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I felt betrayed indeed as a huge HL1 and HL2 fan, but when I watched the non-VR version gameplay, I noticed that if it wouldn't have been VR, it wouldn't have been better than many fan-made HL2 mods. So they probably made it VR only to a) promote Steam VR, but also b) because fans would have been disappointed by a normal version anyway. And of course they also had you play a female side character instead of the "old white guy " who made the series famous. I wonder how this will work out with Witcher 4 where again you will not play as the guy after which the series is named.

Yeah that's my bad, I misread the title of this thread and didn't think it was posted on yet.

Yeah, it's a sorta wild decision to bring back a dead franchise as a VR only title. Would be nice if it does good enough for them to consider a standard keyboard and mouse follow up. I loved Half-Life Alyx as a VR title but I'm very aware of just how much the traditional gameplay had to sit on the sidelines to make it work. Best case scenario, is that it sells good and renews an interest in the franchise. Worst case is we just get a stinker of a fence sitter and our beloved series is no more dead than it was before. I'm optimistic but I'm certainly not holding my breath here either.

Ooooof, I missed this post before I tossed up an announcement thread of my own. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. Totally not what I expected on my bingo card for today.

Yes, I did muddle that one up a bit, however this does mean that if B continues to keep the NC-BY licence, then you as C would be stuck since B chose the values and names (which are then expected by the engine) so in this hypothetical scenario I suppose you still could not use them. Also as mentioned previously, some people who worked on TDM are no longer with us, so naturally in some cases B cannot give permission for the licence to change, which means their work then falls under copyright law which is different between countries.

Just to complicate your life, there are 3 additional aspects to consider about the circa-2014 Mason files, and subsequent circa-2017 improvements to the 'english' version perhaps applicable to your work. (These issues are covered in the wiki "Mason Font" article, with a bit more in my "Analysis of 2.12 TDM Fonts", https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22427-analysis-of-212-tdm-fonts/. The 2017 changes can be seen in the *current* 2.13 TDM English Mason files.) 1) Need for custom DAT-scaling on certain Mason characters The source TTF had upper-case and lower-case characters that were early-on considered too similar to size. So (before 2014) in the DAT, selective per-character scaling was used to differentiate them. See https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Font_Metrics_%26_DAT_File_Format#Per-Character_Font_Scaling for details. As you add new characters, you should do likewise (relatively easy with refont). 2) Creating the "glow" of mason_glow How Tels created the glow (for 'english' carleton & mason) is discussed in reasonable detail here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/5/#findComment-262661 That could be done for Russian too, which I recall currently fakes a glow, and possibly would require a minor GUI or engine code change to use. Note: To best accommodate glow and retain GIMP-visualization-alignment between base and glow characters, Tels moved some base characters within their bitmap, to keep their glyphs 2-3 pixels away from any bitmap edge. You should consider this when placing new base glyphs. Note: For the 3 mason bitmaps doubled in size circa-2017 as discussed next, the mason_glow bitmaps were also doubled. 3) Extensive bitmap editing to solve main menu character jaggedness. On Oct. 5, 2017, @Springheel in https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19129-menu-update/#findComment-412921 said: "Looking at the Mason fonts, it looks like they were super low res to begin with, and were then just resized [presumably referring to per-character scaling], making them even worse. I'll see what I can do." [Further on, referring to fonts in the TDM menu system:] "It appears that resizing the dds file to make it higher res is possible, so I'll proceed." Later, on Oct 13, 2017, he concluded within a "More detailed list of changes: "Updated the menu fonts, which were surprisingly bad before" Unfortunately, I couldn't find details on how this work was actually done. I assume the bitmap editing was all done in GIMP. It started with doubling the size of certain bitmaps from 256x256 to 512x512. This was done for the first 3 bitmaps (i.e., those with ASCII, some Latin-1). Then characters were made more crisp and smooth-edged. How? Dunno. Also, some odd but harmless artifacts happened within GIMP (noted in https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22427-analysis-of-212-tdm-fonts/page/3/#findComment-499660)

I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. If agent A publishes a work W under a license L1 that allows agent B to build on the work as long as B publishes the derivative work under L1, then if A later decide to also offer W under another licence L2 (with similar stipulations about publishing derivative works under L2) then B can choose if their additions to W should be licenced under L1 or L2 or both. However, if the scrips in question were released as GPL then it would significantly reduce the risk of publishing derivative works based on them.

Hello again. I haven't posted much in the last year or so, mostly because I've been busy working on a new FM (one that's occupied all my time since almost immediately after "The Threepenny Revue"), and it's finally in a state where I want some outside help in playtesting and bug-hunting. This is a significantly larger map than my first outing, and as such I'm sure there's plenty of rough edges that still need sanding off. If anybody's willing to help out, please reply here and I'll make a thread in the Beta Testing subforum afterwards. Thanks.

Or, just get in contact with the owners of the IP and ask them since just because an IP lawyer in one jurisdiction says it would be okay, doesn't mean it would be okay globally. There are several packs out there of scripts/definition files which are licenced under free licences (CC0 and WTFPL mostly) and claim their freedom by recreating them using "clean-room way". In fact, I used them in getting TDM running with mostly free licenced files by selectively choosing which had clearly been written from scratch albeit with reference to the originals, and which were just direct copy and paste with claimed free licences (I didn't use them). Then it was a case of finding/replacing the core engine textures, sounds, etc. the engine required to launch with free alternatives (again checking the packs since some were just copied direct from the game files and claiming to be free). In the end, the only non-free licenced files that were still required were those from TDM itself. The result of this TDM version is the screenshot I posted some posts ago here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22346-libre-version-of-tdm/page/3/#findComment-500642 However, you will notice the giant cursor on the screen in the screenshot, why? because the only reference to hiding the cursor is within the UI files which come under the game eula, so I didn't add in the command to hide it in game. In the case of the script/def files, this "clean-room" approach has stood up in a court of law when I looked online, however you wouldn't really want to end up being in the position of ending up in court defending yourself in the first place. The flaw in the def/scripts that were recreated are that they all wrote their files using the originals as reference. So if the originals are under the game eula, and if the information contained is in some way protected, then all these "clean-room" files revert to the original game eula, as the authors didn't have the right to change the licence. I believe (with a pinch of salt )that if the core scripts/files were made GPL by idSoftware/Microsoft then as files based off of or using them as parents (basically all TDM scripts/defs as far as I can make out) then all of the TDM scripts and def files would automatically become GPL as their authors could also not claim their work was NC-BY since it was then based on GPL work.

Sad, but thanks for trying! I appreciate it! Would it be feasible to re-write them? I don't see why the original files can't be used as references (and stubs) during such a work. As long as they are not outright copied.

A recent thread of discussion has cropped up in the TDM Discord channel and a couple forum threads ( this comment and the general discussion after it came to mind) about the usability and efficacy of Flashbombs in TDM. To wit, most people seem to think they're kinda bad because they're just a stun, which still requires you to hide in a very narrow time frame and then wait for the AI to cool off after use. One of the big upsides of flashbombs in TG/T2 was that, if you had alerted human enemies chasing you, you could drop a flashbomb and then turn around and blackjack them to non-lethally remove them from play. It was an inventory-limited opportunity to recover from failure and continue playing the game, as opposed to just reloading a save. This is a fun and proactive interaction, and I propose that we add it to TDM. Specifically, I think this can be accomplished with minimal code. After a read through the public TDM git repository, I think the most appropriate change would be to adjust the condition here: https://github.com/stgatilov/darkmod_src/blob/ac0a286561630eefee1cbb44d09d77128cd3d8e7/game/ai/AI.cpp#L11892 to read as follows: if ((GetMoveType() == MOVETYPE_SLEEP || // grayman #3951 GetMind()->GetState()->GetStr() == "Blinded") && // proposed - maybe there's a better way to write this condition like checking the type or something? ((minDotVert != 1.0f) && (minDotHoriz != 1.0f))) // cos(DEG2RAD(0.0f)) indicates elite faceguard helmet { Currently, this check does not pass for blinded AIs and they move to the if-else branch at L11903, and since they're very alert because they were actively chasing the player, they cannot be blackjacked. This change should give a flashbomb-blinded AI the same knockout vulnerability angle as a sleeping AI. Helmeted human AIs (and undead/magical AIs because they can't enter that particular mind state) retain their blackjack immunity, and everyone else can be clunked in the face as a reward to the player for spending a limited resource, not flashing themselves, and having the quick thinking to turn around and draw the blackjack. The blinded mind state lasts for about 8 seconds (I forget where I found that but its a hardcoded magic number in a Damage() function somewhere), which feels a bit short but about right, and then when the state changes the player's window of opportunity is lost. My brain kinda glazed over when I looked at the SVN checkout+compilation.txt instructions, but if I can help test or debug this with a little hand holding I'd be happy to do so.

@Geep , thanks for your answers. Today I spent 3 or 4 hours trying to edit ttf. i used Font Lab 8 for it. I opened the font file (it was in utf encoding). Then I tried to recode it into cp-1251 and failed. masonchronicles3.ttf has an unknown license status, of course. But if my attempts lead to good results, I can draw letters in ttf by myself. Tels' unfinished files - are they still available ? Can I continue his work from where he stopped it ? That DDSes made by him are available in the TDM folders, but I have not found sources with .tda or ttf. And I still can't understand how to convert DAT into TGA or DDS.

Regarding the existing Russian version of TDM's MasonAlternative font, this had a different origin than those Russian fonts processed by Riff_Keeper. Tels created this in 2012. He started from bitmaps of an ASCII Mason font, then used his Perl patch program to copy selected ASCII glyphs (that resemble in some way Cyrillic) to new font "MasonAlternative". See https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/15/#findComment-274617 In GIMP, he flipped or otherwise hand-edited to make them Cyrillic. He said, "There are still a few dozen missing, but this is enough to render the two headlines we have (New Mission and Setting)" https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/15/#findComment-274623 This accounts for the incomplete coverage. Speculatively, he took this approach because it couldn't find a Mason-style TTF font with both Russian characters and an acceptable license (e.g., public domain, or at the least freely redistributable for non-commercial use). @kalinovka,I wonder what the licensing is for your masonchronicles3.ttf.

Evidently a significant portion of the Cyrillic work was done by Keeper_Riff (in conjunction with Tels) back in 2011. These folks are not active in TDM these days. Keeper_Riff outlined a workflow, starting with FontLab to edit TTF files... https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/12/#findComment-271548 Specifically Carleton: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/4/#findComment-262135

Yes, refont just makes it easier to make changes to a .dat file (via human-editable .ref file). To transform your .tga's into .dds, either - use a converter program (See https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=DDS_Creation_with_ATI_Compressonator) (recommended) use an image editor, most commonly GIMP (Photoshop will also work). You can read in and then export each file separately. But more typically, with GIMP, all the .tga's associated with one of the three TDM-supported font sizes are read in as separate layers, to a common GIMP project file (saved as an .xcf file). Ordinarily, you set only 1 layer visible. If you do any bitmap editing, the .xcf file becomes in effect the source master. Having all the files together as layers makes it easier to move a glyph (or copy parts of glyphs) from one layer to another. You use GIMP's Export feature (you specify the .dds extension up the top entry part to tell it the format). Be sure to generate mipmaps. See: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=DDS_Creation_with_GIMP https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Font_Bitmaps_in_DDS_Files particularly "Editing a Bitmap"

Hi! Thanks for your reply. I am not a programmer at all (I graduated foreign languages faculty 20 years ago), so these things look tricky for me. Bu I will try all my best to patch the font. It is interesting that Carleton font has been already converted to dds with all cyrillic letters. But who had done this work, I was not able to find. I temporary changed Mason to Carleton, but I don't like the result. So I will continue my experiments. The task of mission translation seemed simple for me, but for months later it look like a real quest. If it happens successfully, at least it allows to update fonts in the next version of TDM.. One more question - may you tell me how to transform dat files to dds ? I used the refont ulility, but it creates only a dat file. What should be done next ?

I don't think I'll use it, or at least as it is now, but it looks like you've executed the concept pretty well. Congrats on the good work! It does add a layer of immersion or feeling of being embodied in the world. If I were working on this, I'd probably pour a crazy amount of time on polishing the look and feel of the models and animations, and in that frame of mind, these videos strike me as more proof of concept waiting for that polish. But I also recognize the challenge of that. I remember those videos showing a third person view of the Mirror's Edge player character. That's a case where the visible arms was done very well, but when you see the 3P view, it's really obvious how exaggerated and unnaturally the models and animations were made to fit the view to the player camera, and look completely bizarre from any other angle. It gives you an idea of how much fine tuning goes into it. But of course there are different levels this could be at, and some people may already really like how it is now, or you have a target look & feel you're aiming for. But anyway, overall I think in terms of executing the concept, you've done a great job, and if I have any push-back or constructive feedback it's on the look & feel of it in this version. Edit: Well, one other thing, if you're not specifically using your hands--in idle, walking, and running--I don't think one's hands are just hovering in front of a person. It actually looks tiring. I think they'd periodically swing slightly into view while walking and running, and maybe a little in idle.

It did bump the alert level to one arbitrary value, there was no way to control this as the description suggested. It should not work anymore. Absence_noticeability + absence_alert_increase are the pair that should work, as it is described in the wiki: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Alert_%26_Suspicion_Triggers#Controlling_AI_Reactions_to_Missing_Objects If they don't work like in the description, then there is a regression and should be reported as a bug.

An equivalent of 60 to 30 would be something more like dropping from 300 down to like 50-60 frames maybe, but I assume that is still flawed given all the differences in hardware and how they handle the work loads period.

On the topic of flash bombs I agree it would be an improvement if these could be used to interrupt alert states of guards and open them back up to KO. This gives them a real purpose in the game, and a way out of situations that might otherwise just result in a long wait for ai cool downs, or more likely just a reload. So far I know of a couple of authors who have attempted to address this via scripting, but haven't been able to get it to work. Might require some code to support the option.

You know it's perfectly fine to mod the game to include changes which only address your own very personal hangups about the story and setting, regardless of how I feel about it. But as you know from your work on Bloodlines, which you deserve a tremendous amount of credit for what you have done to help preserve that game, that not every user is going to want or even expect a "patch" to touch those aspects of a game. So why advertise it as a gameplay focused patch or pretend you are acting on behalf any users besides yourself when you are making these kinds of changes? I get that your "patch" is effectively any change to that *you* prefer - and that now includes story elements you don’t like. In the case of Bloodlines it seems like it was the right decision to separate them, but that is up to you. But you don’t get to avoid receiving feedback on the topic because it is “snarky” or “sarcastic”.

No that's me. And yes I don't think people who install a "patch" expect it to change art and story elements in people's missions. At a minimum there is usually a way to opt out of it. Didn't you learn this with your own Bloodlines patch already? Weird approach that you make authors “opt out” in the first place - but if that is the case I would just reiterate you do not have my permission to modify the art or story in anyway in *any* mission I have and will ever work on, not just the one. To be clear you do not *need* my permission to mod the game (and make no mistake - the unofficial “patch” is a mod, not a patch) but I would consider it a courtesy if you please honor my request. I don't know why I am doing this again, but in TDM "Britain" and "France" do not exist. TDM is set on psuedo continental europe in an alternate history which diverges thousands of years ago. While that is stated case on the TDM wiki, the art selections for the maps leave the contours of the continent vague enough, even “mysterious” to the point that users like you were not even aware this was the case: Let’s see how that aligns with some of your art selections: Wow - you really have to squint to make out Europe. Cool map - but you haven’t exactly kept the “mystery” intact here.

I encountered this weird bug where the default camera view is not directly updated when doing things (usually selecting/unselecting) in the 2D view. An extra added Camera updates fine. (this is on a Win11 pc, although I usually work on Linux) Also look at the greyed-out buttons. Is that normal?

Hi, first of course thanks for all the work. I updated from 2.12 to 2.13 and now no weapon will show. I reverted to 2.12 and the problem persists, so I don't think it's a 2.13 issue. I don't see a setting; am I blindly or stupidly missing something?

Alright, I've done it. And then probably went overboard. I was able to disconnect all of the volta-named bits from the entities and rename or repoint everything to assets that ship with TDM. The results don't look quite as cool, but I still was able to make a destructable crate with flindery bits, particle effects, and smashing sounds. Hooray! I then discovered that changing the model required whatever new model I chose to also have a clip model. So there was no way to get around making clip models in darkRadiant for whatever things I wanted to be smashable. I went ahead and made really basic (cubes or 6-sided prism) clip models for all the junky broken down wooden objects I could find in the TDM assets, most of which were missing, and used those to create breakable versions of those models. Funny enough, this approach worked for everything except the original door that I wanted to make breakable in the first screenshot of this post! There is something funny about the collision geometry of models/darkmod/architecture/doors/oversized/old_door_02.lwo . If I used it as an entity model, the map complained about not having a collision model. But if I added a simple box as a collision model, the box didn't get used! I was able to shoot arrows and walk straight through this broken down "door". So my original chain-of-random-entities solution that doesn't make flinders is probably as good as we'll be able to get from the door. I also used this solution to try to recreate breakable banners from TG and T2, and they work pretty well. They should probably have a "torn" version that hangs from the banner rod instead of the whole banner and rod disappearing entirely, but they will serve the gameplay purpose of being able to hide safes/secret passages behind banners well enough for me. Coming back to flinderable entities, I realized I could probably tweak the entity definition to also make breakable ceramic pots, so I made some of those too. I ended up with ~25 prefab objects that you can smash with the sword or detonate with fire arrows - some are small enough to be picked up, but the bigger ones can only be pushed or are completely stationary. I tried to pick reasonable health values for them based on their size and apparent sturdiness. All of these can be used as obstacles to block doors or secrets. I've uploaded a .pk4 that contains a simple test map, the entity definitions, and the prefabs. Feel free to download, rip 'em out, and use 'em! If there are any good candidates for smashable-looking crap that I missed or any feedback on how I could make these better, let me know. If @kingsalis cool with it (...because I basically copied his homework for the scripting), I would also support making these entity definitions, collision models, and prefabs part of TDM's core, and would be willing to make whatever tweaks we think are good to help make that happen. breakable_prefabs.pk4