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Congrats on the release! Remember to check ThiefGuild as well as the DarkFate forums (via Google Translate) for additional feedback.

For proposal #1, I imagine making a mission fitting seamlessly between the two stock missions in TDM would be a tricky endeavor, truth be told. The first mission is a small tavern robbery and the second is a modestly sized church break-in with a very reasonable jump in difficulty—fitting a mission snugly in between these two in terms of difficulty and scale is a high bar to reach. A contest to make a sequel to "Tears of St. Lucia" sounds more reasonable and would probably flow better for someone playing all three for the first time. I'd probably avoid doing something TDS related when a similar contest that allows Dark Mod entries is already ongoing, but proposal #3 sounds fun if we're given enough freedom to wildly reinterpret a Thief 1 mission. I'm somewhat mixed on the slot system as it really comes down to whether or not you want a full campaign with no repeats out of this contest. I personally wouldn't mind playing 2-3 different interpretations of something like the Bonehoard, it's bound to be interesting seeing what elements of a mission FM authors focus on.

As a mere player, I have modified Far Cry 2 and Splinter Cell games. Of course it makes me happy to see folks documenting their methods, because I would not have known where to start without them. I don't have any coding knowledge, but simply follow instructions, and merely experiment a little. As for most of your questions - the more flexibility the better, for sure. Who wouldn't be happy? Always exciting to check in on what new possibilities modders have discovered, even if these features do not interest me, so yeah I have been regularly visiting certain mod pages (including yours). Idk what anyone gets out of flame wars. There was some drama around Far Cry 2 modders some years ago that was such a bummer to see, as the plagiarizing a-hole was the same guy who also actively introduced never-before-seen possibilities. TDM has left me content so far, so I haven't really cared about learning how to mod it, but now that 2.12 introduced a faster mantling which I do not like at all - I'd give it a go if it is not too demanding.

Look pretty useful to me! On a related note, I think we need to resurrect r_showShadows. Biker has been testing maps in both 2.12 and 2.11 and 2.12 always shows higher shadow tris in r_showprimitives even though 2.12 usually runs the missions better.

I took a quick look at the training mission and I didn't notice many changes in the first place. Some new windows on walls that didn't have them, but was something gameplay related changed? I found there are still a lot of unique items missing in the object handling section which I added in my patch for example. The main issue I have with the TDM training mission hasn't been tackled, namely that it isn't a mission at all, just a loose collection of tutorial areas. Which is fine when you want come back and re-train something, but bad if you want new players to have fun discovering TDM! Yes, the two campaign missions try to do the latter, but in other games the training/tutorial is done much better in a linear fashion (e.g. Half-Life and Opposing Force) or is even integrated in a story (Bloodlines and many others). It would probably be a lot of work, but maybe it would be possible to modify the training mission, so it represents a linear sequence in which you learn one basic principle after another while actually playing a mission that is has a story and is fun! If you really think people are going to replay it, maybe shortcuts could be added to the single areas. Right now all areas start from a central room, maybe they could be connected so that there is one way where you enter a door and go around the whole room to exit at the end? (If people agree, that the training mission should be changed, maybe we should open a new thread for this discussion.)

Welcome to the forums Ansome! And congrats on making it to beta phase!

"...to a robber whose soul is in his profession, there is a lure about a very old and feeble man who pays for his few necessities with Spanish gold." Good day, TDM community! I'm Ansome, a long-time forums lurker, and I'm here to recruit beta testers for my first FM: "The Terrible Old Man", based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story of the same name. This is a short (30-45 minute), story-driven FM with plenty of readables and a gloomy atmosphere. Do keep in mind that this is a more linear FM than you may be used to as it was deemed necessary for the purposes of the story's pacing. Regardless, the player does still have a degree of freedom in tackling challenges in the latter half of the FM. If this sounds interesting to you, please head over to the beta testing thread I will be posting shortly. Thank you!

Alberic's Curse v3.11 is now out! It features: 1) A new script event related to the "Curse" 2) EFX Reverb 3) Volumetric Light effects 4) Different detail levels depending on LOD setting 5) A fix for a very old bug that caused stuttering in the basement, along with a long list of standard bug fixes 6) A few more surprises... Check for the mission update in the in-game downloader!

Here is another update to the English Stone font's DAT file used for subtitles and some readables: fontImage_24.dat This supercedes the Jan 30th update. As agreed, now all character spacings - as given by xSkip - are preserved (from this file in TDM 2.11). Exception: the Jan 30th repair of garbage metadata for "<" and ">" remains, including xSkip repair. ASCII Characters (lower 128). The earlier Jan 30th post summaries those ASCII characters that needed metadata changes to avoid adjoining stray marks. (The detail report below updates newer reversions and minor revisions.) ANSI Characters (upper 128). An analysis was also made of the status of the Stone 28 pt font's characters in the upper codepoint range of 128-255. This could be of interest if the subtitle system was some day expanded to include European languages, and continues to use the historic codepage method. The analysis also prompted some additional DAT tweaks now. Broadly, implementation of the upper-range characters (standard or TDM-specific, as defined in the TDM wiki's I18N - Character mapping I18N) is incomplete for Stone 24 pt. The status is: 43% (55 chars) Good as is. 9% (12 chars) Good enough after DAT tweak included in this update. 6% (7 chars) Missing and shown as hollow box. 30% (38 chars) Missing accent/diacritic. 7% (9 chars) Otherwise weird. But often suggestive of glyph work started but not completed. In addition, 7 chars within categories (3-5) were "improved", but are still not good. To really solve categories (3-5) requires DSS bitmap surgery (and corresponding DAT adjustments), which is beyond the scope of planned work. DAT tweaks of ANSI characters (like with ASCII) were careful to avoid changes to xSkip. Tweaks can be further grouped by problem solved.... In category (2): - (4 chars) Char is clipped, with stray mark from adjoining character on other side. - (7 chars) Stray mark, without char clipping. As improvements in categories (3-5): - (3 chars) Stray mark, without char clipping - (4 chars) Out of valid range on top edge A categorized itemization about treatment of specific problems and characters, with further details, is here: Information about methods, including new tools, to conduct this analysis and tweaking will be forthcoming, mostly after the 2.12 release.

The problem does not show up with all related dev builds. However, I cannot test with the last build (16854-10518), which I simply cannot start and get the report EDIT: As per our friend dragofer's suggestion, I made a blank script file in this build and removed the turrets from the WIP for a test. Then I can start the game and the mission and can save/load without problems. Summary: 16842-10488: no problems 16854-10518: cannot test (see above) 16854-10518 (modified scriptfile, no turrets) : no problems beta 1: problem appears

New script for mappers: my flavour of a fog density fading script. To add this to your FM, add the line "thread FogIntensityLoop();" to your map's void main() function (see the example in fogfade.script) and set "fog_fade" "1" on each foglight to enable script control of it. Set "fog_intensity_multiplier" on each info_location entity to change how thick the fog is in that location (practically speaking it's a multiplier for visibility distance). Lastly, "fog_fade_speed" on each foglight determines how quickly it will change its density. The speed scales with the current value of shaderParm3, using shaderParm3 = 1000 as a baseline. So i.e. if shaderParm is currently at 1/10th of 1000, then fade speed will be 1/10th as fast. Differences to Obsttorte's script: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/14394-apples-and-peaches-obsttortes-mapping-and-scripting-thread/&do=findComment&comment=310436 my script uses fog lights you created, rather than creating one for you. Obsttorte's script will delete the foglight if entering a fogfree zone and recreate it later more than one fog light can be controlled (however, no per-fog-light level of control) adding this to the map requires adding a line to your void main() script, rather than adding an info_locations_settings entity with a custom scriptobject spawnarg in my script, mappers set a multiplier of fog visibility distance (shaderParm3), while in Obsttorte's script a "fog_density" spawnarg is used as an alternative to shaderParm3 smaller and less compactly written script fogfade.scriptfogfade.map

Yeah, I don't know what to say. Rev 10383 works fine and 10384 does not. It is always reproducible for me, meaning that every time I try to reproduce it, I can reproduce it. After some more testing, I found that r_multiSamples set at 2 or 4 has the glitch most often at that viewpos. When set to 8 or 16, it is still possible but less likely. Setting r_fboResolution 2 made no difference. If com_maxFPS is set to something lower, such as 30, the glitched frames display for a longer period of time. Yeah, I also wonder if it driver dependent or GPU dependent. I discovered the glitch while using graphics drivers Mesa 22.0.5, so I updated my OS and graphics drivers to Mesa 23.3.2 today as a test, and the problem is still there. It's strange that rev 10384 exposed this problem. My machine specs and settings: Linux, Ubuntu 22.04 AMD Ryzen 9 5900X AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (Mesa 22.0.5 & Mesa 23.3.2 both exhibit the glitch) com_fixedTic 1 com_maxFPS 60 Anti-Aliasing 2x (r_multiSamples 2) The video I shared shows the viewpos. Even at the same viewpos, the glitched frame will pop in and out. I've only seen this glitch happen in this single room in Accountant 1. If I move around the room at that viewpos, I can find other view positions that also expose the glitch. Here's another viewpos for Anti-Aliasing 4x, 8x, and 16x. It requires moving the mouse slightly to get into the exact viewpos to expose the glitch. (1.7 -166.4 0.0) is not precise enough. -1460.29 1425.48 172.25 1.7 -166.4 0.0 Glitched frame (Shows the curtain texture, covering most of the frame. Also, a hint of the red carpet texture?): Good frame (Same viewpos and Anti-Aliasing settings, when the glitched frame disappeared for a moment.): (Before and after rev 10384) I wonder if this might also be related to: (Before and after rev 10384) Also, sometimes on the loading screen with Anti-Aliasing enabled, I get a glitched background, which does not show with Anti-Aliasing disabled. See left side of screenshot: I don't know if the last two examples (distorted first frame on launch & loading screen distorted background) are related, but I thought I'd mention them just in case it helps track down the issue.

I'm rather surprised, for a "first mission", this was so visually appealing that it reminded me one of many Chocobo's classics. I hope your interest in TDM is still big, because I'd love to see more missions from you! By the way, what was Bert's secret?

Wasn't sure what blind and deaf actually mean to the code: I thought they only offset the alert level increase rate, not what AI does afterward. You're right that it's kind of silly I didn't think to check on higher difficulty settings as they didn't come to mind as a possible factor. I'll do that as well and see which of those points it improves: #1 might be offset by that... I think the others aren't difficulty related and just not implemented, I'll actually check before presuming though.

Oh yes: I have both sight and hearing set to Forgiving. I didn't think that would be related: IIRC it only affects the multiplier for how much being seen in light or heard while making noise increases the alert level per event. I should test on a higher alert level too just in case: I tend to be sloppy and impatient thus I used that for years so I wouldn't get caught all the time on more difficult FM's (lots of guards in tight areas with lights you can't turn off). I have noticed an aspect that does work well: If you're making noise by running even in darkness, alert AI will head toward your direction while searching, they won't go around randomly but actually care where the impulse came from. The problem is that this doesn't seem to scale over larger distances: If they briefly see you in broad light at a distance enough to draw weapons, AI won't head toward your general direction but begin searching their own vicinity... and at least on Forgiving the same happens if you shoot a broadhead arrow at a guard's helmet: I still think the guard should actively run toward your location instead, not exactly where you are but they should go to that road or barge into the same building.

TDM is already a niche genre. If we release it to a niche platform, it will be niche²! Since we would have to strip TDM off all its assets, recreate some and build a demo FM around it, it wouldn't be more than a tech-demo, i.e., there is no game, which would be niche³. It's just not worth it! We even did not release on Steam due to licensing issues and on that platform, we actually could have gained a huge player-base. No TDM dev has ever showed interest in doing such a thing and that also goes for most of our community. It's not going to happen unless you do it yourself. Be prepared to put at least 2 years of full-time work into this project.

Here's my first FM. A small and easy mission, inspired by Thief's Den and The Bakery Job, where you must find and steal a cook's recipe book in order to save a friend from going out of business. Download: Mediafire (sk_cooks.pk4) TDM Website's Mission Page The in-game mission downloader Thanks to: The people who helped me get this far, both in the forums and on Discord. The beta testers: MirceaKitsune, Mat99, Baal, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, jaxa, grodenglaive, Acolytesix ( Per the author in the beta testing thread. ) Skaruts has given permission to the TDM Team to add Subtitles or Localization Strings to this mission. (No EFX Reverb.) If anyone from the Community or TDM team wishes to create these we will gladly test them and update the mission database.

With TDM 2.12, after the credits finished, the "Mission Complete" screen did not display. I found that the screen was black and I could hear my footsteps when I tried to move around. I think the reason for the mission not completing successfully was that the "Do not kill or harm allies" objective was never marked as "1 = STATE_COMPLETE" instead it was left as "0 = STATE_INCOMPLETE". Note, I didn't use noclip throughout the mission. Same as: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18054-fan-mission-the-accountant-2-new-in-town-by-goldwell-20160509/&do=findComment&comment=458491

How about using TDM automation framework (and maybe pcem/qemu)? More info see: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19828-automation-features-and-discussion/

Getting a bunch of warnings on map start, I think related to subtitles? It happens when I put the AI entity 'atdm:ai_townsfolk_female' in my map. WARNING:Couldn't load SRT file 'subtitles/lady02//tdm_ai_lady_alertdown_to_idle_heard08.srt' for sound 'sound/voices/lady02/tdm_ai_lady_alertdown_to_idle_heard08.ogg' according to decl 'tdm_ai_lady02' WARNING:Couldn't load SRT file 'subtitles/lady02//tdm_ai_lady_alertdown_to_idle_seen_evidence04.srt' for sound 'sound/voices/lady02/tdm_ai_lady_alertdown_to_idle_seen_evidence04.ogg' according to decl 'tdm_ai_lady02' WARNING:Couldn't load SRT file 'subtitles/lady02//tdm_ai_lady_idle09.srt' for sound 'sound/voices/lady02/tdm_ai_lady_idle09.ogg' according to decl 'tdm_ai_lady02' WARNING:Couldn't load SRT file 'subtitles/lady02//tdm_ai_lady_idle11.srt' for sound 'sound/voices/lady02/tdm_ai_lady_idle11.ogg' according to decl 'tdm_ai_lady02'

OPSEC ? sorry i ususally know most chat terms but newer heard that one . no still on Solus but i do like the BSD kernel in general sadly not alot of ready made desktop system for it. Sound stutter on system shock ? not that i could notice but i did have to do a few tweaks to dead space remake, it ran like a slideshow with the config from lutris. use proton experimental instead of wine ge and insert this in system options Game Execution, key VKD3D_DISABLE_EXTENSIONS value VK_KHR_present_id,VK_KHR_present_wait. this fixes most of the lag. i did notice a lot of warnings from the sound system in the syslog it seems related to jackd. try running this in konsole. sudo eopkg check | grep Broken | awk '{print $4}' | xargs sudo eopkg it --reinstall it fixed most things for me, takes a while to run though. restart after it is finished. still a few warnings after running this but the sound warnings have dissapeared. the remaning warnings are related to KDE and is a known bug in the current version, a fix is underway.

File Update for Improved Subtitle Font As requested a while ago, to address the stray marks and other problems seen with current subtitle font, Stone, I am providing a short-term fix for characters in the printable ASCII range 32-126, using corrected metadata: fontimage_24.dat This is intended to replace tdm_fonts01.pk4\fonts\english\stone\fontimage_24.dat No change is needed in the related .dds files for this. Briefly, problems with stray marks found to the left of a character were due to picking up pixels from an adjoining character in the glyph bitmap dds files. Adjusting the location of the source box and related metrics fixed these. Affected were: % C E T W Y | The | character also got improved spacing, as did J Finally, the entirely screwed data for the angle brackets was corrected. This coming month I hope to work up a wiki page with diagrams to better explain what I learned about the mysteries of the idTech4 font .dat and .dds files. To see what the results look like with corrected fontimage_24.dat in place (as an override), here is my testing FM: testSubtitlesASCII.pk4 A longer-term fix (beyond 2.12 release) would also address ANSI and TDM-specific-mapped charaters in the range 128-255. To look at that, I have a similar experimental tester for ANSI (unripe to release). It shows substantial issues in that range. And then there's also consideration of fontimage_12.dat and fontimage_48.dat. And the russian-character variant.

Related to looking into the stray marks associated with Stone font characters... I've noticed that the nominal 12 pt DDS (which as discussed above only kicks in under 8 pt) has only ASCII glyphs... nothing with code points above 127. Maybe that's why the corresponding 12 pt DAT file was not distributed, as a workaround to force the engine to use 24pt instead, because tels never got around to finishing the low-priority aspects of the project. The 24 pt DDS does have the ANSI glyphs. At a glance, most are fine; a few are a bit ragged. I didn't check compliance and completeness with TDM's character map as given on the wiki. I don't feel ANSI improvement is a 2.12 item. I've got a test FM to show all the characters. At some point, after refinement, I'll post a link.

For an as-yet unknown reason, this commit seems to break XML parsing on Linux: #6439: Use xmlReadFile instead of xmlParseFile which has been deprecated and removed. Privatise Document() constructor accepting an xmlDocPtr. As far as I can see, the commit is entirely correct. xmlParseFile is indeed deprecated, and the new usage of xmlReadFile matches what the libxml2 examples are suggesting. But the result is that although the xmlDoc* returned from the function is not NULL, nothing XML-related works, the entire registry system returns only empty values, and almost all of the tests are broken (because the main radiant core cannot be initialised without any registry values available). Changing back to xmlParseFile makes the problem go away but is an unsatisfactory solution because it specifically reintroduces a deprecated function call. I am not sure whether this is a bug in the specific version of libxml2 on my Ubuntu system, or something incorrect about how we are calling xmlReadFile (i.e. perhaps it requires an encoding or a particular non-default option to correctly process our XML files). Unfortunately like many of the core GNOME C libraries, the documentation is bare-bones and explains almost nothing (like what any of the parsing options actually mean), and I cannot see an obvious way to ask libxml2 to return meaningful errors, or to query exactly what might be wrong with a constructed xmlDoc* object. It makes me wonder if it would be better in the long term to ditch the reliance on libxml2 and instead use one of the light-weight C++ XML parsing libraries like RapidXml or pugixml instead. Not exactly a trivial change but might not be too cumbersome since the existing XML code is wrapped in our own xmlutil classes and not generally used directly by the rest of the codebase.