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There's been talk over the years on how we could improve texture quality, often to no avail as it requires new high-resolution replacements that need to be created and will look different and add a strain on system resources. The sharpness post-process filter was supposed to improve that, but even with it you see ugly blurry pixels on any nearby surface. Yet there is a way, a highly efficient technique used by some engines in the 90's notably the first Unreal engine, and as it did wonders then it can still do so today: Detail textures. Base concept: You have a grayscale pattern for various surfaces, such as metal scratches or the waves of polished wood or the stucco of a rough rock, usually only a few highly generic patterns are needed. Each pattern is overlayed on top of corresponding textures several times, every iteration at a smaller... as with model LOD smaller iterations fade with camera distance as to not waste resources, the closer you get the more detail you see. This does wonders in making any texture look much sharper without changing the resolution of the original image, and because the final mixture is unique you don't perceive any repetitiveness! Here's a good resource from UE5 which seems to support them to this day: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/adding-detail-textures-to-unreal-engine-materials Who else agrees this is something we can use and would greatly improve graphical fidelity? No one's ever going to replace every texture with a higher resolution version in vanilla TDM; Without this technique we'll always be stuck with early 2000's graphics, with it we have a magic way of making it look close to AAA games today! Imagine being able to see all those fine scratches on a guard's helmet as light shines on it, the thousands of little holes on a brick, the waves of wood as you lean into a table... all without even losing much performance nor a considerable increase in the size of game data. It's like the best deal one could hope for! The idTech 4 material system should already have what we need, namely the ability to mix any textures at independent sizes; Unlike the old days when only a diffuse texture was used, the pattern would now need to be applied to both albedo / specular / normal maps, to my knowledge there are shader keywords to combine each. Needless to say it would require editing every single material to specify its detail texture with a base scale and rotation: It would be painful but doable with a text injection script... I made a bash script to add cubemap reflections once, if it were worth it I could try adapting it to inject the base notation for details. A few changes will be needed of course: Details must be controlled by a main menu setting activating this system and specifying the level of detail, materials properties can't be controlled by cvars. Ultimately we may need to overlay them in realtime, rather than permanently modifying every material at load time which may have a bigger performance impact; We want each iteration to fade with distance and only appear a certain length from the camera, the effect will cause per-pixel lighting to have to render more detail per light - surface interaction so we'll need to control the pixel density.

Well that doesn't mean that everyone is d'accord with all the gameplay choices he made in these missions, does it? All I can say is that I never got the impression here or elsewhere that there are issues with the weapon behavior in TDM. Maybe apart from the blackjacking, which has been a controversial topic in the past. I can only repeat myself in arguing that the big problem is the uniformity of essential gameplay elements. The game just doesn't feel coherent, if every FM author changes important gameplay dynamics, and it makes it difficult and frustrating, not just for beginners.

Speaking of actions for the missions which only tweak zoom delay. What would you prefer right now? Mission broken on the latest dev build (as it is now), but working as intended in the latest release. Mission working as intended on the latest dev build, but working without customization on the latest release.

I hope you didn't forget the (controversial) discussion about his implementation of a Resident Evil style save room in Hazard Pay. Or the change to the arrows, which one head shot zombies. These changes are anything but commonly accepted and wanted. Rather something he implemented, because he thought it was a good idea. Which is fair enough, but, it unfortunately leads to the lack of uniformity that I was talking about, when every FM author thinks he has to reinvent the wheel. Especially new players can't get used to how the game, weapons and enemies behave, if the behavior is different in every FM.

Do you disagree with the core defaults in general or is this a character-specific setup for your mission? Or is it a test or...? ---------------------------------------------- Sometimes we must take things to the extreme to see the whole picture. Let's pretend all these years mappers have been tweaking the player slightly and depending on the mission: You walk faster or slower. You jump very high or you barely get off the ground. You jump long or fall short. You can mantle high or low. You make more noise or less. The lightgem is more sensitive or less. You inflict or take more damage or less. ... Any thoughts from anyone about this scenario? I wonder how the playerbase would feel. My opinion is that the above tweaks are justified when a different universe is competently established. Or when a new, fully realized character is introduced. Otherwise we are tweaking simply because we can, nothing to do with the story.

As a player, one thing I'm also not too fond of is the lack of uniformity. I think mission authors should take into account that especially players new to the mod want to figure out how the weapons work, and, they will have a hard time doing so, if many missions tweak the weapons. Apart from the "WTF" moment, they will also not know what the default behavior of the weapon is. Also not a fan of some other things some missions introduce, like the different sounds for foot steps etc. Most of them don't improve anything over the default sounds, to be honest. They're rather worse, and irritate me every time I play a mission with custom sounds.

Well, I actually found that initial folder in the HiRes SVN repo. This is different from the TDM assets repo as it has a bunch of source files for textures, fonts, etc, but they aren't really game-ready assets. This is where I found the tga image files for the fonts I thought you were looking for. I haven't uploaded Tels folder yet, but I was thinking of uploading them in the HiRes SVN repo, just for the sake of backing it up

So, I'm in the Undead Hogwarts, and I have everything I need, but there's this... ..in front of it that I can't seem to touch. If there was a written clue somewhere, I have completely missed it. Please assist.

"May his iron mold the current as we were molded. May his instrument expel all obstruction as we are his instruments." - Collected Sermons of Master Plumber Roto Rooter Few would dare cross the Bridgeport Plumber's Guild. Fewer still could glimpse their secrets and live. CC0 POLYHAVEN PLUMBER PACK BETA Includes: Fully modular pipe kit with optimized shadow mesh, two skin variations and near perfect grid snapping at grid level 4 Moveable plunger prop which is fully compatible with the AI weapon system Worry free CC0 license All credit to the great polyhaven.com for the original mid poly meshes - consider supporting them on patreon. I just decimated and then rebaked the assets as well as converted the maps from pbr and made the additional model and material variations.

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, houses, events, incidents and particpants in this forum thread/fm are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Hello everyone, I am saddened that my first post here is to bring you all the news concerning the disappearance of my dear friend, wellingtoncrab, which was last seen on March 10 of this year by heading to the woods of northern California . Unfortunately, without trace or tracks, we have no choice but to cancel research. In addition to finishing 1.25 FMS, wellingtoncrab was known as an partner of many famous people and models, and to have the largest animal crossing house. We will miss them a lot. Of course, an immediate concern was devoted to determining the status of their unpublished FM(s). I must admit that the passage through their hard drive has not turned much, but I was intrigued to find a file called "IRI2.PK4". Unfortunately, my computer cannot load the card (too old, lol ), but I will download it here for posterity as well as the text included in the README: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SdZswFLUh5VwReIq79uFL_ahXyKxg34F/view?usp=sharing ========================================= WellingtonCrab Presents: IRI2: The Totally Unauthorized Sequel to Moving Day: Moving Day 2: Look Who’s Moving Now *For Richard and Linda* “There once was a hole here. Now it is gone.” With enduring gratitude to: Testers: ImaDace Goldfish Kingsalmon Acknowledgments: @Jedi_Wannabe for graciously unauthorizing this sequel to his great mission "Paying the Bills 0: Moving Day." Mr. Squirrels: you know who you are and what you did. The name "Lampfire Hills" originates with the author Purah and now is part of the extended universe of many subsequent Thief missions. Bikerdude and Goldchocobo then brought the name into the setting of The Dark Mod with the FM "The Gatehouse." It then came to me in a dream. @Dragofer for all of his scripting work and support over the years. Polyhaven.com for its many excellent CC0 assets. I recommend supporting them on Patreon if you can spare the change: https://www.patreon.com/polyhaven/ Textures.com "One or more textures bundled with this project have been created with images from Textures.com. These images may not be redistributed by default. Please visit www.textures.com for more information." Google Image Search.

I agree entirely. Unless a mission is aiming to present a completely different gameplay experience (like making a rapid-fire archery-based combat mission instead of a stealth mission), I see no reason why things like bow aiming should vary on a mission-by-mission basis. If the defaults are widely disliked, they should be changed. If they are a matter of taste and there is no agreement on what the value should be, they should be configurable by the player and take effect in all missions. Imagine if every desktop application made its own tweaks to your keyboard layout or mouse acceleration because the author didn't personally approve of the default values. It would be a horrible user experience. Some applications actually do this with fonts, and yes, it's horrible. Potentially useful functionality made inaccessible because the author decided to ignore system font choices and DPI, and impose his hand-picked non-scalable 10pt font which I can barely read.

I created discussion here and mentioned authors (maybe I missed someone though). Unlike the previous thread about main menu GUI overrides, I think the new one does not look aggressive . The main question there is why this was done, and how to adapt to avoid this problem now and in the future. Indeed, all the missions will be fixed by 2.13 even if some authors don't respond. Dev builds regularly break something, although usually it is done unintentionally. I added "known issues" point on the dev build, which happens pretty rarely. I apologize for the negative emotions this change has caused. Sometimes I am too rough in communications. Moreover, I am not a creative kind of person, I'm more a technical type of person. Thus I believe in interface boundaries, so in my mind the blame for breakage is always on the side that violates these boundaries. Anyway, I know I'll have to fix the breakage, probably myself if necessary.

Who I am is of little importance, what matters is the job I am offering. Though the item in question may be simple, I can assure you that the reward is anything but. The task, to those brave enough to follow through, is this: During the peak of Braeden's Harvest Festival, break into Lord Alister Squashbottom's manor and steal that which is most valuable to him: his prize-winning pumpkin. This is the very pumpkin he intends on submitting to the judges of this year's competition, and you are to ensure he has no choice but to resign in failure. It may be dangerous, to which you will be amply compensated, but I have little doubt you will be able to weather all obstacles and keep your eye on the prize to complete this task. For those brave enough to accept the job, start here. Cordially, E. Siltstone Gameplay Notes TDM version 2.12 is required to play this mission. Mines are pickable; simply approach them with lockpicks equipped to frob-disarm. A moss arrow can be shot at glass to make it break more quietly. I recommend playing all three difficulties, as they are very different. This FM may be more hardware intensive than normal. LOD settings can be set below "Normal" to improve performance on low-end machines. Download Version 1.0 - This FM is available here via Google Drive, and will soon be made available via the in-game mission downloader. Promotional Screenshots ThiefGuild Release Page Credits A huge thanks to my beta testers Goldwell, WellingtonCrab, Kingsal, Baal, and Rezar for all of your fantastic feedback Voice Credits - Goldwell! Asset Credits Kingsal Wellingtoncrab Goldwell Sotha Bikerdude Refle3cks Arcturus +++And thank YOU for playing!+++

One of the problems with the old #str_number system, that would not be automatically solved in the new #str_phrase system, is lack of versioning/history. For example, suppose in the FM I provide a new string: #str_Mother! which (by magic TBD, ideally in DR) generates this placeholder in all the .lang files: "#str_Mother!" "Mother!" The translator in the fr.lang file later does this: "#str_Mother!" "Mere!" Still later, the FM author revises the string in DR: "str_Mother!!!" In a naive implementation, this breaks the link to the existing translation(s), which becomes orphan in all the .langs, and creates a new entry: "#str_Mother!!!" "Mother!!!" OK, how could we do better? Case 1 (as above): the FM author knows the change is trivial, and so (at revision time in DR) might ask the translations to be retained but marked for review. So maybe the fr.lang files gets: // WAS UNTIL 2025-01-01: "#str_Mother!" "Mere!" "#str_Mother!!!" "Mere!" // Needs minor review with removal of the orphans (after they become comments and moved to before their replacements) Case 2, where the revision is not trivial: the FM author (at revision time in DR) might ask the translations to be replaced by english but marked for review, e.g.: #str_Mother of Pearl! causes the fr.lang files to have (with orphan removal as case 1): // WAS UNTIL 2025-01-01: "#str_Mother!" "Mere!" "#str_Mother of Pearl!" "Mother of Pearl!" // NEEDS REDO Then the translator could eventually fix it: // WAS UNTIL 2025-01-01: "#str_Mother!" "Mere!" "#str_Mother of Pearl!" "Nacre!" // Done 2025-03-14 by Henri

Well, I disagree. I play this game for the features it offers, not the features some mission author thinks he has to change to his personal favor. And, frankly, some of the more current missions offer too much of that "I think this works better" feature change. For example, the sounds some missions introduce add nothing over the original sounds, but are rather worse in my opinion.

Sixty years ago the famous deLisle family fell into ruin. The last heir of their house believes an ancient heirloom will restore their fortunes. Retrieving it should be worth braving a haunted house for... Get it from the in-game mission downloader.

Megatextures were a horrible idea for obvious reasons, not sure why ID chose to learn that the hard way. The concept from what I remember is the whole map uses a single gigantic texture... instead of how we independently pick a couple of 1024 px brick materials for a few brushes and surfaces, the whole map acts as one model with one material and a single texture which probably needs to be 1 million x 1 million pixels even for a small level. This is ridiculous from a perspective of system resources with 100's of GB's of storage and huge (v)RAM requirements and hours of loading time, as well as raising the skills required for level editing since you now need mappers to also be texture artists and sculpt / paint their levels instead of just placing stuff. The only thinkable benefit is there's no repetition since every pixel on every part of the world is unique, but who notices any similarity with independent texturing if it's done right anyway? Detail textures have yet another advantage there: Since you scale the pattern independently on top of the original texture, you can make every surface appear as if it has unique pixels like megatextures. Hence why I'd advice having the details be very high-res, 4k or 8k even 16k if we can take it: Yes that's enormous, but remember we'd only have a few patterns probably no more than 15 in total, and can store them as grayscale then use a single image to modify both albedo / specular / normal (heightmap to normalmap): Map the detail in world space rather than the brush or model UV map, and the resulting pattern on every surface in the world will always be unique since the original and detail textures will be out of sync.

I just need the download link

Some good news! Tels dug around further in his old computers and found some gold. Namely, a whole fonts directory that includes GIMP .xcf files. Tels says: "The XCF files esp. are what I used to manually draw the new characters (like adding dots to an u to convert it to ü etc.) They contain many layers with different characters, that are layout exactly in the place where they need to be for the patcher script." That is, for english stone 24 pt, one .xcf file contains two independent RGBA bitmap layers, that can be saved separately as two .dds files. A quick glance of that content appears to match the current distributed stone_0_24.dds and stone_1_24.dds. So I won't need to back-convert from DDS to TGA after all. @Amadeus, I think a copy of this should be added to the TDM assets repository. Could you do that? * http://bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/pub/scripts/tdm_font_source.7z

You mean Discord? That's fine, you are more than welcome to use the forum if you want to help test

Again, that's not the point, The point is that the game is all over the place, if every mission feels and plays different. If you want that, hey. But, in my opinion, that's a big mistake.

Since TDM 2.06 is such a different animal to the other 2.x builds (which are also much different to the 1.x builds prior to 1.08), I thought it would be a good idea to see what folks can do when armed with our performance tuning wiki: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Performance_Tweaks How low can you go? Certainly, you can no longer do tricks to make TDM run on DX8 hardware with unless that hardware fudges GL2 support via driver workarounds. If you set image_downsize to 16 can you run this on 64mb GPU's? How old of a CPU supports Multi-Core? I'm not expecting a large number of respondents but those who wish to go into their storage and revive an old ATI X1600 or Geforce FX 5900 to see "can it run" please post here.

Are we switching 10 scripts for 10 defs? What if the core def changes sometime in the future and we then have not 10 but 15 or 20 missions from different authors with this def? What if, in the end, nobody is willing to change/enhance/improve the bow because of the trouble? This is the day people might look back to in the future, which reminds me:

Hello, all. This thread is meant as a follow-up companion piece to my previous thread listing royalty-free music by Kevin MacLeod that could be usable for new missions for The Dark Mod. In this thread, I take a slightly different approach. Instead of focusing on one author and his royalty-free music, I'll be writing an ever-expanding list of songs, compositions tracks and ambients by various musical artists that could come in useful for mission makers working on FMs for TDM. Aside from ambient music for background atmosphere, I'll also be listing some historical music and compositions from the real world's ca 14th-17th century that are in the public domain and could be used as background music in your missions, provided that someone does a royalty-free recording of them (i.e. not released on some payed-for album, but at most a royalty-free album or online collection/archive). Please note that, though I will try to provide you with links to royalty-free versions of historical compositions in particular, I sometimes might not be sure of the status of some of these recreations/recordings and you'll have to snoop around for their royalty-free status on your own. However, if you do confirm that, e.g. some freelance artist recorded a well-known 16th century piece of music, and is giving it away royalty-free, possibly with the only necessity being attribution, then please let me know and I'll include any download links and the details concerning necessary attribution. Thank you ! And now, it's time to begin... ---- Royalty-free ambients As in "free to distribute and use (though possibly with attribution)", not necessarily "free of the TDM universe royalty". Free Music Archive (FMA) From his particular website, I'll only be including tracks that have broad Creative Commons licenses or free licenses, and tracks that are suited to both Non-commercial and Commercial use. In other words, largelly CC BY 4.0 and CC BY 4.0 Deed. It's better to search for ambients and tracks that are more lenient with their licenses. Lee Rosevere - All the Answers - Awkward Silences (B) - Baldachin - Betrayal - Compassion (keys version) - Delayed Reaction - Edge of the Woods (kind of too modern sounding in parts, but maybe you could find a use for it á la some of the old grungy-sounding ambient tunes in Thief) - Expectations - Everywhere (sounds like a calm but moody mansion ambient to me) - Gone - Her Unheard Story - It's A Mystery - Not Alone - Old Regrets - Reflections - Slow Lights - Snakes - Something To Fill The Space - Thoughtful (especially the first half to first two thirds, before the more electronic beat kicks in) - The Long Journey - The Nightmare - The Past - Time to Think - Under Suspicion (maybe the bit between 2:26 and 2:48 would be the best for a tension sting, the rest sounds a bit too modern spy-fi for the TDM setting) - What's in the Barrel ? - You're Enough (A) - Maarten Schellekens - A Bit of Discomfort - Daydream - Deliverance - Free Classical Theme (arguably more like for an SF film with classical music portrayed electronically, but not bad) Salakapakka Sound System - Aiti, joku tuijottaa meita metsasta - Holle - Kadonnut jalkia jattamatta - Privatomrode i Vasteros - Syttymissyy tuntematon 1 - Syttymissyy tuntematon 2 Sawako albums - 098 (ambient for background humming and buzzing, perhaps machinery, electricity, industrial ambience, etc.) - Billy Gomberg Remix - If You're Ther (odd city ambience, between moody music and city background ambience, mild background thumping) - Lisbon ambience (maybe usable as background ambience in some mission set at a more Mediterranean city) - Mizuame (Sawako Sun) (could work as ambience for a larger baths or spa hall, with the sound of water, and human voices occassionally heard in the background) - November 25, 2007 - Snowfall - Spring Thaw - Tim Prebble Remix - UNIVERSFIELD - A Beatiful Sky (this track would actually be good for a church or cathedral interior) - A Calm Soulful Atmosphere For A Documentary Film (calm but somewhat mysterious ambient, reminds me of some of the Dishonored ambients) - A Grim Horror Atmosphere - A Music Box With A Tense Atmosphere - Atmosphere for Documentaries (rather suspensful ambient with an undertone of woodwind instruments) - Background Horror Tension - Beautiful Relaxing Ambient (a calmer ambient that's good for a location with some degree of grandeur or one that provides relief to the player) - Blood-chillingly Creepy Atmospheres - Bloody - Cloaked in Mystery - Corpse Rot - Crime City - Dark Background - Deep Space Exploration (has a nice atmosphere of mystery and exploration) - Drifting in Harmony (calm but suspensful ambient) - Embrace of the Mist - Exoplanet (mysterious ambient, could work for various environments) - Exploring the Cursed Cemetery (short, fifteen second tension sting with piano) - Evening Meditation In The Open Air (could work for a number environments during evening hours) - Fading Memories - Gloomy Atmosphere for Documentaries - Gloomy Reverie - Grim Atmosphere - Horror Atmosphere (Version 2) - Horror Background Atmosphere 6 - Horror Background Atmosphere for Horror and Mystical - Horror Background Atmosphere for Scary Scenes - Horror Background Atmosphere for Suspensful Moments (1) - Horror Background Atmosphere for Suspensful Moments (2) - Horror Dark Atmosphere (Version 1) - Horror Music Box - Intergalactic Ambience (good calm theme of mystery and wonder) - In the Embrace of Darkness - Mars (suspensful ambient for a suspensful location, with a metallic undertone in its melody) - Meditation in Nature (aside from outdoor environments, could work in a number of other environments as well) - Melodies of Fear - Midnight Secrets - Mild Heaven (a calm ambient, maybe could work for night time city streets and city rooftops) - Moment of a Dream (suspensful theme, hopefully not too electronic in undertone) - Mysterious Passerby - Mystery Atmosphere - Mystery Horror - Mystery House - Mystical Dark Atmosphere - Nebula Soundscape (sounds like a good ambient for outdoor or cave environments or maybe even churches and city rooftops) - Ominous Criminal Atmosphere - Sad Emotional Piano for Documentary Films - Scary Dark Cinematic For Suspensful Moments - Scary Horror Atmosphere - Sinister Mystery - Sinister Piano Melodies (short, fifteen second tension sting with piano) - Siren's Call (I feel this one has more limited uses, though maybe it could work for suspense in an industrial environment) - Soothing Serenade (calm, soothing ambient, with a slight hint of mystery, could work for several types of environments) - Soothing Soundscapes (calm, soothing ambient, with a slight hint of mystery, could work for several types of environments) - Spooky Hallway - Suspense Atmosphere Background - Tense Dark Background - Tense Horror Atmosphere - Tense Horror Background Atmosphere - The Box of Nightmares - This Sunset (good for an evening or night time ambient, even includes subtle cricket chirping sounds) - Tropical Escapes (good for an outdoor environment with a waterfall, flowing stream or falling rain) Many of these tracks by UNIVERSFIELD are quite short, about a minute or slightly under a minute, but good as tension-building themes or as suspensful ambients. ---- Historical background music - lute and similar string instruments La Rossignol ("The Nightingale"} - a Renaissance era piece, anonymous composer. This one was written as an instrumental duet for two musicians. So, if you'd use this for a scene of AI characters playing their instruments, you should use two such characters for added believability. Here's what the composition sounds like when played as a duet on: - lute (obviously the most medieval/Renaissance instrumentation) - acoustic guitar (example 1) and acoustic guitar (example 2) - 11-string guitar what it sounds when played as a duet on an 11-string guitar - licensed album version (presumably lute) If you find any royalty-free version in good quality, let me know. Lachrimae ("Tears", sometimes known as "Seven Teares") by John Dowland - another Elizabethan era piece, by a 16th-17th century composer. Various reconstructions: - on lute (example solo performance at the Metropolitan Museum) - on lute, with vocal accompaniment (lutist and female soprano) - on lute, violas, and other (six musician ensemble performance) - on viola da gamba (five musician ensemble performance) Lachrimae Pavan ("Teary Pavane / Pavane of the Tears") by John Dowland - a variation on the previous composition, for the Renaissance pavane style dance. Various reconstructions: - on lute - on acoustic guitar (example 1), (example 2), (example 3) Again, I'd like to find a royalty-free version of these two compositions. Frog Galliard - one more by Dowland, for now. Another composition for a Renaissance dance style, the galliard. Reconstructions: - on lute (solo performance) - on lute, deeper sound (solo performance) - on acoustic guitar (example 1), (example 2), (example 3) Royalty-free version would be appreciated. Greensleeves - by an anonymous 16th century author, quite possibly a folk song of the era. Trust me, you know this one, even if you don't know the name. It's one of the most well-known bits of Renaissance secular and courtly music in the popular imagination. (Trust me, it's been referenced in everything. Even the first Stronghold game from the early 2000s had an in-game character sing a made-up ditty to the tune/melody of this song.) Reconstructions: - on lute (solo performance) - classical guitar (solo performance) - acoustic guitar (solo performance) I bet there's a royalty-free version of this one somewhere. I'll snoop around, and if you find one before I do, let me know. In taberna quando sumus ("When we are at the tavern") - anonymous period song from the 14th century, of Goliard origin. Written and sung entirely in Latin (so if you can explain Latin within the TDM setting or use only an instrumental version, go for it). An unabashed drinking song, you could use this for more rascally Builder priests/monks or for various commoners and lower-ranking noblemen while they're having a good time at the inn. A pretty well-known song even nowadays (though the most famous melody for it might be the more recent arrangement). Reconstructions: - example performance 1 - example performance 2 Again, an entirely royalty-free version of this one could come in handy. Historical background music - by Jon Sayles Jon Sayles is a musician who runs the Free Early and Renaissance Music website. His recordings are in .mp3 format (so you will need a conversion to .ogg) and Sayles has made them all freely available. The instrument he used for his musical reconstructions is the classical guitar. Some examples of Sayles' reconstructions of period music by anonymous or known authors: Saltarello, based on the late-medieval and Renaissance dance tune from Italy Madrigal by Anthony Holborne Al fonsina by Johannes Ghiselin Ich weiss nit by Ludwig Senfl So ys emprentid by John Bedyngham, mid-1400s Riu, riu, chiu, famous 15th century Spanish Christmas carol Fantasia, by Orlando Gibbons, late 16th and early 17th century Die Katzenpfote, German-speaking lands, anonymous author, 15th century A gre d'amors, 14th century, anonymous French author Nightengale (unrelated to La Rossignol), by Thomas Weelkes El Grillo, 15th to early 16th century composition by Josquin des Prez The Witches' Dance, by anonymous, Renaissance English composition Ma fin est mon comencement, by 14th century composer Guillame de Machaut In Nomine, late 15th and early 16th century composition by John Taverner Ricercare ("ricker-caré", nothing to do with rice or care), by Adrian Willaert Fantasia by Thomas Lupo, 16th-17th century English composer The Nite Watch, composed by Anthony Holborne - appropriate for TDM Plenty more where these came from... Historical background music - from the A-M Classical website This website offers plenty of freely available, royalty-free .mp3s of early and classical musical compositions and instrumental songs. The only thing you need to do is provide attribution, as everything on the site is via a Creative Commons license (this is noted on every page). Counting Christmas songs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance alone, I was able to download loads of them already years and years ago. Though they're far from epic recordings, if you're just looking for a competently done free version of these compositions, this is an excellent site. A few examples of medieval music from the A-M Classical site: Angelus ad Virginem (played quietly on organ), Diex soit en cheste maison by Adam de la Halle (organ and other instruments), Greensleeves (this is for a carol version of the lyrics, but the melody is the same as standard Greensleeves) Historical background music - by Vox Vulgaris The Swedish band/ensemble Vox Vulgaris aren't very active nowadays, but they did plenty of early music recording in the early-to-mid 2000s. From what I've read about their song releases, they're okay with others using the songs from their 2003 album and other material they've done. I don't know if their website is still around (there's an archived version) and whether you can still contact the band members, but if you'd like to be extra sure and ask, go ahead. I don't think they've changed their copyleft stance to their own works, but it pays off to be sure. So, here are some of VV's own takes on period music: Cantiga 166 - based on the eponymous song (full title "Cantiga 166 - Como póden per sas culpas (os homés seer contreitos)"), by Spanish composer Alphonso X from the 13th century (yes, king Alphonso X ! They didn't call him Alphonso the Learned for nothing). To provide you with a point of comparison, here, here and here are versions by other artists. (If I remember correctly, this particular VV song was also used by moonbo in his Requiem FM, as part of an inn's muffled background music. I did a real double-take when I played the mission for the first time and recognised it.) Cantiga 213 - based on the eponymous song (full title "Cantiga 213 - Quen sérve Santa María, a Sennor mui verdadeira"), again by Spanish composer, king Alphonso X from the 13th century. To provide you with a point of comparison, here and here are versions by other artists. Saltarello - based on the well-known melody for the Italian late-medieval Renaissance dance, the saltarello (also the saltarello trotto specifically in this case). To provide you a point of comparison, here and here are versions by other artists. La Suite Meurtrière - I can't quite source this one, it might be their own original composition, though "in the style of" some particular period music. Rókatánc (Fox Dance) - this is a really wild bit of period dance and festive music, possibly Hungarian-inspired, given the name. I think this would fit both a tavern environment or some public event for the nobility and patricians, including an armed sparring tournament or similar. Final note from me New suggestions are always welcome as I expand this thread. For any suggestions concerning Kevin MacLeod's royalty-free music, please use the other thread I've already made, purely for listing MacLeod's stuff.