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Preface HUD-elements are often a technical necessity, to convey important information to the player that would otherwise not be available to them. A problem with such HUD-elements is that they don't belong to the virtual world. They make it painfully clear to the player that they are just playing a game, thereby reducing immersion. There are many genres, where you need to have such information available at all times, think fast-paced first person shooters, Mobas, or strategy games. However, especially for genres featuring free exploration, that information is simply not needed at all times. Some games (e.g. Dead Space or Metro series) have gone to extreme lengths to completely eliminate HUD elements by integrating all relevant information in the virtual world. While this is of course the most immersive approach, it is also the hardest to implement. A much easier solution is to rely on a dynamic HUD, where certain HUD elements are displayed depending on context. In recent years, I have become hyper focused on immersion. I can't stand a cluttered HUD ("sensory overload") or a map full of quest pointers ("feels like work"). I want to immerse myself in the world, not tick of pointers on a map. About a year ago, having played a ton of WoW in my youth, I played the alliance fraction on WoW Classic for the first time. Via interface addons, I had my UI completely disappear during exploration, but when I entered combat or clicked on an enemy, the UI would become visible. The minimap would generally only become visible during mouse-over. The same goes for non-combat-relevant action-bars. I paired that with a text-to-voice addon for the quest texts and some nice dynamic camera addons that would zoom in on characters when talking to them. Of course I also did not use any quest-GPS addons, so that I actually had to pay attention and search the world for the quests. It was super immersive and a glorious experience reminiscent of the 2004 release. So naturally, having played a lot of TDM recently, I am thinking about how we could improve our dynamic HUD in TDM for immersion-seekers. Current State of Dynamic HUD in TDM The HUD of TDM already has quite some dynamic elements Healthbar only shows if we are not at 100% health Breathbar only shows if we are not at 100% breath Weapon only shows if a weapon is selected and ammo text only shows if ammo is relevant to that weapon Inventory-Icon and -text only shows if an item is selected Pickup- and object-update texts are only displayed momentarily Ideas for More Dynamic HUD Elements in TDM So basically, with every HUD element, we should ask ourselves the following questions: Added information: Does this HUD element actually convey any information? Relevant when: In what situation is that information relevant? Let's start! (Please note that all proposals below shall be made optional under some "tdm_dynamic_hud"-cvar or something like that, so I am not planning to take anything away from anyone) I will update this list of ideas as we go. Weapon HUD Blackjack and Sword Added information: None. The player can see the 3d model of both weapons, so the HUD does not add any information. Relevant when: Never Proposal: Remove completely --> Very easy (already tested) Bow and arrows Added information: Arrow type and amount. Sadly, the 3d model does not show the type of arrow unless the bow is drawn. So, the icon and weapon text add information. Also, there is the ammo display. Relevant when: Player is equipping the bow Proposal: Investigate if we can alter the non-drawn bow model such that it already shows the arrow type. If that works nicely, remove arrowtype and arrow icon from HUD and potentially move the ammo display around and make it bigger. I would need support from a 3d modeler here! Proposal: Consider showing the arrow amount only briefly when the weapon is selected (and/or when the player presses "R"?) (and/or ammo amount changes) and then fade it out again. Healthbar Added information: Health Relevant when: Player is losing health. Player is likely going to loose health, e.g., when in combat or when breath bar is close to zero. Player is preparing to enter combat. Player has very low health Proposal: Briefly show after losing health; Show when equipping a weapon (possibly limit to sword?); show when breath is close to running out; show when health is below some threshold (like 20%) Breathbar: Already very dynamic. No action needed! Inventory HUD (Not the inventory grid) Compass Added information: direction Relevant when: When player equips it. Must not fade-out unless a different item is selected. Other items: Added information: Selected item Relevant when: Only during selection (or when player forgot which item is selected) or when the item can be used with the world Note: I had added the tdm_frob_item_selects_item to prevent items being selected when picking them up, thereby eliminating the respective HUD annoyance. However, I found that frequently, I wanted to use the picked up item right away (a readable, a key, etc.), so this approach is not working well. Proposal: Briefly show after selecting an item, then fade-out. Show item when it can be used on a world entity. For picking up items, consider selecting, but not showing them, so player can use them right away without HUD pop-in. When HUD is not shown, pressing next or prev item should not go to next / prev item, but just show the HUD element. Are there maybe other types of inventory items that need special treatment? Shouldering HUD Added information: Shouldering state Relevant when: Always when shouldering a body Proposal: It would be awesome if we could actually have the 3d model shouldered in view. Then we could get rid of the HUD, but of course, this would be very hard to achieve. Lightgem Added information: To some degree, visibility of player Relevant when: sneaking about or running to hide (so basically always) Discussion: It is actually debatable, how much information is really added, because the player can already tell how well illuminated they are just by looking at the environment. I would say minimalists simply disable the lightgem and all others keep it on all the time. Crouch-intent indicator Added information: Crouch-intent, i.e., while it is impossible to change crouched-state, the crouch-state that will be assumed once crouched-state is unlocked again. Current crouch state can be seen by looking at the 3d world. No indicator needed for that. Relevant when: Only while crouched-state is locked / cannot be changed. Proposal: Only show when crouched-state and crouch-intent differ? Any other UI elements I forgot? Another aspect of dynamic HUDs is HOW visibility is controlled. HUD elements might pop-in instantly or gradually fade in and out, like our FrobHelper. I would say, having HUD elements fade in and out looks generally more appealing, but I would need some advice on how to best control transparency. Should transparency be handled by the GUI scripting or dictated by the engine like in the case of the FrobHelper? What makes most sense here?

Some people seem to define their personality/self-worth from their knowledge and skill at something that's niche (in this case, Linux). I've been there, I grew up. Some people don't and they're incredibly exhausting and infuriating to talk to. However I feel like as Linux has become more and more palatable an option and genuine improvements have been made in usability and utility, other people are finally starting to stand up towards these obnoxious types and tell them to give it a rest. It's still a problem unfortunately in certain areas of the Linux community who wear such behaviour as a badge of honour, but in many places it's now considered poor form.

So following on from the conversation here - Here is the first draft of a basic block-out of that church, if there is interest I will complete the creation info a flashed out prefab and model - church.pfbx

We have been collecting textures for 4+ years, by nearly a dozen different people. It is inevitable that some textures will not stand up well in terms of quality. This thread is the place to nominate textures you think are poor and should be either fixed or removed. The following process will be followed (we are currently on step 1):

@wesp5 I don't know, but current light gem is just a 2d pre-rendered animation. Combined light gem and compass would have to be an interactive 3d model. I guess you could render 2d gem on top of 3d compass. I think it would be cool if interacted with environment light like weapons do.

What are the steps for importing an obj model sucesfully into tdm, without converting it to ase or lwo? I tried it recently with a cat model, but it didn't show up well in tdm, while the lwo version did. (If obj support doesn't work properly after all it should be investigated, fixed, or support should be removed)

Finally done with my vertical contest entry... Swing You'll get your sea legs ... or die trying ... Thanks to my beta testers: SiyahParsomen Diego Baddcog ---------------------- README: SWING a Dark Mod mission, by Komag for the Vertical Contest held summer 2010 find me on TheDarkMod.com forums, or via ShadowDarkKeep.com This mission is a "platformer" with slight puzzle elements (figuring out where to go next and how to get there). Be prepared to do a lot of falling, dying, and quickloading! Quicksave anytime you are sure-footed, about take a risk Getting off the swing for any reason is not recommended! And try not to get sick ;-) Have FUN!!! Komag - Ben Ramsey -------------------------- BRIEFING: The King's steward has seen you in action aboard His Majesty's Ship Vertigo, and he is pleased with your potential. You are hereby granted an opportunity to prove your quality by successfully navigating the King's Royal Navy training swing. You need only retrieve the high crown (a replica of course) from the top of the swing, and return it to the docking area. As a bonus, see how many of the ten hidden bottles you can find - the more you come back with the more impressed your superiors will be, and that can only be a good thing as you know." ------------------------ Known Issues: - It's possible to stop the motion of some of the moving things, and even the entire swing itself, if you mess with things enough ENJOY!!! http://www.shadowdarkkeep.com/missions/Swing_v1.2.pk4

I can't say anything about this, the game with its minimum requirements is wish thinking for my poor Laptop. It only caught my attention when I saw a complete gamemovie in YT (in Spanish), appreciating it as a highly original and beautiful game with a good plot. Apart of enthusiastic user comments in Steam.

got an old phillips 52 " tv that works pretty well with linux as well (60 hz 1080p only) allmost 2 decades old now . has all the connections a tv enthusiast could drool over like s-video composite scart hdmi and vga . i dont use it anymore though as my LG 58 " 4k tv works fine with solus (may be because it can only handle 4k in 60hz ?). as for aholes on forums, i had my fair share just like trolls they seem to pop up from time to time and i found the most effective way of handling them is just to ignore them (dont feed trolls!). otherwise ping the site admin if they are doing they're job a warning about decorum can usually put them right but otherwise a ban might be needed. permanent if nessesary.

My issue was that when starting the computer, the first log in screen would be a 60hz, and on OLED that causes horrendous flicker due to PWM voltage control. Input latency also gets high on lower refresh rates (>60 ms on some monitors), so moving the mouse around on the log in screen felt awful. Even my non gamer wife immediately noticed how not nice the log in screen was compared to the Windows 11 log in. Once I logged in, and the monitor switched modes to 240 or 360 or 540 hz, I could log out and it would be at the high refresh. So I did some research first and all the guides for kubuntu/ubuntu basically said the same thing, modify SDDM and apply plasma settings to the SDDM. This did NOT work for refresh rate on first boot. So I did more research and edited some files, still didn't work. So I asked the question on the forums. 90% was Apply Plasma Settings... in the SDDM section, and the other 10% were, you don't need that, that's not important, you're dumb for asking this question.

Welcome! I hope you'll like it, or at least find it better than Windows. I have never received that answer myself, but I have seen it in various forums, not necessary associated with Linux. It is such a dumb and unproductive respone. Either it can be done or it can't. The purpose is not a factor. One silver lining though: it teaches us what kind of answers we don't want to provide ourselves when someone asks us a question.

I'm on Linux now (Kubuntu 26.04 / kernel 7+) Still haven't changed my opinion on the help forums, there is STILL a lot of assholes gatekeeping / new user bashing. My favourite is "Linux is super power user friendly and you can do pretty much anything that you want!" Cool, how can I do this? "Why do you need that? You don't need that! Just leave it the way it is!"

How do I properly import an lwo model with skeleton and textures into darkradiant, so that it is the same as the existing AI? What I mean is, I want the head and body separated, and the model I made to use the existing animations etc. I've looked all over the wiki, and the darkradiatn and qeradiant user guides to see if I could find anything, but found nothing exactly as I needed. When I try to just import the model (without bones), he's laying flat, face up, and the textures are all screwed up. Here's an example of my model in lightwave:

@Bikerdude When it's so dense I don't think it matters if each blade is rendered on both sides. Players won't notice. I used patches, but you can make a simpler model with less triangles in blender. The idea was to use pendulum with different phase offset for each patch, and then additionally rotate each clump of patches randomly for more variety. It should be more performant than using skeletal animation. What I haven't checked yet is .md3 animation file. Theoretically you could do a quite realistic foliage animation but I expect the performance to be poor.

yeah my phillips tv is pretty dumb, it can access the internet but only for firmware updates . the LG model (smart) can use HDR and upscaling but the refresh rate at 4k is pretty meh. i do have a 160 hz ultra wide pc monitor i tried hooking up to it and it also works at that refresh with solus so it is maybe something about the tv's edid that confuses your version of linux ? (not unheard off even happens in windows with some tv's). EDIT: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=295188 has a bit about the edid problem

https://shop.heathkit.com/ Seems they are still around But yeah the market for kits has dried up somewhat. Weller is also still around if you need a good soldering station. Strangely for me i was allways pretty poor at algebra but calculus i mastered .

The nights are getting colder and you need to pay your rent on time before you get tossed out into the winter air. Luckily, your neighbor told you about a mysterious merchant from faraway shores who has come to the small hamlet of Wilford's Hollow, and he's staying at the inn next door. What's more, he's brought something with him... Gameplay Notes: 1) This is a fairly small map, but I did intend for this map to be a bit harder than normal Dark Mod missions, even on the lowest difficulty setting. But there will certainly be plenty of rewards for the careful thief... 2) This map implements the func_peek mechanic by allowing players to peek through any door that has a keyhole by leaning forward. PLEASE NOTE: This function has been known to cause crashes for players using the 32-bit version of the Dark Mod 2.07 (should be fine for those running the 64-bit version). While this function has worked painlessly for some, please be aware that crashing may occur. At no point in this mission is it required to use the func_peek mechanic, it is purely optional, so feel free to not use it. Download: This FM is available via the in-game downloader FM: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eGMhIkoMFqlkk_ehN430cP63RQr5quEh/view?usp=sharing Promotional Screenshots: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bwuy0QPhaGpV32CgEdXhBIA5KgvcRueN?usp=sharing Credits: A HUGE thanks goes out to JackFarmer, Dragofer, and Bikerdude for scripting, EFX, custom ambient tracks, assets, answering a billion of my questions and doing so, so, so much more to make this mission something special. Thank you! Another GIANT thank you to my beta testers: Jedi_Wannabe, Bienie, Filizitas, joebarnin, bikerdude, Cambridge Spy, STRUNK, Lonewanderer, Rezar. Thank you all very much for your wonderful work and eye for detail! And another thank you goes out to Goldwell, Kingsal, and Grayman for scripting help and patient guidance. Assets are from: Springheel's Superb Modules Refl3ks' Rad Artwork Kingsal's Killer Assets Dragofer's Delightful Assets Epifire's Expert Models dmw's Dazzling Textures Spooks' Spectacular Painting for the Loading Screen R Soul's Fantabulous Assets JackFarmer's Miraculous Machines and Sounds Bikerdude's Bountiful Assets Hugo Lobo's Luxurious Textures ***PLAYER BEWARE*** SPOILERS lie in the depths below. I strongly suggest playing it first so you don't spoil the fun for yourself *** Version 2 Changelog: - Fixed several broken visportals - Fixed reflections in flooded basement, improved performance - New particles, models, and textures - Fixed broken AI pathing - Fixed fireplace glitch in the Inn - Fixed several texture issues - Added new secret objective - Lighting and fog changes - Implemented fade lights - Implemented Kingsal's inventory icons - Replaced slow match with flint - Increased bow draw speed using modified settings from Kingsal

This updated version is now animated instead of crudely moving from side to side or up and down etc.

@greebo I've been learning a lot from your code and the architecture of DarkRadiant. Never had a C++ unit test suite that ran so smoothly! Kudos to you for all the fine work on the project. I'm happy to help in any way that you guys choose to. I just added a nightly build to the repo, that should make it easy for you guys to try out new features as soon as they are pushed into master. Yes, I think the bug tracker is the best place. Since there is a lot of history there, it helps me understand why certain things were done in a way, so I can avoid creating new bugs or disrupting existing workflows. And then we can use the forums for discussions/ideas/etc. I already have an account, just need that editor status so I can mark things as closed. @kingsal @IZaRTaX the latest build should have the fixes so that user scripts can be loaded from the user folder, and attached to hotkeys. @Frost_Salamander I'm focused on https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6547 right now and it's been difficult for me to see what the "correct" alignment should be. Can you attach a .map with what the alignment should be? That would a lot.

I've just added another copy of the map called 'paste-correct-alignment.map'. It has the correct texture alignment across all 3 faces on that right-most group of brushes.

Greetings everyone! I recently got into TDM and am already having a lot of fun playing through and ghosting missions. However, coming from Thief, I am mostly relying on the rules and my experience with that game, while there are clearly differences in how TDM works. Right now, there is talk in the ghosting discussion thread on TTLG to amend the ruleset and include clarifications pertaining to TDM. So I wanted to drop by and ask: is there an active TDM ghosting community already and have any rules for this playstyle been developed? I would also like to ask someone to take a look at the draft of this addendum to see whether everything looks correct: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148487&page=16&p=2473352&viewfull=1#post2473352 Thanks!

@Bikerdude Check out this grass made with func_pendulum and animated texture (see attachment). You'll need this material: Files: 2026.05.09_grass Map file: grass_pendulum.zip Edit: I added padding (dilated / extended color pixels of the grass texture), while leaving alpha as it was - because "deform turbulent" only animates alpha channel. This still doesn't look correct, but mitigates the issue. I used patches, which makes the map size bloated, I guess. Using .ase or .lwo would probably be better.

So I thought I had found a new and BETTER way of creating lit/self-lit windows for TDM, but discovered fairly quickly that some window textures are already using this method, but that unfortunately the vast majority are not. The aforementioned method is that we use the stock material def for the frame (so you retain the diffuse & bumpmap details), and then only 'blend add' the lit window panes which are a separate texture. An example stock texture that uses this method already - textures/darkmod/window/wooden_frame01/wooden_frame01_lit What we have above is an overlay of JUST the window panes, and its just this texture that is RGB boosted! I don't know why we HAVENT been doing this in the core mod all this time, and to quote @nbohr1more"Boosting the diffuse is a pretty poor way to achieve that effect." And unfortunately a LOT of the core window textures are using this poor method instead of the window pane overlay method. Ive already spent some time in establishments of lower affairs (the line from the gatehouse popped into my head, heh), making overlay versions for frost_salamander for his recently released FM. Please see the zip arcdhive below. @Amadeus has already had a look at and used some, in his upcoming wip - - https://drive.google.com/file/d/11168eiBj_m-Lu5d-8FLYUgM7J1MC_92h/view?usp=sharing So @Amadeus suggested that I list all the window textures that need looking at. I haven't included the ones I have already fixed in the wip archive above - textures/darkmod/window/diamond_pattern02/diamond_pattern02_*** - the lit versions from this series have a diffuse that is basically black, but thankfully the unlit version has a diffuse that can be used. textures/darkmod/window/ornate/stained_colourful_dirty textures/darkmod/window/ornate/stained_colourful_dirty2 textures/darkmod/window/pointedtop_big01/pointedtop_big01_*** - there are lit versions in this series, but they are not using any diffuse/bump. So these are perfect to use as overlays as they are. textures/darkmod/window/diamond_pattern01_*** textures/darkmod/window/diamond_pattern_andbars01_*** - So these are good candidates to be used as overlays with some tweaking, but we need a much better diffuse/bump. textures/darkmod/window/largesquare01_barelylit - poster child of why this thread was created, all the lit versions of this series are just RGB boosting the diffuse. textures/darkmod/window/roundtop_diamond_pattern01_*** textures/darkmod/window/simple_square01_***- this series also has very poor cropping on the edges. textures/darkmod/window/smallpanels_4w_dirty01_*** - this series has diffuse that is basically black. textures/darkmod/window/smallpanels_4w_dirty02_*** - this series has diffuse that is basically black. textures/darkmod/window/smallpanels_4w_dirty03_*** - this series has diffuse that is basically black. textures/darkmod/window/smallpanels_industrial_mesh_selflit textures/darkmod/window/square_pattern01_*** - this series needs a complete overhaul.

For the people eager to play with the latest state of development, two things are provided: regular dev builds source code SVN repository Development builds are created once per a few weeks from the current trunk. They can be obtained via tdm_installer. Just run the installer, check "Get Custom Version" on the first page, then select proper version in "dev" folder on the second page. Name of any dev version looks like devXXXXX-YYYY, where XXXXX and YYYY are SVN revision numbers from which the build was created. The topmost version in the list is usually the most recent one. Note: unless otherwise specified, savegames are incompatible between any two versions of TDM! Programmers can obtain source code from SVN repository. Trunk can be checked out from here: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/ SVN root is: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src Build instructions are provided inside repository. Note that while you can build executable from the SVN repository, TDM installation of compatible version is required to run it. Official TDM releases are compatible with source code archives provided on the website, and also with corresponding release tags in SVN. A dev build is compatible with SVN trunk of revision YYYY, where YYYY is the second number in its version (as described above). If you only want to experiment with the latest trunk, using the latest dev build gives you the maximum chance of success. P.S. Needless to say, all of this comes with no support. Although we would be glad if you catch and report bugs before the next beta phase starts