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Hello, my name is Wolfmond, I am 41 years old and I come from Northern Germany. I am your new member. In my youth I played Thief: The Dark Project with great enthusiasm. Recently I discovered and started playing The Dark Mod and I am very happy that there is still an active community around this beautiful game. I am especially interested in level design and creating my own campaigns. In my spare time I like to walk around, record sounds (field recording), make dark ambient and experimental music, and code. My dark ambient music is available for free at https://wolfmond.bandcamp.com I'm currently working through the Youtube Tutorial from @Springheel and I'm really enjoying learning level design. I look forward to getting in touch with you and contributing my skills to the community. Best regards, Wolfmond ___________________________________ Hallo Ich heiße Wolfmond, bin 41 Jahre alt und komme aus Norddeutschland. Ich bin euer Neuzugang. In meiner Jugend habe ich mit großer Begeisterung Thief: The Dark Project gespielt. Vor kurzem habe ich The Dark Mod entdeckt und begonnen zu spielen und bin beigestert, dass es immer noch eine aktive Community um dieses schöne Spiel gibt. Mich interessiert vor allem das Leveldesign und die Erstellung eigener Kampagnen. In meiner Freizeit gehe ich gerne durch die Gegend, nehme Geräusche auf (Field Recording), mache Dark Ambient und und Experimentelle Musik, und programmiere gerne. Meine Dark Ambient Musik gibt es kostenlos auf https://wolfmond.bandcamp.com Aktuell arbeite ich das Tutorial von @Springheel durch und habe große Freude daran, Leveldesign zu lernen. Ich freue mich darauf, mit euch in Kontakt zu sein und meine Fähigkeiten in die Community mit einfließen zu lassen. Viele Grüße, Wolfmond- 7 replies
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2025-04-20I'd like to track my level design progress a bit more often now, so I'm using the feed in my profile here.
I've been working intensively on Springheel's YouTube course over the past few days. I'm currently up to lesson 8. There is so much information that needs to be processed and practiced.
I have started to create my own house. As I don't have the imagination to create a good floor plan, I grabbed a floor plan generator from Watabou and experimented with it. I chose a floor plan that I will modify slightly, but at least I now have an initial idea.
I used two guards as a measuring tape: The rooms are two guards high. It turned out that I can simply double the number of boxes in DarkRadiant in grid size 8 that are drawn in the floor plan.
I practiced the simplest things on the floor plan first. Drawing walls, cutting walls, inserting doors, cutting out frames, creating VisPortals, furnishing rooms.
I have had my first success in creating a book. Creating a book was easier than I thought. I have a few ideas with books. The level I'm creating will be more or less a chill level, just for me, where I'll try out a few things. I don't have an idea for my own mission yet. I want to start small first.
For the cellar, I wanted to have a second entrance, which should be on the outside. I'm fascinated by these basement doors from the USA, I think they're called Bilco basement doors. They are very unusual in Germany, but this type of access is sometimes used for deliveries to restaurants etc., where barrels can be rolled or lifted into the cellar.
I used two Hatch Doors, but they got completely disoriented after turning. I have since got them reasonably tamed. It's not perfect, but it's acceptable.
In the cellar today I experimented with a trap door that leads to a shaft system. The rooms aren't practically finished yet, but I want to continue working on the floor plan for now. I'll be starting on the upper floor very soon.
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2025-04-20
Ich möchte nun mal öfters ein bisschen meinen Werdegang beim Leveldesign tracken, dazu nutze ich hier den Feed in meinem Profil.Ich habe mich in den vergangenen Tagen intensiv mit dem Youtube-Kurs von Springheel beschäftigt. Aktuell bin ich bis zu Lektion 8 gekommen. Das sind so viele Informationen, die erstmal verarbeitet werden wollen und trainiert werden wollen.
Ich habe mich daran gemacht, ein eigenes Haus zu erstellen. Da mir die Fantasie fehlt, einen guten Raumplan zu erstellen, habe ich mir einen Grundrissgenerator von Watabou geschnappt und damit experimentiert. Ich habe mich für einen Grundriss entschieden, den ich noch leicht abwandeln werde, aber zumindest habe ich nun eine erste Idee.
Als Maßband habe ich zwei Wächter genommen: Die Räume sind zwei Wächter hoch. Es hat sich herausgestellt, dass ich in DarkRadiant in Gittergröße 8 einfach die doppelte Anzahl an Kästchen übernehmen kann, die im Grundriss eingezeichnet sind.
Ich habe bei dem Grundriss erstmal die einfachsten Sachen geübt. Wände ziehen, Wände zerschneiden, Türen einsetzen, Zargen herausschneiden, VisPortals erstellen, Räume einrichten.
Ich habe erste Erfolge mit einem Buch gehabt. Das Erstellen eines Buchs ging leichter als gedacht. Ich habe ein paar Ideen mit Bücher. Das Level, das ich gerade erstelle, wird mehr oder weniger ein Chill-Level, einfach nur für mich, bei dem ich ein paar Sachen ausprobieren werde. Ich habe noch keine Idee für eine eigene Mission. Ich möchte erst einmal klein anfangen.
Beim Keller wollte ich gerne einen zweiten Zugang haben, der sich außen befinden soll. Mich faszinieren diese Kellertüren aus den USA, Bilco basement doors heißen die, glaube ich. Diese sind in Deutschland sehr unüblich, diese Art von Zugängen gibt es aber manchmal zur Anlieferung bei Restaurants etc., wo Fässer dann in den Keller gerollt oder gehoben werden können.Ich habe zwei Hatch Doors verwendet, die allerdings nach dem Drehen vollkommen aus dem Ruder liefen. Inzwischen habe ich sie einigermaßen gebändigt bekommen. Es ist nicht perfekt, aber annehmbar.
Im Keller habe ich heute mit einer Falltür experimentiert, die zu einem Schachtsystem führt. Die Räume sind noch quasi nicht eingerichtet, aber ich möchte erstmal am Grundriss weiterarbeiten. In Kürze fange ich das Obergeschoss an.
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Nice to see you launch into mapping! Regarding hatch doors, the problem exists if the doors consists of brushes since they're still part of worldspawn and therefore cant have their own local axis, so theyll always rotate around the global xyz axis. The solution is to either export each door as an .lwo or .ase model while they're horizontal or vertical (should be under File in DarkRadiant - you'll also need your FM to be in a project folder so you can add custom models), or - the easier method - bind the doors to model-based handles. The latter will cause the doors to use the handles' local axis.
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@Dragofer Heya, thanks so much for your tips
these are really helpful. Next time when I rotate doors diagonally I'm going to use the translate tool instead of the [R] Rotate Sphere 
My level is still looking very plain; nothing comparable with what I've seen in other Missions. But hey, it's like an art class: some of you design since 15 years or more; I've just begun
I should lower my expectations and keep on learning 
At the moment I'm super addicted to DarkRadiant
these are the days of much sitting and less sleeping 
I need to find a new balance 
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Websites prove their identity via certificates, which are valid for a set time period. The certificate for forums.thedarkmod.com expired on 10/18/2024. Error code: SEC_ERROR_EXPIRED_CERTIFICATE
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Quick FAQ: What is this thread for ? It is for discussing the narrative elements of a fan mission you're working on, and how they tie into the gameplay and technical aspects of the mission. If you're stuck with developing the plot for your FM, or are unsure of how to continue, or have the feeling your writing is not up to snuff, you can always seek advice in this thread. Why did you start this in the Editor's Guild ? Truth be told, I was seriously considering starting this thread in the I Want to Help subforum, but then I noticed (and realised) that most of the FM development threads are in the Editor's Guild anyway. So, I decided to rather start this discussion over here, in order to avoid making it "orphaned". But I have a really minor storytelling question... Is it still okay to ask about it here ? Of course it is ! This is practically the only "official" thread on narrative design we have now, so feel free to ask about anything that's primarily related to the storytelling or characters of your FM, and so on... Do we already have any useful resources on narrative and storytelling design ? Oh, certainly. The Story and Plot Design article on our wiki, contributed by demagogue. You should definitely give it a read. Any other threads or articles you might recommend ? Sotha's Mission Design Tips article is also just as helpful as demagogue's (and quite entertaining in places). There's also the Inspiration Thread, providing mostly visual inspiration for FM building, and the Historical resources article, providing links and bibliography for topics related to period living and social history that could influence an FM's design and events. If you find any more in that vein, feel free to recommend them here, and I'll add them to an impromptu list. ---- Ladies and gentlemen, the thread is your's. ---- (Last updated: 18 April 2018) -
Is there something wrong with the forums lately, or is it my browser? I've been having trouble formatting posts, and just now I couldn't format anything at all.
I'm using Vivaldi.
Usually I have to: select text, click bold, nothing happens, select again, click bold, then it works.
Same for other stuff, like creating spoilers, bullet points, links. Nothing works the first time.
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I have no problem. I use Firefox. @Zerg Rush also uses Vivaldi. Have you tried without extensions, or in another browser?
(btw. bold, italic and underline have shortcut keys: Ctrl B, Ctrl I and Ctrl U, you could try that)
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Since Aluminum directed me here ( https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/9082-newbie-darkradiant-questions/page/437/#comment-475263 ) can we have unlimited renderer effects? Well, maybe not unlimited, by maybe 3-5? Thanks.
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Since I wasn't the one mainly asking, I'll just cite you in the original thread instead.
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There already is a kind of sorting, sort nearest, sort decal, sort <n>. For things like windows and such, sort nearest should probably have the desirable affect, though looking through multiple translucent shaders might kill performance.
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Is having multiple render effects really killing performance that badly? I don't understand. You're saying that if I have two transparent objects side-by-side, then they'll just count as two render effects, but when combined, they somehow become something much more difficult to render?
Never-the-less, unless we're talking some kind of infinite portal problem, why not let the mapper choose how much he wants to kill performance? Just warn him against putting too many effects close together.
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I never figured out how to multi quote here, so I numbered your answers and will refer to them below: 1) Adding the female player assets to the core mod will be a lot of work then that could only be done by core members. 2) I don't believe that. Who is throwing food instead of junk? With your permission I would like to add this to my patch. 3) The latter is out of the question, do you think Obsttorte could fix the script to handle the issues? Should I ask him :)? 4) I basically agree with you, would this be easy to add to the core game or at least my patch? To make it consistent... 5) But why should there be a water arrow tip in some bathroom? At least some shafts should be added as suggested. 6) So how did you and Obsttorte like the new Thief 4? Because the animation and the sound are obviously similar ;)!
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Maybe you don't know but the last iterations of Windows 10 on multi-GPU systems automatically choose the "best" GPU for the rendering (in D3D11 and lastest OpenGL applications) enabling the possibility of an Optimus-like configuration on desktop systems too: the active AND single-showed desktop on the monitor connected to the iGPU (the "integrated" GPU on the processor chip) where the output of the "real working" (typically dedicated, on the classic PCI-Express card) GPU is eventually routed thanks to the framebuffer being copied through the main System Memory. The results (so you can see the actual overhead of the framebuffer copying/swapping process ) Pure Dedicated GPU (GeForce 1050 Ti): "Optimus-Like" configuration (Intel HD 630 + GeForce 1050 Ti) Not bad! Only a 9.5% of performance hit on a system with DDR4 2400 (so with better RAM modules and IMC you can reduce it to 5% I think) Of course you can always force the rendering GPU through the dedicated interface in "Display Settings -> Graphic Settings"
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Woo!! 2.10 Beta "Release Candidate" ( 210-07 ) is out:
https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21198-beta-testing-210/
It wont be long now
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I don't think there's a link to thedarkmod.com on forums.thedarkmod.com ...
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Yeah and the wiki and moddb. It should have those links in the footer I think. Probably easy to add by an admin.
Edit: And a link to the bugtracker. I'm always searching for a post in the forum that links to that because I can't remember the url.
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I drew attention to this several times in the last few years. No one payed it any attention, so I just gave up.
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Reluctance to improve the forums is matched by reluctance to allow more people to work on it. Talk about trust and power.
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For those of you who have been interested in a wide array of game genres, you may remember the buzz years back for Spore, a game whose online servers shut down not so long ago. Spore was an "evolve your own alien race" game, which got a lot of great publicity and was a lot of fun. I remember a big ad for it in Boston some years back when I visited it on a school trip. Sadly, EA consumed the smaller company that made it, Maxis, and sucked it dry, as it has done to many small game companies. One community within the overarching Spore creator community, started by a user called "Dirtymeat" and 2 others, was Spore UBD, or "Underground By Design". They pushed the engine to the limit to make the normally cutesy game into a horror show, utilizing asymmetrical glitches and other glitches prior to updates that added asymmetry, unique color schemes reminiscent of gore, and unique placement of parts to resemble bones to create mutant abominations. They may have even been responsible for inspiring the later Creepy and Cute parts pack, as well as the spinoff Darkspore. They were usually well received in the community, although there were a few "cute purists" who hated them for making a "cutesy child game" into having a horror subgenres. With the later Galactic Adventures expansion, they were even able to try their hand at horror game adventures within the game. -
You might not agree with me, but in fan missions, for both Thief series and Darkmod, level design is often the weakest part. We mostly want to tell a story, build cool or "realistic" locations, and we think about populating these locations as we go. Not that I'm a good level designer, but all these years I've been collecting tutorials, books, and GDC PowerPoint presentations about level design, and I want to share a few of those with you. I paid for the books, so that would be illegal to share, but stuff from GDC is publicly available. Let's start with something absolutely essential. I believe every Thief/Darkmod level designer should be familiar with this: Randy Smith - Level building and stealth gameplay Now, this is a good piece on environmental storytelling. If you want to cut back on lengthy readables in your levels and leave more to players' interpretation, this is a must-read too: Harvey Smith & Mattias Worch – What Happened Here This is more like an annex to the first presentation, a bit more theory on how Thief systems work: Randy Smith - Design fundamentals of stealth gameplay in Thief I have more of those, but they're more about systems, or they focus on other games and level design in general. IMO those three documents are a solid piece of knowledge that should help you think more consciously about your levels and the whole design phase. Also, if you have any documents like that, especially on stealth games, and you can share it, it would be great
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Hi, I need to know what the code is to use Spoiler Tags. I am using my tablet and I don't have the options to use anything, like spoiler tags, quote tags, text changes etc. Thanks
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Not so long ago I found what could make a pretty good profile picture and decided to try it out on these new forums. But I couldn't find a button anywhere that would let me change it. I asked on Discord and it seems Spooks also couldn't find anything anywhere. So I logged into an old alternative account and, lo and behold, that account has a button. This is on the first screen I get when I: 1) click on my account name in the top-right of the browser -> 2) click on 'profile'. Compared to my actual account: Are you also missing this button on your account? It'd be very much appreciated if that functionality could be restored to any of the affected accounts.
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Still spreading the word about TDM on forums to new peops... Funny to see people say "Awesome, I loved playing Thief back in the day!"
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Yes it was in a discussion where someone was saying how unhappy they are with the way game companies grant themselves permission to do whatever they like to your PC and personal info today. I pointed out that giving up games completely is an unnecessarily overkill solution when there are free games like TDM to play.
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Honestly the mod/Indie genre is still really booming right now. And they aint got no reason to do shady invasive privacy bs.
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What Epifire said. :-)
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How old is everyone? Go vote in the Poll: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19946-how-old-are-you-anonymous-poll/
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http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19886-fm-marsh-of-rahena-beta-testing Anyone want to betatest a horror fm?
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Will do tomorrow.
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How to design a not-very-good Doom level. Pack fifty high-tier monsters into a small hallway where the only way to fight them is to lower a lift that brings one or two down at a time. The player is stuck slaying them until boredom sets in. Of course he can take the lift up, but then he gets ripped a new one, emerging in the middle of the pack with no room to dodge.
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Hi guys, through the "cheats" topic I got the idea, that it would be quite useful, if there were tags for missions (the post was about removing the killing restriction in some missions to suit the prefered play style). I don't know how easy or difficult this is, but with them, it would be quite convenient to pick missions with playstyles, environment, etc one does want to use. This could also be expanded to other mission properties. I remember a discussion about climbable drains, handles on doors, that cannot be picked and other things the map author chooses for himself. That way these things would be clearer and as I said before, it is easier to choose missions with playstyles that suit oneself. What do think?
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As the topic already implies, I was able to implement the possibility to disable manual saves done by the player either by quicksaving or via the menu. In addition, I'm going to create an entity which will save the game under a name secified by the mapper when it gets triggered. The system would allow missions using checkpoint, or a system with limited saving capabilities, like it was done in Hitman for example. It would also allow to add this as something the player could turn on or off in the menu to increase difficulty, if the mission uses this and the mapper allows the player to do so. The question is whether it would be good to have such a feature available for mappers. -
My partner in nerd-crime, "Deathblade2014" (God I hate that name so much...), linked me a blog he thought to be an interesting read. He was right and a lot of good wisdom to pick in this presentation/article/blog, so I'm gonna pass it on to you guys: http://www.gdcvault....Design-in-a-Day "Huge, open world games like Skyrim and Fallout 3 demand a great deal of development talent, and can be daunting to plan and create - especially when subject to the constant and often unpredictable flux of a game in development. This level design oriented talk will share insights into the iterative approach used at Bethesda Game Studios to help their level design team plan, implement, test and polish massive amounts of content. The talk will also discuss how this approach allows the team to maintain their staff without having to hire and fire at the whims of the project cycle."- 3 replies
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Edit: aww jeez, typo in my first thread title... I just discovered TDM around a week ago and it's amazing. The amount of documentation and tutorials in this community around Dark Radiant is astounding, along with the eagerness of experienced members to help us newbies. I'm wondering if it'd be easy enough to create a dedicated "Beginner's Questions" board here. I'm sure there's been a staggering wealth of knowledge shared in the "Newbie DR questions" thread over on the TDM Editors Guild. At 327 pages and 8000+ replies though finding a specific answer to a question I might have myself is a herculean task. It'd be ridiculously more accessible to have individual questions asked on separate threads. I also know how interested this community is to bring in new people and the effort you all put in to do so. Dedicating a board for those of us starting off with TDM/DR would be a highly visible sign of that eagerness. Furthermore, I think new people would be most comfortable posting in such a space, at least initially. Given how harsh forums on other site's can be to "dumb questions" it takes a little bit to overcome that hesitation here. I'd say the size of that thread is a sign of that. The first pinned post on that board could be a thread for particularly beginner-friendly members to introduce themselves. Maybe say the maps they've created and highlight particular areas and mission mechanics that they think are of particular interest to new people. Essentially, that would be a good place to state their attitude is "if you like something and might be interested in incorporating it or aspects of it in your mission please contact me! My answer will almost always be an 'Of course!'" (Yes, that last bit is a takeaway from the other discussion over an "unofficial mods wiki") Thoughts?
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Cauldron v2.0 is finally done! http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19207-fan-mission-volta-ii-cauldron-of-the-gods-by-kingsal-113017-update-v20/
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can somebody fix the mainpage of our site? http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19469-new-layout-error/
