Search the Community

Public release v1.7.6 (with Dark Mod support) is out. Improvements since the final beta 14 are: Fixed a few remaining bugs with zip/pk4 support. Game Versions window now properly displays TDM version. Import window no longer has a vestigial off-screen TDM field (because TDM doesn't need or support importing). Web search option is now disabled if an unknown/unsupported FM is selected. If an FM with an unknown or unsupported game type is selected, the messages in the tab area now no longer refer to Thief 3 ("Mod management is not supported for Thief: Deadly Shadows"). The full changelog can be viewed at the release link. The de facto official AngelLoader thread is here: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149706 Bug reports, feature requests etc. are usually posted there. I'll continue following this thread though. Thanks everyone and enjoy!

@stgatilov, thanks for sharing your thoughts about the original ideas behind the 3 levels, which I had not previously seen put so well. I was surprised that you considered that some of an individual AI's barks might go under "effects" instead of "speech". @snatcher likewise thought that, in effect, an AI's barks should be divided, though draws the dividing line elsewhere. I agree with you about the primary existing TDM audience for subtitles: those players appreciating help with spoken English, specially in dialects. I think partially-impaired-hearing individuals will also benefit. But, given subtitles in TDM and our newly prototyped method of indicating speaker sound source, I think we have an opportunity to enlarge the potential TDM community to include deaf players, or those who like to play games with sound off. This does involve sound categorization and visual cues, beyond just toggling story/speech/effects. Such cues could be universal (seen the same by everyone), or controlled by new options, to accommodate personal interest (or lack thereof). Let me be more specific. Consider the 2-level visual cues that snatcher preferred (while leaving open where to draw the line between the 2, or whether 2 is really too few). Examples of universal+fixed, which for barks could be done by me in the .subs file, are: bracketed vs unbracketed white vs yellow font, done by string markup. (This has significant drawback and limitations). Alternatively, there is categorization performed engine-side and passed to the GUI as one or more variables. The results could be universal, or the passed value(s) could be affected by additional optional settings. Displayed results could be, for instance: white vs yellow font, done by text font color choice Stone vs Carleton font wide vs narrow font wide vs narrow background field two different background tints or opacities colored border around backgrounds, with two different colors (Also, without involving new GUI variables, the engine could add brackets to selected strings) Turning to what additional optional settings might look like, at the basic level, you could just have an option that turns visual cues on or off. So, for example, if the visual cue was font choice, turning the visual cue option to off would cause all subtitles to use the same default font. More specificity is, of course, possible. (Maybe too, stgatilov, you could sneak in a related option to suppress "Just you wait!" audio and only play story clips!) If the barks were to be subdivided by the engine into (in this discussion) 2 categories, it could be done by a new per-line option in the .subs file, e.g, -cue 1. Or the categorization could be done entirely automatically on-the-fly by the engine, at the moment it's looking at the AI's current state & most recent state transition, in order to select a sound shader to play. It would probably use the standardized state-transition names as found in the AI .def files, e.g. "snd_foundDeadMale" rather than AI-specific sound shader names. So there would be a list of "snd_..." to determine when g_cue=1 instead of the default g_cue=0.

Good work! I enjoy short missions because things are nice and focused - you get in, you get out. Also I tend to do better with the loot amounts and I was able to get all the loot without too much trouble, which is rare for me. If I were to make a suggestion though - I found the intro briefing sequence a bit distracting because it was so obvious the narration was pitch-shifted to make a deeper voice. If you felt the original voice wasn't deep enough for your needs, I would either get someone on the forums to record it for you or just leave as is. That's my only real complaint and it's not even about the mission itself, so pretty good first start!

Hey Geep, Sorry, I am not following this topic but perhaps this can help in getting some feedback. In TDM 2.11 we have: Story: Display only story-related subtitles On: Display subtitles for all speech Off: Disable subtitles Can you explain in few words without going technical..? Changes / improvements already in place Short term goals (achievable or not) Long term goals (wishes) Does the current scope have anything to do with hearing impaired? Just asking because it is not clear to me: hearing impaired have very special needs the general audience don't need (nor want).

Beta 11 Fix finished-on state auto-update was unreliable Slighty improve scanner title/author detect Tags are now named some whatever regular-version-looking thing to force GitHub to put the newest at the top

Bookmark everything you have an interest in. The Algorithm can still be useful for finding related content, but it can't be relied upon. As for the adblocking, I have different setups that are all still effective at blocking ads, and I spent no effort tweaking these. I usually don't use a user account. Maybe YouTube hasn't rolled everything out yet, IDK. YouTube does have alternate sources of revenue, such as taking a 30% cut of superchats, and 50% cut on channel memberships. For the ads it does run, mobile users block ads less often than desktop users and are probably considered more valuable by advertisers from the information that can be extracted about viewership. I don't think YouTube is particularly unprofitable, and Google is probably willing to run it at cost just to have a cultural behemoth in its pocket. Theoretically, the costs of running a video platform can go down if storage, computing, networking, and codec advancements counteract growth. Google also has advantages over upstart competitors, such as the ability to design its own transcoding chips.

Front ends- still work (Piped, Invidious..), also FreeTube, SMPlayer also permits to view videos in streaming from YT and others, the Feed Reader of the Vivaldi browser also permits view YT videos embedded, Andisearch can reproduce YT sandboxed in the search results, all this still without ads. Only real alternative to YT don't exist, maybe the nearest is Odysee with way better privacy and ethical business model, not related to Google.

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.

Anyway, Linux is backburner until I get TDM support release-ready and an AL public release is out. AL on Linux would be awkwardly in between worlds, supporting 4 games that must run on Wine, and one game that's native. That sounds like a headache any way you look at it. I know some people have been able to run AL on Wine, but from screenshots I've seen it doesn't even look right, some of the GDI drawn stuff looks janky without the high quality scaled filter it's supposed to have, and dark mode doesn't fully work either afaik, etc. So I don't think AL on Wine is that great a solution in the first place, even if it could interface with native TDM. Now, AL as it stands is stuck on Windows - and WinForms at that - because of the need for the RichTextBox (WinForms has the only acceptably performing one). Making a native Linux version would need a cross-platform UI, so Avalonia or something else as long as it does theming and a virtualizable datagrid I guess. And then I would have to remove rtf support for that version, and then interface with Wine for Thief but native for TDM. Like I said, sounds like a huge headache. However, a separate Linux app that only supports TDM but otherwise has all of AL's functionality would be MUCH simpler to make. AL's code is already modern-.NET-ready except for the UI, so I would "just" have to learn Avalonia or whatever, and then simply copy AL's code wholesale and rip out anything not TDM-related (which is a large portion of it). That would lessen the "one-stop shop" factor, but would still be way more feature-rich than the in-game mission manager. But that's for the future if I feel like taking it on. For now, I'm just going to get TDM working at a public release level for AngelLoader and offer my sincere apologies to Linux users.

Possibly related? https://wiki.winehq.org/Winelib_User's_Guide

This is certainly a different issue. It renders bright lines along scissor rectangle of some visportal area (happens near visportals). It might be the same as 4660, but much more likely to appear after the optimizations. UPDATE: No, they are not related. I'll soon commit a fix for this scissor issue, and those two issues from 4660 still happen. In fact this problem is clearly distinguished by the fact that bright lines are always horizontal or vertical (go along light scissor rectangle), and they move as player moves even if light + shadow casters are still. UPDATE: Hopefully fixed in svn rev 10463.

It is possible to add: Entity spawnarg --- means that this entity should casts shadow even if it's beyond walls according to area/portals. Worldspawn spawnarg --- same meaning as p.1, but applies to all entities in the map. This is OK if the mission is rather up-to-date. The older missions (like before 2.08 maybe) were compiled with older dmap. While I tried to add some compatibility cvar for dmap, it is still likely that fresh dmap will behave differently. You'll have to test the whole map thoroughly, and probably fix dmap-related issues everywhere. On the other hand, adding spawnarg is risk-free, since it does not require fresh dmap. Yes, the major part of the problem is that these caulky walls don't manifest any issues until you carry a light source into specific position. The original game would be buggy only if simple static light is in that position, which is much easier to test. Maybe filter away entities in DarkRadiant and look for visible caulk. I think mappers put caulk on surely-invisible part as an optimization, since otherwise this brush surface would actually be rendered (although only to depth buffer, which is cheap). But some of these surfaces should cast shadow, so it is no clear which can be replaced with caulk and which not. My suggestion is: Create a dedicated thread regarding light/shadow issues. Move the messages from this thread into it too. Analyze cases one by one. It can easily happen that some issues are caused by other things. Decide what to do when we have enough info.

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.

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

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.

Thanks everyone for the kind words and feedback! Version 1.1 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IiHuD293mIb-kQL_t5dJzKnsnkXl4IN_/view This version has better performance, thanks to b1k3rdude (@Bikerdude - it's not tagging for some reason?) who redid the visportaling in the outdoors area (as well as monster clipping the outdoors, and some decoration on the flat rooftop) - can't thank you enough! This has major impact on the outdoors FPS. I also replaced most of the faux-skybox models with their lowest LODs. Other fixes: Unfortunately still unsure about freezes related to the bridge moving...

There's a group of players who have meticulously tested and adjusted ghosting rules for The Dark Mod. Please see: Official Ghosting Rules: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148523 Ghost Rules Discussion: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148487 Why alienate an established group of dedicated players?

Checked this out - good chance to replay the mission which I hadn't in some time (good one!). There is an optional objective involving moving a body (the optional aspect might be difficulty related?). The body has the shoulderable spawnarg set to 0 because yes while the area is large enough to still shoulder body - it's small enough if it were shoulderable it can softlock you because there is not room to drop the body. Dragging the body with the patched version seemed totally doable, but yeah in the patched version players would not be able to complete this optional objective unless the have learned to drag the body. This is definitely a nice addition! If the simplified interactions don't make it to core my only suggestion would be to make the gui text a little more specific to press "Use Inv Item" instead of just "Use" to shoulder the body.

Why not? It's a regression that introduced an annoying stuttering. It seems to be graphics rendering related. The stuttering can be made worse or better by adjusting "com_maxFPS". I don't see how that issue is related to this rendering performance issue.

Not directly related to the particular mission, but the existence of large outdoor areas made me realise that my constant inability to hit moving targets with projectiles (when shooting along specific directions) was not due to bad aim but to a 2.11 bug: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6292

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.

I dom't use it, i found it here with the filter set to OpenSource. the TOS and PP isn't excluding for an OpenSource app, if they use ads mean that they also need to pay an server for this online service. OpenSource is not synonymous with free either, perhaps after the beta phase it is no longer free, so perhaps you can take advantage of the fact that it is still free to create a series of textures that can be used or search another one in Futuretools. AI generated textures and assets, by definition, don't have any copyright, so you can use them as you want. https://www.futuretools.io/?pricing-model=free|open-source&tags-n5zn=gaming

That's right. The key entity type was used because all other related entity classes do not work when they should interact with world objects as in the above mentioned example in HHTA. For reasons unknown that only works with the key entity class.