Vengi 0.0.34, available for download!
December 06, 2024 - 13:48
Howdy! It is time to catch up on some old news, as reinforcements arrived a couple of weeks ago from Vengi as Vengi 0.0.34 has been published by mgerhardy. For those unaware of what is being written here, Vengi is a voxel engine that contains the VoxEdit, which is a voxel art editor that supports several volumetric pixel file formats, such as Command & Conquer vxl, Minecraft, Quake 1 bsp, Ace of Spades vxl, as well as some other voxel editors such as Goxel and MagicaVoxel. Here is the official announcement from VoxEdit's staff about Vengi 0.0.34:

Quote:
Changelog

A more detailed changelog can be found on github.

Join our discord server.

See the documentation for further details.

Known issues.

0.0.34 (2024-XX-XX)

General:

  • Fixed invalid UV coordinate handling when importing meshes to voxelize them
  • Added support for paint.net palettes
  • Added support for Adobe Photoshop ACO palettes
  • Added support for bbmodel Blockbench format
  • Added support for vxb Sandbox Block format
  • Fixed a few errors in the lua bindings of the g_import global
  • Extended the lua api (g_sys, g_io)
  • Fixed nameless, embedded textures in glb
  • Fixed off-by-one in voxformat_voxelizemode 1
  • Fixed missing axis flip for md2 scale and translate value imports
  • Added support for Quake1 mdl files
  • Added support for exporting and importing to and from png slices
  • Added support for Autodesk 3ds files
  • Support for loading normals for voxelization (mesh formats) and for voxel formats (vxl)
  • Fixed vxl saving for negative coordinates
  • Split file dialog options into a new separated dialog
  • Added new lua scripts (game of life, mandelbulb, smooth)
  • Added support for Pixelorama palette

VoxConvert:

  • Removed --image-as-XXX parameters (now part of the png format)
  • Removed --colored-heightmap (this is auto-detected in the png format now)

VoxEdit:

  • Allow to change the local directory for the asset panel
  • Add more online sources to the asset panel
  • Added support to apply a checkboard pattern to your voxels just for rendering
  • Improved handling for max allowed voxels
  • Disable undo/redo for model changes if you exceed a max suggested model size
  • Disable autosaves for model changes if you exceed a max suggested model size
  • New brush type to project textures into sub areas or on surfaces
  • Added an FPS option for the animation timeline
  • Added normal palette panel
  • Fixed missing memento group for merging nodes
  • Improved undo/redo for lua script changes on the scenegraph
  • Added a slice mode to only show a particular height level of your volume
  • Don't place invalid colored voxels in group lock mode
  • Render forward direction in the viewport


You can check more information about VoxEdit by visiting the Topic at PPM Forums, Official Website, and Discord Channel. Download Vengi 0.0.34 Here. And that's all for now! Have fun and enjoy VoxEdit and Vengi!

^Rampastein, the leader of C&C World-Altering Editor, has been busy working on C&C World-Altering Editor during our silence. The latest release is v1.3.5, which came out over a week ago. For those who are not acquainted with it, C&C World-Altering Editor is a map editor for the Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun Red Alert 2, and its expansions. It originally started as a map editor for Dawn of the Tiberium Age. The changes from C&C World-Altering Editor v1.3.5 were announced with the following words:

Quote:
Minor update for rendering fixes and new functionality.

  • Made it possible to move base nodes with the base node management tool
  • Added support for DrawFlat=yes for overlay types, meaning Tiberium, Ore, and similar overlay will never overlap units anymore
  • Fixed overlay shadows using the wrong frame
  • Fixed depth rendering of large overlays that overlap multiple cells
  • (DTA) Fixed depth rendering of large terrain objects such as impassable bush and tree groups


Before C&C World-Altering Editor v1.3.5, the version 1.3.4 was released with the following changelog:

Quote:
Small maintenance patch.
  • Added "Repeat Last Connected Tile" keyboard command and menu option, defaults to Ctrl + D
  • Changed default hotkey of "Place Connected Tile..." keyboard command from Ctrl + D to Alt + D. This matches the terrain generator where repeat is Ctrl + G and configuration is Alt + G
  • Fixed a bug where the active house was not always displayed as the owner of the object in the object placement preview
  • (RA2/YR) Removed "None" item from the string selection window. This also fixes a bug where WAE would crash upon selecting said item. If you want to close the string selection window without selecting an item, press X on the upper-right corner of the window
  • (RA2/YR) Fixed a bug where parameters of action 125 were written incorrectly

    • For modders: this was fixed by adding support for the BuildingName trigger parameter type

  • (RA2/YR) Fixed bugs in several trigger actions where the waypoint parameter was written incorrectly



You can find more information about C&C World-Altering Editor by visiting the Topic at PPM Forums, Official Website, and Discord Channel at C&C Mod Haven. Download C&C World-Altering Editor Here. And this is all for today! Enjoy C&C World-Altering Editor and provide your feedback about it so it can get better.

Paint.NET 5.1.1 is now available!
December 06, 2024 - 13:35
Hi everyone! Reinforcements have arrived from paint.net as Paint.NET 5.1.1 has been recently released by their crew. For your information, paint.net is a free and open-source image and photo editing software for Windows with a quite rich set of features. Here are the updates from Paint.NET 5.1.1:

Quote:
This is a small update that contains fixes for some bugs that were discovered in 5.1, as well as a new Fill option in the Image -> Canvas Size dialog. It also has workarounds for some bugs in Sentinel One (antivirus) that were causing crashes in the installer and hangs during app startup.

Change Log

Changes since 5.1:

  • Added the ability to choose the fill color when expanding the image with Image->Canvas Size
  • Fixed the ability to paste images with transparency from Firefox
  • Fixed the ability to paste certain types of images with transparency from Microsoft Office applications
  • Changed Edit->Cut and Edit->Crop to Selection to completely zero out pixels outside of the selected area, which could otherwise be a privacy issue.
  • Fixed the inability to load an image with a bad ICC color profile. The color profile will now be ignored, and the image will be treated as if it had an sRGB color profile.
  • Fixed the title bar text being drawn in the active text color when the window is not active when using Light or Blue themes
  • Reverted the removal of the Settings checkbox that lets you disable over scroll
  • Fixed a crash in the Levels adjustment UI due to a rounding error
  • Fixed a race condition in resource loading that sometimes caused the zoom level in the status bar to display as “ScaleFactor.Percentage.Format”
  • Fixed some graphical corruption, hang, or crash issues caused by Nahimic A-Volute malware
  • Worked around a crash (“0xc000007b”) in the installer caused by Sentinel One antivirus.
  • Worked around a hang at app startup if Sentinel One antivirus.
  • Fixed many cases of screen blanking, rendering glitches, and crashes on systems with certain NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, and certain displays with support for overlays and/or VRR (FreeSync, GSYNC). This appears to be a bug in NVIDIA’s driver.
  • Fixed effects calling Dispose() on the IServiceProvider when they shouldn’t have been. This affected plugins like CodeLab and Plugin Browser.
  • Updated the bundled AVIF FileType to version 3.11.0.0 (thanks @null54!)


If you are curious about paint.net, visit the Official Website to obtain further information about it. Download the latest version of paint.net Here. And that's all regarding paint.net for now. Stay tuned at PPM for more news about paint.net!

Phobos Build 45 is ready for testing!
December 06, 2024 - 02:16
Hello everyone! I am deeply sorry for the recent silence. There were too many things going on at once in my real life, and eventually, I spent several days in a place where I could not plug my laptop into the power without frying the plug. Then, I had to use the laptop for critical matters only, such as survival at the place I was. Anyway, I have returned home today, and I am now able to resume our news posting here.

And let's get started with a piece of fresh news. A new version of Phobos, known as Phobos Build 45, was posted moments ago by their development team. For those who are not acquainted with it, Phobos extends the modding features from Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge and, unlike Ares, is completely open-source. The changes from Phobos Build 45 were announced with the following words:

Quote:
Disclaimer: development builds are inherently unstable and may contain improvements that will be changed and adjusted before the stable release (as well as bugs), with fewer stability guarantees.

Phobos development build 45 is up!

Changes compared to build 44:

Migration info:

  • Critical hit animations created by Crit.AnimOnAffectedTargets=true Warheads no longer default to AnimList.PickRandom if Crit.AnimList.PickRandom is not set.
  • Units.DisableRepairCost was changed to Units.UseRepairCost (note inverted expected value) as it no longer has a discrete default value and affects Hospital=true buildings. Infantry does not have repair costs by default.

New features:

  • CreateUnit on AnimTypes extension to any unit (vehicles, aircraft, and infantry) (by Starkku)
  • AttachEffects updates (by Starkku)

    • DiscardOn=firing for AttachEffects
    • Cumulative refresh options for AttachEffects
    • ExpireWeapon.TriggerOn=discard
    • Allow restricting whether AE ArmorMultiplier is applied to damage dealt by specific Warheads

  • Reimplemented Airburst & Splits logic with more customization options (by Starkku)
  • Buildings considered as destroyable pathfinding obstacles (by Starkku)
  • Customizable animation visibility settings (by Starkku)
  • Combat light customizations & Light flash effect toggling (by Starkku)
  • Unit repair customization for buildings (by Starkku)
  • Toggle to disallow buildings from providing build area during buildup (by Starkku)
  • Allow customizing which building types provide build area for a building (by Starkku)
  • Scorch / Flamer fire animation customization (by Starkku)
  • Warheads parasite removal customization (by Starkku)
  • Allow infantry to use land sequences in water (by Starkku)
  • Allow customizing charge turret delays per burst on a weapon (by Starkku)
  • Allow customizing subterranean movement speed and allow parsing floating-point Speed values (by Starkku)

Vanilla fixes:

  • Removed the 0 damage effect from InfDeath=9 warheads to in-air infantries (by Trsdy)
  • Fixed damaged aircraft not repairing on UnitReload=true docks unless they land on the dock first (by Starkku)
  • Certain global tileset indices (ShorePieces, WaterSet, CliffSet, WaterCliffs, WaterBridge, BridgeSet and WoodBridgeSet) are now correctly parsed for Lunar theater (by Starkku)
  • Fixed radiation timer after load game (by Trsdy)
  • Follower vehicle index for preplaced vehicles in maps is now explicitly constrained to [Units] list in map files and is no longer thrown off by vehicles that could not be created or created vehicles having other vehicles as initial passengers (by Starkku)
  • Fixed objects with ally target and AttackFriendlies=true having their target reset every frame, particularly AI-owned buildings. (by Starkku & Trsdy)
  • Power on  Drive/Jumpjet/Ship/Teleport locomotors when getting unpiggybacked (by tyuah8)

Fixes / interactions with Ares:

  • Weapons fired by EMPulse superweapons without EMPulse.TargetSelf=true can now create radiation (by Starkku)
  • Append Ares' SW.Shots usage to Phobos' extended tooltips (by Trsdy)
  • Fixed Ares' Abductor weapon leaving permanent placement while abducting moving units (by Trsdy)
  • Suppressed Ares' swizzle warning when parsing Tags and TaskForces (typically begin with [Developer fatal]Pointer 00000000 declared change to both in debug.log). (by Trsdy)
  • Align Ares' CellSpread mechanism (for AttachEffect/EMP/IronCurtain wh) with Phobos' (by Trsdy)

Phobos fixes:

  • Fixed AE movement-based discard conditions to not consider jumpjet idle hovering as movement(by Starkku)
  • Fixed Nonprovocative not suppressing warnings on shielded objects (by Starkku)
  • Fixed LaunchSW.IgnoreInhibitors and SW.Next.IgnoreInhibitors overriding corresponding IgnoreDesignators settings (by Ollerus)
  • Fixed FactoryPlant.Allow/DisallowTypes not working with LimboDelivery (by Starkku)
  • Fixed FactoryPlant.Multiplier calculating results wrong for type-restricted FactoryPlants (by Starkku)
  • Allow Strafing. Shots to affect actual spy planes (by Starkku)
  • Fit tooltips background effects beyond the sidebar (by CrimRecya)
  • Fixed Crit.AnimList interaction with AnimList.CreateAll (by Starkku)
  • Fixed infantry SecondaryFire / SecondaryProne sequences being displayed in water instead of WetAttack (by Starkku)
  • Minor performance improvements for turret shadow (by Trsdy)
  • Fixed incorrect counter update for limbo-delivered buildings with AutoDeath.XX.AllowLimboed (by CrimRecya)
  • Prevent Phobos warhead effects from affecting units being warped out (by Trsdy)
  • Use country index for Phobos trigger events and actions like the vanilla game did (by handama)
  • Fixed subterranean locomotor issues from Build 44 (by Starkku)
  • Potential fix for rare crash with Scorch/Flamer on 1 frame animations (by Starkku)


If you are curious about Phobos, visit the Topic at PPM Forums, Official Website, and Discord Channel at C&C Mod Haven to obtain further information about it. Phobos is available for download Here. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on Phobos!

PPM SVN: Dead and back, dead and back!
November 05, 2024 - 00:17
Welcome back, commander! Welcome back! PPM SVN is back from the dead! All we need is patience, young Jedi, because things get fixed.... in this specific case, by the Dark Lord of the Sith, which was the username that Phil was known at the Revora Forums.

With the SVN, our programs such as OS SHP Builder, Voxel Section Editor III and OS .BIG Editor works again! And you can download the latest beta versions of these programs, which may include 3D model export support for Voxel Section Editor III to .ZIP files support for OS .BIG Editor.

Now we can resume our progress with our tools! Expect good things soon!



About PPM SVN's downtime!
November 02, 2024 - 15:47
Hello everyone! For those trying to download the latest beta versions of OS SHP Builder, Voxel Section Editor III, and OS .BIG Editor or using the auto-update/install from OS SHP Builder and Voxel Section Editor III, we have temporary bad news for you. PPM SVN will be down for some time until we figure out a fix for it.

Recent changes on the server admin software forced us to change some PHP settings in the server, and the changes prevented some critical code of any subversion software from being activated by PHP. I am looking for alternatives. If everything else fails, I will have to surrender to GitHub, but that would destroy the auto-update/install tool.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. It is causing me a big headache already. I'll mirror the latest beta versions of these programs in PPM in the next hours.

Hi everyone! Reinforcements have arrived from paint.net as Paint.NET 5.0 Beta (build 9072) has been recently published by their crew. For those unaware of what is being written here, paint.net is a free and open-source image and photo editing software for Windows with quite a rich set of features. Here are the updates from Paint.NET 5.0 Beta (build 9072):

Quote:
This is a quick follow-up to the previous build, fixing a few more small bugs and improving performance.

Change Log

Changes since 5.1 beta (build 9070):

  • Fixed a few more cases where tool shortcuts and tooltips were not working after certain actions.
  • Fixed: PNGs are now correctly saved with the “Software” tEXt metadata indicating they were created with Paint.NET.
  • Improved performance in various parts of the rendering and effects engines: CPU usage has been reduced, which permits higher GPU utilization.



Changes since 5.1 beta (build 9066):

  • Fixed: Copy/Paste has been hardened against short-term intermittent errors and should no longer show spurious error dialogs (e.g. ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED) except in legitimate cases.
  • Fixed: Certain shortcut keys, especially for switching tools, will no longer stop functioning if a floating window (e.g., Tools) is hidden and then shown by clicking on the button at the top right of the main window.
  • Fixed: Tooltips in the Tools window will no longer stop functioning if a floating window (e.g., Tools) is hidden and then shown by clicking on the button at the top right of the main window.
  • Removed the “Scrolling past the edge of the image (over scroll)” checkbox from Settings. This was enabled by default, and now it is always enabled.
  • Fixed: The installer was occasionally showing an error about an InvalidGraphConfigurationException on some systems
  • Added a KnownColorSpace API for plugins so they can create IColorContexts and IDeviceColorContexts for the Display P3 and ProPhoto RGB color spaces



Changes since 5.1 beta (build 9064):

  • Fixed: @BoltBait‘s TextFunFactory plugin was not working on Windows 10 due to the lack of support for IDWriteFontFace6 (despite what Microsoft’s documentation states)


You can check more information about paint.net by visiting the Official Website. paint.net is available for download Here. And that's all for now! Have fun and enjoy paint.net!

Howdy! patrickwieth has posted a new version of YouMustConstructAdditional.. called YouMustConstructAdditional v0.95.41. For your information, YouMustConstructAdditional.. is a Real-Time-Strategy game that uses the OpenRA engine. It forks Combined Arms, and it strives to create massive battles with GDI, Nod, Scrin, Allies, Soviet, and China.  Here are the official words about YouMustConstructAdditional v0.95.41:

Quote:
This patch brings 2 new big things that deserve some text in front of the bullet points:

The first thing is a complete rework of how the Phasing Palette effect works. This is what one sees when applying Iron Curtain, Suppression, Frenzy, Shield, Radiation, and some other things to a unit. In the future, more effects will move into this behavior, which is currently rather static. The change was motivated by a bug that happened with voxel units, where their shadow popped through the unit once such an effect was applied. This is fixed, and the Phasing effect now phases the color of the unit from the remapped team colors, whereas in the past, it would directly remove the team colors and strip over its own colors (of the Phasing effect). This means players can still see the team colors when a unit is under such an effect, and the transition happens more naturally. This includes some changes to the engine, so crashes may happen where I did not test enough. Sorry, please report crashes so I can fix them.



New Features

  • Phasing Palette effect now works completely differently. Phasing effects now phase out of the remapped team color into the effect for most units and effects.
  • Voxel units now have more saturated colors to match the style of the old sprites.
  • Voxel Turrets now have recoil.
  • Helicopters no longer have an ammo pool and can fire indefinitely.
  • Mammoth now has a new model. The old model did not really fit the GDI style.
  • Longbow is now Eurocopter and gets a new voxel model.
  • Black Hawk gets a new voxel model and is now Sea Hawk.
  • Sea Hawk has an upgrade now for Bunker Buster missiles. This is to take out a single defense building fast and suit the role of recon and spec ops missions with the Sea Hawk.
  • Hind gets a new voxel model.
  • Chinook gets a new icon.

Balancing

  • Most helicopters have infinite ammo now.
  • Katyusha Launcher turns faster to make it more mobile.
  • Venom Heavy Laser can now also shoot other aircraft (like other Venoms).
  • Torpedos from helicopters are buffed.
  • Chainneler Tank (Scrin) no longer throws chained rifts at allied units and gets a small damage buff.
  • Force Shield now also applies to defense buildings, and the cooldown has been reduced (for normal and Nukular mode)

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed the shadow of the voxel unit shining through the unit after Flickering Palette effects were applied.
  • Fixed the Blackhand Trooper icon.
  • Fixed the Comanche icon in Commander Tree.
  • Fixed the Venom icon in Commander Tree.
  • Fixed the Cryo Blast palette bug.
  • Fixed crashes for voxel vehicles that leave a husk after destruction.
  • Fixed a bug that made Spec Ops infiltrate without any effect.
  • Fixed a bug that applied poison to drivers of vehicles after being hit by an energy weapon.


For further information about YouMustConstructAdditional.., visit the Official Website, and Discord Channel. You can download YouMustConstructAdditional v0.95.41 Here. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on YouMustConstructAdditional..!