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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 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.

(For some reason I couldn't find any topic like this) I fired up Dark Mod with mild enthusiasm; it's a mod, afterall. But after having played through Tears of st Lucia, it left me almost shaking afterwards. This is Thief, pure and simple. Thief with Crysis-like graphics. It's an amazing piece of work you have done! It's what T3 should've been right from the start. Dark Mod feels just like Thief. This is Thief!

After several months of hard work, we are proud to announce the latest edition of "No Honor Among Thieves"!!! EFX EDITION!!! EFX reverb has been added to all missions! NHAT has never been more immersive. From the dry woody reverb of the local pub to the sonorous and lofty echo of the Cathedrals, prepare your ears for a auditory treat! PERFORMANCE!!! Several major sore spots that impacted performance in v3 and older have been substantially optimized. Players with less capable hardware will now be less frustrated traversing caves, courtyards, and forests. VISUALS!!! Many areas have been visually overhauled!!! Improved lighting, new scene geometry, new textures, new water effects ( thanks @Arcturus !!! ), more vertex blended terrains, and more. Some areas have been visually redesigned to better match the story and convey the key characters. GAMEPLAY!!! Some new play areas have been added. A little more rooftop action is available for climbers. A few new readables for side characters expand the lore of the mission. Improved AI scripted events in the final mission escape sequence!!! Other things: The ROQ videos have been converted to MP4 to make them more compatible with the latest TDM versions. This mission still uses 2.09 style API controlled videos, we will rework the menu gui to be 2.10 (beta) compatible shortly so that "Dev Build" players can enjoy the additional performance and improvements available in those builds. Credits: @Bikerdude for the majority of the mapping work in this overhaul @Dragofer for assisting with scripting and def setup @nbohr1more new cathedral textures and improved water material def setup, a few readables @Arcturus MD3 animated water and water textures Original crew: @Goldchocobo @RailGun @Mortem Desino who created the original version along with updates to versions up to v2.0. Thank you for permission work on this update! V4 Beta testers: @AluminumHaste @JackFarmer Screenshots: Hotfix release: Should fix two minor issues: Newest Hotfix: Gdrive - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e_LHa4RdZ0a1AD3FhgLq7OwvBmWUchJZ/view?usp=sharing Onedrive - https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuwAFc1gTZzehn0z9PsAVEIH0iFn?e=Gj0p6O ( Some additional performance optimization to the forest and fixes to other items found by Biker and Aluminumhaste in another round of testing.) For those of you who are testing the Dev Builds ( 2.10 alpha ), here is a 2.10 compliant version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyPwDQjMQH1TAH98Vd29UUiB0Nki1-7j/view?usp=sharing

Figured it out. You have to define melee sets, and then give the AI the def_melee_set spawnarg. See tdm_ai_melee_sets.def for details/examples. Define 3 melee sets, one for each difficulty level. E.g., entityDef atdm:ai_melee_set_my_custom_normal { "editor_usage" "Melee difficulty set for my custom AI" "editor_displayFolder" "AI/Internal" "inherit" "atdm:ai_melee_set_base" // faster attacks "anim_rate_melee_attack_rl" "1.5" "anim_rate_melee_attack_lr" "1.5" "anim_rate_melee_attack_over" "1.5" } Create two more, one for atdm:ai_melee_set_my_custom_hard and atdm:ai_melee_set_my_custom_expert. Then, on your AI, add the following spawnarg: "def_melee_set" "atdm:ai_melee_set_my_custom" Restart DM, and it should work fine.

This pinned thread's purpose is to collect links to all the discussion threads for new features to be added in 2.14: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23080-214-new-and-updated-assets/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23072-214-mirrors-and-remotes-resolution-and-optimizations/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23070-214-tdm-version-macros-and-x-ray-breaking-change/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23071-214-in-game-screenshot-as-menu-background/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23073-214-interactible-projected-decals/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23074-214-new-smoke-generation-system/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23088-214-beta-ko-non-elite-ai-after-flash/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23087-214-beta-frob-changes-additions/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22736-font-localization/page/2/#findComment-503417 Maybe: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23104-script-debugger/ As well as older Feature Collection Threads: [2.13] Feature Discussion Threads [2.12] Feature discussion threads [2.11] Feature discussion threads [2.10] Feature discussion threads

Hidden Hands: Vitalic Fever Filename : hhvf.pk4 Date of release: 20/07/2019 Latest Version: 5 (21/04/2025) Version 5 - changes: - fixed defective ambient light - added subtitles (thanks to @datiswous) - added compressed briefing video (thanks to @datiswous - fixed/replace (defective) textures - added a few new models and items - added new title & loading screen - ...made a few tasks a little easier - dmap with 2.13 Hidden Hands Series: I. Initation - II. Vitalic Fever Jack Farmer: mapping & drafts Amadeus: alpha testing, geometry fixes, performance checks, drafts for gameplay and objectives, revision of all readables, dialogues & narrator texts Grayman: AI fixes, gameplay fixes, trap fixes Duzenko: alpha testing, performance checks and improvement tips Beta Testers: - Joebarnin - Cambridge Spy - Boiler's Hiss (aka "The architect's darling") - Jedi_Wannabe (aka "The man of many voices") - Amadeus (aka "The Writer") Voice actors: Malasdair Narrator Jedi_Wannabe All four guards chatting about the guests, chickens, inventions and unusual job interviews New Horizon The educated Builder Goldchocobo The naive Builder Special thanks to: - Springheel, Sotha, and Fidcal for the tutorials. - VanishedOne, Stumpy, Destined, Grayman, Joebarnin and ERH+ for patiently answering my questions solving all the in-game problems. - PsymH (aka "Stringer Bell") for connecting me with the right guys on TTLG for additional voice acting. - Goldwell for teaching me how to integrate a custom video in a fms and helping me with troubleshooting during the integration of one of the Builder's voices. - all voice actors & beta testers for their great support. - all others not mentioned here who answered my questions in the Newbie thread or via PM. Contributors from the Inventor's Guild: - Destined wrote a new definition for the "spidsey-babsies", enabling those beasts to move through tunnels. - Grayman wrote a script enabling Halfrid to hold the quill only when it is needed. He also fixed several other AI problems with respect to path finding, damages and interaction with light switches. Pilfered items: - Portal sky with hills and trees originally developed and arranged by Sotha for "Thomas Porter: The Transaction". - Frobbox booster re-created from a map originally developed by Grayman All new ambient music and sound effects written, performed and mixed by Jack Farmer. Briefing video by SirSmokeAlot Pictures Version 5 - changes: - fixed defective ambient light - added subtitles (thanks to @datiswous) - added compressed briefing video (thanks to @datiswous - fixed/replace (defective) textures - added a few new models and items - added new title & loading screen - ...made a few tasks a little easier - dmap with 2.13

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? )

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

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. UPDATE: Current version (2026.02.11) is available here. It should run properly against TDM 2.14 at least.

Does glxgears work? If it does, what does glxgears -info print to the console?

Should there be some cutscene at the end? I found all the relics and Curio´s items, then went to sit in the chair in the red room, and that was it (still played and finished v1 on 2.13, because I was pretty far along). Anyways, time to say huge thank you to both of the creators and all the lovely people who were helping to test this mission - this has to be the most unique mission I have played so far on Dark mod - the (New) weird combination of aesthetically pleasing leveldesign and unclear story, sooo many options of entering and finding out unique "quests" and safe opening combinations is unheard/seen/played of. People in forums say its combination of Dishonored and Bioshock, I would add a hint of Dark Souls in the story area, mixed with Twin Peaks, and you start to get an idea. Although I am playing fanmissions from the very beginning of the mod´s existence, I felt completely lost here and I enjoyed that. I also didn´t know how to solve many of the combinations until I got a hint - overwhelmed by all the entry options and connectedness of the space(s) to the beauty of individual set pieces (I felt like a tourist, taking screenshots of almost everything). And the music! My goodness, that beautiful non-cacophonic chill music just begged me to stay and listen. I immediately recommended this mission in another forums where I am active, so hopefully people will get to play it. Well done, everyone, this is a threat. PS: Can I politely ask you to get together with Bikerdude, Kingsal, Sotha, Melan, Goldwell and anybody else who´s willing and put together an official campaign, please? Pretty please?

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...

Sorry to bring up old thread but I also wanted to share my gratitude for this mod. It is very impressive that volunteer group of people have been able to create such an impressive mod with all the features you could wish for. Not only is this a tastefully made continuation of the Thief legacy, it is also a show of skill and dedication over the years. What I find particularly nice is the fact that improvements are still made, like the fact that load times have been optimized to be lightning quick and user interface can be tweaked to hearts content, sound system has hrtf-support, graphical fidelity can be tweaked as much as you like and well - there is no end to the features available. What I find particularly impressive is the fluidity of the gameplay and the apparent simplicity of the user interface which doesn't feel limiting in any way, it is an interesting effect by the way. But, all in all, job well done everyone concerned - IMHO you deserve praise all around.

It is not public. I have added current version of automation to the first post of the thread. But yes, usually using it is too much work.

Agree with @thebigh Actually His keypad and telephone game assets are what motivated me to try 3d modeling (I commented that thread month if I'm not mistaken) OTOH, I regret leaving 3dsMax after I tried it for 2 months around 2013 or 2014. During that time, I had no desire to do 3D modeling. A regret not knoeing / mastering this any sooner. Yes his first attempt was in '19 . I thought it was on his livejournal blog but I was wrong. It's on his Deviantart https://www.deviantart.com/mirceakitsune/journal/It-s-time-for-everyone-to-know-this-Suicide-814028318 The first time I looked up his username on search engine, I actually found his livejournal first.

I agree that sometimes Windows GUI-driven interface would be nice to have, but the upside is that Linux is at least in theory not a black box dictated by Microsoft to the user. And for the random software here and there there is always that dual-boot Windows LTSC which is more sensible and contains less cruft and user hostile nonsense. Sometimes I do wonder if some more beginner friendly or gui-driven distro would be more fun to use, but I am used to how things work as is.

Got linux on all my pc's now except for my retro box which runs xp win2k and 98 se. But that one is nowhere near the internet. Disabled networking after i got all updates installed. Takes some getting used to especially since i have a frak ton of old game iso's so some mucking about was nessesary to get them up and running. The rest are on gog steam and one on the ea launcher. All work perfectly fine. I do miss things like the device manager. Doing driver updates from the console does get a bit tedious.

Hello everyone, The subject is quite clear I guess. If you want to beta test the mission the forum is here : https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23100-early-beta-lord-scrogianis-ledger

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?

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.

Doesn't work here either:

Only use I've found for them is wearing them while exchanging unique items for cash. The exchange doesn't work unless I'm wearing them.

@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.

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.