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If value the games you buy, you should sign one of these petitions - SIGN THE EU CITIZENS INITIATIVE: - https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home SIGN THE UK PETITION: - https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074/ EU petition is @ 826K- needs to hit 1'000'000 UK petition is @ 97K - needs to hit 100,000 A video from Gamers Nexus on the subject - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9ahH6HrtTc ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EU: This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher. UK: The government should update consumer law to prohibit publishers from disabling video games (and related game assets / features) they have already sold without recourse for customers to retain or repair them. We seek this as a statutory consumer right.

This reminds me of Chronicles or Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena... One of my favorite games ever, unfunctional, because of the copy protection. That said, I do get though, that software is a phase-out model. At some point, publishers or developers simply can't guarantee anymore that the stuff will run on current software or hardware. And, it's also not easy to provide the games as is, with a license which allows modifcation of any kind. I can't count how many times I read "Please Open Source your software!". Well, it's not that easy, with potentially loads of licensed code or assets.

Surrounded by greedy noblemen and treacherous siblings, Lady Kamila Leicester gets more than she bargains for after acquiring an ancient tome and performing the dark rituals within. Bikerdude, Wellingtoncrab, Dragofer, and Amadeus proudly present Grayman’s FM “Seeking Lady Leicester.” Notes - TDM 2.11 or later is REQUIRED to play this mission. You can get the latest TDM version via the installer or here. - Seeking Lady Leicester was originally a work-in-progress given to the Dark Mod community per Grayman’s wishes after his passing and was initially adopted by Bikerdude before Dragofer, Amadeus, and Wellingtoncrab joined to complete the FM. -This FM does NOT support any unofficial gameplay patch or mod. The use of such a patch and/or mod could break things in this FM. You've been warned. - "Story" subtitles are available for this FM. Simply go to Settings --> Audio and select "Story" or "On" for the subtitles setting. - This FM may be more hardware intensive than normal. LOD settings can be set below "Normal" to improve performance on low-end machines by disabling certain features. - This FM implements the func_peek mechanic, allowing players to peek through any door that has a keyhole on it by leaning forward. PLEASE NOTE: This function has been known to cause crashes for a small number of players in the past, likely due to using the 32-bit version of TDM. At no point in this mission is it required to use the func_peek mechanic; it is purely optional, so feel free not to use it. Download Version 1.1 This FM is available for download via the in-game mission downloader, or here via Google Drive. Promotional Screenshots ThiefGuild Thread Credits A big thanks goes out to Noelker and Goldchocobo for their wonderful voice work with the briefing and conversations, JackFarmer and itsPapiD for their fantastic briefing video, and nbohr1more for his story contributions and writing one particular gameplay feature that I won’t spoil here but you can read about in the readme.txt. An even bigger thank you goes out to our beta testers: nbhor1more, Daft Mugi, Silverwolf, Havoc, Datiswous, Cambridge Spy, Aluminumhaste, Thebigh, Ate0ate, Acolyte6, Kalavi, JoeBarnin. Thank you all very much for your fantastic feedback and tireless efforts as this FM evolved throughout the course of development! Asset Credits - Arx EOS’s Fish - Epifire’s models - Kingsal's Assets and Textures - WellingtonCrab’s assets and textures - Obsttorte's frob loot script - ZergRush's custom Grayman painting ===================Rest In Peace Grayman. You are missed=======================

Renaming the Strings What I describe here is a bit of a fib, reflecting where I ended up, not the iterative process. And some renaming was refined after the first trial AI run. Before doing the translation, I’m going to rename all the FM-specific strings. Why? It’s fair to say the #str_ system was never a hit with DR developers, so features that would support it are scant. A way to make it less painful for mappers to inspect a post-conversion FM in DR is to change the #str_<5-numbers> to #str_<meaningful string>. By convention, <meaningful string> is limited to ASCII alphanumeric characters plus underscore, with no spaces. This generally does not include a version of the full English string (and there are length limitations), but something that clues the mapper. And groups things helpfully. More specifically, I’m going to rename all the FM-specific strings from #str_2xxxx to: #str_fm_<file_source><grouping_and_ordering>_<unique hint> The <grouping_and_ordering> substrings are chosen with an eye to both viewing in DR and group translation. (Later, I’ll talk about batch-processing strategies. The group-naming here does not use a “by scene” strategy.) So this is done first in english.lang and then the altered assets (in .map, .xd). As I search for “#str_” in assets, I am aware that some strings are TDM-level defined, so I should not rename them. These have stringID numbers under 20000, or in theory beginning with #str_main_menu. There were 2 of these found in airpocket: items with inv_name or inv_category given by #str_10052 and #str_02381. Specific Renamings and Examples I’ll be truncating example strings here for brevity and to reduce spoilers. The categories (and an example or two of each) follow. Darkmod.txt and Readme.txt. As mentioned, TDM doesn’t really handle translations of these. Just for completeness... "#str_20000" ==> "#str_fm_darkmod_txt__title" "Away 1: Air Pocket" "#str_20001" ==> "#str_fm_darkmod_txt_desc" "On the run from her husband, me and my girl. With a bribe to a ship's captain, we're away. What could go wrong now? Oh, dammit." Notice that here (and elsewhere) I’ve added an extra “_” before “title”. This is so, when sorted alphabetically, the title comes first before the description (in this case) or body. Mission Briefing. This tells a story, so be sure that its titles (if any), bodies, and pages are well-order to present to the AI. Since the briefing text is long and complex, I’ve opted not to include a #str <hint> for it. "#str_20026" ==> "#str_fm_mission_briefing_xd_pg1_body" "Life is sweet! It's been 3 days since Emily ran away with me, leaving behind her bastard husband. He's miles away now, as our tradeship Esmeralda plies herself down the coast.\n [...] \nAnyway, Emily's set up a cozy bunk for us in the bow galley.\n" Readables. Like the briefing, a readable often tells a story and should be well-ordered to present to the AI. I’ve chosen to skip hints for these. "#str_20024" ==> "#str_fm_airpocket_xd_sheet_appointment_to_service_pg2__title" "Further Instructions\n" "#str_20025" ==> "#str_fm_airpocket_xd_sheet_appointment_to_service_pg2_body" "\n\n\n\nAs agreed, the 2 new crewmates will bunk in the galley, and share the sea trunk nearest the door in the mess.\n\nCaptain Riggs\n" Inventory (mainly keys). The hints for these are usually just the full text, in lower case with punctuation dropped. They could include info about item class or difficulty, but I didn’t find it necessary here. "#str_20021" ==> "#str_fm_map_inv_key_captains_cabin" "Captain's Cabin" (I’ve went with “...fm_map...” here instead of “...fm_airpocket_map...”. I hope that works out. Too bad “map” itself has multiple TDM meanings, e.g., “hungarian.map”; in-game map. Also, since the order in which these inventory items are discovered in the game is pretty variable, I decided not to embed a numeral to force ordering.) Objectives. The objectives as coded in the .map file (and so generated english.lang #str_ numbers) are generally not listed in objective number order. It’s helpful to so reorder the rows. Also, because there are more than 9 objectives, I added a leading “0” to those with a single digit, for lexical ordering. The “obj<num>” is the DR/.map-internal objective number, which loosely corresponds to presentation to the game player, although objectives come and go. "#str_20008" ==> "#str_fm_map_obj01_no_hurt_or_loot_crew" "Rile neither the captain nor crew. No assaults by me or gratuitous thieving... not that there's much to steal." Thought messages. The I18N.pl script did not catch these, so they are manually added (and there’s no #str_2xxxx to begin with). I included an ordering digit after “msg”, roughly reflecting game occurrence (though difficulty and player actions will affect which of these appear and when): "fm_map_thought_msg1_sword_stolen" "My sword's been pilfered... I'm not surprised. It's likely still on-board somewhere." Ordering the Strings The #str_ lines in “english.lang” are extracted and put into ASCII alphanumeric order. I used Notepad++ with Edit/Line Operations/Sort Lines Lexigraphically Ascending. Any full-line grouping comments (beginning with //) will need to be manually repositioned after this. Programmatic Ideas to Better Support Renaming This would be helpful: A program that took the original 5-digit #str form of english.lang, and the renamed-#str english.lang form, and did the surgery on <fm>.map and *.xd . Or alternatively you could make a version of english.lang with an extra tab-separated field; this is what I created manually as a reference for myself, with lines like: "#str_20003" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_sea_trunk" "Sea Trunk" Then have a program that took that and did the surgery, using the first 2 fields. Or most ambitious of all, a version of I18N.pl that created alphanumeric #str_ in the first place, instead of 5-digit ones. Using something like the naming scheme above, this is mostly straightforward. However, for strings that are long sentences, if you still wanted to automatically summarize them into a few words for the #str <hint>, you’d probably need to call upon AI. Next Up I’ll make a version of this data available a little later on. Next post: prompt engineering!

============== -= IRIS =- ============== WELLINGTONCRAB TDM v 2.11 REQ Ver. 1.3 *For Maureen* -=- "Carry the light of the Builder, Brother. Unto its end." -Valediction of the Devoted "What year is this? Am I dreaming?" -Plea of the Thief Dear Iris, I am old and broken. When we were young it felt like the words came easily. Now I find the ink has long dried on the pen and I'm as wanting for words as coin in my purse. I can tell we are nearing the end of the tale; time enough for one more job before the curtain call... ============== -Installation- Requires minimum version of TDM 2.11 **Dev build dev17056-10800 (2.13) fixes several visual effects which have been broken in the mission since the release of 2.11. For that reason playing with that version or later is currently recommended** -Iris does not support mods or the Unofficial Patch- Download and place the following .pk4 into you FMs directory: Iris Download ============== *Thank you for playing. Iris is a large mission which can either take as quickly or as long as you are compelled to play. I hope someone out there enjoys it and this initial release is not completely busted - I tried the best I could!* *Iris both is and isn't what it seems. If commenting please use spoiler tags where appropriate. If you are not certain if it would be appropriate a good assumption would be to use a spoiler tag* *Support TDM by rating missions on Thief Guild: https://www.thiefguild.com/* ============== WITH LASTING GRATITUDE: OBSTORTTE - Whose gameplay scripts from his thread laid the foundation which made the mission seem like something I could even pull off at all. Also fantastic tutorial videos! DRAGOFER - Who built upon that foundation and made it shine even brighter! And whom also provided immeasurable quantities of help and encouragement the past couple years on the TDM discord. ORBWEAVER & GIGAGOOGA - For generously offering their ambient music up for use. EPIFIRE - Who lent me his fine trash and trash receptacle models. AMADEUS - Who was the first person who wasn't me to play the damn thing and provided his excellent editorial services to improving the readers experience playing TESTERS AND TROUBLESHOOTERS: AMADEUS * DATISWOUS * SPOOKS * ALUMINUMHASTE * JAXA * JACKFARMER * WESP5 * ATE0ATE * MADTAFFER * STGATILOV * DRAGOFER * KINGSAL * KLATREMUS - What can I possibly say? Playing this thing over and over again could not have been easy. Deepest thanks and all apologies. -=THANKS TO ALL ON THE TDM DISCORD AND FORUM=- ==SEE README.TXT FOR ADDITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS & INFORMATION== HONORABLE MENTION: GOLDWELL - If I hadn't by chance stumbled into Northdale back in 2018/2019 I would probably still be trying to get this thing to work in TDS, which means it probably would not exist - though more details on that in readme. ============== Boring Technical Information: *Iris is a performance intensive mission and I recommend a GTX 1060 or equivalent. I find the performance similar to other demanding TDM missions on my machine, but mileage may vary and my apologies if this prevents anyone from enjoying the mission.* *Iris heavily modifies the behavior of AI in the game, how they relate/respond to each other and the player. So they may act even stranger than they do typically in TDM. Feedback on this is useful - as it can potentially be improved and expanded upon in future patches.* -=- This is my first release and it has been a long time coming! If I forgot anything please let me know! God Speed. 2.10 Features Used:

Hrm I wasn't able to type on *after* the spoiler and accidentally already submitted the reply.. (Does this forum somewhere have a raw mode where you type text with tags around them or something instead of this broken WYSIWYG editor?) Anyway, what I was gonna add: This was a great mission and I already played Away1 - I'm really looking forward to Away2, want to see how the story goes on

That's correct but many people just use the in-game mission downloader to check for new stuff without even looking at the forums, which is what I did. In the past a lot of missions that required a newer version of the game executable and assets would tell you this when you tried to start them up. I was just reporting on this and that you don't need to reinstall, just update via tdm_updater if you find this issue.

In order to thank the team (and other mappers) for their relentless efforts in contributing, I hereby give the community.... Ulysses: Genesis A FM By Sotha Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraTlJ6ZHlYZ1pJRVE/edit?usp=sharing http://www4.zippysha...95436/file.html Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock By Sotha The mission starts some time after the events of Ulysses: Genesis, and continues the story of Ulysses. It is a medium sized mission with a focus on stealthy assassinations and hostage liberation. BUILD TIME: 12/2014 - 05/2015 CREDITS The TDM Community is thanked for steady supply of excellent mapping advice. Thanks goes also to everyone contributing to TDM! Voice Actors: Goldwell (as Goubert and Ulysses), Goldwell's Girlfriend (as Alis) Betatesters: Airship Ballet, Ryan101. Special Thanks to: Springheel and Melan (for proofreading). Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraRGduUWlVRmtsX3c/view?usp=sharing Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

Story Tease On the run from her husband, me and my girl. With a bribe to a ship's captain, we're away. What could go wrong now? Oh, dammit. Links "Away 1 - Air Pocket" Version 1.0 is available from the in-game downloader and its mirrors. As well as here. There are two extra documents contained in your installed .pk4 and also conveniently available here - For gamers needing hints, this Q&A uses "invisible ink" to selectively hide the answers: Air Pocket - Hints and Spoilers [Jan. 29, 2020].docx For understanding what's under the hood: Maintenance Guide to Away 1 - Air Pocket [Jan 29, 2020].docx For more about the innards and interations, see this FM's Beta Testing thread. Author's Note This is my first substantive TDM FM, a nautical adventure, and what I hope will be part of a longer story arc. Enjoy. Gallery Credits & Acknowledgements Thanks to TDM community members for encouragement - and assistance with newbie questions - while building this, my first FM (not counting an earlier nanoMission). Kudos in particular to Dragofer for the wonderful ship models (modified here), newly-created ship davits, and assets like kelp models from 'Down by the Riverside'. Also a custom cannon-ball hole through the hull, and much helpful guidance. The skybox is adapted from 'lagoon' by Hazel Whorley (CC BY-NC; hw_lagoon.zip at www.custommapmakers.org/skyboxes). Finally, my deep appreciation to all who tested or assisted during the beta: Biene, Cambridge Spy, Dragofer, duzenko, peter_spy, and stgatilov

Yes, if you add: Required TDM Version: 2.13 To darkmod.txt is should warn players: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Packaging_Your_Mission Most authors don’t do it since many missions are still playable with broken assets and they don’t want to exclude folks who can’t upgrade (etc). Let me know and I’ll update the darkmod.txt in the mission database.

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?

heres a much more updated port -> https://github.com/bibendovsky/ltjs work in progress but strives to make it multi platform. uses SDL2 And OpenAL soft to replace old win9x dx9 calls. old bink code replaced with ffmpeg like in RBDoom3BFG. a truely monstrous load of fixes to allow it to compile with newer compilers. should build with msvc clang and gcc. this port can use the NOLF2 assets

My new mission, A Night in Altham, is available. We are already up to version 2! @Dave the Tafferfound an problem that deserves a fix, so here is version 2: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/y4r1dmziuq6clh2im3qz1/altham2.pk4?rlkey=m3cv5v6v70lxbc9xha61nuxoj&dl=1. I will ask @nbohr1more to update the databases. A special thanks to JackFarmer for several pieces of custom ambient music. They "complete" the mission, providing a unique feel to its locations. Also thanks to the many beta testers (jaxa, Shadow, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, thebigh, datiswous, Mezla, MirceaKitsune, Melchior, Acolytesix, TheUnbeholden, prjames, Bergante). Thanks to @peter_spy for his beautiful Builder Compound assets. This is a large mission, so be ready to take some time. I recommend that you do named saves occasionally (I actually implemented auto-saves for this mission, but it was causing crashes on Linux, so I removed it). This mission has a lot of keys, so it implements a key management mechanism. Keys are removed from the game when no longer needed. This includes when you use a key to open a door, or if you pick a door/lock that also uses a key. Most keys are automatically removed, but there are a couple that aren't (for example, if they open up more than one door). In a certain area, this mission uses the Keyhole Peek feature of TDM. Typically, this is when you lean forward (F key) into a door keyhole and you can see into the next room. But in this case you don't lean into a keyhole. It's a hole of another kind. It's an unconventional use of something that isn't used a lot in TDM; hopefully the mission context will make it clear when to use it. The mission does not use Keyhole Peek for regular doors. Be aware, there is a known problem on Linux, where the peek feature can cause a crash. Peeking is not required for mission completion. This has been tested on TDM 2.11a and the current dev build of 2.12 (dev16854-10518). Scary things warning: Difficulty settings make a difference. Things that are affected by the difficulty level: Enjoy!

The official releases of System Shock 1 & 2 and Thief 1 & 2 also include fan patches in them. Well typically these games have a clause buried in the license that they own modifications too, so that's gonna be the reason why, and they're going to quietly presume they own the whole thing without digging into it, which might not be really kosher, but nobody disputes it -- except I recall the maker of the SS2 patch Kolya was a little miffed that his patch was put into the commercial release, or rather that they restricted it's use outside of the product while integrating it, since he wanted to keep it freely available & not to make a company money, although he granted that they had the legal right to do it. TDM is a little special just because it's a non-commercial game, idTech4 was open sourced, or anyway GPL'd, and about the only thing we restrict is that assets are under a CC license. The disputes we sometimes get aren't really about the license so much as tact & courtesy, e.g., to not recycle or change someone else's map as one's own, or at least you should get their consent first.

This seems like a futile process to me. We all love TheDarkMod and tremendous work has been done on the engine, but I suspect that when developing a new project, especially commercial, almost everyone would rather go for a more modern engine because the reality is that stealth games are a relatively small niche and you need everything you can get to make people notice and buy your thing. TDM with its historical limits on polycounts (unless switching to lightmaps removed that?) and other features that we're used to and have no problem with but that are not exactly state of the art in my opinion just isn't "it", and it's only going to be less and less "it" over time, despite being a brilliant game on its own. And making the game fully libre just so it can be included in certain distributions' free repos, while stripping out almost everything that makes TDM what it is, the community content, doesn't make sense to me either. If anything that could hurt its reputation because people who tried that wouldn't experience the actual game. I only skimmed parts of the thread, have I missed a good reason to do this? Also, another big issue that I think wasn't spelled out explicitly enough: I too thought that it would be awesome to have TDM on Steam. After looking into it, being educated by others and doing some searching I found out that TDM very likely contains a nontrivial amount of old content that may be seemingly re-licensed as CC-BY-NC, but legally cannot be, as its original license does not allow it. I'm talking specifically about old textures.com content - it uses its own asset license that explicitly disallows being released as CC (because CC allows redistribution anywhere and textures.com license explicitly prohibits that). Yet some of those assets are a part of TDM, and it's likely that nobody knows for sure which ones and how many there are. Textures.com was at one point even recommended as a source to create assets on the wiki. So you may get permission from some old mission author who doesn't even remember that he did this, but his content can still be non-free and in fact infringing on its original license. Realistically nobody cares because there's no damage to textures.com being done (the textures are not being redistributed anywhere, they're "just" being incorrectly rebranded with a license that would allow it), but it makes the whole libre thing even more difficult.

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)

Cool. I remember back in the day I was advocating that the team should release asset packs that combine fan-contributed assets in a map like this, laid out kind of like an Ikea, which would make it so much easier for mappers to grab what they want and plug it into their own maps than have to trawl through threads searching for things. The idea never really took off, but it's good that convergent evolution led others to having the same idea at least for their own assets anyway. Oh also, these chests all look great, so good work on that!

@whoozzem (and anyone else): What is your current best estimate of how much work (man days) it would require to make the necessary changes to The game data scripts Produce a minimal set of core assets (primarily GUI and HUD?) Anything else? ... to make a TDM-libre that can be used to play a minimal mission without any AI, that requires only lockpicks and optionally lantern and that otherwise contains all assets that it can (textures, sound etc)?

Practically speaking, to get on to Steam you also need to formalize the team as a legal entity, which brings up stuff like tax filings, a board of directors and executives, reporting requirements, etc., that I think nobody was keen to take on or hand over to others to take on. To begin with, it'd change the whole character of the team & the project a lot, I think. I forgot the issues with GOG and Itch now. I think everybody admitted it sounds good in principle at least. It's just herding cats when you get into the details, and half the cats are missing. That's before you even get to the actual mess with all the licenses. --- I noticed in the credits of Blendo Game's Skin Deep, when I played it recently, that there's a credit for the TDM Engine, from which he evidently lifted some things for his game. Brendon has long been making his games with Doom engines, so there's a reason he did that. I'd say he's also a friend of the community. He's visited the forum & is known for his games & thinking on immersive sims. But the point is that there's an example of someone branching off the TDM engine for a commercial project (that's also on Steam BTW). So if you have questions about it, that's someone you can contact to ask about it. I'm sure it matters that probably none of the assets carried over, though, only the game engine, or parts of it.

A Winter's Tale By: Bikerdude "One of the few pleasures I have as a man of the thieving profession is to return to my old home town for the holidays and relax in the company of friends and relatives. But a local lord has been going out of his way to making the lives of the locals a miserable." Notes: - TDM 2.12 or later is REQUIRED to play this mission. - This is my entry for the speedbuilding jam. - This FM should play on the vast majority of systems. I have perf tweaked this map with low end players in-mind. And have moved the globale fog/moon lights to the ‘ better’ LOD level. - min recommended spec (as per beta testing) Intel Core i7(3rd gen), nvidia 1030 4gb (GDDR5), will get you 60fps inside and 45fps outside. - Various areas will look better with shadow maps enabled (SoftShadows set to medium/high, Shadows Softness set to zero and LOD set to 'better'), at the possible expense of performance depending on your system specs. - this mission continues the imperial theme, with this being a border town slightly further out from the main imperial lands than Brouften. - build time roughly 130hrs. Download Link: - (v1.4) - https://discord.com/channels/679083115519410186/1310012992867405855/1310022631415746632 v1.4 changes: I have been tweaking the LOD levels through-out the map - - Snow fall has been moved to LOD low/normal. - world fog moved to LOD better. - fireplace grills to LOD better. - world moonlight moved to LOD high. Other tweaks - - reduced light counts in all the fireplaces. - reduced the length of the looping menu video background. - Some new assets Gameplay: - added more ways for the player to get around. - tweaked existing routes to make some easier or more of a challenge. - and added an additional option objective. Credits: Special thanks go to - - Nbhor1more, flashing out the briefing and creation of readables. - Amadeus, Help w/custom objectives, script work, proof reading, mission design & testing. - Dragofer, for custom scripts and script work for the main objective. - Baal, for additional tweaking of the main objective and script work,. - Beta testers: Amadeus, Nbhor1more, Mat99, DavyJones, S1lverwolf, Baal & Dragofer. - Freesound.org, for ambient tracks, further details in sndshd file. Speed Jam Thread: - https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152747

Nice assets, thank you.

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/

The Black Mage ============================================================= Title: The Black Mage Filename: black_mage.pk4 Authors: Grayman, Jack Farmer Testers: datiswous, joebarnin, Shadow, Amadeus, madtaffer, wesp5 Release date: 24.12.2021 (version 1) - 05.03.2022 (version 2) - 23.12.2023 (version 3) Version: 3 (available via in game downloader) ============================================================= Grayman - Mapping, scripting & text for briefing video JackFarmer - Additional mapping & scripting, drafts for readables, conversations and in game comments Amadeus - Revision & editing of all readables, conversations and in game comments Dragofer, joebarnin, datiswous - Troubleshooting ============================================================= Voice Talents (in alphabetical order): AndrosTheOxen - Worried father / Counsel Lester Morlan (fincancial advisor to the lord) Bikerdude - Sami "Sausage" McNulty (the castle's chef) BoyLag - Percy Lockhard (the castle's chronicler) Goldchocobo - Robert (the son of the worried father) / Colton (a fallen Builder) Jedi_Wannabe - Friend of the worried father / Bennett (a fallen Builder) Malasdair - Lt. Godric (chief security officer) New Horizon - Lord Ewan Davenport (the Black Mage) Purgator - The Thief ============================================================= Paintings: New paintings provided by OGDA Grayman avatar painting created by Zerg Rush ============================================================= Assets: New kitchen equipment models provided by STRUNK ============================================================= Geometry: Selected cave architecture orginally created by Bikerdude & Dram for "Blackheart Manor" and later modified for "The Gatehouse" (rearranged with the orignal authors approval) ============================================================= Sound: Wind_rusting trees sound (main menu) taken from freesound.org produced by funwithsound "Madrigal" (briefing video) performed by Anthony Holborne Pub audience sound (briefing video) taken from freesound.org produced by yap-audio-production Footsteps sound (briefing video) taken from freesound.org produced by Nox_Sound Stand up from chair sound (briefing video) taken from freesound.org produced by kupp2 Tape-deck-startup sound (phonogram recording) taken from freesound.org produced by soundjoao Short metal scrape sound (phonogram recording) taken from freesound.org produced by Timbre Chains sound (phonogram recording) taken from freesound.org produced by arnaud-coutancier All other new ambient and sound fx recorded and produced by JackFarmer sometimes with altered sound effects/ambient sounds orginally produced by Gigagooga ============================================================= Video: Story board and sound arrangement by JackFarmer Briefing video produced by SirSmokeALot ============================================================= Known bugs: If you quicksave too soon after killing a fire elemental (within 4-5 seconds), the quickload crashes. (2.09 and 2.10) ============================================================= Production notes: Graymans's son gave this work in progress to the Dark Mod community according to grayman's will in June 2021. After discussions with Dragofer, I overtook this mission in June 2021 and started working on it in September 2021. Since I didn't know what else Grayman had planned, I made up my own story from the end of the briefing. The voice actors did an incredible job. Everyone I asked immediately agreed to complete this work of Grayman. This has now led to a fabulous eight voice actors taking part in this mission - from England, Ireland, Canada and the USA. ============================================================== Let's raise our glasses in Grayman's honor. Otherwise I wish you all happy holidays. Take care of yourself, your loved ones, and all of your friends.

Here I'll post prefabs, models and stuff that mappers can use if they like.