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RIP Steve.

You probably never knew about the Mac edition of TDM

:(

RIP Steve.

You probably never knew that we gave your users a Thief style game to play...

Oh wait! Siege Shop definitely has relighting! I remember putting out the torch on the roof and the AI went to fix that. :)

I don't recall seeing any relighting in either of these but I will check with the authors.

I agree that relighting should be incorporated in more missions.

I have been a big advocate of using Dynamic Ambient light through the "Location Settings" framework and using the SEED system but the adoption for these new features has been slow in the mapping community... If examples were added to the Start Mapper's Guide or.. a really high profile mission had something folks wanted to emulate... then that would probably speed adoption. Folks stick with what works and are very careful not to upset the apple-cart too much I guess.

Thanks booman!

Fixed

I requested that they be put up. The developers are a bit busy though. You can get the new versions in the in-game downloader or at these links:

The Siege Shop (Redux):

Jdchoate.mcn.org

Business as Usual (v2):

Gamefront.com

I am not sure how long those will stay active... These missions are good enough where it wouldn't be a problem to upload them here as well I suppose...

Thanks for your support Argoon!

I'm afraid that The Dark Mod and Desura are currently at some sort of philosophical impasse right now. The lead developer, Greebo, spent a great deal of time getting a "mission download" feature and "auto update" feature working well and meeting with the approval of all the nationalities who use the mod and their ISP rules. These features have really made the mod into a luxury experience for those that get past the initial install barrier.

Now Desura has requested that we remove our updaters from the mod because it may add additional confusion and conflicts with their methods. It does make sense. If joe end-user launches a Desura update for TDM at the same time he opens the tdm_updater tool, Windows will throw a fit and there will be errors about file overwrite problems. In reality, the Desura user is unlikely EVER to visit the actual mod folder so both positions are a little silly to war over. (But The Dark Mod devs paid blood and tears for their part).

What really needs to happen is for TDM to make an executable installer that will seek out the Doom 3 folder for the end-users. Then we will cut down on the confused user ratio. But I'm sure most would rather see that coding effort placed elsewhere, eh?

Now what I wanna know is what Desura would say to a commercial game that has an updater in it. Will they claim that mods for that game are impossible to support because Desura has an update feature too? What? HL2 updates itself all the time and potentially can conflict with inbound Desura updates? How did they resolve that problem?... Hmmm? ;)

The biggest performance offenders are:

Soft Shadows, DOF, and SSAO.

Because there is no direct access to the z-buffer, modders like Sikkpin have to use a hack that causes Doom 3 to paint the z-buffer into a texture then use ARB shaders to decode that texture into depth values. It takes a lot of CPU resources because you are essentially doubling every frame render. It takes a lot of GPU resources because of those depth calcs. The trick that Sikkpin did was to front-load that work so it only needs to be done once. So if you enable Soft Shadows, SSAO won't be that much more expensive (etc).

Bloom and HDR should not be hard on the CPU, AFAIK they simply use falloff image manipulation on the GPU.

Yeah, I may be a tinfoil wearing fool but I've always suspected that many Doom 3 mods have been made by ringers who work for either Nvidia or ATI. Humus, one of the folks who did the biggest "fix" for Doom 3's specular performance on ATI, was hired by them and his fix was added to their driver. Since then many Doom 3 mods have gone haywire on ATI hardware with Catalyst AI enabled. But some do work, Dafama2k7 (for example) found a drop-in replacement for the shader in Denton Mod that fixed the "upside-down" issues for Bloom. I don't necessarily think Sikkpin works for Nvidia as much as I think that he built his body of work from mods that did come from Nvidia employees. What choice is there though, Nvidia was far more generous with OpenGL example materials (and has always had the performance advantage for this game). It has attracted more Nvidia friendly developers. Sikkpin did actually implement some of Humus's other astoundingly cool shader methods in one of his shader packs but I wish that Humus himself had taken a more active role in the Doom 3 modding scene given his skill. Humus is one of the rare OpenGL experts who likes ATI's version of OpenGL better than Nvidia's and knows how to make their hardware rock.

Congrats on the release BTW. (Good luck with all those ATI users...)

Disable Catalyst AI (if possible) or set Catalyst AI to "low" then Disable "Surface Format Optimizations".

Some have also reported that the latest drivers produce a crash with Doom 3 mods if your CCC is "not present\disabled".

Congratulations Biker!

A worthy victory.

While the first version of Winter Harvest did have it's share of problems, I have a bad feeling that ShadowHide may have unfairly lost some points because of his behavior in the forums.

The jury is still out because of his language issues, but it seems pretty clear that he is often outright rude to forum members, mappers and even the TDM developers.

That should not be a factor in a contest though. Yes, we always hope that mission authors will also be genial but if they are providing free goods then why get upset over their attitude. I would like to see ShadowHide add a poll to his thread for Winter Harvest v2 so that we might see cooler heads voting on it and maybe gauge it's ranking more realistically.

The quality of this model is beyond compare! Who's the artist again?

The process to get the audio levels and quality into shape is pretty time consuming and is done primarily by Springheel (who is often tied-up with other tasks like making new AI characters... etc.).

We have several new voice sets in-progress but feel free to offer any assistance if you have audio editing or voice acting skills:

Modetwo.net

The Dark Mod is composed of many contributions from both active and inactive members many of whom are no longer in contact with the team. If you are referring to a commercial release, then some arrangement would need to be made to compensate those contributors.

If you are simply referring to making the mod "standalone" (meaning that it does not require the Doom 3 game to legally distribute), the that is something under consideration but would require replacing many of the art assets, animations and custom scripts (etc) that the mod uses. It would be a pretty large task so we are hoping that the combined efforts of the Doom 3 community can overcome this barrier for all Doom 3 mods to go "standalone". The Dark Mod is doing it's part in trying to replace these assets but there is limited staff and they are spending more time improving the mod which is considered a higher priority task for now.

Anyone who'd like to help may stop by the forums and post in the "I want to Help" forum (here):

Modetwo.net

The specular is a bit toned down where only ambient light is present. The "ambient world" light is supposed to represent pure dark or shadow in the game yet allow the player to navigate... so what would specular look like when almost completely dark? Perhaps there's a better method but this one looks quite good when BOTH real and ambient light hit anything.

Better options will be available when the Source Code is release of course. Hell, Sikkpin showed that you can do HL2 style Ambient Cubemap lighting (even now without the source code) but you'd have to replace all your existing light assets.

Thanks Argoon.

...

Video added.

True.

I need a faster PC to capture this well with FRAPS running though...

Thanks!

We are about to collect the votes for our Seasons Contest entrants and post the winner.

Of course, more missions are cooking so you shouldn't have to wait too long for a new one. ;)

A couple of points of clarification:

1) The Dark Mod is a "Total Conversion Mod" which is as far from "simply a mod" as you can imagine.

2) The SDK was released in 2005. Source code the for AI, Physics, and Game systems was made available back then as well. We are awaiting the source code for the remainder of the engine (renderer, sound, collison, etc) later this year.

3) The Dark Mod cannot be released "Doom 3 free" unless the art assets used by the mod (textures, models, particles, animations) are replaced. We await help from the community for this very large task. A cooperative effort between Doom 3 mod developers to embark on this project has been discussed...

4) The Dark Mod now (as of v1.06) supports multi-mission campaigns. You will likely see large "full game" style experiences in the future as several mission authors have committed to large projects.

As stated elsewhere, make sure your "Object Detail" is set to "Very High". A revised demo may improve the object hide behavior at a later date.

You install the mod inside a folder called "darkmod" inside your Doom 3 install (base) folder.

For me this is: C:\Program Files\Doom 3\darkmod

To install missions, copy them to the FMS directory:

C:\Program Files\Doom 3\darkmod\FMS

The Dark Mod comes with an in-game mission downloader tool so you don't have to manually install missions except for ones that aren't hosted by the team.

If you haven't downloaded the mod yet, the easiest method is to use the TDM_UPDATE tool.

1) Create the darkmod folder (as above)
2) Download the TDM_UPDATE tool and copy it to the darkmod folder
3) Run the TDM_UPDATE tool
4) Create a desktop shortcut to the TDM_Launcher in the darkmod folder
5) Open the mod and download some missions!

More details here:

Modetwo.net

My apologies Neo-Tokyo man. I haven't touched that mod since a big HL2 update broke all mod support (yeah, I know they've fixed it).

Your answers just sounded too apologetic on Blizzard's behalf and it struck a nerve.

I agree that Piracy in retaliation is a dumb tactic...

But lets not be pacified by calls to reason and sympathy for the publisher. DRM is eroding the concept of product ownership and consumer attrition to products with draconian DRM is a loss of rights for all who value the independence of product ownership. We are heading down a path where all things are for rent only, maybe someday the very organs of our body will cease to function if we don't keep that persistent DRM connection linked and our rent paid.

As a Cyber-Punk fan, you must have speculated on this as well...

The renderer is not the problem per se, it's the data format and decode efficiency. Though you might be almost right since some of those Open Source coders are pretty good with compression methods (FLAC anyone?).

This is huge. The first engine with fully dynamic per-pixel lighting is going Open Source. With a few tweaks this will be competitive with UE3 and beyond.

Doom 3 will be Open Source this year!!!

The Dark Mod team is very excited about all the fixes and optimizations that will now be possible!

Gimme a break.

Are you really gonna make excuses for Blizzard here? Really?

"Hi, I'm a consumer and features in the product line I've been loyal to are being taken away. It's cool. I am perfectly happy with their business plan and the profiteering at my expense. I'm also happy to see them promoting a business practice that erodes the very notion of product ownership. I'm just a happy little guy."

Alright, I've read enough. You must be some astro-turfing PR dude for Blizzard (et al.). First of all, cop to your scum-baggery right now and also name your sock-puppet. You know, the one who brings up Piracy so that the topic is moved from the stupidity of persistent online DRM and NO EFFING MOD SUPPORT!

Next, give the Mod community a REAL apology for this treachery. Their Mod content kept selling your ancient games Blizzard (effin' ey!)!

The only thing that distinguishes "Indies" from classic small studios of yore is that there are now a number of Open Source engines to work from rather than build from scratch. The skill-set to become an Indie, however, is usually a natural progression from learning to MOD. Modding has a much lower entry barrier and fosters learning in ways that Encyclopedia sized books on traditional "from scratch" game development rarely do. If modding dies, so goes the cradle of new Indie developers. Now, if we talk about "The Dark Mod" (which I help promote), those guys (the programmers) probably would've been "Indie" if there were a suitable Open Source engine to use back then. Even there, TDM started with mappers (mission authors) and a crazy dream, the programmers came a little later.