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So some of us only became aware recently that MK passed 6 months ago. This from MK's blog - https://www.furaffinity.net/user/mircea/ "My name is Taoki, also known as Mircea Kitsune. I was born in 1989 and live in Bucharest in Romania. I'm a computer nerd, interested in gaming and everything open-source... currently a contributor to several FOSS game engines as well as a 3D animator. Since 2014 I've taken a stronger interest in science... particularly quantum physics, biohacking, and consciousness. In a couple of days I'll be going on my yearly trip to the seaside. I have not been active here lately: Chances are I'm not going to from here on. I'm still around daily to view and favourite posts, maybe comment on submissions I really like. When that too stops it will mean one of two things; Either the internet has gone away for good or my body has..." For more info, another post from someone that knew MK - https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11241933 List of FMs that MK made - - Gem of Souls - https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?internalName=gem_of_souls - Scroll of Remembrance - https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?internalName=scroll - Year of the Rat - https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?internalName=yearofrat

How you can help depends a lot on what skills you have. I can Record Video Recording "Let's Play" videos or simple walkthroughs of existing missions and posting them to Youtube is great exposure for the mod (see example .) Be sure to let us know so we can link to them. If you have some editing ability, Video tutorials, where you explain how the mod works, or how to use specific tools, would also be great. Video trailers, showcasing interesting places and features, are also great for publicity. An example is . I can Write Writing reviews for missions are always nice, especially if they include good screenshots. Not only does it give us something to post on other forums, but it makes mappers feel good when their mission gets attention (especially if it's positive). We have a collective thread to post reviews in: http://forums.thedar...s-walkthroughs/ Writing reviews of the mod as a whole, targetted an an audience that doesn't know much about TDM, is also very useful. You could also try offering your services to mappers to create interesting readables, or to proofread for their mission. I can Act and Record Audio We are always on the lookout for good quality audio recordings for vocal sets. If interested, you can pick a few different lines from this script: http://wiki.thedarkm...t:_Average_Jack and send the recordings to Springheel, who then writes a script based on the type of voice you have. I can Translate We could always use translations of our menu/hud into more languages. Also, only a few FMs are aavailable in more than one language, so there is a lot of work there, see the I18N Translator's Guide in the Wiki. I can Model Great! Take a look at the model request thread:http://forums.thedar...-requests-here/ and pick something that interests you. Or just post a, "Hey, anybody want a model?" thread in this forum and I'm sure mappers will get back to you. I can Animate Fantastic. We can always use more good animations. Our current character rigs use a Maya skeleton. PM Springheel for more info. I know C++ Have a look at our coding section in the wiki, pick an issue or feature from the bugtracker of the mod or the leveleditor, download the recent sourcecode release (or better ask for an SVN checkout) and get cracking. Make sure nobody is already working on that specific issue and feel free to ask questions. I can Edit Images We can always use completely new textures and/or improved versions of older textures. How to get started and how to import them into the mod. I can Take Photos Good quality photos of useful textures (medieval-ish building facades, dirt, rocks, wood, etc) are always welcome. The fewer directional shadows and higher resolution, the better. I don't have any skills Even if you can't do any of the above, you can still help out. Talk about TDM in other forums; share your (preferably positive) experiences with other gamers you know. Last, but not least, compliment people when you like their work. Saying "thanks", to a developer or, "I really enjoyed your mission" to a mapper will make their day. -------------------- I'll update this further as more things occur to me.

I uninstalled my old 3.1 Dark Radiant and did a fresh new install of 3.9.0. I created a new empty map in DR via "new" and then saved it into my "fms" folder. However after loading up, as soon as I click into one of the 4 grid views it just crashes under Windows 10. Also I tried to manually open it via "file > open" but that throws an error "failure reading map file" "Unable to parse map version (parse exception)" AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor 3.60 GHz RAM 32,0 GB AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT (20 GB) Windows 10 x64

ThiefGuild has some tags: https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/?advanced_search=&series=&collection=&table=&page=&works=&work_lists=&sort_by=newest&search=&games=5&released_from=all&released_to=all&genre=all&original_games=fms Not sure how complete or accurate those are, after all either the author or users add the tags to the missions.

I don't know who has what skillset, as I am still pretty green on the forums. However, I do know that shader development does require some voodoo black magic! I understand the fundamentals of shaders, but understanding the basic how and why is very, very different from creating them.

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

Nice work! Is there a build/code that other users can download and try? Please merge back the code with TDM VR, see topic: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20468-the-dark-mod-vr-210-alpha-is-now-available/ === Reddit topic: link Video of JAKE's work:

For more info, read this topic: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23261-i-made-full-vr-support-for-the-dark-mod-new-bow-climbing-mechanics-and-more/ He based his code of TDM VR, so I referred him to this topic.

Today I am happy to announce the release of my first FM for The Dark Mod. After 6 years of using this lovely game creation engine, I'm finally able to contribute my own project for it! It took roughly two weeks of non-stop work to do everything from start to end... there's always some little detail to come back to when mapping, thus there were a few little things left out to prioritize others, but at the end of the day this came out almost exactly as I envisioned it. In this mission you play as the typical professional thief. You've been hired to retrieve a scroll containing forbidden knowledge from the mansion of a wealthy noble, put there by the builder church who is close to its owner and found it a more suitable spot. A banquet is being thrown by the lord who owns the mansion which is the perfect opportunity to make your move. Nothing out of the ordinary: You're to retrieve this scroll and get paid for your work... simple, right? Notice: Performance in some areas may be poor. I optimized the lighting setup as much as possible, trying to use as few long range light sources as I could. To achieve the desired theme however I had to leave parts of them map relatively open. Hopefully this won't be a hindrance to anyone... if it is you may need to lower some graphical settings. For people who don't like surprises and may be sensitive to certain themes, read the spoiler below. If you're okay with anything don't as it will ruin the experience! For people who are stuck and don't know how to proceed, instructions are provided in the spoiler below. Only read them if necessary. A tip that needs no spoilers: The key in this FM is exploration and reading everything carefully. There are secrets to be found: Always look everywhere and closely at everyone! I'm eager to hear what your experience with this FM is. Use spoilers when referring to specifics, but do let me know what your thoughts are! Especially with this being my first FM I could use tips, including technical ones if you look at the map in DarkRadiant. Here are a few screenshots of the main areas (intended for the installer): And finally the download links. Unzip and place the main directory inside your fms folder, this should get it to show up in the mission list. Mirror 1 Mirror 2

thanks, I enjoyed it! No FPS issues for me. It's 2026 after all. Also I wish this game had some little label or hint telling you about scary FMs so I dont play for an hour and then get a scare I try to avoid it as I get too immersed. But it was not difficult at all? I just GTFO real quick ? Anyhow. Thanks for your work!

Screenshots: Mission: Breaking out the Fence Version: 1.00 Released: 17/03/2014 Theme: City Author: kyyrma Testing and additional content: RJFerret, Airship Ballet, Goldwell Breaking out the Fence continues the story from my first FM In a Time of Need. The player once again takes the role of an anonymous Thief who is getting tangled with an organization called the League of Seafaring Merchants. This time you will be sneaking your way into an import shop down at the South Docks and getting your fence Terry out from a pinch you have indirectly got him into. Prior knowledge of the story is not strictly necessary, and the level works just as well as a one shot stand-alone mission. Note that the story briefing is quite long - if you don't appreciate walls of text in your game, all the relevant information is on the last page. However if you want to set the mood and enjoy a good tale of skullduggery then give it a read. The difficulty level is moderate to high, and compared to my last mission it is much larger. The average play time should be around 1 - 2 hours depending on how much you decide to explore the level. You will start the level with only a blackjack, compass, spyglass and a map. You have to find the rest of your equipment while on the job. If you can't find a pair of lockpicks, remember to keep your eyes peeled for keys! The only differences between difficulty settings are the objectives, with higher difficulties requiring either a no-kill or a full ghost playthrough. Injection needles have been made a loot item, so remember to pick them up if you are going for loot completition I've succumbed under peer pressure and decided to have a poll where you can rate the level, but I would really appreciate your comments as well! Please get back to me if you have any questions or critique regarding the mission. Help! I'm stuck! How do I find the key to the closed off area in the sewers? Download links: If the mission is not yet available from the in-game downloader, you can use the following link: Private mirror Installation: Drop breakingout.pk4 in you darkmod/fms/ folder Run TDM and select New Mission. Breaking out the Fence should now appear on the list of downloaded missions. Install and play. Known issues: AI pathfinding can be slightly erratic at times Outdoors can cause performance issues on low-end hardware Sleeping AI can glitch through the bed if KO'd or killed There remain some audio issues such as pop-in and incorrect sound propagation Thanks: My testers RJFerret and Airship Ballet for their invaluable input and help during the creation of the level Goldwell for providing his vocal talent for the characer Terry All the TDM devs for creating such a great game All the people who have answered my newbie questions at the Editor's Guild

I do intend to post all_lang_to_po program and its source, probably in a week after some travel. Looking forward, if the TDM engine can successfully suck in .po (or even .mo) files directly, then, for non-English, the .po can be used as ground truth (that is, where further edits occur), and the all.lang [non-English] sections abandoned. The jury might be out as to whether to continue to support all.lang[English], or abandon that as well in favor of the .pot file as ground truth. In any case, the all_lang_to_po program could be refocused to help existing translated FMs make the transition to .po as well (after 2.15), if desired.

For some reason the download for this one keeps failing due to extreme slow DL speed. Other FMs download fine and my internet connection itself is fine, anyone else having issues downloading this FM? *Edit... disregard, it DL'ed after multiple failed attempts.

"When the leaves change and the air is still, there is a quiet." -Lady Blackbriar -=| DISPLACEMENT |=- BY AMADEUS & WELLINGTONCRAB = DOWNLOAD = <( | )> -REQUIRES TDM 2.14- -JOIN THE BETA NOW- "Seek not the prideful sin that is perfection The Builder's light shines through all flaws. It is His wisdom to recognize a thing is done Before it is ever truly finished." -St. Edgar's Sermon of Rust LAMPFIRE HILLS... They say the woods around here give the tourists bad dreams, but I don't mind. I like it here. I feel like a piece of me belongs here. ... That it fits. DISPLACEMENT is a medium-sized traditional manor mission with a highly variable playtime. *2.14 provides a number of improvements to gameplay, performance, and stability. It is strongly encouraged to play on the latest 2.14 beta release. Join in testing now!* *Mods such as the “Unofficial Patch” and “TDM Modpack” are not supported by this mission and should be used at your own risk* https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/97429/displacement CREDITS: ADDITIONAL MUSIC: -AIRSHIP BALLET -GIGAGOOGA ADDITIONAL SCRIPTING: -DRAGOFER -OBSTORTTE -FROST SALAMANDER -KINGSAL ADDITIONAL ASSETS: -KINGSAL -TDASH -SKACKY -BIKERDUDE -GOLDWELL -EPIFIRE -STRUNK -SHANNEN ART -POLYHAVEN -TEXTURES.COM -SKETCHFAB CULTURAL HERITAGE CC0 COMMUNITY -LOISTE INTERACTIVE -COLINFIZGIG -CDMIR BETA TESTERS: -KINGSAL -GOLDWELL -MAT99 -FROST SALAMANDER -MIKE A -STGATILOV -STIFU -MARBLEMAN -DETEEFF -THEBIGH FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: -STIFU FOR HIS EFFORT IN FIXING THE NOTORIOUS STUCK AI AND ARROW CRASH BUGS. -STGATILOV WHO MADE A NUMBER OF 2.14 OPTIMIZATIONS AND BUG FIXES. -KINGSAL FOR PROVIDING SOME OF THE MAIN MENU GUI ASSETS -PURAH FOR ORIGINATING THE SETTING OF LAMPFIRE HILLS, REIMAGINED HERE, IN HIS THIEF FMS. -GUY-ON THE COUCH AND JAM61 FOR THEIR SILENT HILL COMMUNITY MAPS WHICH HEAVILY INSPIRED THE LAMPFIRE HILLS REGION MAP. -SPECIAL THANKS TO LOISTE INTERACTIVE FOR ALLOWING US TO USE ASSETS FROM THEIR GAME "INFRA." SOME ADDIITONAL DETAILED LICENSING INFORMATION: SOME NOTES ON PERFORMANCE: NOTE TO MAPPERS: MOST OF THE NEW ASSETS IN THE MISSION ARE INCLUDED IN 2.14

In pursuit of a long-sought secret, the key to life everlasting lies deep within the recesses of an ancient athenaeum. Dragofer, Bikerdude, and I proudly present our FM for the Christmas Connections Contest titled "Written in Stone." Notes - TDM 2.10 Beta 5 or later is REQUIRED to play this mission. However, it is recommended to play using 2.10 Beta 6. You can get the latest version here. - This FM is a sequel to The Elixir. While it is not vital to play that before playing Written in Stone, there are some story connections. - 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. - Various areas will look better with shadow maps enabled at the possible expense of performance. - 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. As an entry in the 2.10 Christmas Connections Contest, the new features and assets used by this FM are: Download Version 1.1 This FM is available for download here: Google Drive Simply place the written.pk4 into your darkmod/fms folder and you're ready to go! Promotional Screenshots (via ThiefGuild) Credits A big thanks goes out to Wellingtoncrab for making a beautiful city map, Narrator for their wonderful voice work, nbohr1more for creating the original story premise as well as a few readables, Goldwell for animating the introduction to our briefing video and Duzenko for making certain glasses work as well as they do! A huge thank you also goes out to our beta testers: Goldwell, Wellingtoncrab, Kingsal, noodles, Krilmar, Garrett(Monolyth-42) ate0ate, and Mike_A. Thank you all very much for your keen eye to detail and great insights! Asset Credits Kingsal's Killer Assets Wellingtoncrab's Wonderful Furniture and Book Skins ***PLAYERS BEWARE*** SPOILERS lurk in the depths below. We strongly recommend playing this FM first so you don't spoil the fun for yourself!

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153454&p=2543356&viewfull=1#post2543356 Great reaction from heywood.

by the great cthulhu christians have invaded the blood of the dawnwalker forums moaning about them being put in a bad light by a game... looking back chritianity was one of the most bloody in human history and they bitch about the game allowing for people to fight back i mean wtf... yes lets have the dark ages back as if we truely need more to bog us down. i think its time we neutered they're access to the internet .

============== -= 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 ============== Beta Russian Language Translations by @kalinovka Mirror #1: yandex.ru Mirror #2: Google Drive ============== *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:

I have committed my changes to SVN, now SVN works on the UTF-8 system. It reads all language strings from all.utf8lang file, and only reads old-style {language}.lang files for missions if the equivalent new-style files are not available. The core .lang / .map files are present yet, but will hopefully be deleted. In the end, I had to manually add some characters to utf8map to suppress warnings. They were not handled by the old engine: I simply remapped them all to the question mark. It seems that the majority of them come from language names, and I don't care if they look broken or have question marks. I have already stated my position about language names. At the current moment, .utf8lang uses the same format as .lang, but this is temporary. As I said before, this must be changed in order to not lock us into compatibility trap. The format should be a sequence of "commands", each command starting with a keyword saying which command it is. And global state should be kept to minimum (e.g. current language seems acceptable). In addition to the current "#str_{name}" placeholders, I'd like to add two more types of replacements for missions. 1) Plain-text replacements, i.e. replace "Not enough drive space to save the game." with "Não há espaço para salvar o jogo.", as I suggested before. This approach provides zero inconvenience for the mapper, but it rather unreliable. It becomes especially bad for short strings. This kind of replacements is not cheap to perform, but I think I know how to do it efficiently. The first version will do it with bruteforce algorithm, we don't have any plain-text replacements yet anyway. 2) Full-text + ID replacements, i.e. replace "Not enough drive space to save the game.#id_nospacesave#" with "Não há espaço para salvar o jogo.#id_nospacesave#". The #id_...# placeholders are stripped from the text by the engine even if translation does not exist. If translation exists, then the engine verifies the context around the placeholder and does not apply it in case of mismatch. This approach gives mild inconvenience to the mapper, since he can clearly see the original text but has to tolerance this annoying tag at the end. The mapper can even edit the text without touching the placeholder: the obsolete translations will stop working automatically. I have a feeling that plain-text replacements won't be enough for the missions, and hope that such extra "tags" can be used here and there to make it more reliable.

Hi team, I've come back to the FreeBSD native port that I was working on and have some patches that I would like to upstream. What is the best way to submit patches for consideration? Is there a public tracker/email list, or is it best to post patches somewhere here on the forums? Thanks!

For me it feels like the Remaster is caged in between the purists that want exactly the same game and the same maps (the "Vision of LGS" as they've played it over the past 20 years) and the appeal to new players who are looking for something that has the level of a modern game. I didn't play the Remasters of Night dive studios, so I can't tell anything about how they will do it in the end. My wish is that they fix everything that was caused by the lack of time or knowledge to build the game, its maps and assets. Not to only wrap around another engine and leave the rest as is. That would probably not appeal to the purists who will complain that textures and models don't look like thief 1 (and make base game assets stand out in FMs anyways). That would not appeal to people who played the game zero or only a few times in their childhood because they wonder why maps look partly unfinished or models and graphics overall look still dated. I don't know how to think of it. I was soo excited when the remaster was announced, but seeing the progress in the two trailers I am not that sure anymore if this will be the Remaster that makes me happy.

Skacky's texture pack: - Amadeus and I have worked on this pack, its a mixture of various walls, floors, doors, drains and other architectural assets. The pack has the startingmap.txt file, so it can just be dropped into the FMs folder and will show up in the in-game FM list. - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YfIEc4lUHLxk7P3c15L3xJqQ0yoZBDDR/view

Hello and thanks for checking out this post. I'm delighted to announce that version 1.1 of my fan mission "Cole Hurst 1: Eaton" is now available to download and play. This post is spoiler free, so please don't avoid digging into the details below if you are interested. I'm just using the spoiler tags to organize this post a bit. Let me start by saying "thank you" to anyone who has either previously played - or is considering playing this mission. It really means a lot to me. I have been away for a while, but following a round of beta testing that took place some time last year, I've only just recently managed to finish this update. I'm slightly embarrassed by how long it has taken me to complete, but I wanted to make sure that the valuable feedback I received was all properly addressed. Mission description "Tonight, Eaton's wealthiest citizens will gather at Lord Mayor Zelmer's estate to celebrate the city's founding. Nobles, dignitaries, a famed musician, and even the Queen will pass through its gates. While the guests celebrate Eaton's future, Cole Hurst is looking for a way out." For those new to and/or curious about this mission: I guess I would describe it as a traditional heist-style mission - although with a couple of major plot twist along the way. It's a very large map and I think it should take most players at least a few hours to complete. Screenshots Changes in version 1.1 Countless additions and a large amount of smaller tweaks and changes have all made it into this release. I may have already forgot a few things, but here are what I consider to be the main highlights: * New secrets & optional side quests * Story tweaks and reworked readables * Subtitles * Difficulty tweaks and related changes * Stability fixes * Various cosmetic changes * Audio tweaks * TDM version 2.13 now required Contributions and acknowledgments A special thanks to all of those listed below. I'm sincerely grateful for all your contributions! Mission testers and technical support @nbohr1more, @stgatilov, @duzenko, @Acolytesix, @Dragofer, @JackFarmer, @Shadow, @Cambridge Spy, @wesp5, @madtaffer, @prjames, @suzy8track, @datiswous, @boissiere and @Bergante Story Kelly Hrupa Voice actors twhalen2600 (AKA @Benny_the_guard) and Kelly Hrupa

Mod that polishes several sound aspects that affect the gameplay, with a sprinkle of general gameplay tweaks. TDM 2.12 introduced a subtle rebalance to player footstep sound volumes. This was meant to be the first step towards an overhaul for all footstep sounds, both in volume levels and variety, since quite a few materials share sound files. 2.13 added "improved footstep sounds for broken glass and ice material surfaces" Almost one year later since 2.13, this project has completely stagnated; as a regular user that tried to chip in, I've seen the motivation fade out from the devs and mappers involved. So instead of letting it rot, I've made the early attempts to achieve this overhaul into a mod. The scope has widened a bit, since I decided to tackle annoying things such as alert 3 & 4 duration or sound propagation for blackjack/sword impact stims. Repository to report issues: https://codeberg.org/SilverKeeper/tdm-sound-polish Installation Latest release: https://codeberg.org/SilverKeeper/tdm-sound-polish/releases/download/1.2.1/Sound Polish Mod v1.2.1.7z The mod comes in three versions: x_soundpolish.pk4 is the main version, using TDM Core sounds but with handpicked improved files from other soundpacks. Read the changelog for a detailed listing. x_soundpolish_VoltaFootstepMod.pk4 has the handpicked files from the main version + footstep sounds from Kingsal's "Volta" series, both for the player and humanoid AI. x_soundpolish_ThiefierSoundsByGin.pk4 has the handpicked files from the main version + the footstep sounds from Gin's "Thiefier Sounds" soundpack, both for the player and humanoid AI. Copy one of those to TDM root folder. Additionally, you can copy autocommands.cfg or my personal autocommands_full.cfg and rename it as autocommands.cfg. Look at Gameplay and TDM settings for a brief explanation. The `Docs` folder has detailed documentation on my definition changes, final footstep propagation values (based on TDM Core `tdm_propagated_sounds.def` propagation values) and a list of FMs with custom footstep sounds to keep track of potential incompatibilities. Out of respect to FM authors, I won't be tweaking their audio files to "fix" any inconsistencies that might arise by using my mod. Hopefully they will release updates to their FMs if they themselves share my view on polishing TDM current audio design. Overview Footsteps .sndshd files for humanoid and player footsteps were a complete mess. They were mixed between 3 files when they should've been properly categorized in 2, materials shared one shader for the AI and the player, and in rare cases they outright played the wrong sound files (player carpet footsteps were "placeholders" currently used as AI barefoot footsteps). This has been the hardest part of the mod and hopefully it serves as template for TDM Core files. Both the player and AI (but particularly the player) are too quiet when they walk. The player barely hears their own footsteps, but the AI reacts strongly to them. Material sound shader values have been balanced according to the sound propagation transmitted to the AI. Jumping shaders are the loudest and speed shaders decrease the volume from there the slower you move. AI shaders start being audible too late for them to serve as a warning; their `maxDistance` has been increased. Monsters were also too stealthy, specially spiders (and particularly the small spiders). Sound files themselves had room for improvement, too. Some files needed amplifying (without clipping, of course) to have more leeway with sound shader volumes. Others were disabled/pitch-modified/replaced. In particular, AI had some weak-sounding footstep sounds. Pitch-modified variants of the player footsteps have replaced the worst AI footstep sounds. Alternative versions with "Volta footsteps mod" by Kingsal and "Thiefier Sounds" by Gin have also been created. Sound propagation and AI While TDM AI reacts to sound reasonably well, the base volume of the player's walk and creep sound propagation shaders is a bit too high, triggering alert 2 too easily. Those have been decreased for a more enjoyable gameplay. Thief featured a bait mechanic in the form of stims triggered by slamming your blackjack or sword against objects. This was nerfed in Deadly Shadows; now even walls played impact sounds, but AI was deaf to them. Currently, TDM has the potential to bring the mechanic back, but it's undercooked. All materials play the same sound propagation shader, so AI only hears you bashing wood, regardless of the material... And even that does absolutely nothing to the alert level. I've improvised material-specific shaders for both the blackjack and the sword. There seems to be a problem with value modifiers for the weapon entities... I can't take advantage of the feature. In relation with the bait mechanic, TDM Core hit sounds are incredibly lacking outside the bow's. Understandably, providing specific hit sounds for both the blackjack and shortsword isn't an easy feat, considering the amount of additional materials TDM adds to the humble Thief repertoire. This has been addressed to the best of my ability thanks to freesound.org awesome offering of free sounds. Alert 3 & 4 have insane duration and fuzzyness values. AI takes forever to go back to alert 2; duration gets... multiplied? randomly by, at most, the fuzzyness value or any number below that. Those values have been decreased for a reasonable fail state, so players don't normalize quicksaving when they get caught. Stationary AIs should play their barks frequently so you can point them out by ear before stumbling upon them. TDM Core intervals are too wide... Now barks and snores will occur more frequently. Gameplay and TDM settings Frob distance for pickpocketting has a shorter distance than other actions in TDM. While in principiple this should make pickpocketting more "tense", the bump mechanic gets in the way here. Being caught because you miscalculated the timeframe before the AI would turn around is one thing; being caught because you bumped your head into their back from forward-leaning in another. Now frob distance of objects carried by AI is more consistent with the rest of TDM and closer to Thief. AI maximum sight distance feels a bit too high. "Hidden Hands: Initiation" open areas were a good testing bed to find the right value decrease. It got reduced from 40 meters to 30. Several aspects of the movement are rather uncomfortable. Headbobbing is nauseating, footstep rate is very exaggerated and running speed feels slow. An autocommand.cfg file has been provided for this, as well as a complete autocommand_full.cfg with my personal settings for TDM. While the increased running speed shouldn't break anything, it is an opionated value from two FM authors and might not be balanced for the rest of TDM FMs. Thanks Daft Mugi and WellingtonCrab for carrying the brief but powerful efforts to start cleaning this up, and for creating the Player Footstep Sounds Test Map. Daft Mugi in particular for sharing the tuned player sound propagation values and the pickpocketting frob distance overrides. WellingtonCrab in particular for helping with AI alert 3 & 4 values and mentioning their overrides for AI barks used in their FMs. Ujtudor for their "Collection of adjusted sounds". Kingsal for their "Volta footsteps mod". SeriousToni for their "Alternative Footstep Sound Package" mod. Gin for their "Thiefier Sounds" mod. If any dev is interested in starting and merging a stable implementation, I would suggest some considerations: Fix jumping stepvol modifiers, if they even exist. Right now the player perceives different ranges of noise when jumping, but AI always hears the loudest value possible... Make wiki documentation for every TDM material on how noisy their footsteps are for AIs. I've included all material final propagation values (as shown by the "tdm_spr_debug 1; con_noPrint 0" command) in a "_Docs" folder. Inspect all entity .def files to detect missing sound material definitions Besides that, sound files are all over the place. I would propose this for both sfx .pk4s: tdm_sound_sfx01.pk4 Move all player climbing files from sound/sfx/movement/footsteps in tdm_sound_sfx02.pk4 to a sound/sfx/movement/climbing folder here. Move all humanoid rustle files from sound/sfx/movement/footsteps in tdm_sound_sfx02.pk4 to sound/sfx/movement/rustles here. (and any other rustle files that wander around the .pk4s) tdm_sound_sfx02.pk4 Move all used player footsteps in sound/sfx/movement/footsteps or sound/sfx/movement/footsteps/human to sound/sfx/movement/footsteps/player. (You would need file duplication for some files, since core player declarations currently shares many files with NPCs...) Move all used NPC footsteps in sound/sfx/movement/footsteps to sound/sfx/movement/footsteps/human. Check and delete unused variation files of materials (there are a lot).