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This is a case where supporting bug-free model scaling might have been useful: You could create the illusion of more different trees and rocks by randomly giving each a slightly different scale, including in the Z axis to make some plants shorter or taller while they remain as thick. I figure it's not that big of a difference but would help with an added illusion of randomness. Random rotation helps the most and that I believe we have. Both a different spin so you always see the same trees from different sides, as well as slight angling. I think seed brushes randomize at least the Z axis, but I forgot if grass and trees also follow the rotation of the patch surface they spawn on so a diagonal slopes have a chance of spawning a diagonal tree.

It's hard to imagine a more newb question than this, but I don't believe I can't make any progress mapping anything beyond a few rooms if I don't understand this (and reading the wiki doesn't make it clear to me): what's the correct folder structure for a darkmod mission I'm making, and for possible custom assets? I mean, looking at Youtube tutorials, I see almost everyone has the .map inside the main darkmod/maps/whatever.map, and that's what I use, because it works when dmapping, although I think NeonsStyle has the one he shows in his tutorial inside the fms folder, eg.: darkmod/fms/mymission/mymap.map. But if I do that, I can't even dmap. Now, reading the A-Z guide, if I understand it correctly, you use the fms folder to store your custom assets not present in the main darkmod root folder? Is that what the Game/Project Setup is for? That doesn't seem to work for me, though (see below.) In practice, I don't care much about that because I can test the mission just fine and I'm probably going to use default assets anyway, but I model from time to time so I tried using custom models (just a simple cube with a custom texture as a test) and I can't make it work. The cube appears in DR, even in the same scale and dimensions (which susprised me), but it's just nodraw (not "black" as I read in some tutorials.) This is what I did: I found a Blender plug-in to convert models into .ase and I can get that to work, but then the cube shows with no material or texture (inside the game, it simply isn't rendered.) I know I need to change the bitmap line, but I have no idea what to write in there because, quite honestly, I don't understand the folder system or where I need to put things in the first place. I thought I could put my custom .ase file inside the fms/mymission/models folder but then the .ase doesn't load in the Models Viewer in the DR, so I had to save it, like my .map, inside the main TDM folder (e.g., darkmod/models/custom.ase). Then it does show but, well, no texture... (see attachment) By the way, that's in a new, clean TDM and DR install. So, where do I need to put the .dds, .tga, and .ase files then? And how should I change the *bitmap line? I have tried looking inside various pk4 files for TDM models and their .ase files but that didn't help much. (Being a custom model and material, I assume I would also need to write a .def for the cubes properties? But for now, I'd like to at least be able to see the textured cube in the editor.) Here's how the .ase bitmap part looks like when exported and stored inside darkmod/models: Obviously, that won't work at all (in fact, I don't know why that's so long or why it points to the Desktop, that's where I saved the .blend file, not the .dds.) But, anyway, what should I write in there? The tutorials in the wiki seem a bit old and makes references to D3 and a folder structure and textures from that game, so I'm confused. Thank you. I know there are many questions here, but I have read and watched almost every tutorial, and I still don't get it.

I mean, yes, obviously there is an internal forum where decisions are made regarding how to move forward with the game. That's how things work. And not just in our team, everywhere. Or do you see Apple discuss their business plans and new "innovations" in public? That being said, the team values all well though out ideas, feedback and suggestions, but even if everyone agrees that a certain feature would be nice to have, it doesn't automatically mean that it's going to happen, because there has to be a dev willing to do the work. You have to remember that we are all doing this for free on our free time. Every dev picks the task they are interested in the most. And that's precisely the reason why these excruciatingly long beta phases are so annoying: they prevent you from doing the stuff you really want to do. TDM is open-source and you can do with it whatever you like, but for something to be integrated officially into the game, the team has to agree on that. If you want to see a feature happen, implement it yourself and send in the patch, like Daft Mugi does. But be warned: Not everything listed in the bug tracker is a feature that has been fully agreed upon. It is always a safe bet to ask first, before doing the work. If you patch is not integrated into the core mod, you are of course free to offer it as a mod for TDM. Regarding the internal decision making process. It is rarely about personal preference, but more about: Is it in line with the existing vision / look & feel of TDM? Could it break anything? Number 2 especially applies to breaking FMs, which is a no-go because of the enormeous work mappers have put into their FMs.

id Studio did a poor job in defining its categorization of variable nomenclature, so in subsequent documentation and discussions there are divergent views (or just slop). In my series, I had to choose something, and went with what I thought would be clearest for the GUI programmer: Properties, which are either Registers (like true variables) Non-registers (like tags) User Variables (also true variables) I see that your view is more along these lines (which perhaps reflects C++ internals?): Flags (like my non-registers) Properties, which are either Built-in (like my registers) Custom (like user Variables) Also, elsewhere, you refer to "registers" as temporaries. I am willing to consider that there could be temporary registers during expression evaluation, but by my interpretation those would be in addition to named property registers. I'm not sure where to go next with this particular aspect, but at least can state it.

The *DOOM3* shaders are ARB2 ('cause of old GeForce support) carmack plan + arb2 - OpenGL / OpenGL: Advanced Coding - Khronos Forums

TDM has come a long way since its standalone release, and I've been enjoying 2.10 quite a bit on my legacy machine, which finally is no longer prey to slow loading times! Because of all technical achievements in the past 3 or so releases I wonder if perhaps it could be a good time for the team to show some love to some more outwardly aspects of TDM. This is because I still think the TDM default package is a bit too bare-bones to incentivize new players to invest time into it, and there are some simple yet significant changes that I believe that could change that. I will try to make a short list of suggestions in no particular order for your consideration and for community discussion. Finish St. Lucia campaign - I think that one of the most disappointing aspects of the core TDM package is the lack of a full official campaign. I remember Springheel mentioning many aspects for the 3rd final mission were underway but left incomplete, and that these resources could be ceded to any interested FM creator who was interested in finishing the mission. Why not taking the initiative and do a public announcement? A better training mission - The current TDM training mission is a strange sandbox that doesn't blend too well with the rest of the package. I think something similar to Goldwell's Thief training mission remake would be a more suitable and shorter solution to teach the basics of the game while keeping it within the narrative. It could even be included in the St. Lucia campaign as Mission 0. Better, clearer main menu - even with the most recent changes, I still feel the TDM menu needs a redesign. I'm not quite sure what would be the best approach, so the only suggestion I have at the moment is to have the Mission Downloader available straight from the main menu, instead of being somewhat hidden on the corner of the New Mission section. This is mainly because the game focuses heavily on downloadable, content and thus should immediately point new players towards it. Two-mission community FM sample - one easy way to make the TDM package more complete is by adding a sample of two FMs to the main package - one short, and one long - so that new players can enjoy a small curated selection of what the game offers without having to browse the forums for mission descriptions. These missions could be selected by community vote and then tweaked before inclusion in the package, with the consent of their authors of course. A better intro sequence - The old glowing TDM logo video is really starting to show its age. I wonder if it could be replaced with a better hi-res version, or even with a simple logo texture with an after effect applied, discarding the need for an FMV sequence. Let me know what are your thoughts. I would like also ask the TDM team members if anything similar to these suggestions is already in development.

Thanks, I can also recommend gog galaxy. The idea of the custom tags is really nice, I'll have to try this out too!

Keep in mind also that mission size, and complexity have increased dramatically since the beginning. For a lot of veteran mappers, it can take over a year to get a map made and released. The last dozen missions have for the most part been pretty massive, with new textures, sounds, scripts, models etc. We seem to be long past the point of people loading up the tools, and banging out a mission in a few weeks that's very barebones. We still do see some of those, but I noticed in the beta mapper forums and on Discord, that mappers seem to make these maps, but don't release them, and instead use the knowledge gained to make something even better. Could just be bias on my part scrolling through the forums and discord server though.

YOU TAFFERS! Happy new year! Deadeye is a small/tiny assassination mission recommended for TDM newcomers and veterans alike. Briefing: Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JWslTAC3Ai9kkl1VCvJb14ZlVxWMmkUj/view?usp=sharing Enjoy! EDIT: I promised to someone to write something about the design of the map. This is in spoiler tags below. Possibly useful to new mappers or players interested in developer commentary.

And here is the tdm_weapon_blackjack.script for By Any Other Name by @joebarnin updated to 2.11/2.11a standards. Nobody asked for it but here it is anyway. To test it, place the *.pk4 in the mission folder, like this: \fms\byanyothername\zzz_byanyothername_blackjack_script_211.pk4 No issues found on my side. zzz_byanyothername_blackjack_script_211.pk4

Find attached the tdm_weapon_blackjack.script for A House of Locked Secrets updated to 2.11/2.11a standards. To test it, place the *.pk4 in the mission folder, like this: \fms\ahouseoflockedsecrets\zzz_ahouseoflockedsecrets_blackjack_script_211.pk4 I have tested it myself and didn't find any issues. zzz_ahouseoflockedsecrets_blackjack_script_211.pk4

For some reason when I run "testmap stealth", with stealth.map in the .pk4, the console just tells me "loading maps/stealth" rather than "loading fms/bcd/bcd_stealth.pk4/maps/stealth". Maybe just unpack and delete that .pk4 after renaming the extension to .zip, so that you get darkmod/fms/bcd/maps/stealth.map. Maybe also split up the console commands into "dmap stealth", then "map stealth". You don't need to load bcd beforehand.

Alas. I've deleted fms/inplainsight and restarted, and loaded The Hare in the Snare. The (long) intro video plays fine, but after selecting difficulty I get: Looks similar to the original crash.

I thought I would try out the new subtitles feature in the 2.10 beta by developing the subtitle files for "A New Job". I already had the text of the conversations from my own abortive local attempt to add subtitles to TDM a couple of years ago so it wasn't too onerous. The subtitles system seems fairly solid with just a couple of wrinkles (detailed below). If anyone wants to try this out then you will need to add the three attached files as follows. Firstly, create two folders, "subtitles" and "guis", both directly under the "newjob" directory (under the "fms" folder). Copy the mainmenu_briefing.gui file into the "guis" directory and the other two files (briefing.srt and fm_root.subs) into the "subtitles" folder. The mainmenu_briefing.gui file is identical with the one that is included with the FM but includes two extra lines that #include the subtitles gui - without these lines you won't see subtitles in the initial briefing. Adding these lines to an overridden briefing gui probably needs adding to the wiki page. Other wrinkles/comments In the initial conversation between the two guards, the second guard's first (and only) utterance is too long to fit into the space allocated. One could use a .srt file for the relevant sound but this would seem to be overkill if an FM only had one or two sounds that were too long. A way to split up the 'inline' sounds would be a good improvement. If you do a save when a subtitle is being displayed, when you load that save, the subtitle is still displayed but it never goes away. Further subtitles just get written on the top in a mishmash of letters. What's the plan for localisation of subtitles? I tried using the same system as for other texts but it doesn't work, I suspect because the code isn't calling common->Translate when reading in the lines of the files. mainmenu_briefing.gui briefing.srt fm_root.subs

Seems to confirm: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5718 does it happen in the latest dev build: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20824-public-access-to-development-versions/

@Wellingtoncrab In regards to getting discouraged by criticism I was more refering to the reaction of mappers in general. And as stated, I am not for changing it in the core mod (don't mix up my posts with those of others). It has been like this for so long that it doesn't make sense to change it. I, however, consider it important to discuss such things to simple bring it to the mappers attention, as if something is done in a certain way for long enough, people, including myself, tend to stop thinking about it. And yes, the missing balance in tools given, among other aspects, is a general observation. It neither implies that it is like that in every single mission nor does it mean that there has been no thought put into this by the respective mappers. However, putting thought into something doesn't guarantee the best results, so feedback and criticism is vital, as maybe the concepts that went into those thoughts have issues or things have been overseen. I for one just added my opinion in a response to a statement made by Dragofer. The original intent of the thread is not refered to by me. Despite beeing named as mission author I am not. The mission is by Bikerdude, I just helped with scripts and performance. And it has quiet some of the flaws I mentioned here and in other threads, too, like my own mission have (Old Habits and Builder Roads). One other thing both the Elixir and my first Release have in common is bottleneck design, something extremely common among TDM fms. In Old Habits you have to find a specific key to be able to get to the upper levels, and the key is hidden. If you are unable to find the key, something that happened to some players, you end up coming to the forum and making a post starting with the magical words "I am stuck...". Something you read in a lot of mission threads. The Elixir suffers from the same issue. That's one thing I changed when creating the rebuild, providing an alternative way. Other things are no kill objectives (I added it because Thief had them, not for a gameplay reason), and today I would probably not add loot objectives. The light placement allows for players to always have a corridor of shadow to walk through without getting spotted, which is extremely artificial. In regards to the loot amount I am not sure anymore, but iirc it at least differs difficulty dependent. Builder Roads was a bit of an experiment, which automatically leads to flaws. The main thing is that the whole setup doesn't allow for much variety in how you approach the mission. And again there is only one way to fulfill the main objective, requiring the player to solve a puzzle (which sometimes doesn't work ). If he is unable to, he cannot finish the mission. Those missions are old, though, and so are others. I am not as critical to old missions as I am to new ones, because there was a lack in experience back then. But I would have liked to see some sort of evolution in terms of gameplay, which didn't happen (in the sum!). The missions get bigger, they look better and overall production quality increased. But the gameplay didn't. And this is no surprise if almost everytime you write a critic mappers feel offended, even if you stress positive aspects, too, and try to be as objective as possible. This was more so in the past then in the last time, so I guess the mood has changed a bit around here. (Lots of drama going on in the past, so people were probably a bit more thin-skinned). There are two things btw. where I have gotten positive feedback on Old Habits. The loot placement and patroling. The first caused me to pay more attention to it in other fms, noting that there is no (obvious) logic behind it. So I asked. And tell you what: Neither players nor mappers consider loot placement or the values important. At least back then, although I can't say it has changed much. In regards to patroling I was told that it almost appeared as if the patroling was timed (aka thought went into it) and I just thought: "Of course they are, that's a fundamental part of the gameplay. To tight and it becomes unfair, to loose and it becomes boring." But the response and my own observation in other fms tell me that this is something rarely (not never!) taken into consideration. So I don't consider my own work much better in regards to gameplay, from my nowadays standards they are mediocre at best, and my criticism is not only based on how I perceive the missions, but also on the kind of feedback and statements I have read in the forum over the years.

The easiest way is to make a custom particle that has a much shorter lifespan so it stops before passing through the brush (requires trial and error with the duration setting in the particle editor). You can use the console command reloaddecls to quickly reload a particle ingame after a change in the DR particle editor. The other way is more complex to setup and only really needed if you want to make a rainy map. You need a custom version of the particle with specific keywords and settings and then compile your map in a special way that generates 2D textures representing your mission, like for this ship stern section: The textures are colour-coded to represent how high the obstacles are, and automatically sets the lifespan of particles above it to stop just before hitting that obstacle. https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Particle_collisions_and_cutoff

My problem is with this: if you have 2 files of the same name, and 1 is packed and 1 is unpacked, since 2.11 TDM won't start because "File x was loaded twice". It looks to me like an error in the 2.11 code changes to the file loading system. I think there's a misunderstanding. FM/FM and Core/Core overrides are definitely a problem and should post console warnings because (a) you never need multiple copies of the same decl inside core or inside an FM and (b) you don't know which one wins unless you're familiar with the ruleset above. What I think is benign is FMs overriding Core decls or files, either done intentionally or when a custom asset becomes a core asset. This should not generate error messages, and adding new decls to core should not have any effect on FMs.

TTLG? That's Through the Looking Glass Forums. A looking glass fan community. Has been around for a long, long time. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/

https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/tags <- directx 12 wrapper for dxvk https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/tags <- directx to vulkan wrappers D3D 9 to 11 eg. dxvk if you want to try it with horizon zero dawn you need to copy out dxcompiler.dll from Tools\ShaderCompiler\PC\1.0.2595\x64 and bink2w64.dll from Tools\bin and place them next to HorizonZeroDawn.exe. then copy over dxgi.dll from dxvk and d3d12.dll from vkd3d and place them next to it to. now fire up the game and let the shaders recompile -> profit.