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!
Nov 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! Krita has been receiving bug-fix patches in recent months. One of them, possibly 5.2.7 or 5.2.6, has prevented the Android version of the program from running. Today they have released 5.2.8 which runs on Android again. For those unfamiliar with it, Krita is a free and open-source graphics editor for digital art and 2D animation. It features an advanced brush engine, non-destructive layers and masks, group-based layer management, vector artwork support, color management support, and switchable customization profiles.

You can find more information about Krita by visiting the Official Website. You can grab the latest version of Krita by clicking Here. And that's all regarding Krita for now. Stay tuned at PPM for more news about Krita!

Are you picking this up? Good! SWR Productions, the developers of Rise of The Reds, have recently shared some progress done with this project with the public. For your information, Rise of The Reds is a classic and popular modification for C&C Generals: Zero Hour that adds two completely new factions: the tank-heavy Russian Federation and the defense-oriented European Continental Alliance. It also greatly expands the three original factions with several new units, buildings, powers, and abilities to explore and combine with your in-game tactics. Here is what was posted about it:

Quote:
Good morning, everyone. We hope you've all been well.

This is a bit of a shorter update this week, covering some updated models and another forgotten render.
Let's get into it:



The Chinese People's Liberation Army has experimented with flamethrower-armed tanks since the mid-20th century, such as by attaching numerous heavy flame projectors to T-34 tanks. By the early 21st century, a more refined successor to these early testbeds had entered service as the original Dragon Tank, which saw extensive use during the GLA War.

Against dug-in insurgents in urban and mountainous environments, the Dragon proved a terrifying and effective weapon. However, the crews reported numerous shortcomings, from a lack of proper air conditioning and cooling that provided much discomfort to safety issues in regard to the protection of fuel tanks and ease of escape in the event of a fire. Another critical problem was the lack of controllability of the flamethrower itself, as crews found themselves unable to effectively adjust the duration, pressure, and dispersion of a flame burst.

Many of these issues were addressed with the successor model developed in the 2030s. Most notably, the new Dragon Tank features an improved fire control system and a much more sophisticated flamethrower, allowing for fine adjustment of fire output. In addition to the standard "stream" and sweeping "wall of fire" attack patterns, the weapon can be set to release highly controlled bursts, producing a kind of "fire ball" that can reach targets at significantly longer distances, disperse on impact to cover a larger area and even induce a localized firestorm when several Dragon Tanks saturate the same area. Predictably, the new tank was used with distinction against GLA-affiliated forces in Africa, and it saw some success on the export market with sales to North Korea, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

Render Description: MARS2588

The Dragon Tank has been an integral part of the faction since its inclusion in the original game. However, its design was very... we'll be nice and say... "Unique"... Yeah, that'll do.
So we have decided to create a new Dragon Tank model that feels a little more grounded and more accurately reflects the fact that these are rather tanky units built to survive against lots of sustained infantry attacks - and to live up to the 'Dragon' moniker in the name.

There are some special things of note with this new model, the first being that much like the 1.87 Dragon Tank, the turret does change to reflect the fire mode of the Dragon Tank, may it be the 'Fire-Stream' attack or the 'Fireball' attack. Also, we have taken this opportunity to add variants to the model in line with other Chinese units, so keep an eye out on the streams to see if you can identify all of them and what makes them all different.



Ever since the devastating GLA attacks of 2019, Speaker Towers have become a universal feature of Chinese military facilities, factories, and public spaces. They are used for a variety of purposes, such as public announcements and warnings in the event of attacks or natural disasters. Outside these situations, their primary day-to-day use is in broadcasting propaganda, typically in the form of patriotic songs or uplifting messages from the local party committee. In a military context, such motivational propaganda serves to maintain and restore the strength of Chinese forces. Having become permanent fixtures in the environment over the years, the towers are often outfitted with additional equipment.

The Sensor Tower features a distinctive array of antennas capable of intercepting a variety of signals, from radar emissions to military radio traffic to common phone and wi-fi signals. These towers act as the omnipresent ears of the Chinese security services in cities and military bases, where they detect stealthy trespassers and seditious elements in the surrounding area.

(The second already known variant is the Jammer Tower, which acts as a stationary ECM missile deflector. It has not been changed and remains in the game, but it deserves a tangential mention here for the sake of completeness and clarity)

Render Description: MARS2588



A third variant is particularly widespread throughout central and eastern China, where reconstruction of cities and industrial centers has been ongoing since the destruction of the Three Gorges Dam and subsequent flooding of the Yangtze River. These so-called Repair Towers are equipped with utility cranes to aid in repairing damaged buildings and infrastructure around them.

Render Description: MARS2588

Finally, we have a new version of the Speaker Tower. The new Repair Tower is part of a new universal change where all factions will have some passive way of healing structures beyond their construction unit. This change is aimed at our PvE audience to help take some of the busy work out of defense lines and to reduce the frustration of having Dozers and Workers run off and die on the front lines. You have already seen another one of these repair structures with the recently revealed GLA Crane Tunnel.

We also realized we never uploaded a render of the Sensor Tower. This mistake has now been rectified. Though, of special note, Tier-2 Detectors like the Sensor Tower, Predator Drones, or Mobile Sensor Arrays are now the only way to detect Disguised units like Observation Vans or Bomb Trucks, so when fighting GLA, we advise teching to get this level of detection ASAP or have your fingers ready on that Control Key to force fire and destroy them before they close ranks and cause carnage.

That's all for this week. We hope you enjoyed it, and we shall see you at the next one!
Flameo-my-hotmans.


For further information about Rise of The Reds, visit the Official Website, Forums, ModDB Profile, Discord Channel, and YouTube Video Channel. And that's all for now!

Welcome back, visitors! The team from Contra has recently published a new announcement about it for the community. Contra is a modification for Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour that redefines the experience of the game with new units, graphics, and adds general superpowers. It adds 3 new generals, it also improves the AI greatly, and introduces super units, among many other gameplay changes, balance changes, and bug fixes. Here is the official announcement from Contra:

Quote:
Hello all!

For quite some time, we were thinking and discussing how to get laser generals GP-s and laser (red-green-blue-violet) updates in order without affecting gameplay balance in the wrong way.
Finally, combining them with a special structure, we now have a great solution and something new for you to control.



The Laser Control Station is available at rank 1. It grants access to the Target Designator satellite, increasing the damage to affected units by 33%.

At rank 3, Laser Station starts distributing stronger lasers to laser-armed units. A single upgrade is applied every 2 minutes. Red lasers are upgraded to Green, and Green lasers are upgraded to Blue. Any unit has the potential to reach Blue lasers at rank 3 if it stays alive for long enough.

At rank 5, the Laser Wavelength Intensifier upgrade becomes available at the Station, which applies a single upgrade unconditionally. This means that all units will come out with Green lasers by default, and units that had Blue lasers will get upgraded with Violet lasers - the most powerful one.

Keep the Station alive to keep a regular flow of more powerful lasers to your army.




Thank you all, and stay tuned for more updates!


If you are curious about Contra, visit the Official Website, Forums at Revora, ModDB Profile, and Discord Channel to obtain further information about it. And this is all we can offer for today regarding Contra!

Hello everyone! For those who visited our site since the end of July, we apologize for the "downtime" of some of its features, such as the News Tracker. A PHP upgrade in the server has caused some major havoc in the way we used cron jobs. We had two different PHP versions running our scripts and a very hard time to debug one of them. However, I have found out a way to use only one again, and this has fixed every scheduled task here. So, things like PPM News Tracker, the news posts from the main sites and subsites, as well as the content of the site will now be as updated as it used to be before this mess. Not to mention that our ability to track the latest news around the community was also recovered with that fix.

That is it in terms of updates about our site. Regarding other projects, we had:

- Dawn of the Tiberium Age updated to 1.3.1.4 that fixed a problem where the game didn't display descriptions when hovering over sidebar icons.

- Voxel Section Editor III 1.4 Beta (Build 293) fixes the splash screen and emphasizes X as lateral, Y as height, and Z as depth in more forms of the program.

Howdy! The End of Days has been recently improved with the release of The End Of Days 0986 Patch 2. For your information, The End of Days is a mod for Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour. It adds Russia and the European Defense Alliance as new playable factions and improves the original three with new units, structures, and special powers! It strives to bring an authentic real-war feeling, with a few fictional additions for more fun and diverse gameplay & tactics! It also replaces Heroes with elite infantry, and Superweapons are mostly presented as mobile ICBM Launchers like Russia's Topol-M or China's DF-41. It also innovates with purchasable subfactions at your tech center instead of the original choice of "Generals" before battle, which allows you to change your strategy mid-game to counter your opponents! Each of the 4 factions has 3 completely different subfactions to choose from. Here are the changes and the fun stuff from The End Of Days 0986 Patch 2:

Quote:
Change log:
  • Reduce AT infantry armor vs. small_arms by 10%
  • Increased all air-dropped bomb damage from buildable jets by 10%, including heavy bombers
  • 15% damage increase vs. structure for: Iskanders, DF-12, Scuds, Tomahawks
  • Improved Russia ECM tower GP: Receives disturber disabling weapon after Subfaction upgrade. Regular jamming ability improved to be more efficient :question:
  • Improved USA Helipad GP: Repair rate improved by 20%. Can be upgraded with a patrolling attack helicopter after a sub-faction upgrade
    TU-22 Bombs fall faster and are scattered to cover an even radius and not a line. Missiles do 10% more damage, and AOE increased by 25%
    Improve F-16 role: Cluster bombs fall faster and first hit the ground, doing some damage, and then the clusters randomly fly and hit a medium-sized area around. Jet speed improved by 5%
  • Reduced the reload time of DF-41 and TopolM from 4 to 3 min
  • Reduced the reload time of Minuteman from 5 to 4 min
  • Mirage Bombs fall faster and scattered to cover an even radius and not a line
  • Fixed TOS-1A Subdue Health cap
  • Fixed missing Shaheen Warheads
  • Fixed Spetsnaz Rocket Attack button
  • Fixed duplication hotkey of armor-piercing missiles and aerospace command for Russian tech center
  • DF-21, Kurier, and Shaheen reload time was decreased from 120 sec to 90 sec. Launcher cost increased from 2000 to 2500 and build time +5 sec. launchers HP increased by 100
  • USA Global Hawk scout drone is now not selectable and will act like the old scout drone from ZH with a larger reveal range
  • Dozers movement speed was reduced from 40 to 35
  • GLA small toxin fields don't do damage to allied units
  • Dozer's speed was reduced by 15% to prevent turret rush and barrack blocks, etc.
  • GLA worker build time reduced by 20%
  • Quadruple AA gun secondary damage removed. Clip reload time increased from 290ms to 400ms
  • GLA supply Stash cost reduced from 1800 to 1500
  • GLA suicide drone and China Suicide (Nest) drones are now stealth. China scout drone as well
  • GLA suicide drone damage increased by 10%
  • Russian Orion drone is stealth again
  • All scout vehicles now detect drones to balance the stealth-flying drones
  • Chinese hacking beam no longer causes FPS drop, or at least not so noticeable
  • GLA Bomb truck Scrapped nuke reactors upgrade increased from 1000 to 2000, and build time increased by 25%
  • Bomb truck object upgrade of nuke reactors increased from 200 to 500, and build time increased by 100%
  • Fixed Scorpion rockets not firing
  • Fixed Missile Defender Laser lock
  • AI balances to make it a bit weaker and beatable
  • Fixed Turbo Vampire's strange vertical falling-on-target
  • F-16 Cluster bomb upgrade is now a Global upgrade
  • F-16 Cluster bomb weapon firing range increased from 250 to 300
  • The supply Collection speed of China, Russia, and GLA improved by 7% to match the USA
  • GLA worker's build time reduced by 10%
  • Improved PvP game stability and reduced mismatch. However, it still happens every few games when more than 3 players are ingame! For 1v1 or 3FFA it's very stable. Players vs AI was not investigated, and I assume the mismatch will be very likely!


You can find more information about The End of Days by visiting the ModDB Profile, Discord Channel, and YouTube Video Channel. The End of Days is downloadable at This Address. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on The End of Days!