To celebrate our 15th year, we are holding a fan mission contest!
The Dark Mod project trundles onward for it’s 15th year in a row. In that time we have improved our game engine in countless ways and have grown to over 170 missions!
To celebrate our perseverance and the years of improvements to come, we are hosting a contest to mark 15 years since the 1.0 release!
Now is your time to demonstrate the mission design that best exemplifies your personal style and capabilities! Please consider entering this event!
Unlike most recent contests, there is no defined theme and we are simply going to score based on our standard metrics of Story, Gameplay, and Visuals with our standard weighted scoring:
Full Weighted Score (FWS) = (Gameplay score*3 + Visual score*2 + Story score) / TMP
Contest Submissions should be provided before October 16th so that players can start playing and celebrating on the 17th!
The players have been keen to relay that they would like really creative missions so it may be worthwhile to examine our “Community Unusual Contest” to get an idea about the wild range of possibilities we offer to designers.
Also, since the contest submission is in October, there will probably be an increased desire for Horror themes.
The Dark Mod 2.12 was just released so including new 2.12 features is strongly encouraged.
Finally, it might be nice if authors name their protagonist Corbin to match the included missions.
( None of the above suggestions are requirements for the submissions. )
Please visit the Fan Mission Forum to declare your intention to join and to discuss anything related to the contest. Thank you!
The Dark Mod 2.12 is a major step forward for mission designers!
The culling system has been extensively overhauled to ensure that your CPU and GPU are not wasting resources rendering unseen geometry, lights, and shadows. Some of our best map optimization experts have achieved similar performance gains to what this new culling system does but it is a rare skill and we have even managed to improve performance on missions that were generally regarded as “well optimized”. Mission authors both new and old can follow standard mapping practices with no need to dive deep into sophisticated optimization techniques even for some pretty challenging scenarios such as wide open areas and long views. Players will immediately notice many missions that have made their system struggle with FPS now may be running much more smoothly!
Smoother controls for players!
Also during the 2.12 development cycle, work has been done to make controls more seamless and accessible. Frob can now use hold or click actions to use items. Once you get used to the mechanic, it will be hard to go back to using a separate “use key”. Mantling is now smoother, faster, and less prone to cause the player to clip through geometry. Leaning is now more subtle and less prone to cause motion sickness. To reduce the tedium of shuffling knocked out AI around to search for loot, you can now configure TDM to automatically loot any frobbed AI.
A special thanks must go out to community member Geep!
Over the course of 2.12 development, Geep has created Subtitles for nearly all AI barks along with developing testing tools and procedures for this gargantuan task! You can see these changes in action by changing the Subtitles setting to “On” ( rather than “Story” ) on the Audio settings page. Geep also provided substantial feedback for our GUI and Subtitle design process and edited font data to improve text quality overall.
Turrets are now natively supported in The Dark Mod and can paired with Security Cameras!
Datiswous has complimented the massive work by Geep to create AI bark subtitles by creating mission story subtitles for a large number of missions. Thank you!
Finally, the nasty 2.11 bug that caused AI to allow arrows to pass through them at certain angles was fixed by Joebarnin! Your assassin style play-throughs should be far less frustrating.
To UPDATE, simply run the tdm_installer.exe file in your darkmod folder.
Note that tdm_update.exe is no longer supported, but you can download the new installer from the Downloads page if you don’t have it yet. Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.12, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first! Also, some missions created prior to 2.12 may need to be updated so they will be playable in 2.12. Use the in-game mission downloader to check for updates
The Dark Mod 2.11 is primarily a bug-fix release. The majority of development time was dedicated to fixing or improving long-standing bugs or problem areas with the project rather than focusing on new features.
That said, some of the improvements that were introduced to address these issues could very well be classified as new features in terms of the amount of changes required to bring them to life.
A full changelog can be viewed here, but some highlights include:
Major gameplay improvements!
For players, Stealth Score and AI alert behavior has been improved to better detect tactile contact with AI and proximity. An older TDM release introduced a grace period feature that was overly broad and made some AI ignore players that were right in front of them. This has been substantially improved so stealth scoring and AI reactions should be a lot more consistent and logical.
Players will also have a new Blackjack experience with better cues about whether a blackjack attack will succeed and improvements to the way that the blackjack attack is executed.
Players can more smoothly transition from climbing as the player is now permitted to be crouched during the climb.
There is a new multi-loot feature which allows you to pickup multiple loot pieces by holding down the frob button!
Performance Improvements!
The new volumetric light feature has been improved via a new blur phase. This means that you no longer need to increase the samples to reduce or remove banding and performance should be substantially improved.
Before ( 2.10 with dither and low sample artifacts, click to view):
After ( 2.11 with the new blur algorithm, click to view ):
Soft Shadows now utilize scissors and tile-based evaluation in stencil mode so that Anti-Aliasing no longer need be applied to the entire shadow buffer.
Shadow Maps have improved mipmap, LOD and texel utilization. There should be fewer artifacts and better performance.
Large models are now evaluated via a BVH structure so that they can be split for lighting and culling optimizations.
AI think cycles have been optimized and perform less work per-frame.
GLSL programs have been rewritten to have better performance on AMD graphic cards.
Included mission improvements!
Mission 1: A New Job now features subtitles!
Mission 2: Tears of Saint Lucia has been improved with EFX reverb and a few bug fixes!
Asset fixes and additions!
Dragofer has fixed hundreds of assets that were missing setup definitions or other components that would cause the console to flood with errors on TDM launch or on the launch of missions. In addition, he has added hundreds of new and old assets from both TDM team members and members of the TDM community.
Improvements for Mappers!
The Engine now supports Obj model format
Material Shaders no longer require you to add frob stages. Frob is now auto-generated. You can still add custom frob effects to materials if preferred
Missions can now include decls that override those in the core TDM without using an override file to replace the entire core file.
GUI scripting has been overhauled with better syntax and error reporting
Dmap precision has been increased and Dmap T-junction performance has been optimized
To UPDATE, simply run the tdm_installer.exe file in your darkmod folder. Note that tdm_update.exe is no longer supported,
but you can download the new installer from the Downloads page if you don’t have it yet. Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.11, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first!
ALSO, SOME MISSIONS CREATED PRIOR TO 2.10 OR 2.11 MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED SO THEY WILL BE PLAYABLE IN 2.10 AND NEWER. USE THE IN-GAME MISSION DOWNLOADER TO CHECK FOR UPDATES
We have lost one of the most talented members to ever join the TDM team.
Rand Phares “grayman” has lost his long battle with cancer and is no longer with us.
Before joining the TDM team and rising to become the lead developer, grayman was making mods for Doom, Quake, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (including the excellent “Stolen Artifact” mod). Grayman used his deep knowledge of id Tech AI and scripting to repair and improve TDM AI from versions 1.02 to 2.08.
Grayman’s “William Steele” series missions were always filled with complicated sequences and had a cinematic quality that few authors achieved. Grayman often recorded his own voice-acting and his stories often were tinged with a little of his unmistakable humor.
It is impossible to fathom all the things grayman has done for TDM over the years and he will missed as both a developer and mentor for team members, mappers, and players alike.
Other news:
The Dark Mod 2.09a “Hotfix” has been released.
A number of critical stability issues have been discovered subsequent to the 2.09 release, including a moderately rare crash in William Steele 3. I was decided that these fixes could not wait until 2.10 so a hotfix has been issued. Unlike full releases, save-game files will be compatible with this update so there is no need to wait to update to this version. If you have an AMD graphics card and found that 2.09 would not render properly, please try this new hotfix as many new graphic defaults are now friendlier to older AMD drivers.
A list of 2.09a ( Hotfix ) fixes can be found here:
We are proud to announce the release of The Dark Mod 2.09!
TDM 2.09 marks a new phase of performance improvements aimed lowering CPU overhead in the graphics engine.
A whole new graphic backend has been created by Cabalistic which uses modern OpenGL features to eliminate the need for the CPU to constantly issue commands to allow the Graphic Processor to render scenes.
This gives TDM some of the performance advantages of rendering using a low level API like Vulkan.
Stgatilov has been very busy this release cycle. He has put heroic efforts into improving the way that TDM upgrades and hosting operate in addition to the vast improvements to TDM itself. (He also refactored the entire particle engine and created a link system to connect TDM to Dark Radiant.)
A full changelog can be viewed here, but some highlights include:
Better performance:
A brand new Backend that uses UBO, Persistent Mapping, Bindless textures, and Multi-Draw has been added.
“Frontend Acceleration” (Multi-Core job based rendering based on Doom 3 BFG) now works as expected.
Normal Map compression now uses RGTC resulting in lower storage, VRAM requirements, and less artifacts ( load times should improve in future TDM versions when pre-compressed RGTC textures are added )
Background texture loading has improved. This should shorten load times and reload.
Better visuals:
A new Sharpening Filter has been added. It can make 70% Render Scale look almost like native resolution (more performance).
( It also cleans up some blurry textures for all Render Scales. )
Bumpmap lighting is smoother, so that lighting does not instantly flip to off when getting close to edges of occluded objects.
Particle physics have been substantially improved for both accuracy and performance.
Borderless Fullscreen works properly on Windows.
Water and other GUI effects that did not respond to Gamma now brighten properly.
AMD and Intel fixes have been added for SSAO rendering
Better gameplay:
Experimental Gamepad support has been added.
Creep works in alway-run mode
Better mapping:
A new linking system allows The Dark Mod to act as a real-time preview of Dark Radiant
The redesigned particles now have improved setup and configuration.
Automated fixes have been created for “rotation hacked” models
Prefabs have been seen numerous fixes and reorganization to make them easier to use
Better Sound:
Conversation and other sounds are no longer stopped by saving or going to main menu.
EFX reverb has been added to “Mission 1: A New Job”
Extinguished gas lamps are no longer noisy when doused
New Assets:
Dragofer, Epifire, Bikerdude, LDAsh, Kingsal, Dram have all added substantial asset updates ranging from updated Werebeast animations, Steam Engines, fireflies
More stable:
A huge number of fragile code areas have been overhauled to either fix crashes or prevent likely crashes due to risk of divide by zero, uninitialized values, or dangling pointers (leftover settings) on entities and functions.
We recommend that you upgrade using the new “tdm_installer” available here. Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.09, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first!
We are pleased to announce the release of The Dark Mod 2.05!
(New Official Trailer by Goldwell)
This update includes literally hundreds of new high-quality models and other assets that will change the way TDM missions look going forward.
Springheel has created over two hundred modular models that can be combined to create multiple types of environments–tavern interiors, city streets, industrial warehouses, and more. By placing modules together, high fidelity scenes can be created quicker and more easily than ever before. http://forums.thedar…ing-assets-205/
Many of these new assets are showcased in a new introductory mission for TDM that is included in the update. This mission is the first of a three mission story which serves as our official introduction to TDM’s gameplay and setting.
You should notice an increase in performance speed in TDM 2.05, thanks to rendering improvements made by duzenko and nbohr1more.
Grayman has added a working fire elemental to our list of available AI opponents that will no doubt appear in future missions.
Other changes include a fix to stop sleepers from falling through the floor, new beggar entities, new combination safe entities, and fixes to stop the player or AI from getting trapped by moving elevators. A more detailed list of changes can be seen here:
You can update your copy of TDM by running tdm_update.exe.
As always, older saved games will be incompatible with TDM 2.05, so be sure to complete any missions you’re in the middle of before updating!
We have also created a GreenLight presence on Steam. Please feel free to stop by and vote if you want The Dark Mod to be a permanent resident on the Steam platform.
