The Dark engine Mod Manager (DMM) lets you install and organize mods for System Shock 2, Thief, and Thief II in a straightforward manner.
Instructions
Read the manual.
If you are unsure how to operate the manager, before you start, back up your cam_mod.ini.
Download
GitHub.com
Participation
Contributions are always welcome! If you have a useful feature to add, you can open a pull request or file an issue on GitHub.
For discussions at SystemShock.org, join this thread.
DMM is a continuation of SS2BMM and was developed for the rather mod-heavy System Shock 2. There is no special support to handle mods within FMs, i.e. managing multiple separate mod folders at the same time is not possible.
Last edited by Marvin; 14th Dec 2023 at 05:46.
Great software, thank you.However, it messed up my Thief Gold .ini and .cfg files because DMM doesn't follow TFix or T2Fix-modified file path structure. It should be quite easy to fix, though. If I remember correctly, voodoo47 and Jax64 have been looking to add a feature like this to TFix and T2Fix, respectively, so perhaps they will add DMM to both patches while also getting it to work with them.
Last edited by Arcatera; 23rd Apr 2021 at 14:30.
Yes, both TFix and T2Fix construct the mod_path and *.cfg file changes themselves and put everything in the main folder whereas DMM does it in an automated way based on the content of the \DMM folder. You can tell it to look elsewhere (e.g., the main folder) but the default is set up to work best with the way SS2 is set up by the SS2Tool, which the Steam and GOG installations later adopted as well.
There's a similar problem with compressed archives - all mods on SystemShock.org adhere to the same standard format whereas with Thief, it's all over the place (installers, files distributed across subfolders, ...). I don't expect anyone to just stop, throw down their work and immediately change every zip file on TTLG of course, so let's see what kind of feedback will come in.
voodoo is already working on making TFix compatible, hopefully Jax64 will want to do the same. If it is worthwile, I might add some pre-setup steps to the application to ease any transition, but first I wanted to get this out to see where things would need to be changed and what kind of ideas other people might have.
I edited the first post to reflect this.
Last edited by Marvin; 23rd Apr 2021 at 02:49.
yeah, until TFix (and T2Fix) are made compatible, this is advanced users/manual installs only. I'll work on it this weekend, and get a TFix update out later next week, most likely (will wait a bit to see the feedback here).
Thanks for the full DMM release. Yes, a new T2Fix version supporting this should be arriving fairly soon as well.
On the topic of feedback, it is worth noting that for many Thief mods the button to search online is not particularly useful, as it attempts to find a match for a mod's original archived file name, which is often not actually present in mod threads. Perhaps exposing the employed search URL as a configuration variable could alleviate this without compromising the current utility it has for SS2, along with allowing searching with engines other than Google. Also, it may be prudent to support recognizing mods implementing shaders, as we already have a few shader packs available here.
Yeah, I thought about dropping the URL lookup entirely since its use is very situational and without config files per mod - which I alwys wanted and still do want to avoid - it's difficult to find a one-size-fits-all kind of solution.
By shader mods you mean MTL mods? Simple to add, do you have an example?
By shader mods, I mean mods implementing shaders through Direct3D Effects files (those with the ".fx" filename extension). NewDark includes some further documentation on shaders, but there must be an effects file with the name "cc.fx" in a directory named "shaders" in order for one to be loaded, provided the appropriate configuration variables are also set. The package available for download here is a good example.
Last edited by Jax64; 24th Apr 2021 at 20:00.
Yes, that seems to properly detect them. Thank you.
Pertaining to mod types, it appears that the "Gamesys", "Replacement/Other", "Cutscene", and "Subtitle" types are all mutually exclusive. Is this behavior intentional?
Yes, because those usually either do not occur in the same mod, or are especially important like with "Gamesys",at least as far as SS2 is concerned.Originally Posted by Jax64
If really useful, things like that can be exposed via properties of course.
As an aside, I think the name of this project will be confusing to some. Maybe a name with something other than "Dark Mod" in the title would be more appropriate?
Dark Engine Mod Manager might be enough.
Is it that confusing though? I'd like some data on that. Don't care that much, although I'm very lazy. Even with renaming.
With all due respect for your self proclaimed laziness, yes it IS that confusing. It's the name of another project...our project....The Dark Mod, a stand alone Thief inspired game built on the doom 3 engine. Quite possible you haven't heard of it but we've been around for 15 years.
Reading the title of this topic, I thought someone had created an unofficial manager for....ahem...The Dark Mod. lol
So, it's confusing in a couple of ways considering it makes it sound like a manager for OUR project. Haha
I agree with name being confused. The first time I read comments I didn't understand why people are worrying how this tool will play with TFix and T2Fix. They are for Thief 1 and Thief 2 and The Dark Mod is completely different game.
Yes, using "Dark Mod" is a problem. Imagine creating a new patch for T1 and 2, and calling it the "Deadly Shadows fix"
I'd guess that's why "Dark mod" is used (no capitalization). still, either just going back to "blue mod manager" or switching to "Dark Engine Mod Manager" would probably be preferable.
I played it some time ago, so yes, I heard of it, still, I don't see much of a connection. This is sitting in "Thief Mods and Utilities" and the first sentence says everything there is to know. Maybe reading one sentence is demanding too much?
On a more serious note: The name comes from the main mod folder "DMM" which was for "Dark Managed Mods" in the old SS2 days (still is btw). Well, I can fix the title.
Last edited by Marvin; 28th Apr 2021 at 12:50.
Done. Hope you're happy/ier.
The Dark Mod is also part of the Thief Mods and Utilities forum. Like I said, we've been around 15+ years, just makes sense to differentiate your project.
Truly, no one else could have come up with the idea of combining the words "Dark" and "Mod".
You mean Thief General Discussion.
Nope, I meant here. We're included in the first link for installing and playing Thief games.
In any case, it's better for your Mod to differentiate as there may be players who can't play The Dark Mod due to hardware requirements, or simply prefer sticking to the original games, and would not look into your thread since it originally looked like it was for our Mod. May seem like I'm being territorial but it's rather a case of trying to be helpful. lol
Actually Marvin is correct. Thread for The Dark Mod right now is located in Thief General Discussion forum. For some reason moderators never moved it to Thief Mods and Utilities forum.
No, see New Horizon's comment above yours. The Dark Mod is mentioned in the first stickied thread in this forum. The main TDM thread doesn't really belong here.
Why not? TDM thread is very similar to TFix and T2Fix threads. There are updates noted, people are asking about technical stuff, report bugs and problems. I would say TDM thread belongs more in this forum than in General Discussion.
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