paint.net 5.0.10 is now available!
Oct 02, 2023 - 10:46
Welcome back, visitors! Reinforcements have arrived from paint.net as paint.net 5.0.10 has been recently published by their staff. For those unaware, paint.net is a free and open-source image and photo editing software for Windows with a quite rich set of features. Here is the official changelog about paint.net 5.0.10 (and 5.0.9):

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This update has a handful of small improvements and bug fixes and many improvements and fixes for GPU effect plugin development.

Change Log



Changes from v5.1.0:

  • New: Edit -> Paste now supports base64-encoded images, which enables copying images from Microsoft Teams (thanks @null54 for the implementation!)
  • Fixed a rare bug that would cause selection tools to not work until the image was closed and reopened
  • Fixed: All mouse cursors will now honor the Windows setting for adjusting the mouse pointer size
  • Fixed a rare crash when rapidly undoing multiple actions
  • New: Plugins can now access the built-in JPEG and PNG FileTypes through two new methods on IFileTypesService
  • New: The Paint.NET Plugin API Documentation website is now live at https://paintdotnet.github.io/apidocs/
  • Fixed: All of the custom Direct2D effects now have runtime metadata (DisplayName, Author, Category, Description), which is useful for a UI that lets the user browse them (e.g., node editor)
  • New: Added convenience constructors to many Direct2D effects so that they can be used without declaring a new local variable
  • New: Added GaussianBlurMapEffect and BokehBlurMapEffect for use by GpuEffect plugins. They enable the blur radius to be controlled per pixel through the use of a second input image (the “map”)
  • New: Added a RandomNoiseEffect that GpuEffect plugins can make use of
  • Fixed various bugs with HlslBinaryFunctionEffect, HlslBinaryOperatorEffect, and HlslTernaryFunctionEffect (which can be used by GpuEffect plugins)
  • Added Distance and Dot to the list of HlslBinaryFunctions
  • Added Length and Mad (multiply-add) to the list of HlslTernaryFunctions
  • Fixed the Environment property’s runtime type when accessed from an EffectConfigForm (for BitmapEffects and GpuEffects with custom UIs)
  • Fixed UIScaleFactor’s methods for converting between DIPs and pixels
  • Fixed ability to work with EffectConfigForms in the Visual Studio WinForms designer
  • Updated the bundled AvifFileType to version 1.1.26 (thanks @null54!)
  • Updated the bundled DdsFileTypePlus to version 1.12.6 (thanks @null54!)
  • Updated the bundled WebPFileType to version 1.3.20. It now uses libwebp v1.3.2 which contains the fix for CVE-2023-4863/CVE-2023-5129 (thanks @null54!)



Changes from v5.0.9:

  • Fixed: When using Alt+Tab, the internal state of the Alt key could get ‘stuck’ when the Shapes or Line/Curve tool was active, causing the next shape or line/curve to be drawn from the center
  • Fixed: Sliders were not responding to the mouse wheel (regression in 5.0.Cool
  • Fixed the DeviceEffect.Properties.Min/MaxInputCount properties, which were throwing an ArgumentException (for plugin authors)
  • Fixed a rare crash at app exit due to a race condition in the auto-updater
  • Fixed a rare crash when the system resumes from sleep mode due to a race condition in DWM reporting whether composition is enabled
  • Fixed a rare crash when using copy+paste due to .NET Runtime issue #84994 https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/issues/84994
  • Updated the bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to v1.12.2.0, which fixes the inability to save on ARM64 systems (thanks @null54!)
  • Updated the bundled WebPFileType plugin to v1.3.19.0, which fixes the inability to save on ARM64 systems (thanks @null54!)


You can find more information about paint.net by visiting the Official Website. Download paint.net 5.0.10. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on paint.net!

Hello everyone! Today is still September 30th here, and it is PPM's anniversary! PPM, as a certain Messiah, lives in Death, regardless of its activity in the forums. And truth to be said, you can't kill the Messiah, isn't it? PPM is an old community that has exists for 23 years. It started with a Tiberian Sun mod called PPM: Final Dawn, and now we have almost everything except the bloody PPM: Final Dawn. Rumors say that this mod will be released one day.

In PPM's last year of existence, we had a huge influx of news posts. I mean, I had a hard time finding the news about its last birthday. It was on page 9 already, where each page has 50 news posts. In the previous years, I'd find it on page 3 and sometimes even on page 2. And this is a result of how our news system evolved. Today we cover a lot of news every month and a lot of new subjects. We cover mods hidden in the depths of Discord, YouTube, ModDB, GitHub, and some other places. Sometimes we even announce the release of a project before the project itself announces it. This is a result of a very hard work that made news posts be created in terms of a few minutes, while it used to take some hours to write a single news post a while ago. The very hard work goes from our internal system that hunts these news posts and BBCodes them (and sometimes we had to write special scripts for special cases, such as Dawn of the Tiberium Age releases or Chrono Divide updates). We also have a system that speeds up news posting and helps me with the keywords, but I do have to edit them by the end of the day. I also use third-party solutions for grammar checking.

The huge flux of news posts changed the behavior of our visitors. Today, most of the news posts do not receive comments, which is a bad thing. I mean, it is more fun when people interact with us, isn`t it? And there are more people browsing the forums as a guest instead of registered. A small reminder is that registered users see less propaganda than guests (or no advertisements at all in the forums).

Our news posting system is just a start. We can do much more than simply create news with it. In the future, we may create or organize content with it, such as tutorials, graphic/map resources, and coverage for new games. To be honest, we are using it to track news from games that are not officially covered on our main site and subsites, such as Tempest Rising and Storm Gate, although I am not posting everything I see about these games yet.

Regarding the birthday itself, I do not have a present this time because it is hard to handle several things that are happening in my real life right now, but hopefully, most of these problems will end in six months or less.

The best I can offer is our lovely traditional cake:



The credits for this birthday cake goes to this Reddit topic

Aloha! Reinforcements have arrived at Combined Arms. Inqubi has recently made Combined Arms 0.93 available for download. For your information, Combined Arms is a mod for OpenRA that emulates the old Command & Conquer games gameplay and brings five factions to the battlefield: Allies, Soviets, GDI, Nod, and Scrin. It features new units and support powers for these factions. It also features new graphics and sound effects. Here are the official words about Combined Arms 0.93:

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0.93 is the latest instalment of Combined Arms! It features the highly requested save/load function for skirmish options!
The update also features improvements to the existing single-player campaign missions as well as four brand-new prologue missions!



# Features
- Four prologue missions.
- Lobby options can now be saved/loaded.
- Added option to disable fog of war and/or build radius in campaign missions. Mission options will persist until changed.
- Improved targeting for Chronosphere, Iron Curtain, Nanite Repair & Atomic Shells.
- Update checker and download button on menu screen.
- Numerous campaign mission tweaks.
- Soviet EVA variant.
- Numerous voice line improvements & additions.
- Units gain XP from dealing damage, rather than kills (Yuri/Mastermind gain XP from each unique unit they mind control).
- Increased armor and damage bonuses for heroic units.
- Unique veterancy icons for Nod and Scrin.
- When spectating or viewing replays, the value of selected units will be shown.

# Balance

## General
- Increased Mechanic salvage reward to $200.
- Reduce driverless vehicle decay rate.
- Reduced cost of Optimised Production upgrades from $500 to $350 (Multi-Queue Scaled only).
- Any naval units with depth charges will use only these against submarines. Reduced submarine HP to compensate.

## Allies
- Chronoshift no longer kills passengers, but they can't unload while chronoshifted. Enemy units teleported for 66% normal duration. Reduced maximum targets from 13 to 9. Capped health at 47k while chronoshifted.
- Reduced Raider APC speed and damage vs buildings/defenses a little.
- MRJ rework; creates jamming fields which reduce enemy RoF and firepower.
- Gap Generator no longer creates mini veils, but the beam itself debuffs in a small area (mainly to make it more distinct from MRJ).
- Increased Battle Fortress HP and damage.
- Temporal Flux grants Chrono Prison +1.5 range.
- Chrono Tank can now attack aircraft (relatively low damage). Added a 3 second cooldown between jumps with Temporal Flux. Can no longer crush infantry instantly by teleporting onto them.
- Increased Ranger/APC/Raider APC damage vs light armor.
- Reduced Temporal Incursion cooldown from 6:30 to 5:00 and increase duration from 30s to 40s. Removed target circle.
- Strafing Run: Increased P51 damage, HP and speed. Target is now the center of the run rather than the start.
- Reduced Artillery damage vs defenses.
- Increased Gunboat projectile speed.

## Soviets
- Reduced inaccuracy of BTR, reduced damage (roughly same DPS, just more consistent). Increased damage vs light armor.
- Increased Brute vision by 1.
- Increase Lasher Tank speed a little.
- Increased Sukhoi splash damage and missile speed slightly.
- In Multi-Queue, Kennel has its own tab for dogs only, rather than requiring a Barracks.
- Increased Sea Scorpion projectile speed and damage vs vehicles/ships.
- Increased Missile Sub damage vs buildings.

## GDI
- Increased Nanite Repair tick rate slightly.
- Increased Disruptor damage vs buildings and light armor slightly.
- Increased Hum-Vee/Guardian Drone/Mini Drone/APC damage vs light armor.
- Increased Aurora splash damage against vehicles.
- Increased Frigate railgun damage. Added depth charges.
- Reduced Drone Carrier Hornet reload time so they fire on each pass. Increased their ammo from 6 to 8. Increased damage vs buildings/defenses.
- Reduced Patrol Boat damage vs light armor.

## Nod
- Increased Buggy damage vs light armor.
- Heavy Flame Tank burst shortened (same DPS).
- Reduced Shadow Glider grenade rate of fire.
- Reduced Microwave Tank speed. Will now kill passengers with Intensified Microwaves upgrade.
- Increased Apache cost from 1350 to 1400.
- Reduced Artillery damage vs defenses.
- Reduced ICBM Sub damage vs ground vehicles. Added charge up time before firing (reduced reload to compensate).

## Scrin
- Feeder renamed to Burster, now buildable and available to all Scrin. No longer charges on Tiberium.
- Collector-73 Feeder Mutation replaced with Greater Coalescence. Spawns a larger and movable version of Leecher coalescence, which feeds of nearby enemies to sustain itself while healing allies.
- Atomized debuff now pulses AoE damage and slows movement, instead of being a DoT/firepower debuff only on the target, and no longer spreads if the target dies.
- Reduced Intruder damage vs infantry.
- Increased Gun Walker HP from 30k to 33k. Increased damge vs light armor.
- Shard Walker no longer has heavy armor. HP increased to 40k.
- Increased PAC speed from 49 to 60. Increased damage vs aircraft and infantry. Increased splash radius vs vehicles, reduced splash radius vs infantry.
- Increased Seeker HP from 22k to 23k.
- Increased Lacerator vision by 1.
- Increased Leecher HP from 28k to 30k. Increased damage vs light armor.
- Increased Leecher orb HP from 30k to 35k.
- Reduced Tripod & Reaper Tripod range very slightly. Reduced damage vs buildings and infantry.
- Increased Mothership wormhole range from 20 to 28, increased cooldown to 45s. Increased anti-unit weapon rate of fire slightly.
- Increased Stormrider shields from 6.5k to 8k.
- Move Scrin submarine detection from Stormrider to Seeker/Lacerator.
- Increase Devourer/Darkener damage vs ships.

# Misc/Fixes
- Added support powers to Composition Tester
- Slowed the decay rate of driverless vehicles.
- Fixed mission 2 crash.
- Fixed Ion Conduits activating when Storm Column is not powered.
- Separate queue for kennel in multi-queue.
- Lowered Hacker selection priority.
- Fixed Hopsital exits on the map Roadkings CA.
- Reduced opacity of sub detection circles, as it was messy with many of them.
- Added texture to menu UI panels.
- Added player colored selection box to submerged submarines.


You can check more information about Combined Arms by visiting the ModDB Profile, and Discord Channel. Download Combined Arms 0.93. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on Combined Arms!

A new version of Metal Factions was published moments ago. For those who are not acquainted with it, Metal Factions is an open-source game made with the Spring RTS game engine. It's an evolving real-time strategy game with four factions: Aven, Gear, Claw, and Sphere. It features 3D terrain and units, intuitive physics with real-time simulated gravity, collision handling, and projectile trajectories. It has over 400 units, including humanoid robots, tanks, ships, aircraft, buildings, defenses, etc. Here is the changelog from Metal Factions 2.31:

Quote:
--- New units

- GEAR "Hellburner": L2 Assault/Kamikaze Ship
- SPHERE "Contender": L2 Amphibious Skirmisher Tank
- CLAW "Cleaver": L2 Amphibious Heavy Support Tank

--- Balance / Mechanics

- CLAW "Longhorn" will no longer target air units
- Improved movement of units as they collide with each other when jumping in groups
- Made AVEN "Gunner", GEAR "Toaster" and "Beamer" amphibious
- SPHERE "Trax" is now amphibious

--- UI / Visual

- Slightly improved model/texture on GEAR pop-up static defenses
- Disabled grass detail to avoid various visual issues
(might be re-enabled in the future, given engine changes)
- Fixed issue that could cause health bars to be drawn differently on some computers
- F10 screenshot key now sets quality to 100 instead of using the default (80)


If you are curious about Metal Factions, visit the Official Website, Forums, and Discord Channel to obtain further information about it. You can grab the latest version of Metal Factions by clicking Here. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on Metal Factions!

Brotherhood, unity, and peace, ladies and gentlemen! A new playtest version of OpenRA has been posted recently by their team. OpenRA is a real-time strategy game engine that recreates the gameplay experience of Command & Conquer games. OpenRA is packaged with three mods: Dune, Tiberian Dawn, and Red Alert 1, which expands and improves the experience of the original games based on the development team's ideals. OpenRA works for Windows, Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD. Here are the changes and the fun stuff from OpenRA Playtest 20230927:

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Two months went by, and bam! Another playtest!


Notable changes include:
  • Added the ability to vote to kick players
  • Fixed a crash on specific 32-bit Windows machines
  • Fixed AI not reacting to its units being shelled
  • Fixed Dune 2000 carryalls kidnapping harvesters sometimes
  • Improved the utility, making it easier to update to new sprite sequences
  • Sped up the ending of the Red Alert mission Sarin Gas 3


For more information, see the full changelog.


You can check more information about OpenRA by visiting the Official Website, Forums, ModDB Profile, Discord Channel, and YouTube Video Channel. Download the latest version of OpenRA Here. And this is all for today! Enjoy OpenRA and provide your feedback about it so it can get better.

Greetings, Comrade General! MustaphaTR, the leader of Generals Alpha, has recently released Generals Alpha Release 20230927. For those unaware, Generals Alpha is a modification for OpenRA that recreates Command & Conquer: Generals on OpenRA engine as much as possible but using Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn artworks. Here are the updates from Generals Alpha Release 20230927:

Quote:
Hello, everyone. After wasting my whole summer on this, I'm glad to announce the release of version gen-20230927 for Generals Alpha. After several failed attempts at half-assing the engine update for the mod, I ended up finally going all the way and merging the custom engine used by Generals Alpha with the engine that was already in use by Romanov's Vengeance and Shattered Paradise. I would like to thank dnqbob for his help with the update, implementing a lot of the missing stuff, and improving the AI.

Here are some new stuff for the mod. I'm most likely missing several things, as this update has been in the works for several months now, and I didn't write a changelog during development.

  • Updated engine version to the latest version of OpenRA.
  • Added Selection UI at the bottom left of the screen, showing selected units, their upgrades, and other stats related to them.
  • Added Garrison logic for civilian buildings.
  • Added Patriot Missile System target logic logic.
  • Added Merge Generals lobby option, which gives players access to units and bonuses from all of the generals of the faction.
  • Added visual effects for Cold Fusion Reactor upgrades and Nuclear Reactor overcharge ability.
  • Added symbols showing subfactions to the Command Centers.
  • Added proper effect for Countermeasures upgrade.
  • Added Booby Traps upgrade, which uses the unused cameo from the original game as opposed to the same dynamite pack that Tank Hunters use.
  • Added Tech Artillery Platform, although it is currently only used on Tank General's Challenge map.
  • Added Cash Hack ability for Black Lotus.
  • Added sounds for units entering/leaving vehicles/buildings.
  • Added several new maps.
  • Reworked the AI as Easy, Normal, and Hard AIs as opposed to Rush, Normal, and Turtle AI that came from OpenRA's RA mod.
  • Reworked mine respawn logic to handle it individually for each mine.
  • Reworked firestorm logic to be closer to the original.
  • Reworked Artillery Barrage's ability to be closer to the original.
  • Reworked superweapons to match closer to the original.
  • Remade all the cameos in PNG format in order to keep the color quality from the original game.
  • Removed lobby options related to building placement. Human players can now always only place buildings around the Construction Vehicle that built it, while AI can always cheat to place around other buildings.
  • General's Power abilities now start fully charged.
  • Patriot Missile System is now 1x1 instead of 2x1.
  • Supply Drop Zones now actually have a plane delivering a crate.
  • Missile Defenders now need to wait for laser lock to fire faster with force fire.
  • Demo Trap now requires an Arms Dealer as in the original game.
  • Improved the AI in many other ways.
  • Workers no longer ask for shoes after you gave them some.
  • Fixed several other inconsistencies with the original game.


You can download the new version here.


You can find more information about Generals Alpha by visiting the Official Website, Steam Page, and Discord Channel. Download Generals Alpha Release 20230927 Here. And that's all regarding Generals Alpha for now. Stay tuned at PPM for more news about Generals Alpha!

Vengi 0.0.27 has been released!
Sep 20, 2023 - 00:04
Hello everyone! Vengi 0.0.27 has been published by mgerhardy recently. For those who are not acquainted with it, Vengi is a voxel engine that includes VoxEdit, 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 what we know about Vengi 0.0.27:

Quote:
Changelog
A more detailed changelog can be found on github.

Join our discord server.

See the documentation for further details.

Known issues.

0.0.27 (2023-09-19)
Breaking changes:

  • Renamed globals for Lua scripts. Added a g_ prefix to them. You have to adapt your scripts

    to work with the latest version with vengi (if you use them):

    • scenegraph is now g_scenegraph
    • palettemgr is now g_palette
    • noise is now g_noise
    • cmd is now g_cmd
    • var is now g_var
    • XvecX is now g_XvecX (ivec3 is for example g_ivec3)

General:

  • Added cvar voxformat_pointcloudsize for point cloud formats
  • Added Polygon File Format (ply) mesh and point cloud support (ASCII and binary)
  • Fixed regression with GLTF exports
  • Added a new Lua script to slice a node into smaller pieces
  • Expose shape generators to Lua
  • Fixed color intensity handling for kvx files
  • Added write support for kvx format (used in e.g. voxel doom and eduke3d)
  • Added support for Voxel3D v3a format

VoxEdit:

  • Fixed regression about not rendering the shape volumes anymore
  • Implemented scene graph panel drag-and-drop popup
  • Added brush support and new editing features
  • Fixed spurious crashes for windows

oasis



Minecraft greenfield



lospec ui integration



For further information about Vengi and VoxEdit, visit the Topic at PPM Forums, Official Website, and Discord Channel. You can grab the latest version of Vengi and VoxEdit by clicking Here. And this is all for today! Enjoy Vengi and provide your feedback about it so it can get better.

Hi everyone! The staff from Open Hard Vacuum has been working hard these days, and they have just published Open Hard Vacuum Release 20230917. For your information, Open Hard Vacuum is a game that uses OpenRA Engine, and it is inspired by an old game called Hard Vacuum, which ended up not being released at all, except for its art graphics. Here is the official announcement from Open Hard Vacuum's staff about Open Hard Vacuum Release 20230917:

Quote:



New utility vehicle queue, including new money transport to allow your allies a comeback.



The health bars have been revamped for better readability.



The UI elements have been redesigned in a uniform way: the repair icon in this case.



Landing crafts can now also drop off ice tiles, which makes money existing snow maps open for new strategies.



New props from Tyrian have been imported.



New unused original Hard Vacuum terrain tile overlays have been added.




And here is the changelog:

  • Added a new production queue for unarmed utility vehicles.
  • Added a new load screen based on original artwork.
  • Added a larger auto-target radius for the bomber pod.
  • Added AI subroutines for using the bomber pod.
  • Added sand to dirt auto-tiling.
  • Added new health bar UI elements.
  • Added new artwork for the repairing indicator.
  • Added mine deployment animation for the ground mine layer.
  • Added electric pad decoration prop for tech tiles.
  • Added player color land mines to match water ones.
  • Added small crate props to the editor.
  • Added civilian structure props to the editor.
  • Fixed aircraft chain gun attacking aircraft but dealing no damage.
  • Fixed water trails spawning on beach tiles.
  • Fixed missing large snow cliff shadow corner tile.
  • Fixed selectable bounds and hit shape for pods.
  • Fixed missing crosshair indicators for pods.
  • Fixed button UI panel borders.
  • Fixed Synapol generator, trade platform, tech center, field generator, and storage not showing up in the map editor.
  • Fixed wrong dimensions for support power icons, causing blurriness.
  • Fixed hit shapes for civilian buildings.
  • Fixed wrong offset for damaged lightning tower shadow.
  • Changed naval transport so that it can hold two vehicles.
  • Changed naval transport to also travel ice water transition tiles.
  • Changed land minelayer to the same stats as the naval one.
  • Changed main base to be more durable.
  • Changed main base and outpost lights to shine wider.
  • Changed civilian props not to use player colors.
  • Removed money transport from single-player missions.
  • Removed the ability to load huge vehicles into naval transporters.



If you are curious about Open Hard Vacuum, visit the Official Website, ModDB Profile, and Discord Channel to obtain further information about it. Download the latest version of Open Hard Vacuum Here. And that's all regarding Open Hard Vacuum for now. Stay tuned at PPM for more news about Open Hard Vacuum!