Search the Community

Ever since I worked on "Chalice of Kings" with Bikerdude, I have wanted to get flame particles with new particle glares into the core mod. My reasoning was that the candles have glares and the un-glared torches look mismatched. This proposal was met with mixed reactions, so (knowing the history of TDM feature proposals...) I have created a technical demo. You may download it here: zzz_flameglare.pk4.txt (fixed) Just rename without the .txt extension at the end and place it in your Darkmod directory. Here are some screens. Using particles for this is probably the wrong way to go now that Duzenko has an emissive light feature in his branch: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19659-feature-request-emissive-materialsvolumetric-lights/

I think it's ok to include shadow maps features as long as fms don't become depended on it. Meaning you can't play it properly with stencil shadows enabled.

"...to a robber whose soul is in his profession, there is a lure about a very old and feeble man who pays for his few necessities with Spanish gold." Good day, TDM community! I'm Ansome, a long-time forums lurker, and I'm here to recruit beta testers for my first FM: "The Terrible Old Man", based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story of the same name. This is a short (30-45 minute), story-driven FM with plenty of readables and a gloomy atmosphere. Do keep in mind that this is a more linear FM than you may be used to as it was deemed necessary for the purposes of the story's pacing. Regardless, the player does still have a degree of freedom in tackling challenges in the latter half of the FM. If this sounds interesting to you, please head over to the beta testing thread I will be posting shortly. Thank you!

I thought it would be convenient to collect in one place a list of all mods\addons\improvements created by the community for TDM. After surfing the entire forum I collected the following list of mods, and I present to you their list below. I will be glad if you correct me and provide any other links to mods that I may have missed. Graphic mods Fresnel Mod (MoDB link) Flame Glare Mod (MoDB link) ModPacks Unofficial Patch (MoDB link) TDM Modpack (MoDB link) (with the possibility of separate installation) Gameplay mods Augmentation Mod Wearable disguises Player Lamp (beta) Adjust player speed with mouse wheel Stealth Statistics Tool & Loot Stealth Stat (MoDB link) Textures TDM Texture Mod Small UI tweaks Reflections to all materials containing specular maps Sounds New Footstep sounds Collection of adjusted sounds by Anton Thiefier Sounds Blackjack Draw/Sheath SFX (MoDB link)

Let's run a test. Peeking through keyholes is a core functionality. For it to work mappers must manually setup target doors accordingly. A few maps make use of this functionality. The mod expands the functionality (in a different way) to any door. Download the mission Seeking Lady Leicester and load it. Approach the one door, crouch and lean forward on the keyhole. You should see the street outside. Does it work?

No shit that's the whole bloody point of this thread! I mean YouTube can certainly try, but there's been a never-ending war between ad-blockers and anti-ad-blockers for as long as blockers have existed. As with most things, YouTube will probably find a solution that most people cannot bypass, but anyone determined enough will find a way. YouTube can TRY to block users with adblockers. But whether they'll succeed or not is very much uncertain.

A couple more: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21739-resolved-allow-mantling-while-carrying-a-body/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22211-feature-proposal-new-lean-for-tdm-212/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22198-feature-proposal-frob-to-use-world-item/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22249-212-auto-search-bodies/

After playing various Dark Mod FM’s, I become hooked to the game, like I was with Thief (and its FM’s). So, like I do to all games I love, I tried to find ways to improve it. Since my first contact with DM and after playing T1 and T2 with the fantastic “HD Mod”, it became apparent that graphically, TDM struck me strange. Of course, it is clearly a BIG improvement over T3 and it’s not worse then Thief 2014 -- if you remove all those post processing effects, the textures are actually very bad for today standards – but it could be a little bit better. So I started to change a texture here, a texture there, whenever I found a texture that could be improved. Initially, I made this for my own amusement, while i was playing, but as the changes increased, I started to think I it would only be fair to share it with the community. As a note, I really appreciate the amount of work done by the contributors to TDM. It’s amazing how an open source project of a game whose genre is unfortunately condemned to target a niche player base could attract so many talented people to work together and create what essentially is the Thief 4 we never had. So this is in no way a mean to disrespect the contributors and their work. What changed and how Currently, around 530 files were changed. The changes end up in one of the following categories: NOTE: “texture quality” noted below is subjective and represents only my point of view. Again, It is in no way a mean of disrespect for the original author and its work. The texture is good but is in a low resolution – upscale it using AI image enhancement methods. The texture is poor and low res, with poor AI upscale results – try to replace it using various free PBR or raw Image sources (1) or create my own. If necessary, adjust the image using (colors, saturation, contrast, …) The texture has a good resolution and its not quite good but can be improved – improve using gimp (ex: on textures with bur, use sharpen, noise reduction or/and other features) (2) The texture depicts an horrible stew – change it to a decent and delicious stew, because my Portuguese roots forced me to do it. Additionally, specular and normal maps were added to some textures. (1) Free textures and PBR sites already discussed on this forum (texturehaven.com, 3dtextures.me, cc0textures.com and so on). (2) Finding the right texture is not always easy. I always tried to follow the same “feel” and appearance of the original image, but i confess that this is not always the case. Again, very subjective. New version 2021.01.08 * Around 170Mb of textures processed Some tree barks enhanced Stucco change more enhancements on doors, paint paper, fire places, ground textures, curtains .. and much more Screenshots and Comparisons It’s obviously undoable to show the comparison for all changed textures, so keep in mind that the following screenshots are just a very small example of the whole project. Also, very important, keep in mind that there is so much you can do with screenshots and in game the differences are much more clear than what is shown below. Sir Talbot's Collateral https://imgsli.com/MTI2NDE https://imgsli.com/MTI2MzY https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mzc https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mzg https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mzk https://imgsli.com/MTI2NDA WS3: Cleighmoor https://imgsli.com/MTI1OTE WS1: In the North https://imgsli.com/MTI2MTY https://imgsli.com/MTI2MTc WS2: Home Again https://imgsli.com/MTI2MjM https://imgsli.com/MTI2MjQ https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mjc https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mjg https://imgsli.com/MTI2Mjk https://imgsli.com/MTI2MzE https://imgsli.com/MTI2MzM New (version 2021.01.08) Briarwood Manor https://imgsli.com/MzUwNDY https://imgsli.com/MzUwNDg https://imgsli.com/MzUwNTE https://imgsli.com/MzUwNjc The Builder's Influence https://imgsli.com/MzUxNjM https://imgsli.com/MzUxNjQ No honor among thieves: forest https://imgsli.com/MzU0ODE https://imgsli.com/MzU1NTQ https://imgsli.com/MzU1NTk How to install 1) download the pk4 file from here 2) drop it on your TDM game folder (where all the other pk4 files are) 3) Play! Uninstall Just remove z_TDM_HD.pk4 file from your TDM install folder. Disclaimer If you are a purist, please don’t use this texture mod. Don’t bash it for not being “exactly the same as the original ones but hires”. If you find some texture that is copyrighted, please let me know and i will replace it. Fell free to suggest changes, but please don't make requests. Understand that i am doing this while playing and if i start feeling that i'm working instead, i will probably start to loose my interest. PS: I really don't know if this is the right thread to make this post. Let me know if i need to change it to another thread.

Ambient atmospheres are in my opinion one of the best parts of the Dark Mod experience, not just for getting a mission to have the right feel but also for inspiration and to have them playing in the background when creating maps. The more the merrier, so here's a thread to collect all the links to ambient music and environmental sounds that could have a spot in TDM's setting. Ambients from the TDM forums Gast's Eerie Lullabies Magnanimous Merry's Miscellanea Orbweaver's Dark Ambients Spadey's Ambients Radioteque's Ambients Kyyrma's Composing Ambient Tracks for Dummies - Kyyrma shows how ambient soundtracks can be made from a set of sounds. Also contains some of his finished ambients. Request for more interior sounds - this thread is a very productive community session where members came up with a large and good selection of new ambients. Uncle Peti's Sound Den Dragofer's Ambients - post #6 in this thread SeriousToni's Ambients - posts #8, 12, 15 and 19 in this thread Ambients from the TTLG forums Custom resources list Gigagooga's Ambients 1 - possibly the largest pack of ambient musics and nature sounds, all of them high quality. Gigagooga's Ambients 2 - this pack puts more weight on shorter swells/hits/pads to be layered on top of a subtle ambient. Gigagooga's Ambients 3 Yandros' ambient loop Sephy's Ambients - a large collection of ambient pieces, including many shorter ones which will be valuable for anyone wanting to try a layered ambience approach like in the Thief OMs and Full Moon Fever. Internet databases www.freesound.org - some of the better composers in my opinion are ERH and BrandonNyte. www.purple-planet.com - a large selection of all kinds of ambient and musical soundtracks to be used freely. www.darkwinter.com - an internet label that publishes a lot of dark ambient music under a Creative Commons license. www.endlessascent.com - sister website of Darkwinter for non-dark ambients. Youtube Asatru Dark - also has very nice reference images for outdoor stone memorials, statue arrangements etc. #4 Void by Raffaele du Marteau & #6 Dreaming of Nowhere by Raffaele du Marteau - possibly the most forlorn pieces I've found on the internet. Alacazam - a prolific Creative Commons ambients composer . Cryo Chamber - for-profit label for dark ambient music with a large selection on offer. Going by their Youtube comments they're fine with people using their soundtracks for games etc., although you'd probably need to buy the soundtracks first. Dark Ambient Mixed Session - as much ambient as something to have in the background while mapping.

The real St. Alban was a pagan who became a celebrated religious personality, this All Saints Day 2010 The Dark Mod places its own spin on this mythical figure. Screenshots: Intro: "'Business' has been slow lately, even more so after most of my gear got snatched during a Watch raid... I've since been forced to hit the streets and pick pockets for a living. But my luck was about to change, last night I was approached by a red hooded figure with a proposition... As we sat down in a dark corner of a nearby inn, he told to me that the Builders of St. Alban's Cathedral in the Old Quarter had recently unearthed a discovery that might lead to the final resting place of some saint." " But before I do anything, I need to get my tools and stash from the evidence room at the local watch station." "with the hawks, doves will congregate they will drop honey from the cliffs wine will surge over the earth the sheep will wander harmlessly with the wolf then the wicked will rise, but to retribution" - 'scripture of St Alban' There is a new version out now, see the following thread St Albans Cathedral version 1.6 Build Time: about 2-3 months. Thanks:- Huge respect to the Dark Mod team for such a great mod and for all the hard work they put into it and continue to put into it. Special thanks to Fidcal, Serpentine and others for their help on the forums and to Testing:Ugoliant, Baddcog, Grayman, Lost soul, Bjorn and Baal (for doing all the Vp work in the town. Readables: Ungoliant and Mortemdesino for all awesome work on the readables. Resource: Fids, Grayman, Ungoliant - guis, models & images. Misc: Loren Schmidt - the author of the map I based the cathedral on. Info: # Like Thief2, some things are climable, pipes, wall vines etc.. You can also drop some of the keys, some door that are frobbabe mean there is another way inside - explore u taffer! # Due to TDM being a lot more of a resource hog than T2 I have been forced to limit the number of Ai in the mission, but they have better placement than my last mission. # On all difficulty levels the player starts with vertualy no tools/weapons, there are weapons to be found - read, read, read! # For the love of all that is holy, read the briefing otherwise you will problems completing the mission. Known issues:- # This mission will have less than optimal fps at a few points on the map, mid range DX9 card(X1900/GF7800) or higher required. # On low end PCs I recommend, V-sync is off, AA is off, Aniso is 4x or lower and that any and all background apps are closed.

Bookmark everything you have an interest in. The Algorithm can still be useful for finding related content, but it can't be relied upon. As for the adblocking, I have different setups that are all still effective at blocking ads, and I spent no effort tweaking these. I usually don't use a user account. Maybe YouTube hasn't rolled everything out yet, IDK. YouTube does have alternate sources of revenue, such as taking a 30% cut of superchats, and 50% cut on channel memberships. For the ads it does run, mobile users block ads less often than desktop users and are probably considered more valuable by advertisers from the information that can be extracted about viewership. I don't think YouTube is particularly unprofitable, and Google is probably willing to run it at cost just to have a cultural behemoth in its pocket. Theoretically, the costs of running a video platform can go down if storage, computing, networking, and codec advancements counteract growth. Google also has advantages over upstart competitors, such as the ability to design its own transcoding chips.

I've watched less youtube lately because of the excessive intrusive ads interrupting the videos all the time. Also it's getting harder and harder to find interesting videos. To get picked up by The Algorithm it seems that everyone has started pulling stupid Youtube faces and scream-babbling in annoying Youtube voices, and it's impossible to get an idea of the content of a video from the thumbnail because everything is in the same uniform clickbaity format.

Author Note: This is a brand new mission and a new entry into the accountant series. There are some different than usual puzzles in this FM, so if you find yourself stuck try to think about your pathway forward in a logical manner. And if you're still having troubles then pop by this thread and ask (preferably with spoiler tags). This FM is brand new and serves as the first installment in The Accountant series, a few years back there was a small prologue style mission released however I felt that it did not represent The Accountant series so I decided to go back to the drawing board and do a whole new mission that's larger, has a better level design and has a story that lines up closer to what I plan to do with the accountant series. The mission is medium sized and you can expect between 30-90 minutes to complete it depending on your playstyle. Beta Testers Captain Cleveland Crowind Kingsal PukeyBee Skacky SquadaFroinx Voice Actors AndrosTheOxen Epifire Goldwell Stevenpfortune Yandros Custom assets Airship Ballet Bentraxx Bob Necro Dragofer DrKubiac Epifire Kingsal MalachiAD Sotha Springheel SquadaFroinx Available via in-game downloader File Size: 233 MB - Updated to v 1.1 (01.06.2018)

No I can't see the videos. Put them up on Youtube as non-listed videos. Also, what's your system? Is it a relatively slow or older system? The first time one enters a location, there's some work being done that might be pre-churned from then on, so I think it might have something to do with the work load slowing all kinds of things down, including the ambient going online. If you know your way around DR (or editing the map file directly), you could test things like setting the native volume of the location entity to zero from the start, and see if it happens when other speakers turn on for other reasons the first time, like a trigger. It may be an issue that all speakers face that this system inherits.

I feel I should add - due to my blunder with the volumetric lights shadows I didn't realize I that I was looking at soft shadows for maps instead of stencil when I was comparing them. After some more playing around I definitely see that soft shadows with stencil looks better. So I get what all the fuss is about now.

Both mean basically the same thing. Stencil is incapable of shading anything other than geometry so if you want textures that have transparent parts to cast shadows from the non-transparent part of the texture you need to accept that stencil mode will look different to maps mode. Likewise if you want shadows to render onto the semi-transparent part of textures.

Sorry - my response was a long way of saying I'd be fine with going to maps only as a strategy. I voted option 1. But this is without understanding some things in your top post. What is an 'Alpha-tested shadow occluder' and how does it affect me as a mapper? What is an example of a translucent object that won't cast shadows?

I thought I've read somewhere that if you enable shadow maps, that on some lights, stencil shadows are still forced, for some reason. Correct? I'm not sure if I should vote. This seems more for fm-bakers. Edit: I would go for option 1

I'd like to remind that the core question is: what should we do now? Stencil shadows don't support a lot of things, but they are pixel-perfect in exchange. Indeed, stencil shadows won't be removed while shadow maps look like crap here and there (and are not even self-sufficient).

I'm definitely interested in this. In the past it used to worry and upset me that some of the assets are CC-BY-SA-NC: Not because I'd care to sell them in any conceivable format, but because it made the project seem less libre and FOSS and Linux friendly. I remember my only disagreement was with some developers being against FM authors taking donations for their own work on their personal maps and stories, I think that's more problematic but ultimately accepted and respected it since to me that's secondary and I'm just happy TDM and DarkRadiant exist for us all to create worlds with. As stated before, many of the existing assets would need replacements that look the same way. Since the authors of old FM's can't be expected to re-texture all of their maps, those replacements would need the same names or an automatic conversion script, and have to look in such a way that they fit the old textures just right at any transformation. This isn't impossible but something I find unlikely as few people willing to do the effort may find it useful enough to work on one. Such a transition could perhaps be considered if we ever switch to high-res textures: Many of the images could be upgraded with replacements someday... maybe this time we can avoid going for semi-libre assets and use fully FOSS compatible ones. I've also been dreaming of a cyberpunk conversion for years, to have a TDM that's less Thief and more DeusEx taking place in a futuristic environment... also unlikely to happen but the hope in my attempt was to ween off of the stricter assets.

And btw I'm not against using both shadow systems, I just think that supporting two systems, is more work, but if the TDM engine team is okay with that, then go for it they have my full support, for what is worth. I just personally don't like that shadow maps are being pushed back is all. But you guys do what you want, this should be a mission makers decision, I'm just a "customer" I will have no choice but accept what you guys decide.

If shadow maps would look good I would agree, but they just don't.

Fiver, there are many ways you can contribute. Several ways are described on the forum and wiki. You pointed us to some locations in missions. Please read the forum posts & the wiki, watch some youtube editor tutorials, download and use the mission files & darkradiant to try fix/change the things you mentioned. For starters, And https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=DarkRadiant

Yes, but there are qualifiers to that statement. Stencil is more CPU bound ( and fillrate bound ) and Maps are more GPU memory bound and rely more on texture bandwidth. If lighting mechanisms were perfect the hybrid might not be so bad but both systems often overdraw and waste resources on unseen geometry so you end up with significant amounts of scene duplication. Maybe moving to a deferred model would reduce that duplication but then you end up with having to pack data into buffers and the inevitable quality loss and artifacts of compressing everything into a buffer. Trade offs in all directions.