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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.

Desired Results File with All Languages What is want to end up with from our AI (with any iterative fixup and manual integration) is an FM-only version of TDM’s UTF-8 all.lang. That file has 17 language sections in a particular order, which we will adopt too (in the prompt further below), although, other than English being first, it doesn’t really matter. Once we have our FM all.lang, we can easily generate all the required ISO-encoded *.lang files, e.g., french.lang. Strategy of Feeding the AI One approach would be to just feed the entire #str list in one gulp, with prompt engineering that covers all aspects. This would minimize the post-translate integration time. But the concern is that prompt engineering becomes more difficult. The AI might get confused about what restrictions and hints apply to which strings. While sometimes shared context across strings can be helpful, too much shared context could lead to overly-creative translations (e.g., hallucinations). [BTW, if accessing the AI through an API, there’s often a "temperature" value you can specify, from 0.0 to 1.0, from most-predictable to most-creative. We can use a few words in the prompt to approximately achieve similar ends.] So, to maintain more control, I’m going to batch-feed. The assumption is that translating #str_ in batches of related input groups will allow more focused guidance from prompt engineering, leading to better results. I’ll start with inventory items, that have the shortest strings and most dictionary-like lookup. An alternative/additional batching (particularly needed with large FMs) would be by "scene". In the case of Air Pocket, it could be thought of broadly as 4 scenes, based on timeline and location. The story, as driven by objectives, is fairly linear; larger FMs would typically have some randomization in scene order. Would batching by scene be useful (i.e., give better AI results) for some of Air Pocket’s #str_ s? Thinking this over. But for now, treat inventory items independent of scene. Prompt Engineering for Inventory Items A stab at a reusable template follows in blue. It describes the overall translation task, the desired tone, and input and output formats. Text specific to inventory items is shown in bold. Text that is specific to this FM, to clarify the context and the meaning of particular words, is in italics, with spoilers hidden. You are an expert translator between English and other European languages, including Russian. You wish to translate a list of inventory items, all inanimate objects, from English to these other languages. Each line of the list begins with a tab, then a word beginning with #str_ within double quotes, then another tab, then a phrase within double quotes. When you translate a line, in the output keep the tabs and the #str_ word unchanged, and only change the phrase to the other target language in UTF-8, keeping it in double quotes. Make the translated phrase reasonably short while preserving the formal meaning. Avoid modern slang. Old-fashioned wording is fine. At the end of each line, add another tab, and then add a back-translation of the previous phrase into English again. When back-translating, ignore the original English phrase. Most of the inventory items are keys, and the associated phrases describe locked doors to particular locations aboard a ship, or locked trunks or safes on a ship. The "Master Key" opens all locks. Following the input list of inventory items, append output lists in these target languages: 1. German 2. French 3. Polish 4. Italian 5. Spanish 6. Portuguese 7. Russian 8. Czech 9. Hungarian 10. Dutch 11. Slovak 12. Danish 13. Swedish 14. Romanian 15. Turkish 16. Catalan. List of inventory items: [... skipping 1 potential spoiler] "#str_fm_map_inv_key_captains_cabin" "Captain's Cabin" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_captains_safe" "Captain's Safe" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_galley" "Galley" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_master_key" "Master Key" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_mess" "Mess" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_sea_trunk" "Sea Trunk" Using ChatGPT As discussed at the outset, you can use this without signing in (it will nag you). Also, if you’d like it not to retain your input for training purposes, click on the circled question mark and change it under "Settings". As of this post, of you ask ChatGPT what model it’s using, it responds "You're currently chatting with GPT-4o, the latest model from OpenAI as of 2025. The "o" stands for "omni" — it's designed to handle text, images, and more, all in one model." Following up by enquiring about usage limitations, it says "Free users can access GPT‑4o, but with strict usage caps, which vary based on demand and time of day". More specifically, "usage falls in the range of 5–16 messages per 3–5 hours, after which you'll be limited or switched to GPT‑4o‑mini." The latter is a faster but lower-accuracy model. "We’ll notify you once you’ve reached the limit and invite you to continue your conversation using GPT-4o mini or to upgrade to [paid] ChatGPT Plus." Because I’m doing this at a leisurely rate (and reporting it to you in posts), the usage restrictions should not bite. About Input and Output Formats As you can see above, the input is the AI prompt, appended with content from english.lang, namely, the lines between the "{" and "}" brackets. For those lines, no change to tab-separation is done. The output is the same format, but with an added English back-translation added to each line. When ChatGPT generates the response, each requested language is enclosed in its own HTML response frame, with a separate "copy" link. So you have to copy each link separately, pasting them successively into your FM-specific all.lang file while adding headers, e.g., [French]. Also, the frame margin contains the word "vbnet". When I asked, ChatGPT indicates that’s the style of syntax highlighting applied to the results, based on source material, but it may be inappropriate and so ignorable. Which explains why the word "key" was always colored green. In the next post, I’ll discuss the specific results.

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

"Dame Fortune is a fickle mistress. Every time she opens a door, she throws a brick through your window..." I'm happy to announce that my second FM, "The Last Night on Crookshank Lane", is now available on the Mission Database: https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?internalName=crookshank Backup download is also available here: https://share.anon-kenkai.com/crookshank.pk4 Big thanks to @Airship-Ballet, @wesp5, @JackFarmer, @taffernicus, @Bergante for beta testing and feedback. Special thanks to @datiswous for generously providing in-mission subtitles. This is a much bigger and more ambitious FM than my first attempt, and it ended up taking a year and a half to complete. It was also a very educational lesson in the importance of proper map optimization. It's a sort of soft-sequel to "The Threepenny Revue", but not part of a series per se, and can be played as a standalone mission. I took inspiration from FMs like "The Painter's Wife" in TDM, and "The Sound of a Burrick in a Room" from Thief Gold, and although I'd never put myself in the same league as either, I was always impressed by their size, scope, and detail. City exploration FMs have always been my favorite, and those maps and others like them inspired me to take a crack at something similar. Enoy!

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

This might be a thing we can do with modding! I went digging through the source again because this was hanging in the back of my mind, and there is no actual use of the cvars that are defined in the c++ code for how the player reacts to the flashbomb. Seeing that, I followed that cvar through the scripts in my TDM install instead. As it turns out, the white flash that occurs when you flash yourself is defined as a gui element in tdm_gui01.pk4\guis\playertools\flashbomb.gui. Most of the lines of this script are defining color values to fade from and to, as vector4's that presumably represent RGBA values. Everywhere in that script that says something along the lines of transition backcolor "1 1 1 1" "0 0 0 0" "4000"; , "1 1 1 1" represents fullbright, fully opaque white. Changing that to "0 0 0 1" would be fully opaque black, and doing that across the whole script might just solve the problem. The going-all-the-way solution would be to change this color value to a cvar that you can set through a menu accessibility option, but it'd probably be simpler to mod it out in the shorter term

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!

Does anyone have an example of a mission where this check is done? It isn't a bad idea, and seems like something the core game should be doing, with the FMs providing whatever metadata they need to enable it. Something rings a bell recently with maybe some constant being available via script events?

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?

Multiple missions, yes Specifics are out of mind by now. Shouldn't take too long to find an example. I would say shorter range sounds tend to be more obvious, so look for things like hissing steam pipes or a lonely light.

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 that case is your darkradiant pointed to the right folder? If it's loading from your fm folder instead it needs to be in fms/yourfm/sound

This is an experimental GUI app for managing and packing Dark Mod missions. It's a successor to FM Packer but with a GUI, that I've been working on for some time. It's now at a stage where I feel somewhat comfortable sharing. Having a GUI unlocks potential for more in depth management of fms, which I intend to explore in the future. You can download the binaries here: https://github.com/Skaruts/tdm_packer_2/releases Currently: it can pack your selected mission into the pk4 at a click of a button it provides an editor for a .pkignore file where you specify which files to exclude from the pk4 it gives you a handy tree view of both the included and excluded files (Shift+LMB to fully expand/contract branches) it can launch TDM or DarkRadiant for the selected mission, or run a second installation of TDM to test your pk4 in isolation (see the menu Settings->Paths) it automatically writes your map sequence into the appropriate file all maps, except the ones in the map sequence, are auto excluded from the pk4 Important: This is still an experimental alpha version, so backup your missions before using it. Note: For now I provided binaries for Windows and Linux. I don't have a Linux system to test the binaries yet, though, so they may or may not work properly. As a last resort, one can still run this app from the source code by running the Godot Engine itself from the terminal with the "--path path/to/project" argument. (Godot itself is just a simple executable and requires no installation.)

Believe it or not, an earlier build had lots of rooftop climbing and alternate routes, but poor design on my part meant I had to put them all out of reach to slice the outdoor area into chunks for visportalling/optimization after the fact. I took my "city streets" approach a bit too literally and directly this time around, and I've realized that the claustrophobia and verticality of some of the best Thief FMs were born as much out of necessity as out of choice.

A hearty congratulations on the release! Two FMs in one week?? We're getting spoiled

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)

Might this not be better suited to https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/forum/58-tdm-tech-support/ or failing that make the text collapsable.

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/

Regarding the existing Russian version of TDM's MasonAlternative font, this had a different origin than those Russian fonts processed by Riff_Keeper. Tels created this in 2012. He started from bitmaps of an ASCII Mason font, then used his Perl patch program to copy selected ASCII glyphs (that resemble in some way Cyrillic) to new font "MasonAlternative". See https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/15/#findComment-274617 In GIMP, he flipped or otherwise hand-edited to make them Cyrillic. He said, "There are still a few dozen missing, but this is enough to render the two headlines we have (New Mission and Setting)" https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/15/#findComment-274623 This accounts for the incomplete coverage. Speculatively, he took this approach because it couldn't find a Mason-style TTF font with both Russian characters and an acceptable license (e.g., public domain, or at the least freely redistributable for non-commercial use). @kalinovka,I wonder what the licensing is for your masonchronicles3.ttf.

Did some testing on this, and indeed in TG and T2 you have to land the flashbomb in front of the ais. "In front" is pretty generous, though - its like a 180 degree cone. So that part staying as-is in TDM makes sense, and it looks like that's whats intended by this line: https://github.com/stgatilov/darkmod_src/blob/trunk/game/ai/States/State.cpp#L510 (distVec * owner->viewAxis.ToAngles().ToForward() ) > 0 is a vector dot product to figure out that 180 degree cone). Improving the feeling of flashbombs in general might be a follow up proposal, but I'll keep one improvement suggestion to one topic. It'll be easier to narrow down exactly what else about flashbombs is funky when people have more incentive to use them in FMs and play around with them in the first place!

Evidently a significant portion of the Cyrillic work was done by Keeper_Riff (in conjunction with Tels) back in 2011. These folks are not active in TDM these days. Keeper_Riff outlined a workflow, starting with FontLab to edit TTF files... https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/12/#findComment-271548 Specifically Carleton: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/12863-translating-the-tdm-gui/page/4/#findComment-262135

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

The Adventures of Thomas: Lucy's Quest Author: gg 2022-06-20 Version: 1.1 Required TDM Version: 2.10 or higher EFX: Yes ============================================================== Cautionary note: This FM needs a strong CPU/GPU combination sufficient to play the more demanding TDM FMs. Just as for many or most of the new FMs being released with the new gfx possibilities opened up it does a world of good to tweak the advanced video settings for the best combination of settings for your PC. For example, on my weaker laptop I set shadows as stencil and soft shadows off. On my desktop I set shadows as maps and soft shadows medium. Bloom off. Ambient occlusion off. Since the FM was built and extensively tested at these settings I believe either should produce a satisfactory experience. ============================================================== Sound Credits: freemusicarchive.org music Aislinn04_-_Aislinn_-_Lovely_Maria freesound.org klankbeeld_horror_1 freesound.org/people/CarlosCarty/sounds/522687/ om_aum_mantra_male_chant_bb freesound.org/people/Still%20Frames/sounds/37720/ still_frames freemusicarchive.org music The_Mind_Orchestra_Bruwynn tecknic.bandcamp.com/album/the-dark-mod-ambience-and-atmospheres Zack Bower Ancient_2, _3, _5. Solemn_1 freesound.org/people/Jagadamba/sounds/256006/ group_chanting_om_aum ============================================================== Thanks to: The TDM/DR developers for producing such a beautiful machine. The keepers of the wiki pages which are looking very good these days. Sotha for his invaluable tutorial "The Bakery Job". This tutorial is a jewel. Springheel for creating an atmosphere. Bikerdude for... ideas how to do things and scale things. Playtesters and advisors Dragofer, wesp5, datiswous, shadow. datiswous pointed out some immersion breaking lighting faults, so I got the idea. wesp5 gave me some good advice on how to tell the story - so it's more understandable. Dragofer gave me some early advice on optimizing the mission, which gave me a couple of months work with results that are well worth it. Dragofer wrote a script which optimizes CPU calculations of AI interactions. Shadow helped by testing the script, as well as testing other attempts at optimization. With the script in action only the minimal of AI interactions in the player's vicinity are called to be calculated. The script provides a general benefit but the results vary from computer to computer. The script targets a CPU task. ============================================================== Gameplay: Notes attached to objectives contain essential information on gameplay, on who the good/bad guys are, on what the player must do, and why. Mandatory objectives are linear, directing the player along a route to the goal. Optional objectives can be completed anytime. ============================================================== CAUTION: spiders, rats, undead, necrophiles, cannibals, psychotic thugs, and some generally unsavory characters. No snakes, though. The spiders ate them. ==============================================================

Double topic. See also topic: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22754-thief-vr-legacy-of-shadow-announcement/