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This is a very neat idea! and it should actually be fairly simple to do.... and now you are making me re-think my WIP This was already done once in The Painter's Wife as a small little easter egg, although it is a reference to a location within that FM, and not a different one.

Since you're working on this, have you tried restoring the original functionality, i.e. ability to set up a resolution for these? That might help with performance. Also, when I was working with mirrors, I noticed that they disable normalmaps in the material. See how a cubemap version has those damaged surface details on the mirror surface, while real-time mirror bypasses all that. Last but not least, have you tried making mirrors work on convex or concave surfaces, not just straight flat polygons? That would open up possibilities for very nice material effects (if used with moderation ).

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 Many contributors are no longer active with the project and haven't visited the forums in years so it would be no easy feat.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:

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.

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

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 just added (in-game) a background color to the rectangle of the "Acquired" message for better reference. I think you better let it be Some players might make the light-gem a little smaller or larger and these players have been serviced. Players with tiny or huge HUD elements are on their own (and they know it!)

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.

I don't know if it's mentioned anywhere else on the Wiki, but it's worth mentioning that the first global keywords are for sound: // Use on of the predefined surface types like: // none, metal, stone, flesh, glass, wood stone And this: //surftype15 //description "carpet This is a carpet texture." I think this is sound as well, but I also think 'description' does other stuff, for example for using with vine arrows: stone description "vine_friendly" If someone has a list (or link to code) where all this is defined for TDM so mappers are aware, that would be useful. I would also move the 'special keywords' section up so it's before the obsolete stuff - that old stuff needs to be relegated to the very bottom. I would also change the title of that section from 'No ambient and frob -stages needed' to something like 'Deprecated stages' and say it's just there for historical reference.

No warnings during dmap re: the patch, how do I check if a patch has a "[0..1] non-overlapping texcoords"? Is it correct in interpreting that to mean the texture has been fit to the patch? If so then yes. This is the patch copied from DR if that helps: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <map version="1" format="portable"> <layers> <layer id="0" name="Default" parentId="-1" active="true" hidden="false"/> </layers> <selectionGroups> <selectionGroup id="415" name=""/> <selectionGroup id="416" name=""/> <selectionGroup id="417" name=""/> <selectionGroup id="418" name=""/> <selectionGroup id="420" name=""/> <selectionGroup id="421" name=""/> <selectionGroup id="423" name=""/> <selectionGroup id="424" name=""/> </selectionGroups> <selectionSets/> <properties> <property key="EditTimeInSeconds" value="20837"/> <property key="LastCameraAngle" value="69 332.186 0"/> <property key="LastCameraPosition" value="20.0088 1653.64 531.677"/> <property key="LastShaderClipboardMaterial" value="textures/darkmod/nature/snow/snow_rough01"/> </properties> <entity number="0"> <primitives> <patch number="0" width="3" height="3" fixedSubdivisions="false"> <material name="textures/darkmod/weather/rain2_heavy2024mtr"/> <controlVertices> <controlVertex row="0" column="0" x="-448.000000" y="1712.000000" z="720.000000" u="0" v="0"/> <controlVertex row="1" column="0" x="-448.000000" y="1568.000000" z="720.000000" u="0" v="0.500000"/> <controlVertex row="2" column="0" x="-448.000000" y="1424.000000" z="720.000000" u="0" v="1.000000"/> <controlVertex row="0" column="1" x="-76.000000" y="1712.000000" z="720.000000" u="0.500000" v="0"/> <controlVertex row="1" column="1" x="-76.000000" y="1568.000000" z="720.000000" u="0.500000" v="0.500000"/> <controlVertex row="2" column="1" x="-76.000000" y="1424.000000" z="720.000000" u="0.500000" v="1.000000"/> <controlVertex row="0" column="2" x="296.000000" y="1712.000000" z="720.000000" u="1.000000" v="0"/> <controlVertex row="1" column="2" x="296.000000" y="1568.000000" z="720.000000" u="1.000000" v="0.500000"/> <controlVertex row="2" column="2" x="296.000000" y="1424.000000" z="720.000000" u="1.000000" v="1.000000"/> </controlVertices> <layers> <layer id="0"/> </layers> <selectionGroups/> <selectionSets/> </patch> </primitives> <keyValues> <keyValue key="classname" value="worldspawn"/> <keyValue key="difficulty0Name" value="easy"/> <keyValue key="difficulty1Name" value="medium"/> <keyValue key="difficulty2Name" value="hard"/> <keyValue key="shop_skip" value="1"/> </keyValues> <layers> <layer id="0"/> </layers> <selectionGroups/> <selectionSets/> </entity> </map>

It is confusing. The first example shouldn't have the frob highlight section in it, and a note should be added to the text saying the example is for version 2.11 and greater. The subsequent stages should be under a different heading clearly labelled as being deprecated/obsolete and they are only there for reference.

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.

@Frost_SalamanderIt has been a good minute since i've played with particle collisions with rain, however I decided to revisit it after seeing your post and I can't seem to get it working. @stgatilov could you please confirm if this is the right flow as it doesn't seem to be working in my map: 1) Create a .prt file containing: particle rain2_heavy2024 { { count 100 material textures/particles/drop2 time 0.500 cycles 0.000 bunching 1.000 distribution rect 0.000 0.000 0.000 direction cone "0.000" orientation aimed 0.000 0.040 speed "1000.000" size "0.500" aspect "1.000" randomDistribution 0.000 fadeIn 0.200 fadeOut 0.000 color 0.040 0.040 0.040 1.000 fadeColor 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 offset 0.000 0.000 0.000 gravity 0.000 collisionStatic mapLayout texture 512 512 } } 2) Create a .mtr file containing: textures/darkmod/weather/rain2_heavy2024mtr { deform particle rain2_heavy2024 qer_editorimage textures/editor/rain nonsolid noshadows { //needed to emit particles blend filter map _white } } 3) Create the appropriate patch in game applying the above texture to it (with the texture fit to it and it facing down) 4) dmap missionname.map 5) runparticle missionname.map But ingame the rain just ignores the brushes and falls right through: Even using "particle_collision_static_blocker" "1" on this water entity, had no impact

https://www.waferworld.com/post/why-is-germanium-making-a-comeback-in-the-semiconductor-industry germanium was the material used in the first transistor but was harder to work with, so it got waylaid when silicon was discovered. it does have better charge carrying capabilities and is very stable, with the advanced fabrication technology today it made sense. since it also has 3 times the electron movement speed compared to silicon

aye lots of experiments going on atm, germanium is also making a comeback as a semiconductor material in cpu's mostly hybrid silicon/germanium though.

What do you mean? If you are talking of the second par of brackets then in my experience, materials are done like this. [material name] { [global material options] { //material stage 1 or draw call 1 [local stage1 options] } { //material stage 2 or draw call 2 [local stage2 options] } ... } So those brackets are used to define individual material stages or "layers".

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.

DarkRadiant does not care about engines at all, it only cares about file formats. Whether you can use DR with your Godot-based game will therefore depend on whether your game's assets are arranged in the same way as TDM. More specifically: Your game will need to read map data from the Doom 3 .map format. If it does not, there will be no way to save your map from DarkRadiant in a form that your game can access. Export to OBJ is available but if all you want to do is produce OBJ models then DarkRadiant isn't the right tool for the job (you should use a proper 3D modelling app like Blender/Max/Maya/LightWave etc). Your game assets will need a tree of .def files defining important entities to be placed in your map, including certain "fixed" entity types which are used directly by DarkRadiant itself. There will need to be a light entity defining light volumes, a func_static entity defining a static model, an info_player_start entity to define the starting position, a speaker entity to define sound sources, and probably several others. If these entity types are not defined, then built-in features like "Create light" and "Place player start here" will not work correctly. Your game will need a tree of .mtr files defining material shaders, referring to image paths which will be resolved to either uncompressed .tga files in a textures/ hierarchy, or compressed DDS files in a dds/ hierarchy. If these material shaders are not defined, no materials will appear in DarkRadiant. DR does not make any attempt to load "raw" image file hierarchies which are not referred to by material shaders. Your game will need to define a hierarchy of 3D models in ASE or LWO format. No other formats will show up in the model selector. These models can be stored directly on disk (there is no "model shader" tree required like with materials).

Normally this is done by setting clipcontents, which is a number that represents the sum of all enabled bitflags for clip towards i.e. bodies, moveables, AI vision and opacity. Each combination of bitflags has a unique sum. I dont know - and doubt - there's a separate keyword that alters some of these bitflags. When ai_see 0 is used in a material it means that a light that uses this material will not increase the visibility of objects in its radius towards AIs. I dont think theres any effect when used in a regular material for world or model surfaces.

Oh that makes sense! I didn't thought of that, it was just that "ai_see" keyword throwed me off, because to me implied more "object is or not visible to AI", so I wondered why not put that in the object .def file or mark it in the editor with a spawnarg? But, yes now I see why, you may want to mark some individual surfaces as see through for AI, but still imo the keyword could be made more descriptive, for a material, like "aiSeeThrough" for example.

Normally the aiSee property is set on the light entity, and in this case the property has been set on the light's material. The property sets whether the light makes things more visible to AIs, so its not meaningful to set this property on model materials. If you want to stop AIs from reacting to an object you need to disable its visual stim, and if you want AIs to be able to see through it you need to give it a material that doesn't contain visual clip. Id say we can be grateful someone had the foresight to implement this as a material keyword, too, in cases like this one where you probably can't set spawnargs.