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I'm happy to present my first FM, The Spider and the Finch. There may be a spider, but no ghosts or undead. It should run a couple hours. It's now available on the Missions page or the in-game downloader. Many thanks to the beta testers Acolytesix, Cambridge Spy, datiswous, madtaffer, Shadow, and wesp5 for helping me improve and making the mission to the best of my abilities. This would not be have been possible without Fidcal's excellent DarkRadiant tutorial. Thanks also to the many people who answered my questions in the TDM forums. Cheers! 2023-12-13 Mission updated to version 3. Fixed a bug where the optional loot option objective was not actually optional. Updated the animations for Astrid Added a hallway door so the guards are less likely to be aggroed en masse.

Yes, this behavior of DR would become a big problem after this change. Because all sound sources will be efficiently muted... Meanwhile, I think most of the maps were created before this behavior. So other opinions on setting zero sound spawnargs are welcome.

A sad and happy day all at once! I will be crying while downloading, then smiling as I install, crying while sneaking, smiling while grabbing loot. Very bittersweet and confusing.

Thanks for passing on this news, LePetit_Baguette_69 (beautiful name, by the way. Is it French?). He will be greatly missed, but at least we'll have his 1.25 FMs to remember him by

I loved that guy He will be missed!

Thanks, I will add to Guru.

New script for mappers: my flavour of a fog density fading script. To add this to your FM, add the line "thread FogIntensityLoop();" to your map's void main() function (see the example in fogfade.script) and set "fog_fade" "1" on each foglight to enable script control of it. Set "fog_intensity_multiplier" on each info_location entity to change how thick the fog is in that location (practically speaking it's a multiplier for visibility distance). Lastly, "fog_fade_speed" on each foglight determines how quickly it will change its density. The speed scales with the current value of shaderParm3, using shaderParm3 = 1000 as a baseline. So i.e. if shaderParm is currently at 1/10th of 1000, then fade speed will be 1/10th as fast. Differences to Obsttorte's script: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/14394-apples-and-peaches-obsttortes-mapping-and-scripting-thread/&do=findComment&comment=310436 my script uses fog lights you created, rather than creating one for you. Obsttorte's script will delete the foglight if entering a fogfree zone and recreate it later more than one fog light can be controlled (however, no per-fog-light level of control) adding this to the map requires adding a line to your void main() script, rather than adding an info_locations_settings entity with a custom scriptobject spawnarg in my script, mappers set a multiplier of fog visibility distance (shaderParm3), while in Obsttorte's script a "fog_density" spawnarg is used as an alternative to shaderParm3 smaller and less compactly written script fogfade.scriptfogfade.map

I have an elevator with a button: When the button is pressed it tells the lift move to an atdm:mover_multistate_position entity, which it does by targeting the elevator while having the spawnarg "position atdm_mover_multistate_position_1" to tell it where to go. This works well but I need it to do something special: When an objective is completed, the button needs to make the elevator go to a different position when pressed from that point on. I don't know how to do this: If I target the trigger_relay that runs when the objective is completed to the button, that will only make the button press itself. I can't use an atdm:target_changetarget either since it's not the button's target I need to change but its position spawnarg. I don't want to make a script for something this simple so I'm hoping there's a special entity I can use to get the job done. One solution would be two buttons: Completing the objective makes the first one invisible and unfrobable while making the second one visible and frobable. But I'm not aware of a way to make buttons visible / invisible either. At worst I'll use an atdm:teleport to swap the buttons, that's an ugly solution so making sure there's no better option first.

It's not necessarily a problem, I like being challenged(!) You could actually say there is more logic with the That has less logic, but if you've come across it before, you will look out for it next time it comes up in a mission.

I did play Thief and FMs, but I don't play it any more, except for major things like Black Parade. The clunky movement and antiquated Dromed editor is what discouraged me from interacting with it over the years. I regularly play and sometimes make content for TDM, because it has much better movement model than Thief. I know that most missions don't use it well, but if you construct your geometry (gaps, ledges, distances) using power of two measurements, movement and mantling feels fast and snappy. There's no need for regression in that regard, in my opinion, there's a need for assets and missions made with the movement model in mind, to showcase its strengths properly. Even if TDM originally intended to "simulate the stealth gameplay of Thief, many things will be familiar to veteran Thief players" the actual mod history was a bit different. The team came up with a mission platform that has its own identity when it comes to mechanics. The way assets were made might have been a huge mistake, but that didn't prevent the platform from growing. Since you like anecdotal evidence, noone other Skacky once said that TDM movement model was super clunky, after playing The Painter's Wife. It was really hard to convince him that if a mapper places geometry this poorly, and isn't aware what spatial measurements play to the strengths of a movement model, no movement model will save his mission. And there is no fixing of this problem on the engine side, although it's not the first time when TDM team tries to address the asset problem with engine changes, which I suspect will ultimately lead to even more problems down the line. In game development, things like core mechanics and player tools are locked-down first, in one of the pre-production phases, because all the levels will be constructed around them. Making changes in core mechanics in a project this mature is very risky, I assume you don't plan on going through all playable spaces in all released TDM FMs to check for errors. Instead of making incremental changes in fundamental mechanics, I'd encourage you to create a fork, or some kind of major version bump candidate, like 3.0, where all things could be revamped: movement, player tools, UI, new frob mechanics, perhaps with UI contextual icons, new training map to incorporate all that, etc. Once all new elements fall into place and create something new, with a map or maps to back it up as relevant changes, it will be easier to convince existing player/author base that it was worth it. I assume the existing fanbase is already fragmented, as a result of all those heated discussions around the topic. But with multiple versions available for download, the transition to hypothetical "TDM 3.0" should be easier. It could be similar to UE2 and UE3, and you could also use this as an occasion to draw the line for backwards compatibility. I know there are old systems and variables kept in place just in order not to break existing missions. This way you could e.g. redo the LOD system, implement lights using math functions instead of textures, etc.

@SpringheelSpeaking of Springheel - I wonder if he will manage to join the contest. I pretty much liked his first map back in the day. I am curious to see what he could do now with all his cool model asset modules.

I think the writing is on the wall. Advanced upscaling will be adopted as widely as possible as the free performance band-aid for the gaming industry. The majority of players will probably run it automatically without even noticing. Recently we've seen rumors of Microsoft working on a Windows upscaler (which may be similar to AMD's RSR in that the game developers don't need to touch it) and Sony may include an NPU in a PlayStation 5 Pro for their own bespoke console-level upscaling solution (not an FSR 3/4, although those can be supported). The irony would be if Nvidia ended up killing the demand for gaming GPUs faster by marketing DLSS so hard, that there's less "need" for new and top-end GPUs. But they won't care because they prefer to chase more lucrative markets like AI, datacenter, automotive. I say "faster" because there is some point in the future when additional hardware can't push the boundaries of graphics, or faster hardware can't be created. We'll see an evolution of Unreal Engine 5's photorealism approach, adoption of 8K resolution, possibly 16K for VR, and a push to the 240-1000 FPS range. Generated frames could be used for a free doubling if not quadrupling of FPS to hit those high numbers, and upscaling tends to work better when your input/target resolution are already very high. For VR specifically, foveated rendering can slash hardware requirements, possibly by 80% or more if the implementation is good enough. On the hardware side, there's still free lunch to be had with a few additional node shrinks. Stacked L2/L3 cache could be extremely beneficial, think the 3D V-Cache version of Infinity Cache (Nvidia has gone with big L2 with Lovelace). We don't see adoption of High Bandwidth Memory in consumer GPUs because it is in such high demand for AI/enterprise products, but there's no technical reason it can't be used. We will see the blossoming of mega APUs this decade.

As far as I see in the code, minDistance/maxDistance specify the range in meters where volume falloff happens. Let's introduce F(d) as piecewise linear function. Then: F(0) = F(minDistance) = 1 F(maxDistance) = F(+infinity) = 0 F(d) changes linearly from minDistance to maxDistance The sound gain is multiplied by F(d)^2 (i.e. falloff is turned quadratic). If we talk about real physics, the falloff from point sound should linear without any caps. The gain should be multiplied by (1 / d). However, real sound sources are never perfectly concentrated at a point. If a sound source has size S, then the volume at distances up to O(S) will look like constant. I suppose default minDistance is nonzero to replicate this effect. The existence of maxDistance is harder to justify physically. Perhaps it is here for optimization reasons (don't process sounds farther than this). As for quadratic falloff instead of linear, I think the simply wanted the sound to fade away to zero smoothly.

I'm no graphics nerd, but I can barely tell the difference between the two. What I can tell from messing around a bit: soft shadows of low quality look like garbage with both maps and stencils (EDIT: wrong, I didn't realize I was looking at shadow maps for a volumetric light shadow. Stencil definitely looks better). increasing soft shadow quality decreases performance in both implementations. I think the CPU/GPU of the end user would influence which is gives better performance both maps and stencils can produce a pixelated shadow if you look close enough. (EDIT: wrong. Again, was looking at a volumetric light shadow). I tend to use maps, because for whatever reason I seem to get a few more FPS out of them. As a mapper, I am certainly NOT interested in endlessly tweaking a scene to make the shadows look perfect. I just don't care enough. If they look shockingly bad I will put some effort into it though (which will probably mean just disabling them for the offending entity). It's rare that I feel this is necessary though. So I guess I don't really get the argument that stencils are amazing and maps are crap. I just don't see it or am too dense to notice. (EDIT: indeed I was being dense. I was comparing shadow maps with shadow maps because I was looking at a volumetric light shadow). Also, in my last couple of missions I had graphical bugs that only showed up with stencil shadows enabled. It would be nice to not have to deal with that all the time.

This post differentiates between "gratis" ("at no monetary cost") and "libre" ("with little or no restriction") per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre * A libre version of TDM could: ** Qualify TDM for an article on the LibreGameWiki *** TDM is currently listed as rejected https://libregamewiki.org/Libregamewiki:Rejected_games_list because "Media is non-commercial (under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0). The engine is free though (modified Doom 3) (2013-10-19)" ** Qualify for software repositories like Debian *** TDM is currently listed as unsuitable https://wiki.debian.org/Games/Unsuitable#The_Dark_Mod because 1) "The gamedata is very large (2.3 GB)", and 2) "The license of the gamedata (otherwise it must go into non-free with the engine into contrib)" and links to https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/LICENSE.txt Questions: 1) tdm_installer.linux64 is 4.2 MB (unzipped), which is far from the 2.3 GB which is said to be too large. Yes, the user can use it to download data that is non-libre, but so can any web browser too. If the installer itself is completely libre, does anyone know the reason why it cannot be accepted into the Debian repository? 2) If adding the installer to the repository is not a viable solution, would it be possible to package the engine with a small and beginner friendly mission built only from libre media/gamedata into a "TDM-libre" release, and add user friendly functionality to download the 2.3 GB media/gamedata using "TDM-libre" (similar to mission downloading)? 3) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for the Debian repository? 4) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for LibreGameWiki? 5) Would the work be worth it? * Pros: Exposure in channels covering libre software (e.g. the LibreGameWiki). Distribution in channels allowing only libre software (e.g. the Debian repository). * Cons: The work required for the modifictions and release of "TDM-libre". Possible maintenance of "TDM-libre". I'm thinking that the wider reach may attract more volunteers to work on TDM, which may eventually make up for this work and hopefully be net positive. 6) Are there any TDM missions that are libre already today? If not, would anyone be willing to work on one to fulfill this? I'll contribute in any way I can. 7) I found the following related topics on the forum: * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16226-graphical-installers-for-tdm/ (installing only the updater) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16640-problems-i-had-with-tdm-installation-on-linux-w-solutions/ (problems with installation on Linux) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/17743-building-tdm-on-debian-8-steamos-tdm-203/ (Building TDM on Debian 8 / SteamOS) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18592-debian-packaging/ (Dark Radiant) ... but if there are other related previous discussions, I'd appreciate any links to them. Any thoughts or comments?

Yeah, I don't expect it to happen in the next few years, but, they went all in, and, that's a very dangerous approach. It won't be an issue for me, as I have most of the stuff I own on Epic on Steam. I just wonder what will happen, as they had such generous offers. And, nope, piracy isn't an option for me in any case. I consider it plain wrong, morally and ethically. Losing my games from an online service doesn't change anything about it, especially as neither the publishers nor the developers are at fault.

Hammerting 100% off on GOG https://www.gog.com/en/game/hammerting Losing everything (not downloaded to your computer) would not be unlikely, best case scenario the licenses get transferred over to Steam as part of some big deal. Whatever it is, you'd hear about it, and piracy is always on the menu if they screw it up. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/11/07/tim-sweeneys-epic-games-store-is-still-losing-money-after-five-years/ Will it happen? Maybe. Not before 2027 I think, which is when it expected to become profitable.

OK. To confirm Libreoffice compatibility, please download one of the recent completed spreadsheets, e.g., for Critic or Manbeast (links in OP of this thread). Also, you will likely find it helpful to have such a worked example while reviewing the "Explained" doc discussed below. Assuming compatibility, I'll programmatically pre-populate a fresh spreadsheet with .ogg filenames and clip durations for "The Drunk" vocal set (in the vocals04 pk4), and DM a link for that for you. While waiting, please review these two Word docs (see links in OP): "Subtitle Style Guide - Part 1". There's a 1-page summary of main points at start. Skim the rest. "Dec 7 Update of the "Explained" Doc for Spreadsheet Template v5". This details what the two worksheets and the columns within each mean. You will start with the "Compose" worksheet; I will have already filled columns A & B, and C is auto-calculated. Since we have no pre-existing vocal text script for The Drunk, column D will be left blank (TIP: hide it), and column F will be useless. You will start filling in column E, "Tweaked Subtitle". There's lots more to say, but that's enough for now. The spreadsheet I send you will based on Barks Template v6, but it's only trivially different from v5, so the Dec 7 doc should be fine. BTW, there's more workflow that is done before/after your part. If curious or need more context, see: "June 10 Documents Explaining Workflow and Excel Spreadsheet/Template (for AverageJack)"

@snatcher I understand that when you feel your work doesn't live up to your goals that you don't want it out in the wild advertising your own perceived shortcomings but that leads to a troubling dilemma of authors who are never satisfied with their work offering fleeting access to their in-progress designs then rescinding them or allowing them to be lost. When I was a member of Doom3world forums, I would often see members do interesting experiments and sometimes that work would languish until someone new would examine it and pickup the torch. This seemed like a perfectly viable system until Doom3world was killed by spambots and countless projects and conceptual works were lost. I guess what I am trying to say is that mods don't need to be perfect to be valuable. If they contain some grain of a useable feature they might be adapted by mission authors in custom scenarios. They might offer instructive details that others trying to achieve the same results can examine. It would be great if known compelling works were kept somewhere safe other than via forum attachments and temporary file sharing sites. I suppose we used to collect such things in our internal SVN for safe keeping but even that isn't always viable. If folks would rather not post beta or incomplete mods to TDM's Moddb page, perhaps they would consider creating their own Moddb page or allow them to be added to my page for safe keeping. Please don't look at this as some sort of pressure campaign or anything. I fully understand anyone not willing to put their name next to something they aren't fully happy with. As a general proviso, ( if possible \ permitted ) I just want to prevent the loss of some valuable investigations and formative works. The end of Doom3world was a digital apocalypse similar to the death of photobucket. It is one of my greatest fears that TDM will become a digital memory with only the skeletons of old forum threads at the wayback archive site.

For easier inspection of various culling algorithms, I created a new debug cvar. It fixes the camera position that renderer frontend uses for culling, but allows player to fly around and see the same objects from different view point. Don't expect perfectly valid/sane picture, but I think it reliably shows which objects are sent to OpenGL for rendering. Here is the demonstration (bottom-left is clipped away in this video, but I hope it is clear anyway): It will be available in the next dev build. Maybe someone will find it useful for analyzing overdraw? P.S. Aside from that, "r_showtris 2" + "r_useScissor 0" should be useful for overdraw analysis too. It is questionable though whether you should disable r_useScissor in this case...

Thi4f will be free on Epic Games Store from April 4 to April 11, along with The Outer Worlds. So it's your chance to see what all the fuss is about for $0 and test one of the few AMD TrueAudio games in existence. Although from what I heard watching one of the autopsy videos, the implementation is wasted. https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/free-games

Tomorrow ! Holy crap I'm old I honestly never expected to live this long

When talking about a possible libre version of TDM (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22346-libre-version-of-tdm/) it seems we believe all media/gamedata included in TDM is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA. I am not familiar with how the process of adding new media/gamedata works today; I have seen files uploaded to the bugtracker which developers then commit to SVN, but I don't know if there are other ways. It may be a good idea to implement a process that when new components (media/gamedata included in TDM) are added, the contributor is asked to be explicit about the license (a choice which may defaults to their previous preference, for usability). It won't fix the past, but it may help in the future. This will make it easy for contributors to add future data under a more permissive license if they choose. Libre media can be added and its license can be tracked, rather than assumed to be CC-BY-NC-SA. I suggest looking at how Wikimedia Commons has implemented this: the contributor state the source and license at the time the data is uploaded. This can be done either by providing urls or by saying "It's my work and I choose this licsense". The first step could be to add a way to keep track of each filepath in SVN, author, license, sources. Start by setting the value for each file's license to "(default/legacy CC-BY-NC-SA)". Possible implementations for a user interface for new additions are: * Use our own wiki, which runs Mediawiki (same as Wikimedia Commons). I see several benefits of this, but we also need a way to accept uploads of batches, not just single files. * Look at how other open source projects have solved this. There may be more appropriate solutions available. ... but I'll leave the implementation open. Suggestions are very welcome! If the author of each file already in SVN can be tracked, then it may be possible that the author is willing to give a blanket permission for all their past files in one statement, and all their files in SVN can be updated in one commit. A productive contributor willing to release some of their work under a more permissive license could make a big change. If Dark Radiant would support letting mappers search media/gamedata by license (does it already?), it would make it easier for mappers to create a completely libre mission, which would help facilitate a TDM-libre release. If I understand things correctly. This post does not address all details and it may contain misunderstandings or assumptions, but it's a start. Also relevant: * Is there a compiled and maintained list of recommended or deprecated resources for mappers to use? * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20311-external-art-assets-licensing/

guess moore will have his day yet -> several decades after it was predicted , but maybe those pesky engineers will have another ephiphany drilling down to < 1nm hehe.

I’ll throw my hat in the ring! It’d be delightful to create a mission to celebrate TDM’s anniversary, especially after how kindly I was received here. I’m excited to see what creative missions will be produced for the contest with the freedom we’ve been allotted.