Zeealex

if I put my information security GRC hat on a minute. I think in this day and age people are starting to see just how much people's data is exploited for profit and people are now very cautious about who they share their personal data with. Not saying that GR.net is in any way, just it's an unfortunate by-product of big tech companies like Facebook and Google just throwing around personal data willy nilly, people don't wanna take the risk anymore. While the risk of sharing a name or an email address to GR.net is low given that it is unlikely to be associated with a password or any other personal info, I can understand this person's concern. I wouldn't take it personally ❤️

As finished as my 16 year old butt could get it lmao

Project Novo??

I'd kind of like an RPG in the Ghost Recon series honestly, maybe as a spinoff game as opposed to a game in the main line. I think it could work really well, but it would have to embrace the SP RPG playstyle all the way, in-depth story in a very rich setting, player choices, character development, and so on, unfortunately Ubisoft sucks at those things in particular.

I think the game's 'servers' in the more colloquial sense are sperate to the game validation servers which is part of the Uplay service, I believe. So provided Uplay is still connected, the game will still be playable, albeit in single player. Quick way of testing I guess is to block internet access from the game .exe in windows firewall but keep Uplay open and connected, if the game runs, then it will be fine when the gameplay servers go offline.

Bit sexist and baseless, but okay. All of the production managers for the original ghost recon were women. There was at least one woman in almost every main team in the original Ghost Recon's production Female characters have been present, no, integral to the game since the very start. In a time where it was very uncommon to include them except as eye candy in low cut belly tops or skin suits for guys to ogle, it was a risky move to include respectfully written and developed women suited up like the guys in such a time, yet they still did it. There was also no "for boys" restrictions to the game, it was made for anyone who wanted to play it, I, a person who happens to be a woman, played it and modded it religiously and still do. The base of female gamers has increased since 2001 - however this does not forseeably account for why Ghost Recon's gameplay has shifted. Correlation =/= causation. Furthermore, of the board of directors in Ubisoft, today, March 2nd 2022, there are three women sitting on the board, and 10 men. Only one of those women would have had any steer in Ghost Recon's development, as she was a senior gameplay programmer for Ghost Recon specializing in AI (go figure). However she appears to be a new addition to the board and so far would not have had much in the way of steer for the franchise in recent history. The other two women, specialise in recruitment and IT operations, the day to day running of the business and ultimately would have had very little impact over the gameplay. Unless you want to say that the increased use of Z-Brush and AMD based computers is also a cause of Ghost Recon's gameplay deteriorating or something. This fundamentally is not a "woman" issue. To conflate it as such is an exercise in myopia. This is an issue of Ubisoft fighting off multiple controversies and hostile takehovers from stakeholders (see Vivendi) while also desperately trying to keep up with the increasingly demanding consumer base and complexity of modern systems and as such over the years losing their identity to greed. It is also, most likely, a simple lack of proximity to Tom Clancy. You know, cause he passed and all. He was a big advisor in the first (and I think second) game. RSE started to have less and influence in GR after GR:AW and the development of narrative and also gameplay was dished out to other studios. This lack of proximity and resultant lack of narrative flare was also more likely a major contributing factor than "person has uterus, person bad"

I don't do 3D anymore unfortunately, especially with max 5 lol. Max 2013+ has a neato little tool called skin wrap which makes the rigging process 900x easier. Having to do it all by hand is just way too stressful for me after so many years. Happy to show peeps where the buttons are, and I'll still be trying to chip away at a CHR plugin for modern max versions (and no doubt harassing the other Alex lol) at some point, but otherwise I'm taking a wee break from 3D.

Lol right?! Character modelling in any game is a PITA honestly, lots more moving parts, literally. I don't have max installed anymore (gg me) but I think I have a VM with max 5 on, I'll show you how to modify the model hopefully sometime today

It's also worth noting it appears you've moved the bone positions to fit the model as well, bad juju. If you change bone positions the character will not work well in-game. You need to fit the model to the bones. There's an example character file lying around somewhere, lemme see if I can find it.

Unfortunately not, unlike more modular games such as Arma 3 it is not possible to change the memory allocator for the Ike engine. There are injectors such as enbseries which can inject some functionality of DirectX 9 however this does not do much except add bloom and other global screen effects (at one point it did fix the game for Windows 10). The rest of the rendering goodness such as the new optimizations 9c offered is limited by how the engine uses it, as Ghost Recon was designed and built around DirectX 8.1 it cannot take advantage of the newer API functions. You would essentially need to have the source code, a really good reverse engineer, or rebuild the game from the ground up in order to have it manage memory in a more modern manner. Process injection can only go so far, and in doing so you would be opening the game up for further instability as you could inject data into the wrong memory address at any time.

I wonder if it could be an engine/rendering API issue. Where it's having to make so many new draw calls per frame that the engine simply can't keep up. Its a theory, but it would make sense given the age of the game. So, iirc replays in GR work super weird. It's not technically a video replay but actually just a record of every move every character took and every shot that was made and what the effect of that shot was being replayed through the mission file, pretty neato, but it's essentially rendering everything again in real time, hence enemy characters might actually be different than when you played. If you're running mods that have higher resolution textures and higher poly models, at 8x speed, it's having to flush and redraw a lot more than, say 1x speed. For example, you're in iron dragon, at the very start you can't see the caves, so the rendering API doesn't draw the caves and the engine has little need to commit the textures or models to VRAM, because you simply can't see it. However, as you get closer, to the point where you can see it, the rendering API makes a draw call, the engine commits vertex indices and textures to VRAM and the caves are drawn on your screen. At 1x speed, the engine and the rendering API really don't need to change that much to draw a new frame, or load too much into VRAM. you might see a new character or a piece of scenery, however that's a few new draw calls at most. Now, at 8x speed, the difference between frames might be huge, you might go from the start of the mission all the way up to the caves in just a few seconds, which means the engine is having to work much harder to quickly call the rendering API to 'draw that character in this frame' then commit the necessary textures and model files to RAM, instead of just a few times per second, it's now having to potentially do this dozens, if not hundreds of times per second. Add non-billboard, higher resolution textures and higher poly models to the mix, the game may struggle to flush these out when not needed or appropriately allocate memory for each model and texture file. While your computer may be able to handle it, the engine will have an upper limit where performance begins to diminish, Ike was optimised for fewer lower resolution models and textures. And I think it usually begins to see a performance drop at 20,000 vertices per frame, despite having an index buffer which would allow for 65535 vertices per model. I'm sure someone will come over and debunk this theory as GR has many little niggles I'm still wrapping my head around after many, many years, it could be that simply the mods don't play too nice with replay files.

I'm trying to write a .chr plugin for modern max versions, that will allow for use of the features in those versions such as skin wrap which will make things about 900 times easier lol its gonna take some time especially with my work schedule.

Honestly, not too far, the older max versions are super hard to work with. I'm shifting to something different to see if I can get that working.

giving it a go! -I'm surprised how similar the weightings are to modern max versions

Aye, that's where I'm at too, Pz gave me a great starting point and I need to experiment, see how far I get. If I get something I'll letcha know!

Ghost Recon/DirectX 8 has a 16 bit vertex index buffer which means the max number of vertices per model is theoretically 65,535. However I think the engine has a hard limit of how many vertices can be in a frame at any given time RE: Sam Fisher model, let me see if there's an Xbox file structure around, and if it uses the same Xqob format on the Xbox version as the GR2 models, if so I wrote a converter for that.

Thanks for the assist Pz! Will take a look this weekend

Yeah I think if I remember rightly he had some technical difficulties and took an extended break. Would deff be good to see him around again though, I've got those models I promised him!! ❤️

okay good, glad my math was right for once lmao! at this point, I'm calling it. The timeline makes no sense otherwise. Rocky do you know anyone at ubi I can share this rant to? 😅

Okay, so I replayed the Wildlands campaign this weekend for funzies, and something stuck out to me in the initial opening dialogue. Karen Bowman states that the Ghosts don't officially exist, so they *still* don't officially exist in 2019. Swinging back around to my modern heroes point around it being a really silly idea for the Ghosts to do a tell-all documentary about a highly classified mission they were on in north Korea within 2 years. It would've been WORSE if the team had done it when they knew they didn't officially exist, therefore, Revising the timeframe of the modern heroes thing to say it couldn't have been filmed until sometime after 2019. There would have been way too many questions about Burke and Diaz (such as why the are they there as shooters????) if no information about the Ghosts was available at that time. Even if you bring up the (frankly loose) datapoint where the ghosts were *supposedly* broken down and reformed as the GST in 2014, and therefore while the Ghosts DID officially exist, the GST did not, Burke would have still had to have been alive to film it in 2014. My math skills may be really bad but I'm pretty confident if she was dead in 2013, she couldn't have filmed that documentary in 2014. I swear guys, I do go outside!!

Hi peeps!! I have a VM with 3dsm5 loaded up and ready for shenanigans, but I'm having some trouble importing and exporting ghost recon .chr files Original tutorials made reference to a CHR import plugin for 3dsm 5 however I can't seem to locate this Does anyone have the plugin and a full process they can share?? Love ya! ❤️ Zee

Happy Christmas, Cobblers and all!!

So as discussed a little while ago - I wanted to explore in slight more depth what interactions she would have with the rest of her team, and with the peeps from GR1 as the timelines cross and she has likely interacted with a number of them. This exploration will explore some of the other characters a little deeper, and works on the assumption that the character breakdown earlier in this thread is correct. 1 - Diaz Diaz is likely the easiest to place, based on the snippets of character she has in the original bio's and the books, reads as definitely an introvert with more intuitive traits (IN--) but it's hard to really pull out whether she's judging or prospecting. She's *most* likely a thinker given her career field and her general cool, detached demeanour, she definitely doesn't take things to heart. In her interactions she does read more as an INTJ - very direct and to the point, whereas an INTP would be expected to be a bit more 'scattered' - i'd have to subject myself to the books again to get a closer idea but for now I'll settle on INTJ. So this means Diaz and Burke are almost polar opposites of eachother. In just looking at the pair of them without the MBTI pseudoscience that's pretty clear too. As an introvert, Diaz would likely lose a lot of mental energy trying to keep up with a likely very chatty, outwardly energetic and boisterous Burke. On the other side, Burke could perhaps misread Diaz's more serious demeanour and introversion as being upset/displeased at something and either constantly ask if she's okay, or think she's a bit of a "no-fun" hardass. But, there are in-game references to the two working insanely well when they're together on a mission. Pair that with the two occasionally lightheartedly teasing eachother back and forth, it indicates the two are comfortable sharing a sense of humour. Diaz is a very cunning woman, as is Burke, this is probably what fuels the noted synergy between the two. they both use their brains and experience together with devastating effect. There likely would be a knowledge transfer here from Burke to Diaz as well - Diaz being a marksman/sniper who may stay at a fixed position for a long time, Burke may have showed her how to craft and improvise a few sneaky and rather deadly traps to keep her safe and warn her of incoming danger. Also add in that they're the only two women in Alpha team, they likely would have spent a lot of time together out in the field. They would've been 'tent buddies' and would've likely had at least a few nights huddling together for warmth to save from freezing their t*ts off. They would've also naturally had eachother's backs on base, and out in the wilds. At home as enlisted soldiers, unless one of them lived off base or the rules were different for the Ghosts, they likely would've been roommates/flatmates too. So that time spent together would've meant they had a lot more time to get to know eachother than if they were just "in-passing" - they would probably know slightly more personal details about the other that aren't really shared with the rest of the team, such as Diaz's frequent nightmares, and that would've probably led to a more 'sibling-like' bond between the two, where the two understand eachother on a very deep, personal level. Burke, being older and having joined earlier, would've likely been more of an 'older sister' figure to Diaz. However Diaz, being relatively independent would've relied on her less for mentoring than perhaps other female Ghosts. But Burke would perhaps still feel rather protective, even if this was quietly so. While Diaz may have helped Burke to slow herself down and understand that its okay to need some space to think. On the negative side, there's a good chance that a misalignment of "smarts" exists between the two - Both women are probably very intelligent, you kind of have to be to join the special forces and last longer than 5 seconds, but Diaz is by far more academically intelligent than Burke who was likely average at best. This could have contributed to some feelings of intimidation/inadequacy or on the flip side, could have led Diaz to become impatient with Burke's apathy toward such subjects or slowness to grasp what she thinks is a 'simple' concept - this could've led to some slightly more heated discussions or straight up falling out, but they likely would've mended it over quite quickly. The chances are both would've valued the other's respective intelligence, but there is a large vector for misunderstandings and loss of patience in this particular discussion sphere. Similarly Burke may very quickly and easily push Diaz a little too far sometimes and this could lead to a rather snappy response or pushing back, but manifestation of both of these two negatives would've likely been few and far between by 2011/2012 Bottom line/TL;DR Burke and Diaz would've been incredibly close and rather sisterly, despite their differences.

Hey Alex, I know CoD MW 2019 used photogrammetry for most of their characters, and I think EA/DICE have used this workflow for battlefield in some capacity for some time (since BF3 I think) Ghost Recon Wildlands and Ghost Recon Breakpoint used Marvelous Designer and Zbrush similar to my workflow on the their characters. I think El Sueno and Cole Walker's face was photogrammatrized though. Ubisoft also used Houdini (a procedural 3D modelling program) for the game's level design. There are a couple of things which still do start from scratch, mainly weapons these days, as even props and level objects can be photogrammatrized. There are also most definitely games which do their characters manually. for sure! I'm not a woman who considers herself a "feminist" (maybe an aspiring feminist-by-example) but I have been increasingly bothered by female portrayal in media. I've always loved the (90's) disney Mulan story, Terminator 2, Alien, and Miss Congeniality(lol) and I think a lot of that is because those movies had female characters who busted their butts for something bigger than themselves. They weren't written as guys with female genitalia - they had struggles relating to their femininity, and overcame them. In Gracie Hart's example, she was literally trying to be a guy with female genitalia, and it kept backfiring for her, that was her arc, getting in touch with her feminity and seeing that it can be advantageous even in a male dominated career field. These days it starts and stops with the character being a guy with female genitalia, there is no arc they stay abrasive and stuck up. I could go on a rant about different aspects of "culture" and why we need to change the definition of femininity here but I'm not going to, because it gets very political and very dark, very fast. I think one of the reasons why Burke has caught my eye since childhood (other than... other things 😳) is because she most likely worked her butt off to get where she was, but had the time of her life and she was a respected and valued member of the team - she didn't work against the guys, she worked with them, sure she has her rebellious streak, but it manifested quite realistically. Diaz was actually the GR2 gal that got my eye first as she was a little more relatable to me but to me she had the personality of a wooden plank - especially when put up alongside Burke who excudes personality whenever she speaks (Jeanie Elias did a really great job). She's also gone from being a ###### hot shot and a bit of a nerd with a lot of wanderlust (her original iteration) to a woman who joined the military to 'prove she can do a man's job' or something - when at that point, she was by no means the first woman in the Ghosts. So it does make me a bit conflicted - there's a part of me that really wants her to come back in a newer game, but there's a part of me that wants her to just remain untouched and in limbo, save for a mention, for fear her character will be butchered and turned into something she never represented. Manon Batiste seems like a great character honestly, she's caught my eye a couple of times I'll admit, but unfortunately I've not played Medal of Honor games (save for Airborne, I know, sacrilegious) But she definitely does seem like a character who would be a refreshing change of pace for gameplay as the protagonist. I think the next part of the pepe silvia rant will be exploring Burke's relationships and interactions with other characters, perhaps GR1 characters too as the timelines intersect. There'll also be another "rant" coming up in the distant future, probably another few months or so.

Thank you for such kind words, Wombat! ☺️