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To cater to both audiences. I mentioned LibreGameWiki as one example. nbohr1more mentioned other uses. Explicitly allowing reuse and spread will help TDM reach a wider audience and would hopefully attract more volunteers. More volunteers which can help improve both TDM versions. There are several benefits for a project of being in the Debian repo. One is that TDM Debian-users can report defects on any package directly to Debian (no need to register on separate forums). Debian may then fix the issue themselves (in their "TDM-libre" package) and will offer the patch upstream to TDM, who can then choose to accept or reject the patch. I envision "TDM-libre" to have the same capability of downloading any mission as regular TDM. The only difference is that "TDM-libre" would come packaged with the regular engine (which is GPL+BSD) and an included mission that has libre media/gamedata. When I play TDM by myself, I want the unlimited-play and can accept commercial restrictions. But if I were to promote it somewhere, or charge for a stream when playing online, or make a video, I would want a version without commercial restrictions (and can temporarily accept limited-play) to make sure I don't violate anyone's copyright. Perhaps. That's what I'm trying to find out.

I agree, which is the reason why I made mission sorting in my patch like this, which is also how missions are sorted elsewhere in the web.

I suggest you use the term "I", to make clear that it is something YOU want, and that you speak for yourself. But, as wesp5 mentioned, I don't really know what this is about, at all. And, I'm also wondering about all the newly registered people lately, who just arrived at this forum, and already want to revolutionize this mod. This is a thing I noticed 2 or 3 years ago, and which hasn't been present in the 15 years I play this mod and frequent these forums now. Really seems like a common thing these days, to not knock on the door, but kick it in, and stomp right in.

When talking about a possible libre version of TDM (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22346-libre-version-of-tdm/) it seems we believe all media/gamedata included in TDM is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA. I am not familiar with how the process of adding new media/gamedata works today; I have seen files uploaded to the bugtracker which developers then commit to SVN, but I don't know if there are other ways. It may be a good idea to implement a process that when new components (media/gamedata included in TDM) are added, the contributor is asked to be explicit about the license (a choice which may defaults to their previous preference, for usability). It won't fix the past, but it may help in the future. This will make it easy for contributors to add future data under a more permissive license if they choose. Libre media can be added and its license can be tracked, rather than assumed to be CC-BY-NC-SA. I suggest looking at how Wikimedia Commons has implemented this: the contributor state the source and license at the time the data is uploaded. This can be done either by providing urls or by saying "It's my work and I choose this licsense". The first step could be to add a way to keep track of each filepath in SVN, author, license, sources. Start by setting the value for each file's license to "(default/legacy CC-BY-NC-SA)". Possible implementations for a user interface for new additions are: * Use our own wiki, which runs Mediawiki (same as Wikimedia Commons). I see several benefits of this, but we also need a way to accept uploads of batches, not just single files. * Look at how other open source projects have solved this. There may be more appropriate solutions available. ... but I'll leave the implementation open. Suggestions are very welcome! If the author of each file already in SVN can be tracked, then it may be possible that the author is willing to give a blanket permission for all their past files in one statement, and all their files in SVN can be updated in one commit. A productive contributor willing to release some of their work under a more permissive license could make a big change. If Dark Radiant would support letting mappers search media/gamedata by license (does it already?), it would make it easier for mappers to create a completely libre mission, which would help facilitate a TDM-libre release. If I understand things correctly. This post does not address all details and it may contain misunderstandings or assumptions, but it's a start. Also relevant: * Is there a compiled and maintained list of recommended or deprecated resources for mappers to use? * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20311-external-art-assets-licensing/

Does that work with reloadXData as well? I didn't test with core files. I tested with fm's subtitles. I tested with a subtitle I made (and is now included in fm) for WS5. At the start of the mission you walk for a bit and you get a monologue of some drunk guy containing multiple (sound+)srt files. Later I tested inline on Braeden Church. Btw. do you think these sound files might be used by other missions? Otherwise I would move them to the fm folder including the subtitles. //Note: These sounds are mostly specific to Saint Lucia mission. //But for some reason, they are located in core, so better define their subtitles here. subtitles tdm_stlucia { verbosity story inline "sound/voices/builders/builder1/conversations/builder1_conv_4.ogg" "It is not for me to question Brother Renald, but it does seem that there is naught but rats and beggars to guard against." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder1/conversations/builder1_conv_3.ogg" "As you say. Though the Lord Builder is known to work in ways most mysterious." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder2/conversations/builder2_conv_3.ogg" "Indeed. It is not our place to question. Our obedience doth honor Him." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder1/conversations/builder1_conv_1.ogg" "How much longer must we guard this accursed place?" inline "sound/voices/builders/builder2/conversations/builder2_conv_1.ogg" "The archbishop doth come two days hence." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder1/conversations/builder1_conv_2.ogg" "I should be ashamed to have His Eminence in such a place as this." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder2/conversations/builder2_conv_2.ogg" "It is hard to imagine a true miracle doth take place here." } Edit: I think it's simply possible to do a search in all fm's to see if these files are used outside of Saint Lucia.

TDM has tons of textures from "free" texture resources that do not allow redistribution and cannot be incorporated into a commercial project. Someone would need to create a huge replacement pack of textures that do not break the look of existing missions and do not infringe on the copyrighted textures. Also, many artists who contributed to this project do not want 3rd party entities to use their work in commercial projects. They intended the models, textures, sounds, animations to be exclusively used for Darkmod content. You would either have to replace ALL assets or contact every contributor and ask them to re-license their assets. Many contributors are no longer active with the project and haven't visited the forums in years so it would be no easy feat. I cannot speak to Debian policy but I think that they treat installers that add non-free content the same as non-free content itself. One could argue that Steam is such an installer but I guess Debian would counter that there are a few fully Libre games on Steam. I think Debian, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint need to consider a repo that allows for games (etc) that include non-libre content but intentionally offer this content for free to the community with no stipulations other than "don't try to sell it as a product".

This post differentiates between "gratis" ("at no monetary cost") and "libre" ("with little or no restriction") per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre * A libre version of TDM could: ** Qualify TDM for an article on the LibreGameWiki *** TDM is currently listed as rejected https://libregamewiki.org/Libregamewiki:Rejected_games_list because "Media is non-commercial (under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0). The engine is free though (modified Doom 3) (2013-10-19)" ** Qualify for software repositories like Debian *** TDM is currently listed as unsuitable https://wiki.debian.org/Games/Unsuitable#The_Dark_Mod because 1) "The gamedata is very large (2.3 GB)", and 2) "The license of the gamedata (otherwise it must go into non-free with the engine into contrib)" and links to https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/LICENSE.txt Questions: 1) tdm_installer.linux64 is 4.2 MB (unzipped), which is far from the 2.3 GB which is said to be too large. Yes, the user can use it to download data that is non-libre, but so can any web browser too. If the installer itself is completely libre, does anyone know the reason why it cannot be accepted into the Debian repository? 2) If adding the installer to the repository is not a viable solution, would it be possible to package the engine with a small and beginner friendly mission built only from libre media/gamedata into a "TDM-libre" release, and add user friendly functionality to download the 2.3 GB media/gamedata using "TDM-libre" (similar to mission downloading)? 3) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for the Debian repository? 4) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for LibreGameWiki? 5) Would the work be worth it? * Pros: Exposure in channels covering libre software (e.g. the LibreGameWiki). Distribution in channels allowing only libre software (e.g. the Debian repository). * Cons: The work required for the modifictions and release of "TDM-libre". Possible maintenance of "TDM-libre". I'm thinking that the wider reach may attract more volunteers to work on TDM, which may eventually make up for this work and hopefully be net positive. 6) Are there any TDM missions that are libre already today? If not, would anyone be willing to work on one to fulfill this? I'll contribute in any way I can. 7) I found the following related topics on the forum: * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16226-graphical-installers-for-tdm/ (installing only the updater) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16640-problems-i-had-with-tdm-installation-on-linux-w-solutions/ (problems with installation on Linux) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/17743-building-tdm-on-debian-8-steamos-tdm-203/ (Building TDM on Debian 8 / SteamOS) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18592-debian-packaging/ (Dark Radiant) ... but if there are other related previous discussions, I'd appreciate any links to them. Any thoughts or comments?

The gamepad implementation allows for a great degree of flexibility to personalize settings, aside from a few minor issues that I mentioned here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22337-gamepad-bindings/ I would say that playing TDM with a gamepad works very well, especially considering that it was implemented as experimental and hasn't been changed since then. If I could, I'd go back to 2021-you and congratulate you on buying that gamepad. I notice that your DarkmodPadbinds.cfg looks very different from mine...

It seems like more and more "thief" and "thief players" is becoming a short hand to dismiss community members earnest desire to improve the game - which happens to be a barely legally distinct "thief style" game which was made by thief fans for thief fans and is "designed to simulate the stealth gameplay of Thief". Who is the predominant player base of the game supposed to be beyond fans of the thief games? Is there some better avenue to find feedback for the game beyond this forum? FOSS and linux forums? I have seen maybe half a dozen posts from that segment. I am a thief fan, I play thief fms, my association with those games is what drives me to play and make things for this game. Are we supposed to pretend the original games are not a huge reason why most of us are here at all? TL;DR version:

There's a bug I've been noticing for a long time, but for some reason it didn't click with me to mention it till someone else just mentioned seeing the same thing and I realized I'm not the only one. The contents of some chests and small containers like drawers will sometimes not become frobable when you open that container: You may need to close the door and open it again, after which you can frob any scrolls / keys / etc inside. Most likely something is happening with target_setfrobable getting triggered at the wrong time. Even when they are frobable, tiny items in small containers will sometimes only highlight from a very specific position and angle: I've had cases where I needed to lean forward and look at a coin just right and it would only highlight when my crosshair was on that one pixel. I'm sorry I didn't think to note down a FM and viewpos where to test it; If you need I'll keep that mind for when I play the next one. This doesn't happen a lot any might be hard to catch, but often enough as to be noticeable... in most recent FM's it seems to occur at least once in some drawer or lockbox.

Thanks! 1) Doing LONG_PRESS PAD_A (what I, for lack of knowledge, call "jump-mantle" or "_jumpmantle") differs from doing PRESS PAD_A ("_jump"). "_jumpmantle" differs from "_mantle", so they must be mapped to different button-calls. "_jumpmantle" differs from "_jump", so they must also be mapped to different button-calls. This appears to be the case, but it is not evident (or changeable) in DarkmodPadbinds.cfg. "_jumpmantle" seems to be hard coded to always connect to the same button as "_jump" but with a long press. It is as if bindPadButton PRESS PAD_A "_jump" is not actually just binding PRESS PAD_A to "_jump", but rather interpreted as "link PAD_A (regardless of button press time) to behave exactly like keyboard SPACE for short and long presses". I would have expected the default DarkmodPadbinds.cfg to explicitly read: bindPadButton PRESS PAD_A "_jump" bindPadButton LONG_PRESS PAD_A "_jumpmantle" bindPadButton PRESS PAD_B "_crouch" bindPadButton LONG_PRESS PAD_B "_mantle" ... but neither LONG_PRESS PAD_A or "_jumpmantle" is listed in the file. If there are actions "_jump" and "_mantle", I suppose there must also be an action "_jumpmantle" since it is possible for the player to do all those movements: * "_mantle" does the movements "crouch on the high surface, then stand up" * "_jumpmantle" idoes the movements "jump slightly forward, then land standing on the high surface" * "_jump" idoes the movements "jump up, then land exactly where you started" If the actions "_jump" and "_moveup" are not synonymous, then perhaps the action "_moveup" is what i call "_jumpmantle"? 2) Thanks for the link! It was useful in more than one way. I'll link to that page from https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Bindings_and_User_Settings#Gamepad_Default_Bindings if I can get an account on the wiki, which proved more difficult than i thought (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22327-how-can-i-create-an-account-on-the-tdm-wiki/). However, it does not answer my question how to find out the name ("<button>") used for a button on my gamepad. Basically, I would need to press the button on my gamepad and some program could tell me "That button is called 'PAD_A'". In my case, I have a gamepad "Logitech F310" (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logitech_F310_Gamepad.jpg) which has a "Logitech button" (see image) that I want to use. I was hoping to find out the "button name" for that button and then edit DarkmodPadbinds.cfg to map it to a function. 3) ... but if that button has an "unusual name" that TDM does not recognize, then it may perhaps not work. E.g. if that button is called "PAD_LOGITECH" and TDM cannot recognize that name, then I cannot map anything to it via DarkmodPadbinds.cfg. Using QJoyPad I can map any keyboard key to it instead, as a workaround, but I cannot map MODIFIER to it (since MODIFIER cannot be set to a keyboard key). If current implementation is still called "experimental", then I must say it works very well; @cabalistic: kudos for that! I may not have continued playing TDM had it not worked with a gamepad.

You can walk through every entity and spawnarg in the set up piece by piece and see if there's a logical problem buried in there. I don't recall how the fade-in works for the initial ambient anymore. It's been too long. But you can experiment to see if it's really borked. But what I came to say is that note there's a Sound Override setting where you can just set up an ambient transition yourself by some trigger if the location transitions aren't working properly for some reason. One thing you might try, if the initial ambient always borks the fade in no matter what you do, is to set a dummy initial sound by immediately triggering the Sound Override as soon as the map starts, like just a quarter second of silence, and then turn the Sound Override off a half second later to have the system immediately transition back into the initial location ambient, and then the fade in should work properly. It's a bit of a hack, but it could fix your problem. You might be able to think of other ways to deal with it along those kinds of lines.

It is possible that this is a setting that needs to be activated to work: https://mantisbt.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23221

Oh my, I completely forgot about this. @OrbWeaver I actually got DR to work fine with png images and obj models. Seems like it supports them fine, as long as the mtr files are correct. Greebo helped me out on discord. Also got it to be compatible with Godot's importer plugins by exporting as Quake 3 format (as long as there's no complex geometry, like patches, etc, it seems to work). The only reason I didn't keep using DR, is because DR doesn't seem to store the game's path properly. When you switch game setup, the path remains the same, so you have to manually set the path every time you switch project. I tried having separate portable DR installations for each project, but it seems DR isn't properly portable either, as the game setups are also stored globally. So that didn't work either.

The below video illustrates some of the points I tried to make earlier. This new (or returning) player is experiencing TDM for a first time and I would say his mood and style perfectly fit the primary target audience of TDM. The player is unaware that shouldering bodies is a thing. See how it plays out. 1st situation - From 00:00 until 03:30 2nd situation - From 27:30 until whenever you want The player quickly figured out how to drag and manipulate (turn around) bodies and I detect no sign of frustration. The circumstances even lead to a couple of comical moments. Sooner or later this player will get to know about shouldering bodies and he will, as it couldn't be otherwise, prioritize shouldering. It all has been learned organically and the player can now switch tactics if desired. Now consider this same player was playing 2.12. I don't see any reason for this or any other player to ever getting to learn or appreciate body manipulation. 2.12 teaches players to move grain sacks out of the way, devoiding any sign of "humanity" from ragdolls. @stgatilov commented ragdoll manipulation is something like an engine show-off. Considering the amount of work that went into the feature I tend to believe the mechanic was seen as an opportunity and built as such. Let's for a moment travel to a parallel universe and pretend the developers decided shouldering bodies alone was the way to go, just like in Thief. How long would have gone by until someone wondered: wouldn't dragging bodies be cool and more realistic? I agree that shouldering bodies could be done with one (long or short) click. The problem I have with the final implementation is that the case was presented one-sided and there was no retrospective or interest in alternatives. We took a shortcut and as a result we missed half of what the journey offered. We didn't think big. Besides that above, players are now exposed to: Unintentionally shouldering bodies while trying to retrieve items from bodies Unintentionally un-shouldering bodies when trying to operate doors @Daft Mugi & friends set out to do this change and I have no problem with that, but I feel this whole topic is unbalanced. Some points have been hardly considered or discussed so excuse that I insist. If anything, this topic will make it for a good read for those coming next in a few years time

I've only tested F11 and KP_SLASH . A lot of keys are already bound to settings. I have to do further testing. Btw. during the screenshot I see it shortly displaying the viewpos, maybe this happens too fast or too slow for some reason.

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that this zip file does indeed contain the missing dat file. I have checked that it is compatible with the existing dds file across printable chars* of the standard ASCII set. I see no reason not to include it with the 2.12 distribution. *except testing method using "inline" subtitles can't do double-quotes. And I didn't try whole set of Latin-1 chars. The bad news is that in doesn't solve any problems with stray pixels or poorly spaced characters, compared to scaling down from Stone 24pt. Artifacts were seen to the left of % C T W Y During test, characters were separated by two spaces, to isolate which char was causing an artifact. Nor did I see any visually discernible improvement or change in the rendering of characters. I was looking for any thickening of the thin parts of strokes, for instance. BTW, both Stone 24pt and now Stone 12 pt have weird stuff for ASCII "<" and ">". Maybe that's a TDM customization? The > replacement includes an artifact to right.

@datiswous I can't think of or find a reason why this would happen. It works when bound to other keys, right? What other keys does it not work with? What if you press KP_SLASH multiple times? Same result? Does "tdm_show_viewpos 2" display ok?

I am going to sort-of reveal that this is loosely like the nature of my upcoming mission. I noted it here when JackFarmer asked about things that are coming along in this post: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/profile/37993-jackfarmer/&status=3943&type=status It too is a builder church. The player is requested by a hopefully famous character in another mission to handle some business that is affecting the congregation. I am looking to invoke some info and history laid down in other missions as a hook story.

I created the page: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Lightgem In the source I placed the following text: <!-- Page text made by forum user Fiver: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22327-how-can-i-create-an-account-on-the-tdm-wiki/&do=findComment&comment=491145 --> Personally I think the page isn't really necessary because the info is already present under HUD.

Looking at the material file wiki page: Frob Highlight Stage isn't needed anymore since 2.11 right? I thought I understood that there might still be a reason to use it sometime. If not, I'll update that wiki page. Edit: The info is actually already there, but in a confusing way.

In the first post of the other topic Geep proposed: Then Stgatilov's answer: But I think applying subtitles in different languages shouldn't be too hard I would think, but I don't know how the current translation system works. The engine should apply the correct subtitles based on the applied language setting, this doesn't need a whole new language system I think. Not sure who's going to write those subtitles though. I can only do Dutch and English and nobody needs Dutch I think. I suggest further discussion of this to take place in topic https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21741-subtitles-possibilities-beyond-211/

Yeah it would be cool to see some more detailed statistics and it’s a shame they aren’t really captured. Since we are talking about fan mission platforms, where players also make the content for the game, I feel like the best thing we’ve got is you can look at the number of content releases for the games. Keep in mind the graph counts campaigns as single missions - so for example NHAT and TBP both count as 1 mission. A good year for TDM has has approaching maybe 50% - mostly we’re 25-30%. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152494 You could also look at the number of ratings thief missions get on https://www.thiefguild.com/ vs TDM ones, but that is pretty iffy in that you could chalk that up to more awareness of the site in the thief community than TDM Out of curiosity is there a reason a thief player can’t be a new player? I kind of think a player is a player and new players would be ones who are playing the dark mod who weren't? Is there disagreement the base of players most likely to pick up the game are fans of the thief games? They are certainly the most fruitful place to find feedback on the game beyond the sphere of this forum that I have seen. When we were trying to finish up SLL there was a lot of discussion on the forums about how long it had been since there was a release for the game. I am thankful that the stats show at least some stability over the years in terms of releases for TDM, but the trend for all of the games is decline. Not doing anything is a valid response if that’s what the devs want to do - it is not possible to provide evidence that any effort will slow that inertia. As a player and content maker I would just prefer trying to find feedback where it is offered from players who were willing to try the game but ultimately could not engage with it and see if there is anything that can be done within reason to ease them into the game. The game has a lot to offer imo. All those players are potential contributors - contributions in turn attract players - it’d be nice to see the cycle go on as long as it can.

Replaced in svn rev 16896. The 20 pixel padding was introduce conservatively before the font was changed. Merely applying the 16:9 vs 4:3 correction allows to reduce it to 15. But also the font is significantly smaller now. I tried to edit text in order to see maximum overflow. It seems that capital W is the widest letter in this font, and I can't get a significant overflow (see image below). So I have reduced padding from 20 to 10. Also I shifted everything to the right, so that now subtitle ring and text field are centered horizontally (instead of the background box being centered). This looks much better with frobhelper activated, because previously frobhelper and location ring center we not at the same X position. Finally, I have increased step between subtitles from 50 to 55 to avoid next subtitle box overlapping with previous subtitle location ring. These tweaks can still be changed, since they don't change anything regarding the text layout. Here is how it looks now (blue background shows the text box): My stance on this is still the same: if large empty boxes look ugly, then we can make several possible background boxes and make engine select the best one that text fits into. This way the decision of which box is OK can be made with the very same code that actually renders this text, instead of some external independent computation. There is no reason why smaller background box should be applied depending on verbosity, except that "it looks all non-story subtitles are small enough now". One exception is enough to break this idea. Alternatively, it is quite possible that we switch from background boxes to black outline around text. Both approaches works rather well, and without background we can forget about tweaking the background box. tdm_subtitles_message.gui

The new version of DR is crashing on startup, and an older version (2.8), the one I'm trying to update, still opens fine. Do you know of any reason why the new version of DR would crash over older versions and a fix that I might try? Also, I set the initial configuration "mission" slot to a possibly bunk folder, and I wonder if that's contributing to the crash. So I wanted to know how to either reset the initial config window, or anyway where the config file is so I can either delete it or edit it directly. Edit: Okay, I found the config file in ...\AppData\Roaming\DarkRadiant. I deleted it, I redid the initial config & left off the mission info, and it did reset. But that didn't stop the crash on start up. So it must be for some other reason. This laptop uses an Intel graphics card (not a specialized one), so that might be related to the crash too. Anyway if you know how I can stop the crash, let me know, otherwise I'll use the older version. This is a convenient little laptop to build on, even without a graphics card.