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Beta Testing 2.08


stgatilov

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TDM 2.08 is ready for beta test

In order to update, you have to download tdm_mirrors.txt file.
Note that this file will change with every beta release, unlike previous years.

Windows, Full Install:
1 - Create a darkmod folder anywhere you like.
2 - Download the TDM Updater. Extract tdm_update.exe from the downloaded ZIP and place it in your darkmod folder.
3 - Download a special tdm_mirrors.txt file and place it in your darkmod folder.
4 - Start tdm_update.exe. Remember to use the --keep-mirrors setting when running tdm_update. (On the main window, click the "Advanced Options" button and check the first box.)

Windows, 2.07 to 2.08 Upgrade:
1 - Download a special tdm_mirrors.txt file and place it in your darkmod folder.
2 - Start tdm_update.exe. Remember to use the --keep-mirrors setting when running tdm_update. (On the main window, click the "Advanced Options" button and check the first box.)

Linux, Full Install:
1 - Create a darkmod folder anywhere you like.
2 - Download the Linux version of the TDM Updater and extract it to your darkmod folder.
3 - Download a special tdm_mirrors.txt file and place it in your darkmod folder.
4 - Make tdm_update.linux64 executable: "chmod +x tdm_update.linux64"
5 - Run the updater. Remember to use the --keep-mirrors setting.

Linux, 2.07 to 2.08 Upgrade:
1 - Download a special tdm_mirrors.txt file and place it in your darkmod folder.
2 - Run the updater. Remember to use the --keep-mirrors setting.

Config reset:
After update is over, delete your darkmod.cfg file to reset all settings (better backup it beforehand).
 

Notes

1 - This effort is to find out if we broke anything in TDM with our 2.08 changes, if a new 2.08 feature isn't working correctly.
We won't be trying to fix bugs that have been around for a long time. The best that could be done now for such old-living bugs is to create an issue in bugtracker (if not yet present).

2 - If you find something wrong and still have 2.07 version in your hands, please test the same thing in 2.07.

3 - Please try to be specific when reporting a problem. What you were doing, where you were when the problem occurred, can you reproduce it, etc.
This wiki article provides many suggestions for good bug reports.

Thank you for testing !

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Looking through the changelog, I must say that massive changes happened since 2.07.
Prepare yourself for a lengthy beta 🙃

Brief overview

Internal:
1) Finally, TDM runs on OpenGL 3 core context by default (#5143). This is controlled by r_glCoreContext.
2) ARB shaders are no longer used. The last of them were tracked down and converted to GLSL.
3) Under the hood, we have a new GLSL shader management with includes and defines, plus a new OpenGL loading system on both OSes.
4) The Linux version is now built using widespread CMake system instead of SCons (#5075).

Mapping:
1) Now interaction shader uses specular color instead of diffuse color when computing specular lighting term (#5044, controlled by r_testSpecularFix).
   The specular color was ignored for years, which 1) makes no sense, 2) makes some materials look wrong, and 3) makes it inconvenient to tweak specular.
   While this change affects dramatically all known FMs, it is hoped that it still fixes more than it breaks.
   This is the most controversial change, and whether it stays in 2.08 depends a lot on your feedback during early betas.
2) Fixed several bugs in visportals handling in dmap. This affects all existing maps, so please read section of Visportals wiki article.
3) Added diagnostics for common visportal problems (#5129), read section in Visportals wiki article.
4) Fixed bug in stencil shadows computation, which was introduced in 2.07 (#5106).
   It affects all parallel and projected lights when mapper runs dmap on a CPU with AVX.
   It is strongly recommended to re-dmap all FMs dmapped with 2.07 if they contain such lights.
5) Added dmap warnings about rotation-hacked models, fixed culling issue (#4970).
6) Improved precision of dmap and its mesh processing algorithms (#5137).
7) Fixed bugs with handling water brushes, especially with complex shapes (#5014).
8| Fixed MD3 and liquid models. Animated water should work properly now.

Graphics:
1) Postprocessing and gamma/brightness settings merged together, bloom reimplemented completely (#4705).
   As the result, gamma/brightness now works on Linux, and no longer affects desktop and main menu.
2) Ambient occlusion feature can be enabled in Graphical settings (#4972).
3) "Borderless window" mode integrates a bit better with OS than "fullscreen" mode (#4724, Windows-only).
4) Fixed several bugs with non-default Render Scale (#5085, #5068).
5) More reliable game modelling with "Uncap FPS" when FPS is low (#4924).
   It also means worse performance under such circumstances (i.e. when FPS is uncapped and lower than 60).

Gameplay:
1) Mantling, swimming, shouldering, ladder/rope improvements (#4509, #3550, #2273, #4107, #3607, #4948, #5069).
2) More AI sitting/sleeping fixes (#3989, #5156, #5164).
3) Now keybindings are saved into separate file DarkmodKeybinds.cfg (#4797).
   This makes it much less problem to reset darkmod.cfg, since you won't have to reconfigure all bindings after reset.
4) New customizable .script file to allow running custom scripts in every mission (#5179).

New mapping features:
1) Static collision detection for rain particles (#4957), see Wiki article.
2) Better rain particles, old rain materials deprecated (#5139).
3) New way to tweak rendering order of translucent surfaces: drawSortOffset spawnarg.
4) Easy-to-use parallel light emanating from the sky (#5121), see explanation on wiki.
   It can be used for moon or sun, although it has serious performance toll.
5) Added stopPatrol script command for AIs (#5056).
6) Spectrum spawnargs restrict light interaction depending on spectrum values of lights and entities (#4956).
7) X-ray subview changes appearance (skin_xray) of specified entities when seen behind this surface.

Assets:
1) New Beastmen characters (Kingsal)
2) New zombie characters (Springheel)
3) New environmental models (Springheel & Epifire)
4) Many more Dragofer models incorporated (Dragofer)


And other improvements, additions, fixes, and optimizations..
More details can be seen in What's new wiki article and in the roadmap.

Important cvars

Old:
* r_postprocess_gamma and r_postprocess_brightness: these cvars have replaced the old r_gamma and r_brightness. Also gamma now has default value "1.2".
* r_interactionProgram and tdm_ambient_method: this are the current cvars controlling "interaction" and "ambient" programs. These settings were previously available in Advanced video settings, but they are no longer visible in menu. Only change this for some debugging/investigation purposes.
* r_uniformTransforms: setting to 0 is known to fix severe graphical issues on Intel HD 3000; please leave this as default, and let developers know if your machine needs this to run TDM properly.

New:

* r_glCoreProfile: default value 2 forces "Core profile" OpenGL context, while value 0 says to create "Compatibility profile". Should have no visual impact. Only takes effect during engine initialization. Only change this is someone suspects that Core profile breaks something.
* r_testSpecularFix: this controls whether specular color or diffuse collor is used to modulate specular light term. Should be used to see what was fixed or broken by the corresponding change. Set to -1 to make game switch back and forth between old and new behavior every second.
* r_ssao_*: several cvars with this prefix can be used to tweak SSAO implementation. Although ideally you shouldn't have to touch them.
* r_bloom*: several cvars to tweak new bloom effect. Ideally, you should not touch it: just use slider in GUI settings.
* r_fboColorBits 64: increased color precision (HDR rendering). Reduces color banding, makes bloom on very bright light sources more prominent.
* r_usePersistentMapping, r_useMultiDraw, r_useBaseVertex: use new graphical features for potentially faster rendering. Should not touch these unless it is suspected that one of them causes a problem.
* r_useParallelAddModels: an experimental cvar to further parallelize a considerable part of the renderer. Should slightly increase FPS in many cases, but can cause all sort of problems.

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List of beta versions and changelog:

beta208-01. svn rev 8634 / 15810.
Initial beta version --- see changes above.
 

beta208-02. svn rev 8648 / 15876.
* Completely new SSAO implementation.
* Allow to return to old console font using con_legacyFont cvar.
* Fixed inefficiency in depth prepass (multi-draw).
* Put filenames with hyphens into doublequotes in skins.
* Many more Dragofer assets integrated.
* Revised advanced video settings menu.
* Supported user "addon" scripts.
 

beta208-03. svn rev 8660 / 15898.
* Removed g_rotationHack entirely: both fixing the models and dmap errors. Dmap still writes warnings.
* Now HRTF can (and should) be turned on and off in sound settings menu. Useless sound setting removed from GUI.
* Shouldering improvements: unlock view, forbid mid-air, cvar to disable new anim.
* Turkish translation update by Outsider One.
* All skins text normalized to better style. Most importantly, all paths are now enclosed into doublequotes.
* Fixed painting_deadXXX material decls for deadXXX painting skins.
* Fixed covered furniture models.
* Fixed apebeast missing wearables (5201).
* Fixed missing textures for textures/darkmod/decals/vegetation/grass01 and textures/darkmod/volta/volta_arrows_sheet.
 

beta208-04. svn rev 8675 / 15903.
* Fixed SSAO issues: Render Scale compatibility, zoomed views, darkening when close to wall.
* Fixed rare crash in AAS compilation tool (5212).
* tdm_update permission-related improvements: better error messages + warn user if he has admin rights (5213).


beta208-05. svn rev 8701 / 15914.
* Added new implementation of bloom effect. Can be enabled in advanced graphics settings.
* Added a way to control color precision. Setting 64-bit precision reduces color banding and improves bloom on overbright lights.
* Fixed issue with random black things in some foggy maps (e.g. Heart of Lone Salvation). Unfortunately, "multidraw" rendering optimization was disabled for it.
* Fixed the HOM effect on some maps when player flies out of the world (in the void).
* Fixed experimental r_shadowMapSinglePass cvar.
* More fixes to X-ray skins feature.
* Added shader parallaxCubeReflect for parallax-corrected reflection mapping.
* Fixed warning about number of choices in SSAO setting GUI.


beta208-06. svn rev 8735 / 15934.
* Fixed SSAO issue on AMD graphics.
* Bloom parameters tweaked: it no longer depends on screen resolution.
* Fixed occasional drops of shadow softness (5063).
* Changing gamma/brightness in menu now immediately affects the gamma calibration table.
* Fixed decal materials broken by new specular color rules (e.g. in Saint Lucia).
* Added workaround for composing spawnargs longer than 128 character in scripts (5236).
* Fixes to alpha-blended subviews.
* Added fogAlpha material keyword: enables partial fog on translucent surfaces.
* Added last material keyword which means stage should render after postprocessing.
* Asset fixes: werebeast, manbeast, and a bit of zombie. Plus some models fixed.
* Added console command overrideSurfaceMaterial to change material of surface under cursor (see this).
* Fixed problem when restarting TDM reverted borderless mode to fullscreen mode.
* Do not reload decls which are inside pk4 files on reloadDecls, unless it is forced by user.


beta208-07. svn rev 8755 / 15948.
* Fixed AI not sitting/sleeping when it can (5265).
* Reverted unexpected change in frustum of projection lights.
* Particle static collision improvements (water, better blocker override).
* Added typical 21:9 resolutions to settings menu.
* Various asset fixes.


beta208-08. svn rev 8771 / 15957.
* Updated GUI overlays for 21:9 resolution.
* Fixed elementals sometimes causing events overflow.
* Added listEvents command and com_error_crash, com_warning_as_error cvars (part of 5270).
* Assets fixes: manbeast/werebeast and lionhead_amulet (5184, 5271).
 

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The context fix for Intel HD 3000 still doesn't seem to work fully; switching to the full 2.08 beta build from this thread made no difference.

1 hour ago, Dragofer said:

Yes, his fix has allowed me to see the Main Menu, now I only have problem with the black screen ingame in a map (screen is black about 95% of the time, the remaining 5% I see glimpses of the world).

 

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As for 2.08 features, I've been involved with:

  • spectrum spawnargs -> restricts light interaction depending on spectrum values of lights and entities (nbohr1more)
  • areaLock spawnarg -> forces an entity to stop rendering when its visleaf is closed (duzenko)
  • drawSortOffset spawnarg -> change the order in which surfaces are drawn, useful for multiple transparent surfaces, especially in fog (duzenko)
  • xray subview -> changes appearance (skin_xray) of specified entities when seen behind this surface (duzenko)
  • func_liquid -> rectangular water surface that physically simulates invisible drops falling into it (stgatilov)
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And please make the old font the default if I may ask, I saw a few more on Discord who preferred that too. The new one is more technical looking.

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Was just looking through some of new the assets and have so far noticed that the manbeast and werebeasts are missing their textures.

 

@Springheel I believe you merged these over if i'm not mistaken?

 

cHrLQFs.png

 

HpdcdG6.png

 

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I had thought 

4 hours ago, Goldwell said:

Was just looking through some of new the assets and have so far noticed that the manbeast and werebeasts are missing their textures.

 

@Springheel I believe you merged these over if i'm not mistaken?

 

 

 

 

 

I had thought so.  I tested the manbeasts on a fresh SVN build after uploading them.  I'll have to double-check to see what went wrong.

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17 minutes ago, Springheel said:

I had thought 

I had thought so.  I tested the manbeasts on a fresh SVN build after uploading them.  I'll have to double-check to see what went wrong.

So I think I found the issue with the werebeast at least, the material file for the model textures are pointing into a different folder to where the textures are actually found.

To help make it easier for you to track things down, the material file "tdm_ai_monsters_werebeasts.mtr" is found in "tdm_ai_humanoid_guards01.pk4" and the texture files are found in "tdm_ai_monsters_spider01.pk4".

 

So the issue is that the material file for the werebeast points to:

"models/md5/monsters/werebeast/"

Whereas the actual textures are found in:

"models/md5/chars/monsters/werebeast/"

 

Having that extra "chars" subdirectory seems to be throwing things off there.

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I can't see anything wrong with either of them from my end.  All the textures show up for me on my SVN build.  Are you getting any useful console warnings?

 

Quote

the material file "tdm_ai_monsters_werebeasts.mtr" is found in "tdm_ai_humanoid_guards01.pk4" and the texture files are found in "tdm_ai_monsters_spider01.pk4".

 

That's outdated, actually.  The updated werebeast textures are in "werebeast.mtr"

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4 hours ago, Springheel said:

I can't see anything wrong with either of them from my end.  All the textures show up for me on my SVN build.  Are you getting any useful console warnings?

 

 

That's outdated, actually.  The updated werebeast textures are in "werebeast.mtr"

I followed the instructions in the OP to download a fresh install of the 2.08 beta.

 

Which means the version I have is “svn rev 8634/ 15810.”

 

I do have an SVN tdm install but I did the fresh beta install as I want to be sure the version we rollout for the first beta has everything (asset wise) in it.

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I haven't yet seen this in the beta build but I thought I would get the ball rolling to verify if this is an issue.

In SVN, sometimes when I start a mission with Soft Shadows enabled, the soften shader does not activate

until I go to the settings menu and choose a different quality and return in-game with the new quality setting.

Usually I am on Medium quality and exit then set it to High then exit again to set it back to Medium.

It's a trivial workaround but it is quite annoying. Is anyone experiencing this too?

(Probably only affects Linux.)

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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6 hours ago, Springheel said:

I can't see anything wrong with either of them from my end.  All the textures show up for me on my SVN build.  Are you getting any useful console warnings?

I looked into tdm_ai_monsters_werebeast.mtr on SVN, and it contains some paths to models/md5/monsters/... images.

6 hours ago, Springheel said:

That's outdated, actually.  The updated werebeast textures are in "werebeast.mtr"

tdm_ai_monsters_werebeast.mtr looks more in the common naming style. Perhaps it's time to merge these two files and remove werebeast.mtr?

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17 hours ago, stgatilov said:

I looked into tdm_ai_monsters_werebeast.mtr on SVN, and it contains some paths to models/md5/monsters/... images.

tdm_ai_monsters_werebeast.mtr looks more in the common naming style. Perhaps it's time to merge these two files and remove werebeast.mtr?

 

Merging them makes sense.

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On 3/9/2020 at 9:16 PM, Goldwell said:

I followed the instructions in the OP to download a fresh install of the 2.08 beta.

 

Which means the version I have is “svn rev 8634/ 15810.”

 

I do have an SVN tdm install but I did the fresh beta install as I want to be sure the version we rollout for the first beta has everything (asset wise) in it.

I downloaded the SVN for the release branch, and although I did find a missing definition for one of the new zombies, the beastmen were properly textured.  Unless someone else can confirm the problem, I'm not sure where else to go with this.

 

On another note, is the game supposed to default to windowed mode now? 

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On 3/9/2020 at 11:36 PM, stgatilov said:

It has been happening for a long time already: 5063

I've been tinkering with this issue by trying to bypass the GL error check in Framebuffer.cpp if the player isn't "ready" but no permutation

of this has worked thus far. I think the other "quick fix" is to provoke reloadModels after PlayerStart is complete.

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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