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This reminds me of Chronicles or Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena... One of my favorite games ever, unfunctional, because of the copy protection. That said, I do get though, that software is a phase-out model. At some point, publishers or developers simply can't guarantee anymore that the stuff will run on current software or hardware. And, it's also not easy to provide the games as is, with a license which allows modifcation of any kind. I can't count how many times I read "Please Open Source your software!". Well, it's not that easy, with potentially loads of licensed code or assets.

Desired Results File with All Languages What is want to end up with from our AI (with any iterative fixup and manual integration) is an FM-only version of TDM’s UTF-8 all.lang. That file has 17 language sections in a particular order, which we will adopt too (in the prompt further below), although, other than English being first, it doesn’t really matter. Once we have our FM all.lang, we can easily generate all the required ISO-encoded *.lang files, e.g., french.lang. Strategy of Feeding the AI One approach would be to just feed the entire #str list in one gulp, with prompt engineering that covers all aspects. This would minimize the post-translate integration time. But the concern is that prompt engineering becomes more difficult. The AI might get confused about what restrictions and hints apply to which strings. While sometimes shared context across strings can be helpful, too much shared context could lead to overly-creative translations (e.g., hallucinations). [BTW, if accessing the AI through an API, there’s often a "temperature" value you can specify, from 0.0 to 1.0, from most-predictable to most-creative. We can use a few words in the prompt to approximately achieve similar ends.] So, to maintain more control, I’m going to batch-feed. The assumption is that translating #str_ in batches of related input groups will allow more focused guidance from prompt engineering, leading to better results. I’ll start with inventory items, that have the shortest strings and most dictionary-like lookup. An alternative/additional batching (particularly needed with large FMs) would be by "scene". In the case of Air Pocket, it could be thought of broadly as 4 scenes, based on timeline and location. The story, as driven by objectives, is fairly linear; larger FMs would typically have some randomization in scene order. Would batching by scene be useful (i.e., give better AI results) for some of Air Pocket’s #str_ s? Thinking this over. But for now, treat inventory items independent of scene. Prompt Engineering for Inventory Items A stab at a reusable template follows in blue. It describes the overall translation task, the desired tone, and input and output formats. Text specific to inventory items is shown in bold. Text that is specific to this FM, to clarify the context and the meaning of particular words, is in italics, with spoilers hidden. You are an expert translator between English and other European languages, including Russian. You wish to translate a list of inventory items, all inanimate objects, from English to these other languages. Each line of the list begins with a tab, then a word beginning with #str_ within double quotes, then another tab, then a phrase within double quotes. When you translate a line, in the output keep the tabs and the #str_ word unchanged, and only change the phrase to the other target language in UTF-8, keeping it in double quotes. Make the translated phrase reasonably short while preserving the formal meaning. Avoid modern slang. Old-fashioned wording is fine. At the end of each line, add another tab, and then add a back-translation of the previous phrase into English again. When back-translating, ignore the original English phrase. Most of the inventory items are keys, and the associated phrases describe locked doors to particular locations aboard a ship, or locked trunks or safes on a ship. The "Master Key" opens all locks. Following the input list of inventory items, append output lists in these target languages: 1. German 2. French 3. Polish 4. Italian 5. Spanish 6. Portuguese 7. Russian 8. Czech 9. Hungarian 10. Dutch 11. Slovak 12. Danish 13. Swedish 14. Romanian 15. Turkish 16. Catalan. List of inventory items: [... skipping 1 potential spoiler] "#str_fm_map_inv_key_captains_cabin" "Captain's Cabin" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_captains_safe" "Captain's Safe" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_galley" "Galley" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_master_key" "Master Key" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_mess" "Mess" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_sea_trunk" "Sea Trunk" Using ChatGPT As discussed at the outset, you can use this without signing in (it will nag you). Also, if you’d like it not to retain your input for training purposes, click on the circled question mark and change it under "Settings". As of this post, of you ask ChatGPT what model it’s using, it responds "You're currently chatting with GPT-4o, the latest model from OpenAI as of 2025. The "o" stands for "omni" — it's designed to handle text, images, and more, all in one model." Following up by enquiring about usage limitations, it says "Free users can access GPT‑4o, but with strict usage caps, which vary based on demand and time of day". More specifically, "usage falls in the range of 5–16 messages per 3–5 hours, after which you'll be limited or switched to GPT‑4o‑mini." The latter is a faster but lower-accuracy model. "We’ll notify you once you’ve reached the limit and invite you to continue your conversation using GPT-4o mini or to upgrade to [paid] ChatGPT Plus." Because I’m doing this at a leisurely rate (and reporting it to you in posts), the usage restrictions should not bite. About Input and Output Formats As you can see above, the input is the AI prompt, appended with content from english.lang, namely, the lines between the "{" and "}" brackets. For those lines, no change to tab-separation is done. The output is the same format, but with an added English back-translation added to each line. When ChatGPT generates the response, each requested language is enclosed in its own HTML response frame, with a separate "copy" link. So you have to copy each link separately, pasting them successively into your FM-specific all.lang file while adding headers, e.g., [French]. Also, the frame margin contains the word "vbnet". When I asked, ChatGPT indicates that’s the style of syntax highlighting applied to the results, based on source material, but it may be inappropriate and so ignorable. Which explains why the word "key" was always colored green. In the next post, I’ll discuss the specific results.

That's correct but many people just use the in-game mission downloader to check for new stuff without even looking at the forums, which is what I did. In the past a lot of missions that required a newer version of the game executable and assets would tell you this when you tried to start them up. I was just reporting on this and that you don't need to reinstall, just update via tdm_updater if you find this issue.

I think this is a great mission, after having played it. Wanted to also post and say that I initially had the same issue as a user on the first page with the black untextured floors and some walls. I think the issue is the mission doesn't check the version of the game that's being played--I had 2.12 installed and it started the mission without asking me to update. After running tdm_installer and forcing a file analysis and then updating to 2.13 not only did the pure black texture issues go away but the slight framerate issues I was having in some of the outdoor areas disappeared as well.

Hrm I wasn't able to type on *after* the spoiler and accidentally already submitted the reply.. (Does this forum somewhere have a raw mode where you type text with tags around them or something instead of this broken WYSIWYG editor?) Anyway, what I was gonna add: This was a great mission and I already played Away1 - I'm really looking forward to Away2, want to see how the story goes on

Im ok with it but it is getting a bit long in the teeth for a ryzen 5900x even the low cost ryzen models have plenty power to drive this card. I would have used my 3070 instead but with 8gb im running into some rather annoying texture loading problems. So a 16gb model will be next project but the lower end while having plenty vram are just not worth upgrading to with such a small percentage. Guess ill donate a kidney for a 9070 or 5070

Apply a thin layer of nodrawsolid with your desired sound over the top. Another option: if there's a texture that you always want to have a custom sound, then modify the material definition and add or change the surface type. Example, if you want the "/darkmod/wood/boards/dark_redwood" texture to sound like stone, clone the default material definition to make a new one, and change it: textures/darkmod/wood/boards/dark_redwood_sounds_like_stone { stone diffusemap textures/darkmod/wood/boards/dark_redwood } If you use that texture it'll always sound like stone. No need for a nodrawsolid.

Are you sure you aren't turning your sealing geometry into func_statics, or using a non-sealing texture? I don't know about scripting a fade out, but you can apply skins to them like anything else, and make them use any texture you like.

Believe it or not, an earlier build had lots of rooftop climbing and alternate routes, but poor design on my part meant I had to put them all out of reach to slice the outdoor area into chunks for visportalling/optimization after the fact. I took my "city streets" approach a bit too literally and directly this time around, and I've realized that the claustrophobia and verticality of some of the best Thief FMs were born as much out of necessity as out of choice.

Back in the day, Tels managed a squad of volunteer translators for TDM. I am not Tels, and could never do that. Nowadays, language translation using AI, either traditional machine learning (ML) models or large language models (LLMs), is common and increasingly fluent. It is often used as an adjunct to speed the work of professional human translators. By itself, AI translation can be imperfect but usually sufficient. Can this "sufficient" approach be used for TDM, to expedite translations? Let's see. I gave some initial thought to a bulk-translation daemon that might range across FMs and fill in all missing translations, without necessarily involving mappers. In the future, possibly AI could tackle that whole enchilada. I was at first visualizing something more modest: a backbone in a standard programming language (I sketched out C++ and C# projects, but lots of other possibilities) that would make calls to an API (I looked at those of Google Translate and ChatGPT). However, I changed focus due to certain concerns... Different FMs, and subsets with each FM, would likely have far better translations if they were properly grouped, ordered, and translated separately, with an appropriate context (e.g., phrase engineering) added. The FM's mapper is best placed to provide this grouping and context. I'll detail what I mean in the next few posts. The mapper would not be expected to know any TDM-supported languages besides English. Instead, each translated phrase could be back-translated to English and examined. Is the "round-trip" meaning OK, even if the English words have changed? Problematic translations could have their context tweaked and rerun. Many AI systems, particularly for API access, require a billing commitment (e.g., credit card). For a professional translator, this is no problem, and subscriptions allow access to more (and putatively better) models and higher quotas. This seems less appealing for TDM. A few paid AI systems have a no-subscription, pay-as-you-go account tier. The cost per translate is typically pennies. But it does introduce quota- and expense-management, and may exclude API usage. Access via API requires an API key (or at the higher end more elaborate security regime), with attendant key-security headaches. Which AI model is thought "best" for translation? Doesn't matter too much, because we can't afford the best. Furthermore, there's endless churn among AI models, with antidotal reports that a given model fluctuates in quality over time, and successor models can be worse than their predecessors. So, with these concerns in mind, I looked for public web-based AI sites that require no billing and provide low-quota but adequate AI. The mapper would enter and retrieve data manually. I will focus on ChatGPT in this exploration, after a quick preliminary test confirmed some promise. Also, as this exploration proceeds, I hope to propose changes to TDM to make it more viable for "sufficient" quality machine translation. Problem areas are incomplete fonts, space-constraints, and layout issues for translated strings. My proposals will likely surface as separate forum threads. That's enough for now. I'll be trying for 1 or 2 substantive posts per week, as I tackle a particular FM.

Concratulations from me also! It looks great! Now last I entered the house of Mrs. Hyde where I found an issue at the staircase. First I recognized a strange light spot on the upper floor which shouldn't be there and after that I saw the staircase's texture and that of the whole house's floors have gone - execept the carpet. Just black and this light. 1.jpg with lit torch, 2.jpg without By the way: the characters of the map could have been a bit less tiny...

yes, a very large scale model. It was originally made by Dram, as was the bones of this mission/campaign.

actually i found one that was even cheaper in germany here -> https://www.caseking.de/en/sapphire-pulse-radeon-rx-9060-xt-gaming-oc-graphics-card-16384-mb-gddr6/GCSP-272.html or this one but i was unsure if a 3 fan model would fit your case -> https://www.caseking.de/en/asus-prime-radeon-rx-9060-xt-oc-edition-graphics-card-16-384-mb-gddr6/GCAS-683.html

The chipset is quite ok. The x570 chipset is the same as mine though the cpu is a bit on the low side for it. The fastest cpu for your board is either the 5700x3d or 5900x. The x3d model is arguably the best for gaming but if you do content creation the 5900x would be the best choice. And im quite happy with mine . The board should be capable of driving even the largest gfx cards with a cpu upgrade, but for the one you have an amd 9060 xt 16 gb would surely rock the boat. Or if short on cash some of the new intel cards. The board does support rebar so you should be all set. Hell i run my old 2080 ti in a similar board and its damn close in performance to a 3080 < 10 fps.

could do it with mainboard model / CPU type. Can look up the info from that . mainboard model will tell us if it has PCIE 3 4 or 5. cpu type will give us some answers as to what GPU might fit best (they will probably all work "well not the intel models if the board has no rebar support", but if the cpu is to slow to feed it, then you start loosing fps).

hmm yeah the 9000 series is still quite expensive here in denmark. the most affordable model atm is this one https://www.proshop.dk/Grafikkort/PowerColor-Radeon-RX-9070-XT-Reaper-16GB-GDDR6-RAM-Grafikkort/3331586?utm_source=pricerunner&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pricesite which is 895 US dollars. otherwise they go for close to or above 1000 US dollars so about 350 dollars over MSRP. the 7900 models are even more pricey and go for close to 1500 dollars for the most affordable model.

or get the 16 gb model which seems to do quite ok with pcie 3.0 . tbh if i were to get one i would go for that model anyway.

Might this not be better suited to https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/forum/58-tdm-tech-support/ or failing that make the text collapsable.

I'm 99.5% sure this particular model has been fixed. curious as to why it's showing up again. And I'll take a look at the blue elemental issue

oh it did indeed use it but only for the background, i guess to make the maps seem bigger than they actually were (idtech 4 was mostly geared towards corridor shooters and had some problems with big outdoor maps). yeah also wondered that myself about targa since targa2 had been out quite a while by then, we actually used targa2 in most quake ports. added benefit of the targa2 code was that it did not need the image flip bit and also supported more colormap formats as well as better compression. at the time of quake 4 a 200 gb's game would have gotten a lot of flak, large drives were expensive back then . i think the biggest one i had at the time was 1tb and it cost me around 250 dollars. because i wanted a 10000 rpm model. the 5400 and to some extent 7200 rpm models were allready starting to be on the slow side when loading stuff hehe. from the wiki: Quake 4 was known for its attention to detail and realistic visuals, achieved through a combination of detailed models and textures rather than "solely relying on megatextures" for large-scale terrain representation. so yah it did use it to some degree but only for a few things

@Amadeus@Dragoferdidn't, I/we fixed that black cube (its a missing model) in the latest version..?

@Bikerdude I have version 2.13 10946 and on Windows 7 SP1 64 bit. I ghosted that area and left already, but i was able to noclip back and the problem still happens even with the lowest texture settings and rendering scale. I took screenshot of the console as well. Here's the save file https://filebin.net/2448nd5nc1158kyp Btw, there is a strange black cube found in the basement of the manor, look at the screenshots. Is it supposed to be like that or is it some kind of a missing texture?

It could be from the physically based rendered materials having less details on the texture itself and having more of the detail being born from shaders and model geometry but I see that kind of pastel look beyond 3d rendered things like in music videos and recent movies, and even in some Linux ui custom "rices" it all kind of reminds me of 60s era art, maybe a little saturated than the colors from then, and of course more detail oriented.

I don't understand why TDM would have a texture larger than a gigabyte in the first place. Wasn't it later versions of the iD Tech engine that introduced megatextures? What I was asking about was how much VRAM total does TDM need (wildly variable based on the map).

hmm experimented with upping the limit to 16gb and it does work atleast untill i hit the ceiling with a texture bigger than 12 gb (my 2080 ti only has 11gb). the biggest concern is loading time which quadruples and in some instances even hits 8 times slower loading . is this one of the reasons besides avoiding loading screens that modern engines adopted streaming ?. while pretty annoying with the long loading times it sure as hell is visible in the detail level wow!. so the question would be if it would be feasible with a setting which would allow upping texture memory instead of the static define it uses now ?. theres also the problem with the engine only supporting power of two texture sizes (there is texture loader code that allows using any texture dimension but i wonder what the backside is).