Wishlist For Darkradiant

[func_klaus]

Howdy! codereader has invited me to join the community after I pushed a few PRs to the DarkRadiant repo. Some stuff that I pushed:

• Array Modifier: Duplicates selected brushes/entities in configurable array patterns.
• Scatter Tool: Scatters copies of selected objects across surfaces with configurable parameters.
• Polygon Tool: Draw arbitrary polygon shapes in the 2D ortho views, allowing for a Doom 1-map editing workflow.
• Decal Shooter: Point-and-click tool for placing decal textures onto surfaces directly from the 3D camera view.
• Terrain Generator: Procedural terrain generation using Perlin and Simplex noise algorithms.
• CSG Intersect: Computes the intersection of selected brushes, keeping only the overlapping volume.

Most of these were ideas/requests from the id tech 4 community on Discord, but would also like to hear what other stuff could be added. 

[Frost_Salamander]

1 hour ago, func_klaus said:

Howdy! codereader has invited me to join the community after I pushed a few PRs to the DarkRadiant repo. Some stuff that I pushed:

• Array Modifier: Duplicates selected brushes/entities in configurable array patterns.
• Scatter Tool: Scatters copies of selected objects across surfaces with configurable parameters.
• Polygon Tool: Draw arbitrary polygon shapes in the 2D ortho views, allowing for a Doom 1-map editing workflow.
• Decal Shooter: Point-and-click tool for placing decal textures onto surfaces directly from the 3D camera view.
• Terrain Generator: Procedural terrain generation using Perlin and Simplex noise algorithms.
• CSG Intersect: Computes the intersection of selected brushes, keeping only the overlapping volume.

Most of these were ideas/requests from the id tech 4 community on Discord, but would also like to hear what other stuff could be added. 

I just had a look through your PRs - these look great and I can hardly wait to give them a try! When's the next DR release?

As for other new stuff, there are a bunch of feature requests on the bug tracker - have you looked there? Just search for 'feature request' with Dark Radiant project selected: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view_all_bug_page.php

They are probably pretty boring compared to the stuff you've just added, but it would be cool if someone looked at them! 

[func_klaus]

Will do! 

[sullium]

8 hours ago, func_klaus said:

would also like to hear what other stuff could be added. 

I realize this is a bit of a different thing, but it would be great to have a dark mode for the overall menus (as in, the things not covered by the "Colors..." options). I've heard Linux users are able to do this somehow but on Windows 11 I don't see a way (the system-wide Dark Mode doesn't apply, for instance).

And those PRs look super useful, great work!

Edited February 22 by sullium

[func_klaus]

I have tackled https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6645 and https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6135 because they were the most recent. I've ordered issues by severity, but wasn't able to reproduce some of them. @Frost_Salamander are some of those still valid in the current codebase?

[Frost_Salamander]

50 minutes ago, func_klaus said:

I have tackled https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6645 and https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6135 because they were the most recent. I've ordered issues by severity, but wasn't able to reproduce some of them. @Frost_Salamander are some of those still valid in the current codebase?

I was just going through all of these in case you decide to have a look.

6645:  thanks!

6135: I would have thought this one was redundant because of the introduction of focus groups (as datiswous mentioned in the comment).  Maybe see if @joebarnin still thinks it's useful?

The other ones I personally would get the most value from are:

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6494

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6353

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6263

And I would kill to get this bug fixed:

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6547 

It's no coincidence these are ones I've raised, so I feel selfish only mentioning them.  But if anyone else has any burning issues they want addressed now appears to be the time to chime in while we have @func_klaus's attention

 

[Frost_Salamander]

Sorry forgot to ask - which ones couldn't you reproduce?

We don't normally set severity when we raise issues - Greebo usually determines that.

[Frost_Salamander]

@func_klaus  your 'array modifier' feature reminded me of something that I would like.  Maybe your feature already does it, but I can't currently check as it's not released yet.

Say you have a doorway or a road, and you want to put a gate or portcullis in front of it.  Let's say that space is 96 units wide. You want the gate to be made up of vertical bars or slats of a certain width (4 units for example), and you want them to be spaced evenly across the 96 units. How many bars and what spacing would be required to make the gate?

There is obviously more than one answer, with the width of the bars and the spacing being variable. But maybe those could be inputs and DR just works it out, or of it doesn't fit with the desired inputs, DR can find the best fit?

The scenario I just provided is for brushes, but the objects in question could be models like in your array modifier video.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't sound too weird, but every time I go to make something where I need evenly space objects within a fixed width I struggle with this issue.

 

[datiswous]

1 hour ago, Frost_Salamander said:

6135: I would have thought this one was redundant because of the introduction of focus groups (as datiswous mentioned in the comment).  Maybe see if @joebarnin still thinks it's useful?

Not entirely. The feature request is actually 2 in one I think.

1. I would like to select a single object in a group, without having to Ungroup it.
2. It would be nice if the GroupCycleForward and GroupCycleBackward keyboard shortcuts (default TAB and Shift-TAB) cycled though the items in the group, selecting one at a time.

 

1. is fixed with Selection Focus

 

I hope 2. also works inside selection focus, but I don't see why not.

Edited February 22 by datiswous

[joebarnin]

3 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

6135: I would have thought this one was redundant because of the introduction of focus groups (as datiswous mentioned in the comment).  Maybe see if @joebarnin still thinks it's useful?

I agree, Group Selection Focus solves my complaint. The case can be closed.

[datiswous]

35 minutes ago, joebarnin said:

Group Selection Focus

Btw. it's not actually only group selection focus I found. I mean you don't have to make it a group first to go into selection focus mode. You can just select a bunch of things and go into selection focus with them. While editing the things inside the selection mode, it's impossible to alter anything outside of it.

40 minutes ago, joebarnin said:

I agree, Group Selection Focus solves my complaint. The case can be closed.

I think it's still helpful to cycle through things in a group. I hope this fix doesn't get unfixed. 

[joebarnin]

10 minutes ago, datiswous said:

I think it's still helpful to cycle through things in a group. I hope this fix doesn't get unfixed. 

I agree, this is a useful change (sorry, I didn't realize it was already fixed).

[func_klaus]

21 hours ago, sullium said:

I realize this is a bit of a different thing, but it would be great to have a dark mode for the overall menus (as in, the things not covered by the "Colors..." options). I've heard Linux users are able to do this somehow but on Windows 11 I don't see a way (the system-wide Dark Mode doesn't apply, for instance).

And those PRs look super useful, great work!

Sorry, missed your message. But enabling Dark Mode on Linux is not hard. However, the icons end up being a problem and you will need completely new ones. And then you need other tweaks to the normal theme, and the 3D viewport, and so on... I went on that rabbit hole on my personal fork of DR. https://imgur.com/a/Lqu950A

As you can see, that's very disruptive. Which is why I kept on my own thing. Design tends to be very personal and subjective. 

 

8 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

Sorry forgot to ask - which ones couldn't you reproduce?

We don't normally set severity when we raise issues - Greebo usually determines that.

0594, 3695, 3522, 2727, all marked as major. 

6547 seems hard! I'll try that one.

 

 

7 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

@func_klaus  your 'array modifier' feature reminded me of something that I would like.  Maybe your feature already does it, but I can't currently check as it's not released yet.

Say you have a doorway or a road, and you want to put a gate or portcullis in front of it.  Let's say that space is 96 units wide. You want the gate to be made up of vertical bars or slats of a certain width (4 units for example), and you want them to be spaced evenly across the 96 units. How many bars and what spacing would be required to make the gate?

There is obviously more than one answer, with the width of the bars and the spacing being variable. But maybe those could be inputs and DR just works it out, or of it doesn't fit with the desired inputs, DR can find the best fit?

The scenario I just provided is for brushes, but the objects in question could be models like in your array modifier video.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't sound too weird, but every time I go to make something where I need evenly space objects within a fixed width I struggle with this issue.

 

The Array tool will work with brushes too! But if I understand correctly, you want some sort of auto-gap calculator between 2 points?

[Frost_Salamander]

34 minutes ago, func_klaus said:

The Array tool will work with brushes too! But if I understand correctly, you want some sort of auto-gap calculator between 2 points?

Yes exactly. But the more I think about it the more silly it seems. The other issues are a better use of your time I think!

[datiswous]

15 hours ago, func_klaus said:

Sorry, missed your message. But enabling Dark Mode on Linux is not hard. However, the icons end up being a problem and you will need completely new ones. And then you need other tweaks to the normal theme, and the 3D viewport, and so on... I went on that rabbit hole on my personal fork of DR. https://imgur.com/a/Lqu950A

Woooow!! Really nice icons. Can you share those somewhere? I also made adjustments for the icons myself, but those look crappy. They're just functional, basically I didn't change the icon graphics, but added a grey background.

What kind of tweaks do you need for the 3D viewport? I can understand for the 2D viewport.

I think that theme could even work in light theme when the white in those icons get reversed. Looks much slicker than the current outdated-looking icon set.

Edited February 23 by datiswous

[datiswous]

Something I would like to see in DR is seeing the keyboard shortcuts shown in the menu's like on Windows. But @greeboand @OrbWeavercouldn't fix it. Something to do with wxgtk.

A crappy looking workaround I found is to add the text inside the menu xml file.

[SeriousToni]

16 hours ago, datiswous said:

Something I would like to see in DR is seeing the keyboard shortcuts shown in the menu's like on Windows. But @greeboand @OrbWeavercouldn't fix it. Something to do with wxgtk.

A crappy looking workaround I found is to add the text inside the menu xml file.

Would be an addition to give more comfort yes. But until then I recommend putting a list of shortcuts on the second screen of yours or print it out as paper shortcut list. 

[func_klaus]

There was a fix on wxWidgets back in 2023 that is similar to the issue: https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/issues/23379

The issue is that wxKeyEvent::GetKeyCode() returns raw GDK keysyms instead of WXK codes. The only way to fix that is with a lot of ugly platform-specific hacks, and also adds gtk+-3.0 as a dependency for Linux builds. Not a big deal, but not sure if DarkRadiant wants to have that kind of code in there.

[func_klaus]

On 2/23/2026 at 8:48 AM, datiswous said:

Woooow!! Really nice icons. Can you share those somewhere? I also made adjustments for the icons myself, but those look crappy. They're just functional, basically I didn't change the icon graphics, but added a grey background.

What kind of tweaks do you need for the 3D viewport? I can understand for the 2D viewport.

I think that theme could even work in light theme when the white in those icons get reversed. Looks much slicker than the current outdated-looking icon set.

Yeah: https://github.com/klaussilveira/hellforge/tree/master/resources/icons

There's a shell script that applies colors to the SVG and renders a dark and light version of them.

For the 3D viewport tweaks, mostly approximating the workflow of TrenchBroom as well as NetRadiant-custom.

[datiswous]

Wow I'm very interested in trying out your fork:

https://github.com/klaussilveira/hellforge/tree/master

Some of the features seem pretty cool.

Like making brushes directly inside 3d viewport

The only way is build from source, or are there also packages for some distro's?

[func_klaus]

The GitHub workflow has the artifacts for every build. So you can try the AppImage for example: https://github.com/klaussilveira/hellforge/actions/runs/22269453674

Or FlatPak. Just select a workflow and then a commit and then get the binaries: https://github.com/klaussilveira/hellforge/actions

[func_klaus]

@Frost_Salamander I've tackled most of your bugs except 6263. I'll see if I can find some time this weekend to tackle that one. However, do you have a video or something of your sound shader workflow? It could be useful to see how you work. I'm a terrible mapper and I have no idea how to do things.

[Frost_Salamander]

1 hour ago, func_klaus said:

@Frost_Salamander I've tackled most of your bugs except 6263. I'll see if I can find some time this weekend to tackle that one. However, do you have a video or something of your sound shader workflow? It could be useful to see how you work. I'm a terrible mapper and I have no idea how to do things.

Wow thanks!  This is like Christmas... 

Here's a video of how you would select a sound shader for a speaker.  The idea for the animation would be pretty much the same thing, except on the 'anim' spawnarg on path_anim entity  (and path_cycleanim as well).

https://drive.proton.me/urls/P8Y4GGWF84#JzHlmYKxcXIW

In the video I create the speaker first, and then change the sound after.  Not sure if I would want the animation selection popping up as soon as I created the path_anim like it happens with the speaker or not?  Perhaps others could chime in ...

[Bikerdude]

@func_klaus

So apparently your the man to speak to atm, regarding outstanding bugs in DR  so if you have time could you have a look at some of the following..?

Major issues impacting workflow: 

• Texture rotation and fit on patches broken on 2.14- https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5798
• Model exporter breaking UV map on existing stock models - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6564
• Pick Shader via MMB randomly not working - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6127
• Pressing shift-LMB select, is selecting multiple back ground items - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5006
• Unhandled exception when dragging orthoview during 3-way merge preview - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6192
•  

Other issues that would be nice to fix:

• Darkmod skin for DR (Windows) - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5812 
• Clipping in Camerview/Orthoview when grid is set to less than 0.125 - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6347
• Objectives editor lagginess when editing components in maps with many entities - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6200
• DR windows refusing to restore (Windows10) - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6155
• Crashing on pressing ctrl-z to undo - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=652
• Normalised UV islands shouldn't overlap - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5806

Feature Requests:

• Show number of shadowcasting polys in Model Chooser - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6193
• Create decal patches for non-rectangular surfaces - https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=602

So is "func_klaus" going to become a new entity type in TDM/DR..? 

Edited February 28 by Bikerdude

[datiswous]

7 hours ago, func_klaus said:

The GitHub workflow has the artifacts for every build. So you can try the AppImage for example: https://github.com/klaussilveira/hellforge/actions/runs/22269453674

I get this error when I try to start it the appimage build

 

Well at least the Flatpack version works fine.

 

It says version 1.0.0 but which version of DR is this based on? I think that is useful info for in the About Hellforge Window.

 

Some of the features you mention that are different from DR, I cannot find:

Quote

Visual preview mode for browsing textures

I think that's also present in DR (?)

 

Quote

Dark UI by default, with a theme manager system

I don't know where to find the theme manager

 

Quote

Control the opacity/transparency of utility textures (clip, caulk) in the viewport

But where?

Edited February 28 by datiswous