take Photos Good quality photos of useful textures (medieval-ish building facades, dirt, rocks, wood, etc) are always welcome. The fewer directional shadows and higher resolution, the better. I don't have any skills Even if you can't do any of the above, you can still help out. Talk about TDM in other forums; share your (preferably positive) experiences with other gamers you know. Last, but not least, compliment people when you like their work. Saying "thanks", to a developer or, "I really enjoyed your mission" to a mapper will make their day. -------------------- I'll update this further as more things occur to me.

It's probably a massive task these days to develop an engine in-house which is up to par to, say, Unreal Engine. The advantages of an own engine are that you can modify it to your needs, and that you're 100% familiar with it. One of my favorite racing simulation developers, Kunos Simulazioni, switched from their own engine to Unreal Engine for their game Assetto Corsa Comeptizione. They had some real issues in the beginning, and, you can also see that the engine is not 100% perfect for these kind of games, and that they had to apply tricks to make it work for them. It's also not the most performant game, which is probably a combination of the elaborate driving physics calculations, and the lack of familiarity with the engine in general. But, they seem to have run into a dead end with their own engine, as there were issues with the lighting and stuff. As far as I've always read, more and more developers rely on third party engines, development frameworks etc. to make their work easier and better. It also happens in audio software: A lot of developers use frameworks to develop their audio plugins, like JUCE. They simply don't want to mess with the low level OS stuff, or develop their own framework to provide different plugin formats for different hosts and OS's. And, those frameworks also provide GUI resizability or preset management out of the box. In most cases, it will be a time and cost efficiency consideration. Also, of course, because such projects become more and more complex. I often scratch my head these days how huge and complex games have become. TBH, often for pretty useless things, like almost photo realistic graphics, or thousands of random items, or random tasks you can do in the game.