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I have previously posted about automation efforts in this thread about watching over asset files. I decided to create a more generic thread for whatever discussions related to automation. The most recent version of automation library and scripts (by the time this topic was created) can be downloaded from this link. More information can be found in readme.md. It should run properly against any beta version of TDM 2.07. Some new Python 3 is required to run automation stuff. I'm afraid that decent skills in Python are needed if you want to do anything advanced with it. If you have some tedious work that you regularly do with TDM, and feel that it can be automated, post ideas here. UPDATE: Current version (2019.02.22) is available here. It should run properly against TDM 2.07.

Thanks, but this seems to be a mission specific parameter. I would like to have a pure GUI solution that would work with any mission that includes a visible map that could be marked.

@STiFUIm glad to see this is back on the menu! Looks really nice. A neutral grey or a very subtle "golden" hue for all frobable objects is the way to go. Colored shaders can get messy with different lighting scenarios, different loot object colors, always fighting players preferences, ect. Also object specific frob colors will open up a brand new communication channel that wasnt there before. Its just messy imo. I did some early prototypes for colors a long time ago, might be in the dev forums somewhere actually. Anyways, great to see it getting worked on. Thanks for doing it.

Wow my statements were back in this massive massive thread years ago: Anyhow, subtle out the box and then let players decide how much frob shader they want.

What is this info_location and how does it work?

I just pointed to something that could maybe be altered to work like that maybe. But probably not for every mission. although you probably want to be able to mark a position, not a whole info_location

I tried to script something recently. But couldn't start the mission from command. Menu sysyem has changed. I don't know a lot of the commands possible. I tried to start a mission and immidiatelly frob a readable somewhere in the mission (or a bunch of them in succession). I thought it could aid testing readable text in missions. But it seems too much work considering the other options.

If like me you scour the web looking for inspiration for your next TDM mission then look no further.. Now... talking of images have you guys seen the latest from the master that is DrK from his Rocksbourg4 campaign. We need more dirty texture in TDM me thinks...

I completely agree! The mission was so complex that I often forgot where I still needed to go while chasing some other direction. What it needs, what TDM needs, is a feature in which you can mark locations on the map! Like in Monomyth. I'll start a new thread on the main board right now :).

mmmmmmh ??? I discovered the buttons in the elavator shaft - so i´ve been curious what they do it seem you used them as triggers for stop and go and open/close the doors !? but if they are meant to be used by the player - they don´t do (haven't tested them all) EDIT : @covert_caedes After your tip, they suddenly work (this one in particular, for sure). So the question remains – why not during my game?

@covert_caedesyes there are issues in 2.13 with the last frame display that drives the main menu effect getting busted with MSAA on so it is disabled via the mission cfg to make sure the main menu can work. This will be removed when 2.14 is fully out and there is not a need to maintain 2.13 compatibility. Then there was a separate issue where some cvars in the mission cfg persisted when changing missions - which that has been addressed in 2.14 beta 3.

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? )

Did you run these commands during gameplay or before starting / after finishing a mission? Does it really work differently in 2.13 and earlier versions? And it would be great if you briefly explain how you use these commands in your workflow...

Not sure if you gathered from the rest of the thread but I was able to work around those by setting "Hold Frob/Interact" in Settings>Gameplay>General to "Disabled". I see now that playing with it disabled is recommended and has been brought up a few times, but not directly to you. Anyway, I don't know of a way to e.g. shoulder bodies or eat food with that setting, so I wouldn't call this a complete solution? I've just been disabling it when I encounter these things and setting it back to my preference afterwards.

This thread is intended for discussing and reporting things about the new frob changes during beta. Most of the description below was already given in a previous thread. Bugtracker: #6658, #6668. New Frob Control Styles I have completely refactored the frob-handling code. Now, it is easy to setup different frob control styles. There are currently 3 (and a half), which you can try in 2.14 beta. Under "Settings > Gameplay > General > Hold Frob/Interact" (cvar tdm_frob_control_style), you can change the frob control style. This setting replaced the previous hold frob delay setting (tdm_holdfrob_delay), because I think that nobody would touch that value unless they want to disable the holdfrob mechanic, which can now be achieved by the new setting as well. The currently available control styles are: Disabled: No hold-frob mechanic, i.e., pre v2.12 control style TDM: Short frob is the same as pre v2.12, but long frob is a shortcut for "grab and then use" (use-type interactions) Thief (v2.12): Same as TDM, but behaviour for bodies is swapped. Body limbs are interacted with via "drag and drop". TDM-inverted: Short frob for use-type interactions, hold frob to "drag and drop" objects (when you release the mouse button, you will release the object) I always loved the drag and drop interaction with body limbs created by Daft Mugi and I wanted to see it consistently extended to all objects, which motivated the refactor. I am very happy with the result and I hope you players enjoy it as much as I do. The Thief control style will still remain the default settings, however, as I didn't want to open that can of worms. Hold-Frob Mechanic for Doors There was previously no hold-frob mechanic for doors, except for experimental manual door control feature. I have added two additional new control modes for hold-frob on doors, which you can activate through the cvar tdm_door_control. The modes are: 0: Disabled 1: Manual door fine control (experimental, existing feature) 2: Hold frob to slowly move doors. They are opened and closed alternatingly, just like regular frobbing a door, but interrupting a moving door is skipped. 3: Hold frob to slowly open doors. Additionally, I added in the ability to quickly force close a door by holding frob and pressing attack. It felt like mode 3 ("Slow Open") gave the most benefits and most direct controls to the player and pairs well with the force-close mechanic. So, I just set "Slow Open" as the default and I did not add it to the settings menu, but you are of course encouraged to try the other modes as well. The idea behind this addition is that the player can now slowly sneak and peak through a door, but then can also quickly shut the door again if the player deems the situation unsafe. This adds more skill expression and creates further immersion. 2.14 Beta Please use this thread to report any issues with frobbing (always state tdm_frob_control_style and tdm_door_control configuration), the new door control modes (please test them rigorously) and to give feedback on any of the above changes. Pinging players that previously showed interest in this: @wesp5, @snatcher, @Baal, @Skaruts, @Wellingtoncrab, @Amadeus

I changed the way mission.cfg works in trunk: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6674 Now the values are converted to mission overrides and take effect outside game as well. Speaking of pm_* cvars. If I'm not mistaken, the spawnarg mechanism is customized in missions: gemcutter hazard moongate prize snowed_inn The mission.cfg mechanism is used in missions (bold shows which missions override pm_* cvars with it): cauldron_v2_2 gemcutter imperial_sword iris krampus lookwhosmoving painterswife scrooge What I can suggest here is: Delete pm_* from the core atdm:player_base and the accompanying C++ code. Update the missions which use these values by adding mission.cfg with these values As the result, TDM 2.14 and later will be able to set mission overrides for these cvars. At least I hope so If it works properly, then the missions will work in 2.14 just like they did previously. TDM 2.11 and earlier will work just as they worked at that time. As for TDM 2.12 and TDM 2.13, I have no idea what happens. Perhaps the custom values will leak. UPDATE: pm_* spawnargs on player have no effect starting from beta214-03.

As was suggested in this discussion, non-elite AI can now be KO'd from any direction for a brief duration after being flashed. That duration is subject to balancing, which is one of the goals of this thread. The reasoning here is that we did want to make the flashbomb and flashmine a little more useful, but not overpowered in the way that you could clear out entire rooms with a single one. The default value for this duration is currently 1500 ms, i.e., 1.5 s. You can change it via the cvar tdm_ai_ko_susceptibility_after_flash_duration in the unit of milliseconds. If you set the duration to "infinity", non-elite AI can be KOed for the full duration of the flash. Bugtracker: #6636. 2.14 Beta Please post issues and feedback related to KO after flash here. Please also try out some different values for the duration (tdm_ai_ko_susceptibility_after_flash_duration) and give feedback if the current default is suitable or if and why it should be changed. Pinging some players that previously showed interest in this feature: @chumbucket91, @chakkman, @Epifire, @nbohr1more, @snatcher

I think it would be smart to go ahead and start a "Newbie thread" that covers all newbie questions in one place, as with the TDS Forum. It doesn't have to be this one, just for future reference. Aaanyway, I was going through the A-Z Tutorial, and right about the time you make the pool of water, I fixed some leaks, thought I got them all. Now it won't Dmap again, but when I hit Pointfile, it says "Could not open pointfile: E:/games/ ... /TutorialMap.lin" I don't know why since it's been working up to now. So if I have a leak I can't find it, but it's troubling just that Pointfile suddenly, inexplicably doesn't open! There isn't any ".lin" file either; not sure what happened to it. Any ideas? Edit: I started a map from scratch and Pointfile didn't show up again. So whatever it is, it isn't something I messed up in that first map, but a general problem I'm having with DR. Edit2: But it does Dmap and Map just fine, so that's ok.

I want to play this mission!!! But I'm gonna wait until the final release of 2.14 I guess. I had the google AI read the thread for me and summarise all technical problems to be sure not to encounter any spoilers , and that seemed to work, so I decided it would be better to wait a bit. So guys ... hurry up plox!!

It should work if you are logged in and haven't claimed the giveaway (displaying a "{}" with no text when it works), but IIRC Europeans in this thread have reported it doesn't work because they weren't eligible, while Americans were.

Placing two pk4s in the same directory with different names does not work like that. You can however download v2 from google drive into a a different directory in your fms folder and you will be able to select either from the mission selection screen. Prior revisions of the pk4s are stored on google drive.

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

This looks really cool, amazing work in my opinion: https://www.moddb.com/mods/thieves-guild I'm surprised that it flew completely under the radar. I hadn't heard about it until today - just by coincidence I saw it on the TTLG Discord. From the footage available I would say, a Thief game similar to Deadly Shadows created with the original Unreal Engine. Apparently, the base game is available on GOG, however, I cannot find it there. Plus, according to ProtonDB not fully functional on Linux systems. EDIT: Here is a game play trailer from 8+ years ago (the development of the game took quite some time), there seem to be RPG elements as well: Edit 2: This seems to be a project our forum member @Jetrellis heavily involved in. Congratulations on the release! You have been working 10+ years on this? Truly a superhuman effort!

Good to hear that. I noticed this a few times, but thought that a different type of bug, or glitch, or just rather an oversight and non-interactable items were being highlighted without any intent, but when checking out that hanging crate with crossaints and purple potion inside a wooden toolbox, and not able to take it, confirmed for me that something is not as it should be. I'll wait for the update. Once again- incredible mission. As a compulsive hoarder, collector, and person who has to check out every room and cranny that seems even vaguely accessible, this might be one of the most overwhelming missions I've seen in a long time. Can't imagine the amount of work hours spent crafting it. This thing should be promoted on the Steam main page.

Hello, all. I've decided to post some lists of royalty-free music from Kevin MacLeod's well-known site Incompetech.com, lists that include tracks and themes chosen as potentially useful for The Dark Mod mission creators. Mr. MacLeod's made plenty of really good royalty-free music over the years, including various ambient themes and other music that could work pretty well in The Dark Mod. From what I know and remember, there's already been a fair few released FMs that used a few tracks from MacLeod's archive, so he is not unknown to the TDM community. Here's the tracks on the site arranged alphabetically. Another archive of MacLeod's royalty-free music can be found here (on Wikimedia Commons). I've added the links as well. As of April 2024, I have also added links to the official YouTube uploads of the individual tracks, all part of MacLeod's official YouTube channel. For the sake of easier reading and finding a song in the lists below, I've arranged them all in alphabetical order. Religious / churchly ambients Types of settings: Builder churches, chapels, cathedrals, monasteries, abbeys, etc. Various solemn and calm religious ambients. - Agnus Dei X (YT link. Somber but livelier in places, male and female choir vocals in muffled Latin.) - Bathed in the Light (YT link. A rather soothing ambient, I suppose it could work inside a pleasant-seeming Builder church, including as a place of relief in a scary mission.) - Gregorian Chant (YT link) - Lasting Hope (YT link) - Midnight Meeting (YT link) - Night Vigil (YT link. I think this one would work best if it was sampled into smaller parts.) - Organic Meditations 1 (YT link) and Organic Meditations 2 (YT link) - Rites (YT link) - Private Reflection (YT link) - Supernatural (YT link. Good for an abandoned church, spooky candle-lit catacombs, etc.) - Virtutes Vocis (YT link) Potentially: - Tiny Fugue (YT link) - Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (YT link. Famous organ composition by Bach, IMHO might sound too Baroque for a late-medieval style setting, but good for a hint of eerieness.) Spooky / horror / ominous ambients Types of settings: Crypts, catacombs, haunted caves, eerie ruins, lairs and places where undead and other monsters roam, etc. Some of the more industrial-sounding ones could also be useful for missions set at factories or warehouses occupied by criminal gangs, and so on (i.e. also for non-supernatural threats and non-supernatural creepiness). - Aftermath (YT link), WiCo link) - Ancient Rite (YT link, WiCo link) - Anxiety (YT link, WiCo link) - Apprehension (YT link, WiCo link) - Blue Sizzle (YT link, WiCo link) - Bump in the Night (YT link, WiCo link) - Chase Pulse (YT link, WiCo link) and Chase Pulse Faster (YT link, WiCo link. Both could work in some ghost-haunted location, with ghosts pursuing the player.) - Classic Horror 3 (YT link, WiCo link. Good for a haunted house, manor house or other private household interior.) - Crypto (YT link) - Dark Pad (YT link) - Dark Standoff (YT link) - Darkness Speaks (YT link. Shorter sting, good for a scripted creepy event.) - Decay (YT link, WiCo link) - Deep Noise (YT link, WiCo link) - Digital Bark (YT link, WiCo link) - Distant Tension (YT link, WiCo link) - Dopplerette (YT link, WiCo link) - Echoes of Time 1 (YT link, WiCo link) - Echoes of Time 2 (YT link, WiCo link) - Fire Prelude (YT link) - Gathering Darkness (YT link, WiCo link) - Ghostpocalypse 1 - The Departure (YT link) - Ghost Processional (YT link) - Ghost Story (YT link, WiCo link) - Grave Matters (YT link) - Heart of the Beast (YT link, WiCo link) - Himalayan Atmosphere (YT link. Eerie theme, could work in some ancient ruins.) - Ice Demon (YT link, WiCo link) - Irregular (YT link) - Land of Phantoms (YT link) - Lithium (YT link) - Long Note 1, Long Note 2 and Long Note 3 - Medusa (YT link) - Mind Scrape (YT link) - Mirage (YT link) - Nervous (YT link, WiCo link) - Night Break (YT link, WiCo link) - Ominous (YT link. Shorter ambient, but pretty spooky.) - One of Them (YT link, WiCo link) - Ossuary 1 (YT link) - Ossuary 5 (YT link) - Ossuary 6 (YT link) - Penumbra (YT link, WiCo link) - Political Action Ad (YT link. Yes, a song for this concept has such an ominous atmosphere. ) - Redletter (YT link, WiCo link) - Right Behind You (YT link, WiCo link) - Satiate - strings version (YT link) - Spacial Harvest (YT link) - Spacial Winds (YT link, WiCo link. Might be good for Middle Eastern themed scares.) - Spider Eyes (YT link. This could work well inside a household, or inside some public building.) - Steel and Seething (YT link) - Sunset at Glengorm (YT link and YT remastered link) - Supernatural (YT link. Calmer melody, good for a haunted religious buldings and its grounds.) - Tenebrous Brothers Carnival - Mermaid (YT link. Sounds serene, but is rather creepy and tense, maybe underground/underwater ruins.) - The Dread (YT link, WiCo link) - The Hive (YT link, WiCo link) - The Voices (YT link, WiCo link 1, WiCo link 2. Very otherworldly, good for some haunted area or other dimension.) - Unnatural Situation (YT link) - Unease (YT link, WiCo link. Would sound best in a manor house, museum, or other fancy interiors.) - Unseen Horrors (YT link, WiCo link) - Very Low Note (YT link, WiCo link) Tension-building / mysterious / general ambients Type of setting/situation: General ambients, especially in parts of FMs where the plot thickens and some coded development is triggered that makes for a new "act" in the overall story of the mission. (Imagine the likes of moonbo's missions and how they're structured and you get a bit of an idea.) - Air Prelude (YT link) - Awkward Meeting (YT link, WiCo link. Our thief hero or heroine meets an ally or informant for a bit of chit-chat.) - Blue Sizzle (YT link, WiCo link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Calmant (YT link. A calm, quiet piano theme, but it has an air of mystery and isolation. An emotionally neutral, uncertain theme.) - Crypto (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Dama-May (YT link. A bit of a peculiar tense theme, but some might find some uses for it.) - Dark Times (YT link) - Disappointment (YT link) - Disconcerned (YT link) - Dopplerette (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Dragon and Toast (YT link) - Enter the Maze (YT link) - Fantastic Dim Bar (YT link) - Fire Prelude (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Frozen Star (YT link. Exploring some long-lost ruins, mysterious compound or complex, it's soothing but creepy.) - Ghost Processional (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Gloom Horizon (YT link) - Grave Matters (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Greta Sting (YT link. A short sting, under twenty seconds, useful for revelatory scripted scenes and building suspense.) - Grim League (YT link) - Heavy Heart (YT link) - Industrial Music Box (YT link. Somber and personal, reminds me of the music box theme we already have in the game.) - Interloper (YT link) - Invariance (YT link) - Irregular (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness/mysteriousness.) - Isolated (YT link. A calm, somber ambient, for thoughtful situations. A bit more modern and guitarry-sounding, but could work in TDM.) - It Is Lost (YT link, WiCo link. Maybe a theme for exploring some mysterious underground ruins ?) - Lamentation (YT link. Maybe a castle or manor house household where bad events transpired.) - Lasting Hope (YT link) - Lithium (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Long Note 1, Long Note 2 and Long Note 3 (YT link 1, YT link 2, YT link 3. These are IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Lord of the Land (YT link. Maybe usable as a quiet background theme while sneaking through a busier castle or manor house.) - Lost Frontier (YT link. Exploring some city or castle ruins in The Empire that seem majestic at first glance but could hide a darker secret.) - Mourning Song (YT link) - New Direction (YT link. Very interesting ambient, could work well for a slow-burning urban noir atmosphere and doesn't sound modern.) - Night of Chaos (YT link) - Night on the Docks - piano version (YT link. Part of a trio of slow noir themes, the others use a sax and trumpet. This is the only one of the three that sounds pre-1900 compatible.) - On The Passing of Time (YT link, WiCo link) - Oppressive Gloom (YT link) - Overheat (YT link) - Quiet Panic (YT link. Short and quiet, good for tension-building, including for scripted events.) - Relent (YT link. The clarinet in this one might be slightly anachronistic, but it's an interesting contemplative melody.) - Road to Hell (YT link) - Satiate - strings version (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild horror.) - Satiate - percussion version (YT link. This one's IMHO better purely as a tension-building theme.) - Scissors (YT link. This would be an excellent theme for a mission set at a factory, inventor's workshop or a warehouse.) - Shores of Avalon (YT link. Quieter tension-builder.) - Simplex (YT link. A pretty good one, though some of the quieter beats are a bit more electronic.) - Spacial Harvest (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild horror.) - Spring Thaw (YT link) - Stay the Course (YT link) - Sunset at Glengorm (YT link and YT remastered link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Temple of the Manes (YT link. I'd imagine this could work in an atmospheric mission set inside a castle or fortified manor house.) - Tempting Secrets (YT link) - Tenebrous Brothers Carnival - Intermission (YT link. Tense but melodic theme, with some heavy background percussions.) - The North (YT link) - Thunder Dreams (YT link) - Tranquility (YT link. A longer and very calm ambient theme, but has an air of mystery and strangeness.) - Unanswered Questions (YT link) - Unnatural Situation (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness.) - Unpromised (YT link. Can work both in an urban and a rural/wilderness environment.) - Very Low Note (YT link. This one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness, would be ideal for a cave or basement.) - Winter Reflections (YT link. Good for a mission set during a snowed-in winter night.) Period instrument background music (stylistically European) Types of settings: Taverns, village scenes, town life, feasts, scenes among commoners or nobles. Mostly stuff with a calm and cosy atmosphere. - Achaidh Cheide (YT link) - Angevin B (YT link. This one sounds a bit more aristocratic or courtly, good for a feast or public event.) - Danse Macabre - harp version - Errigal (YT link. This one sounds a bit more aristocratic or courtly, but it's a good secular piece of music.) - Evening Fall - harp (YT link) - Folk Round (YT link) - Heavy Interlude (YT link. Short but really cool, IMHO could also work for a background scene of two AI characters sparring for fun.) - Master of the Feast (YT link. Good for a scene with at least two or three musicians and multiple noble/patrician characters attending a feast.) - Minstrel Guild (YT link) - Midnight Tale (YT link) - Old Road (YT link) - Pale Rider (YT link) - Pippin the Hunchback (YT link) - Suonatore di Liuto (YT link) - Teller of the Tales (YT link) North African, Middle Eastern and other "exotic" background music Types of settings: The TDM universe's analogues of the Mediterranean, North African, Middle Eastern regions, and other "exotic" locations. - Asian Drums (YT link. Could work for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, good slow, tension-building ambient theme.) - Cambodian Odyssey (YT link. This is better suited to a south Asian or southeast Asian setting, but could work in a Middle Eastern locale as well. Tense theme, quiet percussions.) - Desert City (YT link. Could work for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, good all-around urban ambient theme.) - Drums of the Deep (YT link (shorter) and YT link (longer). Could work for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, good tension-building ambient theme.) - East of Tunesia (YT link. Could work in a mission with either a Mediterranean or North African style environment, e.g. a port city.) - Ibn Al-Noor (YT link. Good for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, especially for a palace or public event environment.) - Lotus (YT link. Good as a general ambient theme for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, or some other exotic locale.) - Mystery Bazaar (YT link. Another good one for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, ideally some marketplace or square.) - Perigrine Grandeur (YT link. Middle Eastern style percussions interspersed with a grunge-like tune reminescent of those from Thief.) - Tabuk (YT link. Slow, but slightly more dramatic theme for a Middle Eastern or North African style environment.) - Tenebrous Brothers Carnival - Snake Lady (YT link. Has a Middle Eastern feel to it, very good for building suspense and tension.) Wilderness / nature ambients Types of settings: Outdoor areas with groves, forests, rivers, small lakes, mountain valleys, caves. Potentially also some Pagan villages and camps. - Black Bird (YT link. Tribal type stuff.) - Dewdrop Fantasy (YT link and YT link) - Evening Fall - harp (YT link) - Firesong (YT link. Tribal type stuff.) - Healing (YT link. I think this one could also work in an urban environment.) - Heavy Heart (YT link. Also works as a general ambient theme.) - Intuit (YT link. Tribal type stuff.) - Kalimba Relaxation Music (YT link. Maybe could work in a cave or similar environment ?) - Magic Forest (YT link) - Moorland (YT link. Could work for an isolated Pagan tribe village.) - River Flute (YT link) - Shamanistic (YT link) - Spirit of the Girl (YT link) - Thunderbird (YT link) - The North (YT link. A very short but looping theme, IMHO also works as a general ambient theme.) - The Pyre (YT link) - The Sky of Our Ancestors (YT link) - Unpromised (YT link) - Very Low Note (YT link. IMHO very good for a cave or cave system.) - Virtutes Instrumenti (YT link, FMA link) - Willow and the Light (YT link) - Winter Reflections (YT link. Good for a mission set in winter or in some cavern strewn with magic crystals.) Non-serious bonus suggestion - Crunk Knight (YT link, FMA link. When the Bridgeport City Watch throw an annual office party :-))) ) Giving MacLeod proper attribution if you chose to use this music in your mission Each song comes with an attribution quote that you need to include if you're going to use any of this music in your fan mission. If there is a final credits sequence in your mission, or you can include this quote at least as part of the mission's release notes, please do so. Though you can buy a license from Kevin and don't need to use attribution, all of this music is for free, as long as you give him credit. The credit-giving (attribution) is as follows: Name of Song Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Replace "Name of Song" with the actual name of the song, keep the rest of the quote in this format and include it in your "free music used" credits for your mission, and you're golden. How to download one of the MacLeod tracks if you can't find them on any website outside of YouTube On the off-chance that you can't find one of MacLeod's tracks on any royalty-free music website outside of YouTube, there is one way to download the track/song you're after straight off of its YouTube upload. (Ideally, off of the official MacLeod track uploads on YouTube. Those tend to have the highest audio quality, and so on.) First, visit this GitHub link for YT-dlp, scroll down to the "RELEASE FILES" section and download the yt-dlp.exe, the one for Windows. That'll be enough for the needs of downloading the track. (You can, of course, also try the other two downloads, but be warned the one that is also good for Linux is just a zip of the build and requires Python. The other one is tailored for Mac OS. Use these if you're not on Windows.) Create a new folder on one of your main disks, e.g. on C:, to keep things simple, and name the folder "ytdlp", lowercase (again, to keep things simple). Download YT-dlp.exe into this new folder. Once that's done, you've already "installed" this simple utility. What remains is installing a custom ffmpeg codec build for YT-dlp, to aid conversion into certain audio formats. Go to this GitHub link, download the "win64-gpl" variant of the ffmpeg, into the same folder as the yt-dlp.exe. The win64-gpl is a .zip, so use 7zip, or any similar .zip software you use, and unzip the ffmpeg.exe file into the same folder as the YT-dlp.exe. (For example, the folder is C:/ytdlp. You should have both the yt-dlp.exe and the ffmpeg.exe in that folder.) You only need that one ffmpeg.exe file, in addition to the yt-dlp.exe file. Almost done. Click the Start button in your Windows, type in envir, then click "Edit the system environment variables". Click environment variables" (a button at the bottom right). Then double-click Path on the top white section. A window will open up. Add the following line, type it in. C:\ytdlp. Click OK to close the window, then OK again to close the window, and click OK one final time to close a window. You now have the YT-dlp utility installed and it will download audio files (including music) from YT, into the "C:\ytdlp" folder, where you also have the "yt-dlp.exe" file and the win64-glp "ffmpeg.exe" file. Now you need to download the audio of the track. You'll do that more indirectly, via the Command Prompt of your Windows OS. Here's how you do it: 1.) Open the Launch menu of Windows, type in cmd in the search bit of Launch, click the Command Prompt that shows up. You'll get the classic black-background, white-text Command Prompt window. 2.) Type in cd \ytdlp, press Enter. The "cd" is not a compact disc, but the command shortcut "change directory". This will tell the Command Prompt we're working with the aforementioned "C:\ytdlp" folder. 3.) Now comes the fun part. Type in the following: yt-dlp -x -f bestaudio --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 320k "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=restofyoutubelink". Then press Enter, and the track should be downloaded in mp3 format, and in 320k quality. You can also set the quality to 0, whatever you like. I have not tried to experiment with downloading into .ogg file format, but other common audio formats should work too. (At worst, you can download a track as an mp3, then convert it into .ogg with any decent offline audio converter software.) You aldo don't have to type in the YouTube link entirely by hand, because you can copy the YouTube link of the video in your browser, and then use the CTRL + "paste" key combination to copy the link into the space between the parentheses. 4.) Visit the "C:\ytdlp" folder and you should find the MacLeod audio track you couldn't find anywhere else but on YouTube to be present in the folder. If you ever need to update yt-dlp, type in yt-dlp -U into the command prompt, press Enter, and it'll update itself in a few seconds. The occassional update might be needed if the utility is having trouble downloading and converting audio. Of course, even if you download a particular MacLeod track in this manner (mainly because you couldn't find it elsewhere), please credit Mr. MacLeod for his work, just as you would if you've downloaded it from one of the royalty-free music sites. Please see the official template on how to credit MacLeod's royalty-free track, provided by MacLeod himself, which I quote earlier in this post ("Giving MacLeod proper attribution..."). Final note from me If you've found some other good tracks in Kevin's musical archives that could fit the tone of The Dark Mod and its setting and would like to include them in this list, please let me know and I'll update this post. Don't send me a personal message, just post your suggestion in this thread. Thank you ! I sincerely hope these lists will be of at least some use to mission builders. Good luck ! If you want to seek out non-MacLeod royalty-free music and public domain music, I've started a thread for that as well. Not too many download links yet, but it's meant to give you inspiration what sort of ambients or period music you could search for.