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So I thought I had found a new and BETTER way of creating lit/selflit windows for TDM, but discovered fairly quickly that some window textures are already using this mething, but that unfortunaly the vast majority are not. The aformerntioned 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.

Back in the day, Tels managed a squad of volunteer translators for TDM. I am not Tels, and could never do that. Nowadays, language translation using AI, either traditional machine learning (ML) models or large language models (LLMs), is common and increasingly fluent. It is often used as an adjunct to speed the work of professional human translators. By itself, AI translation can be imperfect but usually sufficient. Can this "sufficient" approach be used for TDM, to expedite translations? Let's see. I gave some initial thought to a bulk-translation daemon that might range across FMs and fill in all missing translations, without necessarily involving mappers. In the future, possibly AI could tackle that whole enchilada. I was at first visualizing something more modest: a backbone in a standard programming language (I sketched out C++ and C# projects, but lots of other possibilities) that would make calls to an API (I looked at those of Google Translate and ChatGPT). However, I changed focus due to certain concerns... Different FMs, and subsets with each FM, would likely have far better translations if they were properly grouped, ordered, and translated separately, with an appropriate context (e.g., phrase engineering) added. The FM's mapper is best placed to provide this grouping and context. I'll detail what I mean in the next few posts. The mapper would not be expected to know any TDM-supported languages besides English. Instead, each translated phrase could be back-translated to English and examined. Is the "round-trip" meaning OK, even if the English words have changed? Problematic translations could have their context tweaked and rerun. Many AI systems, particularly for API access, require a billing commitment (e.g., credit card). For a professional translator, this is no problem, and subscriptions allow access to more (and putatively better) models and higher quotas. This seems less appealing for TDM. A few paid AI systems have a no-subscription, pay-as-you-go account tier. The cost per translate is typically pennies. But it does introduce quota- and expense-management, and may exclude API usage. Access via API requires an API key (or at the higher end more elaborate security regime), with attendant key-security headaches. Which AI model is thought "best" for translation? Doesn't matter too much, because we can't afford the best. Furthermore, there's endless churn among AI models, with antidotal reports that a given model fluctuates in quality over time, and successor models can be worse than their predecessors. So, with these concerns in mind, I looked for public web-based AI sites that require no billing and provide low-quota but adequate AI. The mapper would enter and retrieve data manually. I will focus on ChatGPT in this exploration, after a quick preliminary test confirmed some promise. Also, as this exploration proceeds, I hope to propose changes to TDM to make it more viable for "sufficient" quality machine translation. Problem areas are incomplete fonts, space-constraints, and layout issues for translated strings. My proposals will likely surface as separate forum threads. That's enough for now. I'll be trying for 1 or 2 substantive posts per week, as I tackle a particular FM.

Hypothetically if Ray casting was used to bake efficiency into the brushwork itself it would make the penalty of a forward renderers lighting under id Tech 4 more agreeable. If Gemini AI is even half right this state of content efficiency would make id Tech 4 10-20 times more efficient per watt than Unreal Engine 5. For mobile platforms you are sitting on one of the best game engines on Earth. Of course I've yet to find a mapper that's willing to spend 3 to 4 years refactoring an entire commercial products slop. From the 13 objects overlapping in space, to decals hidden behind walls, entire rooms unused, brush faces behind other brushes. I'm the first. The ability to automate what I've done even just 90% would take the weaknesses of id Tech 4 and turn them into strengths. There is nothing faster than precomputation. If you can reverse engineer the flexibility of modern game engines without the per frame overhead it's going to curbstomp Unreal Engine 6 in raw efficiency. You also would be taking the former Chief Technical Officer of Metas core design and making it achieve what hasn't yet by industry. They probably would be knocking at your door with offers to commercialize or at minimum rush to replicate your work. They are all in in Alternate Reality Virtual Reality. Too bad their 5% GPU utilization offended one of their best employees. It's because thermal throttling boost behavior modern game engine inefficiencies and battery life. The Dark Mod could be a technology demonstrator that can do things modern game engines super can't. My texture pack 60GB+ (Prey 2006 Remake) is entirely custom. 5120x5120, 7168x7168, 9216x9216, 10,240x10240 and beyond. My texel resolution is extremely uniform and optimized at point blank mip map 0 for human vision. So it's literally a 2002 game engine beating id Tech 8 in asset resolution. Texture streaming doesn't like custom resolutions. Nor do development teams. It's just another way id Tech 4 is superior to modern game engines in a not abstract way. The general public is not aware of how inefficient modern game engines are or how much technical debt they tolerate. It's a more interesting topic to an engineer than a entertainment seeking random individual admittedly. There are inherent advantages to the older methods that are incredibly underappreciated. If I can motivate some of the software engineers to develop this capability that would be rather useful. Especially since it's already in part been done to bake shadows into Doom 3. Which in part defeat the purpose of unified lighting. But it's an existence proof. If you would like to see my 60GB file in its development state that can be arranged. But you also better have 24GBs of video memory. Most people will opt for lower resolution packs when generated by my Python scripts. The ability to hit per pixel 4k point blank is not just overkill. It's a measuring rubric.

I guess this is basic stuff for you talented model-boys but now I've trudged for several hours without results and from what I have read in several forums/threads, it's even not that trivial. Therefore I dare to start a thread... I've download some models from the web but these come in some new and fancy format; (FBX, USD etc) not exactly the old and brittle format that we use in TDM So to import these into DarkRadiant I need to convert these to lwo or ASE, right? How do people go about this? I have tried to: - install Blender 5.0 and added an ASE-exporter plugin. Blender actually puts out an ASE-file but as I try to open it in DR, the model is only showed as that checkerboard error-box. Do I need to tinker with the model in a text editor first? I read something about changing something about a BITMAP-line... - use an ancient version (7.0) version of Lightwave but that program cannot even open the files (Not surprising)...

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

The ability to automatically prune and refactor brushwork to prevent faces with textures sitting in video memory could be a research and development breakthrough that is basically the next generation (Holy Grail) of virtual reality and mobile rendering. This capability would also optimize many of your communities missions. How would this be done? Vantage in a game without wall walking like prey should be simpler. Using human effort to find the parameters of height that can be jumped relative geometry that can be gotten on top of you have a space to fire off thousands or millions of rays to determine visibility. The earliest algorithms will be imperfect. Edge cases once found would eventually lead to refinement with further development. The ability to trade compute early on for efficiency later would be worthwhile in chase of performance per watt. Is there a case study on the results of doing this? I'm glad you asked. I'm the Prey 2006 Remake modder from moddb. To parties interested I have a alpha state presentation that took literally years to make. Mappers who want to see what optimization should look like or your virtual reality developer would be my recommendation of those to look at it from the editor view. I can't directly help The Dark Mod since I'm not learning programming until my work is finished but it would be interesting to see my workflow and standard replicated by a team since it's unreasonable for a single person. And I will develop two tools for the purpose of bandwidth conservation in distribution, and automation of texture texel scaling including conversion to the optimal formats id Tech 4 and it's offspring recognize. If you can achieve this feat you would basically be making your established infrastructure capable of goals multi billion dollar companies like Meta would love to deliver on limited hardware. You have the established monolithic code base foundation infrastructure, so I think this is a reasonable goal for as many software engineers you have on your team. Specialized or otherwise.

Noob question: In the following wiki page Material_Files#Create_a_new_Texture_Definition it states: Why would you need the path in the name? I see this a lot in material files, but technically this doesn't seem to be needed. If you use material name "dirty_water" for example, tdm and DR load it fine.

Is it possible to adjust the scale of a texture in the skin file? When I try to make a skin, the result is too big (the stones are too big/the scale is to large).

That's correct. If two different modders mod, in example the lantern, and the user keeps both mods, it is impossible to tell intuitively which part of which mod is applying. pk4 A or B? Filename A or B? Definition A or B? Texture A or B? If in the proposed strategy parsing ordering / sorting remain the same then it doesn't fundamentally improves anything and we should rather not bother.

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):

Ahh, thanks for the answers, boys! I now have managed to both import models in DarkRadiant and export models from Blender so I'm a bit on the road. I tried to add a copper vase and lo and behold, I succeeded, I even managed to add the correct material definition and changing it in the model file via a text editor. Yay! Now I have a small vase consisting of more polys and triangles and white lines than there are stomach acid in my belly... I thought this would be fairly easy but I guess I'll have to learn some basic Blender to be able to convert these models to lower polycounts so they are more ugly than their original quality but not so ugly they look bashed to pieces, in game... I have high hopes even an old and brittle man like me can follow Blender tutorials and be able to perform these easy tasks, and perhaps I'll get the hang of creating some basic loot and junk myself

Are you using orbweaver’s ASE plugins? https://gitlab.com/orbweaver/darkblender These work well for me in Blender 4.2. You’ll also need to check things like that the model is getting triangulated and that the material names in blender match the tdm material name/path specified in your material def.

You can do it in DR. Just go File -> Import/Convert model. It definitely works with FBX - I haven't tried any other formats.

Here a fix for above 2 mission bugs. Just plonk the file in the fm folder. No unzip needed. Fixes: Fixes missing window texture and a missing particle effect. No changes made to map files and (existing) textures. Window texture: Used material still present in old TDM version. The dds texture is present in core tdm. Couldn't find missing particle effect so used the one from newer version of mission. 2fixes_return_to_the_city.pk4

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

@JackFarmerHere is an example of model def modified so that it displays a t-pose (or "af-pose") in DR: Frankly - I don't why the display pose in DR isn't a t-pose as that is how models spawn in the game - so this would make things like binding items to ai precisely a whole lot easier - but that is a an aside. It does make me thing of another way though - which if you only need a model with a static pose - you could create said pose on an uncorrupted model in blender - then export the pose as an .md5anim, then make a model def inheriting the actual model you want and point the anim_idle at your new pose. Then when you place the model in DR it should be posed as you like and you can position and export the model.

We know. There is already a support topic for that. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22533-tdm-for-diii4a-support-topic/ And earlier: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16672-trying-to-run-tdm-on-android/ And other systems: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Installer_and_Manual_Installation#Other_Systems

============== -= 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:

[edit]Please note that this version of Return to the City has been superseded by an expanded and significantly performance-optimised rerelease, available here. However, I'd appreciate if some of these download links were left around so people can check out the original version if they wish.[/edit] Hello, Taffers! My FM for the Grand Christmas FM Contest, Return to the City, has been completed and available at TTLG (updated Hammers-into-Builders version) www.darklurker.com (updated Hammers-into-Builders version) www.uploading.com (Hammers-into-Builders update) www.mediafire.com (Hammers-into-Builders update) www.mediafire.com (second link - thanks, Vexd) (Hammers-into-Builders update) www.sharebee.com (thanks, Chiron!) (Hammers-into-Builders update) Have fun, and please read the release notes, below! (Especially point 1) Last but definitely not least, thanks are due to my beta testers, who have been very helpful in finding and fixing the bugs that have cropped up, as well as everyone on the TDM forums for their help and support. Thank you! Series information: All of my missions except Unbidden Guest (TMA) take place in a common setting and involve the same protagonist, although under different aliases - Talbot, Messer Johannes, Philby and others. None of them require previous knowledge of previous FMs, but there are common elements and a degree of continuity. The missions, in current order, are: Prowler of the Dark (TDP/Gold) (S): liberate a skull of paganic enchantment from an abandoned church, which is kept sealed and guarded by the Builders.Return to the City (The Dark Mod) (M): plunder the other side of the Builder complex to steal a pack of explosives. Patrols have been heightened because of the recent break-in. (This mission connects to the previous along the North/South axis - too bad I didn't have the time to let you revisit some old areas) (You are here!)Fiasco at Fauchard Street (The Dark Mod) (M): steal a collection of opals from the house of a wealthy usurer.Bad Debts (TMA) (XL): fallen on hard times, you take a job from a diminutive snitch to steal his letter of debt from Markus, a pawnshop owner/usurer (looks like a common theme). Rooftop extravaganza.Disorientation (TMA) (XL): following the events in the previous mission, you attract the unwanted attentions of Lady Azamlarg, district warden and judge, and have to break into her palace to deter her from further assassination attempts. More rooftops and conspiracies.

I'll probably try Thief 3 for the first time in forever after snobel finishes making a Linux version of Sneaky Upgrade. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138607&page=82 https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153010

If I recall correctly, Goldwell wrote in these forums once that he was working on a successor, but, ran into some technical trouble he couldn't solve when designing the mission. I think he's currently working on multiple parts of the Shadows of Northdale series. And, if I'm not mistaken, a little bird (on another forum) told that Act 3 is already in beta.

still playing fallout 3 and 4 on my solus box and strangely it works better than on my windows machine. modding is a bit of a tongue in cheek experience but otherwise it plays pretty fantastically. fallout 4 was the only of the two games i had to make some changes to by using proton experimental otherwise sound did not work (xaudio problem). fallout 3 played right out of the box with no problems which i cannot say the same for on my windows machine which needed some modding with dsound wrappers and a heap replacer mod. i play 3 with the HD texture mods now as it looks better but needs patching the game executable to support LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE because otherwise it runs out of memory. path of exile 2 also runs great on it despite the gfx card in it being a bit on the older side and has no support for any raytracing (rx 5700 xt). even got alan wake 2 to run on it but the lack of support for raytracing and mesh shaders means it runs on the lowest setting otherwise fps tanks hard.

I have been told with the right archaic software there is a way, but with blender there is only pain. I will not say this is correct or easy, and would love to hear of an easier way, but I have “fixed” several md5 meshes by exporting a clean version of the model def from DR as an ase. The model def is what you actually see in the editor and appears uncorrupted, thus the output from dr is uncorrupted. You should make a copy of the model def and use a text editor to change its display pose to be the t-pose before exporting it. When you import that in blender it will be clean, but it will have no skeleton, no bones or joints, and no weight painting, which means it won’t animate. So you have to go through the corrupted mesh, and on the broken parts transfer their bone data to the equivalent part of your clean mesh. On the clean mesh add the skeleton modifier and point it at the same skeleton as the corrupted mesh. You then have to transfer or redo the weight painting - which is a whole thing. For the purpose of posing you may be able to use the auto generate weight paint feature using the skeleton - this probably wouldn’t be sufficient for compatibility with the games animations, but it will let you manipulate the model. Apologies in advance. Once you do it once or twice you make a kind of peace with it I suppose.

Well, I've made some hacks on Doom3.exe in order to "convince" it to support 3Dc format (ATI1/BC4 and ATI2/BC5). Of course, all other texture formats still should work as well. I must admit that I haven't try these hacked Doom 3 executables with 3Dc normals, but I've ran both Doom 3 and TDM with these hacked executables, and everything seems was ok. Does anyone want to try? If yes, please notice that my archive consists of two executables: Doom3_LATC.exe and Doom3_RGTC.exe. Jean Michiel Paul van Waveren, id Software, and Ignacio Castaño, nVidia, think that LATC is more convenient than RGTC in some cases, so I provide both versions: LATC and RGTC. I must warn you: there is no warranty that my executables will work as it should, so use it on your own risk.