Dark Messiah: RTX mod

Ten centuries shall it take for an article to be posted but I think it'll be worth it for a lot of my fellow Dark Messiah acolytes. We're also desperately looking for a whole list of different people to join our team, which I think you'll find out pretty quickly why. Let me not waste any more time and kick this off!

The Big Ubisoft News and a Heart to Heart

Ordinarily, this would be placed somewhere in the middle of this article as I have to give some context first, and as a reminder I'm not allowed to share all the specifics, but this is such major news I'd rather risk it going up top and confusing people than being missed!

The official support we've had from the Ubisoft and Nvidia partnership has allowed us to reach heights we never thought we could in our work here. In addition to getting access to asset sources from Dark Messiah elements, we were also able to bring cut content from Dark Messiah back into the fold as a part of our Restoration Mod efforts (if you haven't heard of THAT, you'll see in a little!). Our contacts at Ubisoft have been fighting for us to be able to bring everything we can think of to this amazing community, and now I am excited to say with their help, I'll be taking a short trip to Ubisoft Montreal to accelerate our advanced SDK development and bug fixes!

It's an honor to have this opportunity and I've always said it's in no small part thanks to everyone in this community for showing their support for not only our work here, but for this game despite its age. I am a much more recent modder in the Dark Messiah community than the others I have had the pleasure to work with, and I am deeply grateful you have all entrusted me to make these moves and answer the call when I've needed you most. This is also why I always say that every little bit of support helps me at the negotiation table, and all the contributions the team has been making, even on conceptual levels, gives us pull and legitimacy.

We are walking into a new era for Dark Messiah, one where we can turn all our thoughts and hopes for what could have been, into a reality. The people at Ubisoft and Arkane gave us an amazing game we love almost 20 years ago, and over the last few years people across the industry, new and old, have helped us get to this chance as a community to honor them. I take this time again to say thank you again. To Valve, to Arkane, to Ubisoft, to Wolfeye, to the many people that retired but still entertained my questions, to the recent players NVIDIA, to my team, and of course to you guys out there. Alright, I'll get off the soapbox now, but to see it all come together has been very emotional for us all, especially since we've been at this for YEARS. Let us celebrate that!

The Dark Messiah Mod Launcher

Speaking of years, it's time to play catchup for the last one. First, let me formally introduce the Dark Messiah Mod Launcher and what its purpose is, even though it's been out for a few months! For almost half a year now I've been collecting bug reports and implementing patches into Dark Messiah that actually allows the game to launch on modern hardware. This was a tireless effort that actually uncovered some interesting quirks that effected other source engine games but the question was how could I make this easier for people to get?

What was originally just a single executable modification turned into more as I worked with fellow Dark Messiah modders and our community discord to meet our collective needs. We have a bunch of mods we want to work together but we wanted to make it really easy to install them. We wanted to stop people overwriting each others mods, and we wanted to bring the community guide fixes that have been suggested over the past 10 years into direct implementations for the game.

You can download the Mod Launcher by going to the Dark Messiah files page and looking for the Mod Launcher files. I will be doing releases regularly as we add more capabilities, so it's always important to stay up to date! It is not the prettiest, but it gets the job done. My long term goal here is to open source this, which I'm hoping to do in the next few months, so others can help me make it something suitable of the Dark Messiah name.

The Advanced SDK, MapAdds, and the Future

Next up, the advanced SDK. Last time we were able to get some basic animation entities fully working, but now our base has gotten so powerful we've started being able to implement networking, level editing, and VGUI creation directly in code. We also got a handle on the physics side of things, which means we're working towards items and weapons. There is still plenty to go for a complete source release, but we've finally gotten a handle on exactly how this has to hook to maximize people being able to make full mods, and still be able to combine with others for a truly unique experience. With this news from Ubisoft, we're hoping we can get "there and more" in the next few months instead of the end of the year, but all that is still in the future, what about now?

Mod Moment

Our philosophy after the RTX patch was to try and find ways to test the SDK's capabilities by releasing small packs of features, but as you probably noticed we didn't get to release as much as we'd like. Instead, we're going to go a different route: treat it like a mod in and of itself. Let us use the SDK to add modding capabilities that someone WITHOUT programming experience can utilize, and that the more advanced mods can load as a library instead of a source engine game.

Introducing MapAdds

MapAdds are programmed similarly to the popular HL2 Mod SMOD that lets you take existing levels and modify them without actually doing any programming. They are similar to LMP files if you are a mapper, but the beauty is that we can create a code-to-text linkage that should allow for some great potential. You can add, remove, or modify any entity at start up, and additionally at any point during the level. You can also run console commands if you'd like to preset or force some specific condition. They can be combined or isolated as well, so modders can put extra enemies or secrets as they'd like! We were able to create a brand new challenge mission from Menelag's Gate in the city of Stonehelm without having to touch a Hammer at all. Alternate scenarios are always fun to experience

One of the most recent advancements allows us to use MapAdds to create custom skill trees and progression as well. We want to add a sort of "template" system where minimal entity knowledge is required. Imagine a library of prefabs that you can reference by name, and then it'll fill in the rest. Want a group of enemies? A spawner? A ballista? Thunder? A simple line of text should be enough. We are still working out the logistics of that, though.

Visit the mod page to get your copy and start trying it for yourself! We're currently generating documentation but if you need any help, stop by the Discord and we'll be happy to give you some info.

The Restoration Mod, Elements, and Cut Content

Okay, now let me explain what Ubisoft's contributions led to. At first, we were working on this Restoration Mod to fix GAMEPLAY related bugs we encountered in the game. Things like ropes not working, levels soft locking, the dreaded french keyboard popup, anything of the sort to make it a cohesive and bug free experience. Eventually, we were given access to some amazing assets from Elements, the XBox 360 version of the game, and within that was a load of cut content never before seen in Dark Messiah, some of which felt like they were from the Arx Fatalis days of the game. Naturally, we spent the time to restore it, and the mod grew to full size.

Using the original sources from Dark Messiah Elements, you can now play through the bonus missions and alternate levels right on PC! Plus, experience a cut level from DM (The Caves) and use cut weapons like The Sword of Misery or the Necromancer staff.

In addition to that, we added a bunch of quality of life features such as the new Bonus Map system which lets you FINALLY load levels without console commands, and a reimagined new game menu with chapter and class selection pulled from Elements. Don't worry, you'll still have your skill tree fluidity!

With the Bonus Map menu we also added a challenge mode that leverages the mapadd system. Instead of tailoring a map in hammer for a specific challenge, modders can create challenges in text and use whatever level (or sequence of levels, even disconnected ones) they'd like! We hope to use this to add small but fun side missions every once in a while for people to enjoy.

One of those challenges include our Alternate Scenario in Stonehelm. Can you beat it? How about while only possessed by Xana? Give it a try!

Dark Messiah RTX Trailer [ARTISTS NEEDED!]

Since our last article, we've expanded the team by a whole ONE person, bringing the active member count to 3. Since I took the time to reverse engineer some of NVIDIA's changed in Portal RTX, we now have the capabilities to do character skinning, which meant a new type of artist was needed! Lerd, THE character artist, has been hard at work making remastered versions of the allies and enemies of Sareth. He started with the Necroguard and Stonehelm guards because come on, what a more iconic duo than that:

With Ubisoft giving us the sources to Elements and DM, we wanted this remaster to make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Elements was "the most recent" iteration of Dark Messiah, so it has the most graphical upgrades, but we love the PC version as the original. What Lerd did here was mix the new, bulkier and gold streaked version from Elements with the classic variant to bring the best of both worlds in it's high poly beauty. Just look at those fabric pants, YUM.

Meanwhile, LermanCT has also done a fair bit of environment art upgrades as he's constantly improving his skills. We now have an enhanced workflow for extracting color palettes courtesy of Stickyfingaz and I, so Lerman can focus on getting the detail and feel of things just right. The insignias and emblems of Dark Messiah are extremely important because they indicate real factions in the Might and Magic universe, so part of that includes painstakingly tracing out the patterns and designs of the original textures, scuffs, dips, you name it. So now, without further delay, here is the product of his efforts with a nice walk through of our favorite city, enhanced!

We want to get people enjoying the mod as soon as possible, but these assets take EXTREMELY LONG to make especially considering we've only got a total of 3 asset makers, each in completely different fields of it. The long term plan is to release an intermediate version with the original Dark Messiah textures working with RTX Remix so people can enjoy Ray Traced lighting, and then slowly bring the enhanced textures in. For now though, I've updated our compatibility patch to work with the Mod Launcher so you can not only try messing around and Remixing the game yourself at the same level we are, but can also mix and match mods and give us critical information about how we're tackling our remix stuff. And yes, we'd love to have you on the team, as well, so please apply :)

Release the CO-OP MOD!

It's been a long time coming for this one, but it's time to OFFICIALLY let the genie out of the bottle. Since last year, we've done private testing and let me tell you: it was not so easy. Outside of organizing times to get the things done, there were a lot of memory leak issues, crashes, and level issues that we simply did not encounter when the team did internal testing. Actually, it was the main reason we didn't hit our last Valentine's deadline. However, there is good news, as all our advancements on the SDK gave us more capabilities for an easier time updating and fixing things. The MapAdds in particular allow us to do easier updates, and live at that. Our new networking capabilities let us refine the fixes we made when things weren't communicating between server/client, and even add an inter-level ready up system. We were even able to bring a chatbox back into the game. Now it's time to get everyone involved for refine!

Our Goals

All the main kinks should be ironed out for a playable experience. Enemies respond, there shouldn't be any crashes, inventories and skills carry over, entities are networking to all players (or selective players), etc. The part that we need to work on is all in the levels. We've converted all the co-op updated levels into MapAdds, but we need to refine that. We most likely made a few steps back moving away from the direct level edits, but we want to pay special attention because these fixes will convert to direct fixes. It is especially important because with the Ubisoft visit, we will be able to direct our concerns appropriately and better implement not only our current fixes, but the desired ones too.

What Will Be Missing

There are three big things that we won't have in this Public Test. Firstly, the beautiful player models made by Riddick and SSJGregory will not be there, simply because we still need to work on the player selection menu. It involves uncovering some VGUI related functions, but as it is not major, it should not block release.

The second thing is our more refined revive mechanics. In our private tests we had started a revive system that allowed people to continue at a reviving player's position at the cost of some mana and their life. Unfortunately this led to a lot of crashing, ironically because of the collision system. I know I have to look into it, but I can not justify the effort, so I am trying to find a more logical alternative to this. We have a spawn point system with checkpoints fully in place so once again, not game breaking, but it would be something we want to bring once we get our assistance from Ubisoft.

The final thing is our refined cutscenes. Our talented mappers QWERTY and Granto had recreated some portions of the cinematics so that players can experience it (and mess with them too!) together. We simply have not added the correct transitions yet in the mapadds because we want to make sure the basis is correct. This one will likely come back first!

Where do I get it?

Due to the nature of the public test, we need to make constant updates. I don't think it makes much sense to do a ModDB stable download yet, so you can head over to the GitHub page and download the repository here:

It is highly recommend you JOIN THE DISCORD so we can keep track of reports and you can find other people to game with, similar to our private tests. Additionally, you will be alerted when I push updates to it.

The Trials of Kha-Baleth [MAPPERS NEEDED!]

We've got one more mod in the works, one I think will change the game for Dark Messiah. If you're familiar with Alien Swarm, there is a system called "TileGen" which not only allows players to design their own levels and conditions using a Snap-Map like system, it also allows them to generate the level completely randomly and with certain rules. Now, with the SDK as far along as it is, I was able to bring this into Dark Messiah, though it's still very young.

Here is a really early proof of concept, a few months old, directly porting the stuff. Since then we have worked through a bunch of custom aspects.

This whole thing hinges on the TILES, which are basically prefab VMF hammer components to certain specifications that allow them to mesh together in the editor. There are different THEMES that can be used, which essentially organize their environments types as well. That's crucial so you don't get a forest cave map mixing with the necropolis.. but you're free to make that if you'd like!

This is why we need mappers. We need to create a large library of these that will give us all the freedom to make levels regardless of skill level, and make randomly generated levels actually have some variety to them.

The mod page is located here, so give it a follow if you're interested in getting updates about it! We'll probably hold some testing in the Discord similar to our other mods, so it'd be wise to be there!

Hammer++ Support!

In one last update, we managed to get Hammer++ to work properly in Dark Messiah. Rather than consume an entire part of this update on how to do it, just head on over to the tutorial page and enjoy: Moddb.com

Join the Cause, and Closing

As you can see, there've been a lot of exciting stuff stuff we've been working on, but we absolutely need help with it. If you'd like to join the family please don't hesitate to apply. Having more character artists or RTX asset creators is desperate, but I've tagged the important areas in the article as well. Everything will help us a long way, but there's plenty of ways you can help!

The next time I do an update will be sometime in April, I've gotta buckle down and get prepared for the visit, and then after work to the bone on the SDK. But I'll always be active on Discord, so feel free to send join and chat me up!

Discord: Discord.gg

YouTube: Youtube.com

BlueSky: Bsky.app