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Yeah I get why this sounds confusing. I guess the game did try to look as realistic as the engine permits it to be, but there are some elements that look heavily stylized, like trees or the lit window panes on buildings, that cannot be accessed. But yeah other than that, its not all that retro, you re right. Still I fill that by making it 100% photo real and losing everything stylized, it might turn out a bit boring looking.

That's not how I envisioned for it to work Imagine a level with a small village. Say you have 3 houses, a church, rocks, trees, etc. Each of 3 houses is a separate map file. Church is another map file. When I edit any of those map file (houses, church, etc.) and then open master map file - all changes I made to individual map files are automatically propagated to the master. Kinda like prefabs, but not quite. Is it possible ?

So I think we can count 12 or 14 missions depending on our opinion of La Banque Bienveillante and Sneak and Destroy. If these two reissues are counted as new missions (as JarlFrank did here: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152035), then we have 14 missions. If not, then 12. Personally, I don't consider them new missions, so 12 in my opinion. Have no problem with other opinion. In any case, last year was productive!

My dream is for forums.thedarkmod.com to link to thedarkmod.com

Purah also worked on Dishonored: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136214 One of my neurons knew it started with a 'P'

We got TDM VR, for a start. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20468-the-dark-mod-vr-210-alpha-is-now-available/

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 definitely sounds like instancing would help on outdoor maps with lots of trees / bushes / rocks. We don't have many of them at the moment, likely because performance is already a concern given the difficulty of vis-portaling huge open spaces: This could perhaps help improve that, since if an open field only has trees and rocks repeating the same mesh this might reduce the impact of large portal rooms enough to make it bearable. Of course lighting would remain a concern since instancing doesn't save you from the need to calculate each object and shadows in their own draw call, you'd need to add just a few torches to such a place. Other things might still tank performance in this scenario, but still it's a nice thought: I'm sure I'm not the only one who imagined what giant nature spaces might look like in a TDM FM.

https://learnopengl.com/Advanced-OpenGL/Instancing Seems pretty useful in any map that uses lots of the same model. Seed system was added to get around this problem. By batching all the same models in a given space into one draw call (I think). I used it in my cathedral map that had over 200 pews, I gained another 20 fps with Seed back in 2010 ish, which was huge back then. Same with the forest and the pine trees. EDIT: For example, we're looking at about 1800 trees. I could probably get another 100 FPS by using SEED volumes to combine the models into a dozen draw calls instead of 1800

Yes, it does. Which makes it interesting that you yourself explicitly said that it's interesting nobody had complained here on the official forums: I did, which is why it stood out to me so much that even though you yourself had personally been involved you would reply claiming nobody had complained here on the official forums. I'm not colorblind at all. Does that make people pointing out that almost no modern games have proper colorblindness support hyperbole? Just because it doesn't affect you, or you choose not to pay attention to the discussion of something, doesn't make it hyperbole. Pick pretty much any modern FPS and you will find plenty of discussion about the near universal disregard for FOV and camera movement as accessibility issues. Denigrating those as hyperbole because you personally don't feel the affects is as bad of a look as demeaning people who bring up the importance of valid allergen warnings like gluten or colorblindness and deafness support.

I literally registered just to point out that people HAVE been raising this as a serious accessibility issue since as far back as 2008. It's been repeatedly brought up over and over and over again. And that is just here on the official forums. If you really mean what you've said I think you should find it genuinely concerning that one of the single most widely discussed accessibility issues in gaming has been repeatedly brought up for over a decade with your game and apparently this is the first you've heard of it... even though it's even been subject to multiple issues in your issue tracking system according to these threads and other google results.

here use this link and never miss again its my startpage https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/discover

You can find a test map here. Note that I remember not being too happy with it. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19825-negative-spectrum/&do=findComment&comment=432949

I agree and I remember saying something similar before and the answer if I recall correctly was, stencil stays in, that was a few years ago, and they add (and still have) very valid reasons, one was because maps in TDM, was still in its infancy and not well optimized, but it has improved much since (stencil also with the soft shadow option). Thou I know this is not a easy decision for the team, you can't just delete the stencil shadow code and everything will be fine, TDM age and success, is also a big problem for the way it handles shadows, because of how old and popular it is, it has hundreds of assets and missions made, with stencil shadows alone in mind, changing those assets today (materials mostly), in particular those with alpha enabled, will require free work, from someone, and will also with no doubt, break shadows in all missions made until now and not forget, decrease performance, by the simple fact that, more stuff that didn't cast shadows, trees, grass, banners, decals, etc, now will and some of them shouldn't, so the missions will have to be updated, and it may never happen if the mission maker is gone. Is not a easy problem to solve.

I agree with your observation in the main post, and admit it's a sin even I understandably commit: The DarkRadiant GUI didn't make it clear which models have a LOD, you'd have to check and find out for yourself... even then you aren't encouraged to do so right away as it requires going through the trouble of setting LOD spawnargs manually. My suggestion: Maybe don't combine the models and entities menus, they seem better as separate things and mixing them might clutter everything and make it harder to browse. But the model screen could hide LOD models from the browser, and instead automatically set LOD spawnargs to models that have them when inserted on the map. We could leave it func_static but add the "model_lod_*" and "lod_*_distance" arguments... I'd even consider a default "hide_distance" for all models based on their bounding box size. Those should be settings you can disable like "Surround with monsterclip brush" which is currently the only option in the model chooser, we could maybe offer a multiplier offsetting how aggressive the LOD settings are based on the model scale. If not the simple and perhaps ideal solution is having a default entity for every model that has a LOD: Some trees for instance have them, a few other items too... not everything does though. I checked out the new "Related entity classes" menu and that seems good enough to me; I'd add a checkbox to automatically insert the first entry if one is detected, the menu might be lost on some mappers in all the GUI detail. But to be useful I think more models should be given entities.

DarkRadiant 3.7.0 is ready for download. What's new: Feature: Skin Editor Improvement: Script Window usability improvements Fixed: Hitting escape while autosaving crashes to desktop Fixed: Def parsing problem in tdm_playertools_lockpicks.def Fixed: DR hangs if selecting a lot of entities with entity list open Fixed: Float Property Editor's entry box is sticking around after selecting a float key Fixed: Spline entities without model spawnarg are unselectable Fixed: Entity window resets interior sizing forcing resize each time it is opened Fixed: Spline curves should not be created with a model spawnarg Fixed: Newly appended curve control vertices aren't shown at first Fixed: Light entities are zoomed out in preview window Fixed: Entity inspector spawnarg fields not always updated by UI windows such as Model Chooser Feature: Skin Editor (see video) Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.7.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks to all the awesome people who keep using DarkRadiant to create Fan Missions - they are the main reason for me to keep going. Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Keep on mapping!

Would it be at all possible to do this from the "main" website? I mean the one you first see when you look up "Dark Mod". Cuz it is a maze in these forums, goodies strewn about here and there but few resources that are intuitively accessible. Also @SeriousToni, what are you planning on uploading?

Originally the mug was created by @LordSoth https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/13257-tdm-beginners-contest/&do=findComment&comment=287897

It seems that there is a reverse engineer group ( Amernime \ Nimez ) who are back-porting newer AMD drivers to older GPU versions. Terrascale 1 support is currently a "work in progress" : https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/amernime-zone-amd-software-adrenalin-pro-driver-release-nemesis-22-10-3-whql.436611/ If you are interested, they might have beta versions up on their terrascale discord. The downside is that these are community created drivers rather than official ones by AMD. Maybe AMD will release some sort of maintenance for terascale like they did for some of their other old GPU's.

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.

DarkRadiant 3.6.0 is ready for download. What's new: Feature: Selection Focus (Ctrl-F) Feature: Add Radiant.findEntityByName script method Feature: Media Browser shows a thumbnail preview when selecting folders Feature: Map is remembering layer visibilities between loads Fixed: ModelDefs are shown in T-pose Fixed: Patch vertices are the wrong colour Fixed: Shader Clipboard source gets cleared on 'copy shader' operation Fixed: Nodes of hidden layers are still visible after loading the map Fixed: Can't close properties window Fixed: Merge Action rendering is broken Fixed: After using ToggleMainControl_Camera, the center panel is grey after restart Fixed: When using ToggleMainControl_Camera, arrow keys cannot be used to move the viewer Fixed: Property Panel not remembering undocked/closed tabs Fixed: Texture Tool not updating during manipulation Fixed: Orthoview ignores filters for surfaces in models Fixed: Blue dot when selecting one face removed Tweak: Conversation Editor: double-click opens selected conversation Tweak: Preference option to disable drag select in camera view Tweak: ESC key should clear the resource tree view filter text Tweak: New layers function: tooltip popup getting in the way Feature: Selection Focus (see video) Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.6.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks to all the awesome people who keep using DarkRadiant to create Fan Missions - they are the main reason for me to keep going. Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Have fun mapping!

@stgatilov, you said, RE string comparisons: I'm unclear if you are referring just to changes you made in 2.11. I think equality testing of two strings (one of which is "text") was working and is a good and expected capability, and should be supported. Including against an empty string. I noticed in your bug activities that you did remove some comparisons with ... == "". I see you also removed string concatenation with "\". No problem, but does that mean multiline macros are no longer a thing? (If so, I'll need to change some examples) BTW, the series so far hasn't really tried to cover the 2.11 changes, since I figured it's a work in progress. But since you did a great deal of GUI work in July, perhaps it's stable enough to try to consider it. I see the logs listed in bugtracker, but don't have access to the private forum threads mentioned there: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20526-gui-refactoring/&do=findComment&comment=477179 https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21535-order-of-evaluation-in-expressions-materials-and-gui/ (Nor do I have SVN currently set up on my newer machine, for changelogs from there.) Any place else I should look?

Feature request: expand favourites trees I'm presuming that the benefit of the favourites feature in DR is to save time and clicks by presenting them in a separate view. However whenever you click the 'show favourites' radio button, the tree view is always collapsed, meaning you have to search/expand/click anyways. And that's if you can remember what is in your favourites. Suggest that the favourites trees be expanded by default (or alternatively, an 'expand all' option). it would be much easier to see at a quick glance what's in there, and there would be less clicks involved. I don't know how having hundreds of favourites would affect it - but I'm guessing most people have a couple dozen of each type at most? I kind of realised I don't use the favourites much, and this is one of the reasons why.

-> https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/forum/13-music-sfx/

I mentioned this in the improvements thread - https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/11058-things-that-could-be-improved/page/95/#comment-473534 Bright readables in a game that is 99% darkness literally burns my eyes.