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Wait what.. people actually wanted a sequel to this? Originally I was working on the sequel, but it just didn't work out due to technical limitations. And then I moved on to Shadows of Northdale. There were a few cancelled missions inbetween then and now as well. Right now my efforts are being focussed on getting the Shadows of Northdale campaign completed as well as a couple of collab projects. After that... who knows what the future may hold

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.

The story about volumetric lights and stencil shadows is rather messy. Initially, we did not force lights with volumetrics from stencil to shadows. As the result, with stencil shadows volumetrics simply passed through all obstacles. And several mappers were disappointed by that, saying that volumetrics leaking through stuff has bad consequences for gameplay. Then we changed the behavior: if player uses stencil shadows, then volumetrics are simply disabled. But since it many cases (especially where old-school transparent geometry was used) shadows are not necessary, we added a way for a mapper to mark volumetric light as "using shadows in volumetrics not required". As the result, mapper could make some volumetrics work even with stencil shadows. Of course, this markup is not very popular, but the particular light that you found most likely has it. Then after 2.10 we implemented a force-switch from stencil shadows to shadow maps for the lights with volumetrics. At this moment, the markup is probably not necessary. The cvar "r_volumetricEnable 0" simply removes all kind of volumetrics without second thought. So in this case volumetric light was used, but it worked with stencil shadows because mapper allowed it drop shadows completely.

No, it does not. Caulk, shadowcaulk, or any other opaque material are the same for the sake of area/portal structure. All brushes with such textures are blockers of the same kind. The difference is that caulk is not rendered, is not lit, and does not cast shadows. Shadowcaulk is supposed to cast shadows (while still not being rendered and not lit).

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

It's not that no: I didn't modify the properties of the default entity or its flame, in this case it's the standard atdm:lamp_oil_wall_lit entity... also I have player shadows enabled, the player as well as other architecture elements cast shadows fine. Walls are the building modules, eg: model models/darkmod/architecture/modules/interior_set01_corner.lwo with skin diamond_wallpaper as a test. This is the closest to the setup I still have: The origin of the light is well beyond the face of the module surface for shadow casting. Though this shouldn't even matter since the light is in the other room and the caulk brush should itself mark this. I think I noticed this on other maps too while playing, but only now saw it obviously enough to realize there's likely an issue somewhere. I remember seeing the glow of a light from another room shining on the floor / ceiling when it shouldn't, though I didn't document it at the time.

This is something I'm working on currently. I'm having isues with stencil shadows (beta212-03, maps work correctly in this case). The left edge does not cast a shadow, while the right does. Edit: The problem went away after further work on the map. But I guess I need to look closely for issues like this. They are easy to miss.

Hey, I'm having a problem running TDM 2.07, I can't run newer versions due to Opengl as version 2.08 won't even start. But using version 2.07 that I found on Moddb, I can at least start the game and start some missions. The problem is with shadows and lighting, I can't actually see much of anything as the shadows keep flickering in a weird way. I will upload a screenshot that will hopefully explain the issue better than I can. I tried changing most if not all the settings in-game but I cannot get it to run properly. Any ideas how I can fix this or what version of the game can run on my laptop? I'm running it on a pretty old laptop but I believe it has the necessary "graphic" chipset i.e an Intel HD 3000.

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

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.

What I found is that changing the color of the text by using the escape character [^] is a feature of the Doom 3 engine and not something created for the subs in TDM. What is happening in your "extremely bolted" example is that when using a color other than the default we are also rendering all eight "shadows" in that other color, hence the bold appearance. The above solution doesn't solve a thing and I cannot think of anything other than having the source code deliver a copy of the subtitles stripped from color escape characters. In any case, imagine for a second you are watching a TV series and each episode comes with subs in different colors...

Our friend Skacky ( and his team "Feuillade Industries" ) has released a full sized Thief expansion \ campaign "The Black Parade": https://www.moddb.com/mods/thief-the-black-parade t is finally here! After 7-ish years of development, The Black Parade is finally released. So, what awaits you in this campaign? - 10 huge, open-ended and meticulously crafted missions with varied themes packed with content. - A brand new protagonist thrown into a dark, intricately woven story of crime and conspiracies. - 4 new tools happily supplied by the undermarket, at a price. - Many tweaks to the AI to make the game a bit more challenging but still fair. - A brand new "banter" system where AIs greet each other during their rounds and nightly life. - 28 voiced characters totaling roughly 1,800 new lines of dialogue. - 30 minutes of gorgeous hand-drawn briefings and cutscenes. - Brand new AI motions making the denizens of The City look more alive. - Full English subtitles. In The Black Parade you play the character of Hume, a hardened criminal who was sent into exile as a punishment for his crimes. The year is 833, you are now back in The City, a sprawling metropolis of soot-caked brick, greasy fumes and noisy machinery, with many a sinister conspiracy whispered behind closed doors. Lost and without a penny to your name, you are back to your life of thievery and must find your old associate Dahlquist. Shadows and silence are your allies. Light is your enemy. Stealth and cunning are your tools. And the riches of others are yours for the taking. The Black Parade aims at being a love letter to Thief: The Dark Project, and we hope we succeeded! It is recommended to have played through Thief: The Dark Project and/or Thief 2: The Metal Age at least once beforehand, since these missions are overall tougher than the base game. The Black Parade also comes with a few tweaks to the classic Thief gameplay formula: - Hume is not a Keeper and thus never received Garrett’s training: AIs will now notice you if they bump into you or vice versa, sometimes even in a perfect shadow. Be careful! - Hume can move banners aside instead of having to slash them. - Hume has additional footstep sounds for chains and pipes; these are metal sounds that aren’t as noisy as regular metal (about as noisy as stone/wood). - Water arrows can now be used to expand moss patches. - Servants will re-light extinguished torches on higher difficulty levels. - Servants may clean moss on the floor if they notice it on higher difficulty levels. - Zombies now smash wooden doors open instead of simply opening them. - Electric lanterns carried by guards can be turned off. - A few guards in the campaign are outfitted with heavy armor and helms so they cannot be knocked out using the Blackjack. - Hume can pick up small creature corpses such as spiders or sweels. DOWNLOAD (912 MB) MIRROR 1 MIRROR 2 Here is a very handy guide by nicked on how to set up Thief Gold for Fan Missions. !!!IMPORTANT NOTES!!! The Black Parade requires NewDark 1.26 or above! Make sure you use the latest version of TFix/TFix Lite before playing! The Black Parade should be launched with FMSel, NewDarkLoader or AngelLoader. It is not recommended to launch this campaign with DarkLoader or GarrettLoader. Note that mods such as Thief Gold HD Mod, NecroAge or Enhancement Pack are not compatible with this campaign. Remember that this is a campaign for THIEF GOLD, not Thief 2! Known issues: - Due to the complexity of the missions, there can be cases where some NPCs might get stuck walking against walls. There is unfortunately not much that can be done about this. Happy 25th anniversary to Thief: The Dark Project, and have fun taffers!

Your latest design is OK, but doesn't touch on several aspects that I addressed in my design: ring lower edge no longer crushing the top of 1st line text excess backing field below text 2nd line trimmed, to allow space for (1) backing field behind ring, as I believe requested by snatcher & datiswous I could further discuss this and the narrowing issue, where views differ, but I'm more than OK to "switch from background boxes to outline around text", as you suggest. There is still leaves improvements to ring vertical spacing - a la (1) - and not have the ring interior be transparent (probably just opaque) - similar in spirit to (3). And of course, actually implementing it in the beta. snatcher found 8-fold to be visually best. The minor artifacting with the scaled Stone font (e.g, a wisp to the left of a capital T) will become more prominent with drop shadows. But that could be addressed in a font update to include native Stone 12pt in 2.13

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!

Mandrasola is a small sized map in which aspiring thief Thomas Porter steals some herbal products from a smuggler. The mission was created by me, Sotha and I wish to thank Bikerdude, BrokenArts and Ocn for playtesting and voice acting. Thanks goes naturally to everyone contributing and making TDM possible. This mission occurs chronologically before the Knighton's Manor, making it the first mission in the Thomas Porter series. Events in chronological order are: Mandrasola, The Knighton's Manor, The Beleaguered Fence, The Glenham Tower and The Transaction. The winter came early and suddenly this year. Weeks of strong blizzards and extremely harsh cold weather hit Bridgeport hard. With the seas completely frozen, a rare occurence indeed, most of the City harbor commerce has stopped completely. Vessels are stuck in the ice and no ship can leave or enter the City, resulting in the availability imported goods declining and their prices skyrocketing. One of these imported items is Mandrasola, a rare herbal product, which is imported overseas from the far southern continents. Mandrasola has its uses in alchemical cures and poisons, but mostly this substance is used for its narcotic qualities by commoners and even the nobility. The problem with Mandrasola is that excessive use is extremely addicting and the withdrawal effects are most grievious. Many are utterly incapable of stopping using Mandrasola and are transformed into quivering human ruins if they do no get their daily dose. And now this expensive and rare substance is running out from the whole City. Me and my fence, Lark Butternose, would love to grab this monopoly to ourselves: selling the last few doses in the City would probably be worth a fortune. According to Lark's sources, there remains only one smuggling lord who still has Mandrasola in stock. The problem is that this individual maintains an exclusive clandestine operation and only supplies a few nobles. Despite our best information gathering efforts we couldn't learn who the smuggler is and where he or she operates. Luckily we have an alternate plan. While searching for Mandrasola related information, we learned that a noblewoman called Lady Ludmilla is addicted to the substance and has paid high prices for small amounts of it. We also know that she has visited frequently someone in the Tanner's Ward waterfront, and since she goes to the area personally we believe she is visiting the smuggler. The plan is simple: I must monitor Ludmilla's most likely entryway to the Waterfront and then follow her to the smugglers hideout. I'd better be very careful around Ludmilla. She must not realise I'm following her or she probably won't lead me to her dealer. Hurting her is also out of the question. After she leads me to the smuggler's hideout, I can take my time to break in carefully and steal all the Mandrasola I can find. While I'm there it wouldn't be a bad idea to grab some loose valuables as well. I've now waited in the blistering cold for a few hours already. Looks like there are a few city watch patrols in the area to complicate matters... I think I heard a womans voice beyond the north gate. That must be lady Ludmilla, I haven't seen many ladies in these parts. I'd better get ready.. Links: Use the ingame downloader to get it. WARNING! Someone always fails to use spoiler tags. I do not recommend reading any further until you've played the mission.

I dunno, it seems to me that if you're not going to show the ring widget (because, say, it's the narrator talking, so second parameter SUBTITLE_SPATIALIZED is false), you shouldn't show the tab it sits on either. About the red dot location. I understand what you are saying about perspective earlier, but that might have been more apt when the ring had a thicker lower edge. As it is, I tested by first facing the sound source, then turning 180 degrees. I expect the red dot to be about the same distance from the ring perimeter... that's why I tweaked by 0.5 px Hmm, maybe we should at least try to get subtitle font color among the possible CVars. That is probably the least controversial. I see the choice as either to be fully flexible (triplet for RGB) or, easier for the user, just a boolean (white vs yellow). Either would work for me. You guys? BTW, it is possible to markup particular words in the subtitle with a primary color, for emphasis. @datiswous, you asked about this a while ago. Did you actually apply it to any game FM? The 2 obvious colors for emphasis are red and yellow. A yellow emphasis would be lost if all the text was yellow. Another potential problem: if the fake drop shadows were an option, then the markup would also override the black shadow with color, leading to the emphasized word becoming an unreadable blob. (This could be resolved by the engine providing a second version of the text string, stripped of markup.) Otherwise, maybe a policy for subtitlers: "no markup on subtitles"

Haven't tried 2.12 yet but I want to ask,any work done on ambient occlusion? I have found it to improve the looks of many missions but it didn't work well always. For example when changing your view some of the fixed shadows in the corners vanish. edit: Ok I tried the 2.12 latest version and I liked the leaning more than the previous versions also deactivating the mantle roll feels like an improvement for me. Movement is closer to the first two originals of the series. Also is there a way to keep settings unchanged when installing a new version? Everything resets even if i tick the box to keep the original file up on installation.

I did play a little with the last two betas (stencil shadows) and did not notice any lighting/shadow issues. I did not look that closely, though.

I wonder if you could test 9x versus 4x-diagonals and 4x-non-diagonals? Maybe the extra 5 renders don't add much. There probably is some minor performance effect. I think you're still showing the widget too high, so it seems to be associated with the wrong subtitle. I prefer @stgatilov's original vertical positioning, even though it pushes the widget's lower edge against the top of the caption lettering. I wasn't sure what you where trying to point out as a problem... was it the word wrap? Yeah, the automatic word wrap with centered text can look ugly at times. An FM author can choose to insert a manual line break in that case. I do that routinely all the time for barks. Since padding is part of the background box, sure. It occurs to me now that maybe, to improve the appearance of text centering, the background box should also have equal-size padding on the left. That is, the location and size of the inner box is unchanged, but the outer box is wider and its origin shifted left, so the inner box is centered horizontally within. The padding can certainly be made smaller. I imagine the seed value of 17px was for a worse-case character like "W", that was then rounded up to 20. We could shrink it by: - choosing the seed character as the widest that might actually be at the end of a line followed by space to cause word wrap. Probably "w" or "A". - not rounding up - scaling by the compression aspect ratio I'll try to come up with a new number. No problem here with having the background by default. But recognize there's a compromise between world visibility and text readability. Can't we make it possible to turn the background off for people who hate it so much that they avoid using subtitles because of it? "...visible in all circumstances" may be too high a bar. The simple implementation would be a single CVar that toggles the background on/off and possibly, conversely toggles fake drop shadows off/on.

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/

PLAYERS * Volumetric lights appeared late before the previous beta, so the quality of volumetrics in 2.10 was rather poor, and the dithering pattern was very annoying to look at. The feature received a lot more development, and now adheres to the standards of modern rendering. The dithering pattern is gone, performance should be much better, and now you won't miss volumetrics even if you prefer to play with stencil shadows all the time! (thread) * Thanks to a certain "AI-heavy" mission, the game code has received major optimizations. It is most noticeable in low performance conditions, when game modelling takes a lot of CPU time. Previously the game could easily descend into the "spiral of death" with FPS falling below 5, now it is way harder due to better scheduling of AI thinking. There is a variety of other game code optimizations which make our lives slightly better. * New version includes several optimizations for shadows, mostly stencil shadows. A long-standing inefficiency of stencil shadows with antialiasing is fixed, new tile-based optimization is added for soft stencil shadows (thread), small lights with large meshes work faster due to BVH efforts (thread). On the side of shadow maps, the rules for distributing the resolution budget are changed: small distant lights no longer steal precious bandwidth for themselves. * There are several improvements on gameplay side as well. The core mechanics of blackjacking enemies has received subtle, yet helpful improvements (thread). Now you can grab many close pieces of loot by holding down the frob button, instead of picking up each item individually. There are several improvements to crouching, making it more responsive (thanks to @Daft Mugi). The in-game downloader now supports "sort by release date" ordering. * There were a ton of small bugfixes for issues like: bow stuck after load, wrong strafe-walk sound, crash when saving shortly after the death of an elemental, melee combat crash, issues with leaning onto doors, missing fracture sounds after loading a save, X-ray glitch in the first frame, toggling solidity/visibility, lightgem on game load, etc. MAPPERS * The engine now supports OBJ model format. This format is much more popular than ASE and LWO. The engine loading code is very lightweight: it will use your model exactly is as, and load it very quickly. The OBJ format is preferred for large meshes due for faster loading times. The only possible downside is somewhat larger download size compared to LWO, although not much and not always (thread). * Renderer should deal with large meshes much faster, thanks to BVH optimizations. Recall that idTech4 was made for very low-poly models. When renderer frontend sees a "surface" in a model, it always treats this surface as an atomic piece, doing all computations for all of its vertices and triangles. This is very good for low-poly models, can heavily drag performance down with large meshes, as several recent missions noticed during beta. The BVH data structure breaks every surface into smaller chunks, allowing renderer to quickly cull away whole chunks. This makes a big difference in case of large meshes (e.g. terrain) lit by many small lights (thread). * You no longer have to write frob-highlight stages in materials, since they are added implicitly. The problem with these stages was that were very easy to forget, which resulted in no highlight on frobable items. Also it increased cognitive load and scared mappers away. While writing frobstages is no longer necessary, the old stages work just fine. So mappers can still customize frob-highlighting if they really want to (thread). * It is now legal to override a single decl of core game in your mission. Recall that "decl" means a material, a skin, an entityDef, a particle, etc. Note that overriding a whole file from core game always worked as expected, but overriding a single decl from a file did not work reliably before (despite the common belief that it should). * The major cleaning of shaders resulted in some changes in lighting model. The aim was to make TDM lighting closer to the standard Phong model, and make it more logical in general. The changes should rarely make a big difference, aside from probably stronger specular (thread). * Added error-reporting to the GUI scripting engine. Implementing GUI scripts is very hard, error-prone, and confusing. Aside from surprising differences in Doom 3 GUI behavior compared to e.g. Javascript in DOM, a lot of confusion was caused by total lack of any error handling whatsoever! In the new version, all possible errors should result in easy-to-understand console warnings, so writing correct GUI is much easier. Also, we fixed a few features, and added a few new ones to the GUI engine (thread). * dmap command received minor improvements. Yet another big rewrite happened for T-junctions fixing code, since it took tremendous amount of time on one mission. Also a few precision improvements were made. * Other small fixes and additions: added script functions getAnimRate / setAnimRate for tweaking animations added script function setObjectiveNotification for silent objective change added script function getCurInvItemCount for interaction with inventory added script variable "AI_ENEMY_TACTILE" to the base AI scriptobject, which is true whenever the AI is in tactile range of an enemy added spawnarg absence_alert_increase for loot items as a proper substitute for absence_alert, giving control over how much an AI gets alerted if that piece goes missing added spawnargs allow_idle_anims / allow_random_headturning for customization during a running mission, useful i.e. for cutscenes AIs notice broken fracture entities trigger_multiple now works on stationary AIs almost doubled tracemodel limits, raising the restrictive limits for making collision meshes for moveable items door movers can now call "used_action_script" whenever something like a key, lockpick or other item is used on them, if they have the spawnarg "call_used_action_script" "1". ASSETS * Many new assets from capable creators in our community have been incorporated into the core assets. These include: Loot assets: Detailed coins and ingots with accompanying lore. Link Ancient loot items suitable for museums, collectors and ancient sites, first seen in the Volta series. A tiling treasure hoard texture for those with unimagineable wealth. 6 detailed book skins including 3 that are lootable, a first for TDM. Link Security assets Highly detailed standing and wall safes - with or without an accompanying combination lock. Link The combination "safe lock" is now part of core assets and can be operated by either scrolling or frobbing. Mappers no longer need to track down this asset and include it with their FM files as a custom asset. Wall-mounted locks in the style of those commonly found in the original Thief games. Camgoyle sentry, a magical stone guardian based on the security camera shooting magical projectiles at the player, first seen in Written in Stone. The prefab also includes a power source pedestal. Link Fully useable audiograph for playing recorded sounds, first seen in the Accountant and Shadow of Northdale missions. A new full-featured scriptobject makes them easy to implement and control via spawnargs. Wiki Furniture assets Posh upholstered armchairs and sofas for the wealthiest nobles. Link A new high-detail grandfather clock with a working scriptobject and a mantle clock. Link A gothic-style cabinet. Link Office assets Including bundled stacks of paper, blueprints, a letter, crumpled paper, waste bins, an end table and an ornate table. Nautical assets Full-scale modular ship prefabs with interiors, allowing anyone to assemble a ship for a nautical mission in a matter of seconds. 1 merchant galleon and 2 smaller sailing ships are available. Link Link Link A large galleon ship wreck in 2 pieces for those sailors who have met an unfortunate end. Decorative assets An impressive multi-tiered wall fountain, first seen in the mansion in Noble Affairs. A new pair of marble lion statues. Link A standing stone menir with carved symbols on it, ideal for pagan missions. Link Stone pedestal with purple cloth for presenting valuable items. Textures High-resolution cobblestone textures for detailing the streets of TDM. Link Starry wallpaper. Lamps A set of 6 bronze vintage lamps has been added for particulary posh establishments. Link Thief-style charge post streetlamp. A new open-top carriage, the barouche. Link Miscellaneous other models, including: wall planter, 7 small "foliage" herbs, 2 mine carts, 6 shop signs, equippable feather duster and 5 decor plates * We fixed all loading warnings on all existing assets. This became possible after creating an automatic map generator which forces the engine to load all assets from every group. All the references to missing files are fixed too, which means a variety of assets have become available: Old noblewoman skin, plain mage robes skin, moor helmet, electrical arcs, stone window decals (5178), yellow banner skin (5563), wine barrel (Link), grass particles (5689), lampion lights and more graffiti decals. PROGRAMMING Under the hood, we updated third-party libraries, and moved to Visual Studio 2022. The "Debug With Inlines" configuration was split into "Debug Editable" (with hot-reload support) and "Debug Fast" (fastest debuggable). Marking the final step in transition to tdm_installer, the old tdm_update program is finally removed, with TDM packaging code extracted to standalone program.

Good logical layout of the map for the sequence of objectives. Nice atmosphere, that includes the design of the map and the background music for me. Difficulty, meaning it should be fun to play, and don't overwhelm you with loads of elite guards. Variety. There should be different tasks which make sense in the context. Regarding the last point, I like city hubs in missions, like in Goldwell's Shadows of Northdale part 1, which also add optional side quests. Speaking of Goldwell's missions, I think they're perfect in terms of difficulty as well.

I will take a look this coming week. In my heart of hearts, I'd rather make "background or not" a user choice. The simple version of that wouldn't be too hard: just a CVar settng the backing field visibility. The more sophisticated version, where no-background implies fake-drop-shadows, requires more thought to make it live with the backing field code.