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For the re-distribution of briefing text, I thought about basing it on char count, but instead took an easier approach: Move to 2 sentences from the end of page 1 to the start of page 2, then 2 sentences from the end of page 2 to the (empty) page 3. The original page 1 was jam-packed, while the original page 2 was not, so I was less concerned with the latter. This will still need to be verified next time I generate the *.lang files, to make sure there is no truncation at any page bottom. (I had to do the re-distribution for each language, but if I'd done a slimming redistribution of the English early-on, that might have been enough to carry through to other languages. Or possible the AI could manage the redistribution, if you give it a character or word count target. Conjecturally a target around 550 characters per page might work well with the current briefing GUI. I'd ask it not to split sentences.). That leaves the Objectives and Messages to do next.

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.

I think we should create a thread where you can put requests and suggestions for Orbweaver. This thread should be NOT a discussion thread. If you want to discuss a proposal, create a specific thread for it. I want it to be only for collecting proposals, so we have an overview of what people might want to have. I guess this might also help Orb to decide what he should focus on once he gets productive. BTW: I really appreciate your effort, because we can really use this. So my personal wishlist proposal is that I would like to see a group handler. Similar like in Blender, where you can select several objects and put it in a group. When you select one or more of these groups, the objects are visible. If the group is not selected, it's invisible. In Blender and other 3D apps this is called layers (forgot the name before so I had to look it up).

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

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)...

Now that Cryengine is basically free to use for community projects, and has proven itself to be ideal for large open worlds with stealth gameplay like Kingdom Come Deliverance, is there anything stopping anyone from porting TDM over with support for existing fan missions? I mean legally speaking of course, as I'm sure it would be a lot of work, but there seem to be fewer barriers than ever before. It's incredible what people have done with an engine that was built to accommodate tiny corridors on ancient hardware, but imagine an engine purpose built to render large open spaces... No more compromised visions when mapping, no more endless optimization to fit a square peg through a circular hole... And if the mission files were to be compatible with the new engine, people could just keep on mapping in DR as if nothing even changed. Cryengine Community Edition https://engine.pterosoftstudio.com/

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.

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.

I would still welcome more testers, but even so I think now is a fine time to open the beta thread! Anyone else who wants to try it, feel free to reply here first and make it known. Link to the thread: Thanks and Merry belated Christmas!

ucrt32 ada compilers are done and working . using the static gcc runtimes for the dynamic C++ exception handler was the way to go to cut down on the dll madness it works splendidly so far. even the few projects that previously had problems with the TDM based exception mechanism work without a problem now (gdk-pixbuff librsvg ogre3d). for C++ projects that uses exceptions you still need the libstdc++ dll but it no longer pulls in the libgcc dll unwinders as these are now part of the libstdc++ dll. atm trying to get rust updated to latest but it is a grind... rust relies heavily on specific LLVM versions so to build the later versions you need to upgrade LLVM rust and a ton of support stuff arghhhhhh!!!!. got pyinstaller working with 32 bit gcc + ucrt (msys2 dropped 32 bit for everything besides the old msvcrt based mingw versions and even with that they could not get it to build with the 32 bit version ) the fix was really simple though -> point the environment variable CC to where gcc is located. yeah sounds insane but pyinstaller defaults to a 64 bit compiler unless specifically told by the compiler that it is a 32 bit version, it does not detect it otherwise lol.

Hi, I have a unique little mission to share soon for beta testing! It's an obstacle course, hidden within the city, to teach movement techniques that some players may not have tried yet. It's meant to be mostly easy, the "advanced" in the title just indicates to all that it's not a required tutorial before other missions. I've chosen a few tricks to teach that are useful, but hopefully still sensible and not too glitchy or game-breaking. This is my first mission and the visuals are quite blocky at this point. However, I did put some thought into the layout and textures, and I tried to write the readables "in-universe" while still clearly explaining things. Anyone will be welcome to try it out, give any feedback, and maybe weigh in on what the future of this kind of mission should be. If you're interested then please reply here for now, and soon I'll make/link a thread in the Beta Testing forum. (Obviously this is a busy season for many, don't worry if you reply and then end up not playing for a while, I have no deadlines in mind.) A few screenshots (in spoiler):

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.

On a lighter note (and because my holiday started today, oh yeah!), let's have a new thread for music, that you just enjoy and probably is not so well known...or somehow obscure but does not sound as strange as the songs we report in @STiFU's progessive music thread. Here is one of my new favourites, a similar recording of this track by other artists has been used in an US show broadcasted last year ( @Amadeus: What is the name of the show? )

For the people in this thread who have no idea what "WINDOWS" is, here is a video from a Linux standpoint: (it's off topic, yes)

Bro is using the Linux thread as a general chat! LoongArch Promoted To Being An Official Architecture For Debian 14 Meta Is Using The Linux Scheduler Designed For Valve's Steam Deck On Its Servers The Death Of Clear Linux, Other Intel Linux Engineering Setbacks In 2025

To be honest, it sounds quite dangerous. Every second mission has some duplicate decls warnings, we'll be hunting those issues forever if we change the order. If you are interested in mods, it would make more sense to solve the problem similar to how core/mission priority works now. We can add some convention for mods, and tag all the respective decls as MOD. And then we can either set CORE < MOD < MISSION or CORE < MISSION < MOD priority. Something like mod_somearbitraryname.pk4 in the core directory would probably work, or maybe we can invent something similar to the current naming. What is the current convention for mod files? This will make overriding decls by mods an officially supported strategy, instead of something that relies on engine order rules which are somewhat confusing and where never supposed to be relied on.

I'm not sure if this should go here or in the Tech Support section, so If this is the wrong place, please let me know. As a hobbyist game developer, I'm curious about how the Light Awareness System works in The Dark Mod. I've been poking through the source code, but haven't found any definitive math explaining it, or code comments mentioning on how it's calculated. If anyone could point me to exactly where to look, or could explain what steps and/or math it's using to calculate how visible the player is, I'd greatly appreciate the insight. For reference, I'm trying to implement a similar system in my own stealth game I'm working on in Unreal Engine 4.

Hi, I've played Splinter Cell trilogy last year because I joined that 52 games challenge. Furost_nova's profile | Backloggd I made a site full of level design articles in hopes of breaking into the industry. I began with google sites, but now I've migrated to mediawiki. I still want something better than mediawiki, but for now it was the easiest solution to publish text and have more freedom to format than google sites. My plan is to work in the industry. My long term goal is to make that site a professional resource and refactor everything. But that won't come until after some years of professional experience. For now I've stopped adding more articles because it's a futile endeavor. The reason is pretty much this article of mine: https://www.henry-ym.org/index.php/Environment_Art_x_Level_design_x_Writing._Ego_made_me_blind https://www.henry-ym.org I made this: https://www.moddb.com/members/frost-nova/addons I have made maps for Open Arena before. If you ever seen maps called Lego + something. Plus, a colorful map with too many colors at the same time, circular arena style, called RGB. I made it too. I deleted them from moddb because I was going to rename to remove the "lego" trademark, but I guess I forgot to upload them.

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

============================================================== Title: Hidden Hands: The Anomaly Filename : hhta.pk4 Author: Jack Farmer Date of release: 01.05.2021 (version: 1) - 08.05.2021 (version 2) 16.03.2022 (version 3) EFX: Yes Version 2 available via the DM mission downloader (see subsequent post below for changes) Mission does not run under 2.08 due to missing new core assets - please update to 2.09 ============================================================== Hidden Hands series: I - Initiation II - Vitalic Fever III - The Lost Citadel IV - The Anomaly ============================================================== Jack Farmer: mapping & drafts Amadeus: revision/editing of all texts for readables, narration and dialogues, design consultation ("The walls are ugly!"...and your were right! ) Joebarnin: consultation for a custom script enabling a crucial in-game event Dragofer: consultation for custom scripts and S/R events, extraction & prefab packaging of Sotha's robots, bug fixes Destined: consultation for custom scripts and...fixing JacK's wrong custom scripts! Very special thanks go out to Geep for updating the Wiki helping me to solve several GUI problems within -literally - seconds! Beta testers: Joebarnin (lead) ate0ate Zerg Rush wesp5 datiswous Voice actors (in order of appearance): Malasdair The Thief AndrosTheOxen Jonus New Horizon Desmond Pilfered items: - portal sky with trees originally developed and arranged by Dragofer for "Down By The Riverside" - fireflies originally developed by Bikerdude for "Alberic's Curse" - floating boat set up (this time used for a different..."object") originally developed by Bikerdude for one of his missions - robots originally developed by Sotha for "Ulysses: Genesis" - new electric door move sound based on one of Sotha's robot sounds - selected cave architecture originally developed by Johannes Burock taken from the abandoned WIP thread - waterdrops sound taken from freesound.org produced by nicstage - custom machine sound taken from freesound.org produced by deleted-user4401185 - forest at night taken from freesound.org produced by felix-blume - machine3 sound taken from freesound.org produced by lupalenzuela - tape-deck-startup taken from freesound.org produced by soundjoao - electric-zap-electricity taken from freesound.org produced by wakerone - static_stylophone_a taken from freesound.org produced by inspectorj - steady-machine-with-hum taken from freesound.org produced by craigsmith - radio_noise taken from freesound.org produced by inspectorj - chain-rustling taken from freesound.org produced by nathanmanaker - wind_turbin taken from freesound.org produced by dommygee - selected guitar_feedback taken from freesound.org originally produced by oymaldonado - stream-water-c taken from freesound.org produced by inspectorj - mic-feedback-fx-short-mid-2 taken from freesound.org produced by chimerical - megaphone-feedback taken from freesound.org produced by deleted-user-2104797 All other new fx sound created by Jack Farmer using a Korg M1 synth, kitchen equipment and his weird voice All new ambient tracks produced and mixed by Jack Farmer sometimes with additional ambient sound samples originally produced by gigagooga Briefing video by SirSmokeALot --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

I'm happy to announce the release of my third FM: Year of the Rat. This is my first city hub map, focused primarily on story characters and environment. It's my most complex project to date, taking its fair share of effort to make which was a good learning experience. As an experiment I opted to use no scripts and rely solely on the default entities, as well as no custom assets apart from the map and splash screen hence the small pk4. It features a few special elements, such as factions that are hostile only when the player commits crime or a decoder lockpick used to open electronic doors. The beta testing thread can be found here, thank you everyone who helped find the most obvious problems. You play as a famous thief nicknamed Black Jack: A man who's pulled many crazy jobs in his life, only to be hired for an absurd and insulting task by an anonymous employer. The objective is pretty straightforward: Be kind to the mice and feed them some cheese! Your silly quest takes you to the Lantern Light district during the Lunar New Year celebration, a place where gangs and corrupt nobles do their dirty deeds together. What ulterior motives and unexpected twists could your adventure entail? While the most obvious problems were patched during beta testing, some issues can't be easily resolved due to the complexity of the entity setup and objectives, meaning you may encounter a few inconsistencies. Most notably surrounding AI, which may float above chairs and not react to alerts or oppositely send the whole map into a panic: This is mostly due to how the engine handles AI and alarms. The map is small since I wanted to add more detail without having to work on large areas, as such some places can feel cramped while the skybox may be visible up close. I'll be busy so further updates are unlikely unless I decide to add new content later... you're welcome to report any issues you encounter, but keep in mind that if something wasn't fixed it's likely known but difficult to address or due to engine functionality. Spoilers for objectives and secrets as follows: Download 1.2: Google Drive, Mega. Screenshots with minor spoilers for the various areas:

A thief adventurer called Mudgeon thwarted my raid on King Aldreth's Crypt. He sold the plunder and established himself in the Bellworth district. He kept Aldreth's crown and The Chalice of Kings.. Mudgeon has had time to relax his guard. I intend to take advantage... Please post all feedback and questions in this thread.

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