#it was nice and friendly trying to work with the vfx

[fatedroses]

Romanceable - Quest Giver - Final Boss

[crappy-homestuck-confessions]

Headcanon Anon here with the kids' directing styles!

John-Performance; focuses more on how cool everything looks than traditional shots; gets along with everybody on set. Rose-Arts & Crafts; uses technical skill to peer into the viewers head and make them uncomfortable; keeps to herself on set, doesn't chat with actors, only screenwriters. Dave-Performance; trolls the audience through his shots and seems to film at uneasy angles or hold on shots for frustratingly long times; gets along with some actors but alienate others. Jade-Arts & Crafts; uses technical skill to call attention to effects that show the amount of time spent on them and how interesting they are; gets along with everybody on set. Terezi-Arts & Crafts; uses technical skill to use every trick in the book and a few that aren't to make the audience disturbed throughout the entire film; off-putting to some but tends to get along with most on set; screenwriters don't like her changing the script all the time though. Kanaya-Technical; focuses more on the "correct" way to shoot something than how it appears to the audience, although she is famous for always wowing others with her aesthetic; is surprisingly friendly on set despite being known for being demanding. Tavros-Arts & Crafts; uses technical aspects to get the audience to see through the eyes of principal characters, so that they always know what a character is feeling; gets along with everyone on set. Karkat-Performance; always asks the most of his actors and is known for getting a great performance out of anyone; gets into fights with everyone on set and is known for being a prima donna but people keep working with him. Sollux-Technical; really loves his VFX and does amazing stuff with it while also protesting for VFX workers to be treated better and paid more; Is quiet and standoffish but people don't have any horror stories with him. Feferi-Arts & Crafts; uses good shots to claustrophobically trap the audience in the characters, trying to make them feel what they're feeling; gets along with everyone on set (except that one actor they're feuding with). Eridan-Performance; notable for making everything seem much more awesome and world-threatening than it really is (He directs slice of life); is under investigation for blacklisting allegations after #MeToo. Nepeta-Performance; keeps the actors comfortable to get the best performance out of them; gets along with everyone on set. Equius-Arts & Crafts; infamously disturbing but wows everyone with his attention to detail; weird but no complaints from staff. Meenah-Performance; throws money at the crew to make everything as expensive as possible; tends to get in fights with the crews and the actors. Vriska-Performance; will not let the audience leave until they know that she worked on this film; shouts, screams, throws stuff and has frightened several actors from ever working with her again. Jane-Technical; goes by the book but makes sure to place the viewer's enjoyment above any traditions; gets along with everyone on set. Jake-Performance; whatever favorite movie he saw last, he wants it to look like that; gets along with everyone but has a bit of a philandering reputation (no assault allegations though). Roxy-Arts & Crafts; hopes to bring the nuances of animation to live-action and vice versa; gets along with everyone on set. Dirk-Technical; awesome looking films but everyone complains that his scripts are paint by the numbers and soulless a la Michael Bay; has alienated several actors with his egotistical behavior. Aradia-Performance; likes building nice sets and finding an excuse to destroy them; gets along with everyone on set. Gamzee-Performance; his movies are noted for focusing on the wonder of the minutiae of life; gets along with everyone on set. Damara-Performance; notable for making the viewer feel the pain of the characters through her shots; has assault allegations levied against her after #MeToo. Rufioh-Arts & Crafts; focusing on the wonder of sets and the larger-than-lifeness of his characters; gets along with everyone on set.

.

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4 Paranormal Stuff: Developer Blog (Part 1)

SimGuruConnor has released part 1 of the Sims 4 Paranormal Developer Blog series.

Hello Simmers! Welcome to a small 2-part Dev Blog about our newest Stuff Pack, Paranormal Stuff! This pack has been an absolute blast to work on, and I’m excited to share what this pack is all about!

I’ll try not to reveal too many spoilers for the pack either, so I’ll keep things somewhat brief. Our topics for today are the new Scared Mood and the Haunted House Lot Type, plus an interview with our Audio Artist too!

Get Scared

Sims can now relish in the mortal dread of the Scared Mood! The Scared Mood affects Sims in a variety of ways, with my personal favorite, the new Scream Incoherently interaction, where a Scared Sim runs up to another Sim to scream their lungs out. This can result in the other Sim calming down the Scared Sim, or resulting in both Sims becoming Scared. This can create a Scared Mood wildfire if you’re not careful!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, it's okay!

Sims afflicted with the Scared Mood also have trouble communicating with others, the urge to panic-run everywhere, and are slightly more prone to accidents. If no other Sims are around to help calm down a Scared Sim, they might just have to Hide Under The Covers for a while.

But if being Scared just isn’t your Sims style, consider purchasing the new Brave Trait. This Satisfaction Reward Store Trait will rapidly reduce the incoming fear a Sim feels and help Sims regain their composure faster. While no Sim is totally fearless, this trait should help mitigate some of those creepy feelings.

The Scared Mood and the Brave Reward Trait are all base game features coming with the Paranormal Stuff patch on January 21st. Tons of previous Uncomfortable Buffs are now becoming Scared Buffs, such as the “Startled By Ghost” Buff or the “Thalassophobia�� Buff from Island Living.

While being Scared might not be a common occurrence in your everyday Sims life, living in a Haunted House is a whole different story…

Happy Haunts

Introducing the Haunted House Lot Type!

The Duplantier Dwelling, created by Doctor Ashley! This “canon” Haunted House will be available in the gallery!

They’re like regular houses, only haunted! Although unassuming during the day, at night, these places get super weird. Your Sims may notice things like flickering lights, pipes rattling, or even creepy dolls staring at them in the corner. All are totally normal occurrences in a Haunted House, but it may take some time for your Sims to adjust to their new surroundings.

Sims living in a Haunted House will also be introduced to floating apparitions known as Specters. They’re cute little critters, but their motives aren’t entirely clear. You can try talking to them, or even offer them presents in hopes of establishing a good rapport. If they like you, they’ll drop special loot for you and your family. If they don’t like you, well, you’ve been warned.

o o o (> ‘ u ‘ )>

Learning to get along with your new ghostly inhabitants is crucial in a Haunted House. Things like botching seances, neglecting Specters, or letting accursed objects invade your house will have a negative impact on its spiritual serenity. There is a delicate art to co-existing with the entities of the house, and thankfully you’ll have an expert on the matter to assist you!

Meet Guidry

Claude René Duplantier Guidry was a seasoned Paranormal Investigator in his previous life, but now he exists to help anyone brave enough to live in a Haunted House! You’ll probably run into him eventually living in a Haunted House, but don’t worry, he’s a nice ghost!

Guidry will gladly offer his wisdom to those who seek it. If you’re confused, alarmed, or slightly uncomfortable by your new haunted surroundings, give Guidry a holler and he might be able to help. He can also offer valuable objects to help your Sims, too; all you need is to reach out!

Still got it.

All Guidry wants in return is to crash at your place for the time being. Sounds like a fair deal, right? But if you’d prefer to fly it solo, you can always disable his nightly visits—he won’t be too upset, maybe.

As mentioned before, Guidry was a Paranormal Investigator before his untimely demise. If he sees potential in you, he can certify you with a Paranormal Investigation License, granting access to the Paranormal Investigation Freelancer Gigs. Only those who are qualified enough can join the ranks of Paranormal Investigators, but more on that next time!

Be Brave!

Living in a Haunted House adds a layer of risk and reward for your Sims, and each successful night yields Reward Store Satisfaction Points for everyone in the Household. Specters can also drop treasure that can also be collected, consumed, or sold to an Oddity Collector. So although your Sims might go through a bit of peril, they’ll thankfully be compensated.

One of my favorite pieces of haunted treasure is the new Sacred Candle. Not only do they look cool, but they also help protect Sims from paranormal influences. Place them around your house to make sure Sims are properly shielded!

A properly protected Sim.

Things like Sacred Candles and performing ceremonies at the Séance Table are integral to keeping your Sims happy in a Haunted House. Without using these paranormal tools, the entities of the house might get a little bossy.

And while it might be in your Sims’ best interest to keep the spirits of the house in check, watching things go horribly wrong in a Haunted House can be just as fun too. So whatever works for you!

Like Tiny Homes, this Lot Type can be toggled on or off at any time. So whether you’re a casual thrillseeker who wants to spend a couple of nights in a Haunted House, or a seasoned Paranormal Expert who wants to take on a new challenge, this Lot Type should offer something for you!

Crosspack Stuff!

Pets get to share the fun too! They especially love the accursed objects that show up!

I think they’re gonna get along great.

As mentioned before, a ton of old Buffs from multiple packs are now being converted to the Scared Mood. I think 70 something Moodlets were converted? Honestly, I lost count. Anything that seemed more appropriate for the Scared Mood was transferred over.

Oh, and you might remember an old Lot Trait from City Living called Haunted. For clarity’s sake, it needed a name change, so now it’s the Spooky Lot Trait. It also benefits from being combined with the new Haunted House Lot Type and will have an increased chance of spawning Ghosts at night. So use both for maximum haunted-ness!

Audibly Frightened

Last but not least, I’d love to turn it over to our Audio Artist for this pack, Briana Billups! She did a killer job bringing Haunted Houses to life! Trust me!

Conor: Can you tell us what an Audio Artist does on The Sims 4?

Briana: Big, broad picture: an audio artist decides what everything in The Sims 4 sounds like. We record, create, and edit sounds to the art and animation of the game. Little, very detailed picture: creating the actual sounds is usually one of the smaller aspects of our job. We are meeting with other departments, like design, animation, and VFX, to understand the overall vision of new game features and how we can fit in sonically. We are meeting with each other to make sure all our new content still keeps the very fun and quirky vibe of the Sims. We come up with new tools and implementation where necessary.

Conor: What sort of things go into the creative process for creating audio?

Briana: Every audio artist/sound designer has their own creative process, but I like to make a “sonic mood board” of sorts. I typically like to have a good idea of what I want something to sound like in my head before I record or edit it, so it’s nice to have sound effects or music to refer to that represents my original inspiration or ideas. When I was in college, I would make Spotify playlists for whatever I was working on. I would listen to them once a day, adding and editing as necessary, so when I actually got to work, I was in the right headspace. Now I’m usually less formal about this sort of stuff, but for this pack, I would refer back to things like Vincent Price’s demonic laugh from Thriller or Casper the Friendly Ghost Cartoons and the looping soundtrack from the queue of a horror ride at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (Ghost Blasters)

Conor: What were you most excited to work on for this pack?

Briana: Definitely all the haunted house sounds! Good sound design is the crux of so many horror movies and video games, so even if we were keeping things more “Casper” and less “Poltergeist,” I still wanted to give a good scare here and there. I actually scared myself one day while playtesting another feature in the game!

Conor: If you had to choose, what is your favorite audio clip you’ve ever added to The Sims 4?

Briana: I would say my favorite SFX were the sports arena loops in EP08: Discover University. When you visit the arena for the soccer/esports match or graduation, you can actually listen to the whole game or ceremony. It was great to craft a whole story from start to finish using just sound. I also snuck in a lot of developer names when writing the scripts for our voice actors.

Thanks, Briana!

More To Come!

That about covers this first foray into the Paranormal Stuff Pack! This pack has been a ton of fun to work on, and watching my Sims flee in terror has been more enjoyable than I’d like to admit.

Next blog, we’ll focus on the Séance Table and developing your Medium skill, as well as the new active freelance career Paranormal Investigator.

Big thanks to the Stuff Pack team for helping this pack come to life, and thank you, Doctor Ashley, for building our featured Haunted House!

Until next time, SimGuruConor

[smithgreys]

Ivideo editor beat

IVIDEO EDITOR BEAT HOW TO

IVIDEO EDITOR BEAT FULL

IVIDEO EDITOR BEAT FREE

You can drag and drop media into the program to import it, and drag and drop to work with the clips on the timeline.

IVIDEO EDITOR BEAT FULL

Combined with the built-in tutorial when you first launch the software and the full user guide available on the website, OpenShot makes video editing easy for beginners and experts alike. OpenShot’s simple, user-friendly interface shows some extra polish you don’t always see in a free, open-source video editor. There’s also an online course available for purchase that has been reviewed and officially approved by Shotcut’s lead developer. The advanced features have some learning curve to them, but the Shotcut YouTube channel offers a collection of video tutorials to help. There is also a strong selection of video/audio transitions and stackable filters, from stabilization to chroma key (green-screen effects). The timeline has a full range of editing capabilities including adding tracks, splitting and trimming clips, and shortcut keys for these functions. But you can still open and preview files in Shotcut just like in other editors, create a “playlist” of the media you’re using for the project, and drag clips into your timeline. You won’t see an “Import” button, though the software boasts “native timeline editing” with no import required. Shotcut can work with a wide range of video and image formats, including 4K-resolution content.

IVIDEO EDITOR BEAT HOW TO

Each panel can be un-docked, moved around, and re-docked or left floating, giving you nice control over how to arrange your workspace across one or more monitors. But once you start adding more modules depending on the functions you want to use, Shotcut starts to show its depth.

IVIDEO EDITOR BEAT FREE

The free cross-platform program-available on Windows, Mac, and Linux-opens up to a clean, minimal interface, ideal for new or casual editors who want to keep things simple. It might not look overly impressive at a first glance, but Shotcut is actually a robust non-linear video editor with enough tools to satisfy most levels of video editing skill. The best open-source video editing software allows you to create a tailor-made video editing experience. This powerful software is the best for VFX. However, if you are a seasoned professional, try Natron at Github. OpenShot is a program that is great for both beginners and experts, so it will be able to still be used as you grow as an editor. If you are not used to this type of format, we suggest starting off with a program like OpenShot. Before deciding on the software that is right for you, make sure you learn the secrets of editing. The difference between open source and other software is that open source allows for coding changes that can personalize your experience. The best open-source video editing software allows the user to efficiently and more specifically edit their videos. "Provides a powerful open-source way to take on another important aspect of video production." "Incorporates a number of real-time editing features that let a VJ mix and control video clips to go along with audio." "Excels at doing just what its name suggests: cutting video."īest for Real-Time Editing: LiVES at Lives-Video "Designed for making fairly simple changes and spitting out a modified file."īest for Basic Editing: VidCutter at Github "Succeeds in creating a snappier loading and operating experience than a lot of other editing software."īest for Windows: Avidemux at Sourceforge Runner-Up, Best for Linux: Flowblade at Github "An excellent and popular Linux video editing solution and a top open-source editor in general." "You can use it for 3D modeling, sculpting, painting, animation, and much more." "Makes video editing easy for beginners and experts alike."īest for Mac: Blender Video Sequence Editor at Microsoft "A robust non-linear video editor with enough tools to satisfy most levels of video editing skill."

[exilesofembermark]

Game Dev Update | 4.19.18

“That’s my father’s skull back there, isn’t it, wolf?” - Julius NeoMeirus, Tester Warrior Level 8

The new cave background shown here is coming along nicely, and I only used the wolf again so as not to ruin the surprise-- there’s a bunch of new NPCs rolling off the line, as you’ll see in this latest packed Dev Update. 

Last update, we highlighted gameplay and crafting updates, took a look at Edyrin’s cohort and warcaster friend Elle Manigold, shared info on our coming First-Time-User-Experience and took a look at how we’re going to try and quickly tell you story elements as you pass through this fantasy world we’re working on. This time, we’re focusing on the Narrative System in action, working tutorials, our visit with TouchArcade a GDC, the way we’re organizing visual tiers of gear and a whole mess of NPCs. Read on...

THE NARRATIVE SYSTEM

We’ve gone from concept to implementation on our narrative system since last time, and the features shared are going into the game. We’ll mix up the tells and formats a little, and for the most part present them the way you’ve seen in other games:

Above, you’ll be able to go back and skip out of this (if you don’t care about it) to get back to the action. However, for you narrative Lore Lords, you can scour through any of the longer expositions the way you would a text thread and search for hints, pokes and secrets and such before heading into the next bit of PVE or Event activity:

WORKING TUTORIALS

Don’t worry-- the Exiles tutorials won’t be onerous (or else I imagine you’ll tell us that when testing begins). If you don’t plan to get in on the test, then you will have to rely on your fellow players to guide the Gunslingers toward a healthy balance of learning and freedom. That said, we’re excited about how it’s coming along-- the classic pointers, help text and dimming of things you can’t do will speed you through the early experiences, but we’re trying to throw players in the deep end quickly. Time-to-freedom will be heavily scrutinized...

EXILES WITH TOUCHARCADE AT GDC

A few weeks ago, we headed out to GDC for our annual shenanigans with friends, developers, partners and press. We caught up with TouchArcade during the trip and did a demo of the latest Exiles build. Despite my awful strategic performance, you can see a ton of new content and action in their article and the session’s video posted soon afterward:

A VERY. LARGE. FIREBALL.

We show this guy often, because we dig him (and he will be blasting your face a lot). Here’s the latest VFX going into the Ethereal NPC:

GEAR TIERS

Several iterations of gear tiering and organization have led us to what we hope is a pretty succinct visual hierarchy of gear for your adventuring/gathering/fighting pleasure. As part of the MVP process we’re going through now, we’ve decided to formalize it a bit to show what kinds of details will merit including in any of the 4 visual tiers of loot (from the lowly, dinged up Tier 1 all the way to effects-laden super beautiful-- and sometimes super ugly-- Legendary). 

With that guide comes a bunch of new weapons of various shapes and sizes as we fill in the blanks of missing gear (I’m partial to the wooden mallet though I doubt we’ll make it Legendary...)

FIGHTING ON THE BEACH

Locations within Embermark are rolling off the line, and we’re focusing right now on Wildewoods, the current starting Zone. It’s got a decent amount of coastline, so we’re getting some beachfront battling going (and no, you probably won’t encounter a Beach Wolf, this is just for creation purposes):  

ENEMIES OF MANY SHADES AND NASTINESS

Last Update, I referred to this nasty flying fellow as the Not-A-Bat. And it’s not. But it has moved beyond the sketch you saw then into a fully articulated, vicious monster, with multiple attacks.

He’ll bite and buffet, but I’m really liking this claw attack and would want no part of it were I an exile (in Embermark):

Likewise, our Spider NPC got his animations rolling (we shared a video of his rig last time). Here, for your preview is his twitchy idle:

As well as his Spit attack (more on that later):

And here’s the early preview on the bulky Bear enemy, who will form the basis of quite a few of our four-legged monsters on the girthier side: 

DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER…

We’ll keep sharing details as we head toward testing (go here to sign up for testing and be among The First), and you can count on early impressions from the testers throughout our various channels.

If you haven’t already, follow along with Exiles development on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven’t, I’ll find you. And SMITE you.

CONNECT WITH OTHER EXILES

If you want to hear about the game, ask questions or connect with others who are helping the development team think about features, design and narrative, hop into the Discord Channel for live chat and say hi– it’s a friendly crew with plenty of daily/weekly/sometimes-planned shenanigans.

BONUS: A SSSSSERPENT

The art pipeline for Exiles has progressed to the point where we often concept enemy characters right in 3D and move into production, but sometimes we need to nail down a look, some character, some attitude. This serpent is a good example of that, and I really hope we can maintain this look as we move him into the game, because I want to slice his face off. 

[artbyjenisse]

Creative Talent Network Expo. CTNX 2017 Review

I have been going to CTN for about four years now, and this will probably be my last year at the event.

CTNX is one of the very few events (I’ll talk about the others later) that are geared to the animation industry.

Recruiters. The recruiters are all super nice and will answer your questions about the hiring process, studio life, what they like to look for, ect and yes you can connect with them on LinkedIn but I’ve had more than a few admit they don’t actually go to their LinkedIn profiles often. They also don’t act ready to give you an e-mail to contact them by, probably because they don’t want to be spammed with the whole ‘dude I am poor and need a job, pls gimme one.’ Which I get I do, but maybe I just want to drop them a line when I’ve updated my portfolio? Or see if they know a good coffee shop nearby? Also when it comes to the line ‘hey can you get me a job’ they will always direct you to the company job page, because yes you have to go through that process.

Yes, there are big studios there. Disney, DreamWorks, Nickelodeon, Sony Pictures, Blue Sky, Pixar, Blizzard, Hasbro, they are always there. I have yet to see Cartoon Network there though, I’m sure there are reasons they are just unknown to me. Disney and Pixar do offer a portfolio review but only if you a specific ticket then sign up for a review by a specific date, and your review is like 15-20 minutes long. The other studios have turned to doing reviews by sign up onsite or you can wait in line (like I did for DreamWorks). But go talk to small studios, they are usually nicer.

And yes the animations schools are there, CalArts, Animation Mentor, Pasadena ArtCenter, SCAD has been there in the past, they be there. I have already graduated college and am drowning in debt from it but it’s still good to talk to these places because sometimes you can get info on workshops you can attend online or in person. CalArts does a few and I’ve heard SCAD does, but alas that’s all I know. I did try to talk to CalArts about their Visual Development Portfolio workshop they do in the summer… but the guy at the table was not only on the phone the whole ten minutes I was there patiently waiting to ask him about it-but you could just feel the whole ‘I’d rather be anywhere but here’ vibe coming off him. You are there to do a job, please do it.

Artists. Talk to the artist. DO IT. A LOT of well-known artists go to this event and either have a table to sell their stuff or they are doing workshops/panels. Many of them are freelancers and they are happy to answer your art questions, give advice, and yes they might look at your portfolio. I recommend you make a connection/network with them and not the big studios so much. You’re learn more from the artists themselves, and they are more ready to really talk with you than most of the studio staff I ran into (I think the studio staff gets burned out fast from all the gimme-a-job talk). I will usually try go talk to about 5-10 artists, sometimes it’s hard because their tables are flooded with other fans, but hey give it a try. Find artists who do what you want to do and just talk to them, they won’t bite.

Examples: I talked to Ty Carter while I was there and he is a really cool guy, I’m one of his patreons so I made it a point to thank him in person for what he does on patreon because it helps me in my background work. I also talked to Casey Robin and asked for advice on approaching boutiques/shops so I could maybe do a few pop-up shows, because she does that. Another artists I talked with was Elsa Chang, I was asking how she balancing her work at the studio with all the shows she does.

The Venue. So this event is held every year at the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport. It’s right across the street from the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, CA. The hotel is very nice, we stayed there this year, friendly staff, thick walls so you don’t hear the airplanes taking off, large rooms, soft beds (YAY!), and it does have a small convention center attached to it. It’s easy to go up to the room and leave stuff there or just chill for a bit.

Now that you’ve read all that, let me tell you the bad things about CTNX.

Price. This event is A LOT of money. I bought the three day floor pass and spent like $97 on it. A VIP Pass will run you upwards of $300. In my opinion, that’s too much money for what little you get (I’ve been a VIP in the past).  On top of what you pay for your ticket, you also pay for parking (discounted but still), and some of the other special events are a separate ticket price. I really don’t feel this event is worth the price tag it comes with.

Venue. Yes, it’s at a hotel. BUT they need to move the convention. It has gotten too big for the Marriott. In the Marriott’s separate convention space they have the workshops, VIP lounge area, and the WACOM work station-which sucked because I wanted to talk to WACOM and couldn’t. They also have workshops and panels in the rooms at the convention center AND they use pretty much all the meeting rooms in the hotel itself at the same time. It can be confusing to navigate all this and find the workshop or whatever that you want to attend.

There is a tent that takes up half the parking lot, that’s where all the vendors and studios are. The tent does NOT work. The ales they create are smaller than your average artist alley ales way and it gets really crowded around the tables, making walking through next to impossible. And when studios are giving portfolio reviews, the lines are a problem and they typically make you go outside to wait and come in. It gets loud and hot as hell. They need to have two separate tents, in my opinion, one for the studios and the other for the artists.

Lack of communication and organization. This a reoccurring problem I’ve seen at the show. When will the schedule be on the webpage? Usually two weeks before the event starts if you’re lucky. What artists/studios will be there? You might find out a month before. Might. Wanna take the shuttle to the Center Stage Gallery? Good luck! Not only is the shuttle spot not clearly marked until the end of day two, but even the info booth admitted, ‘it’s not very reliable.’ First day in and you can’t find the ‘theater’? Oh well that’s the Pasadena Room in the hotel lobby, the sign just isn’t up and it’s not listed as such on the program.

One thing they did this year that really annoyed me was an e-mail they sent out about the Disney pre-show party, you got an e-mail with an excel spreadsheet and you’re told to check and see if you got on the list. They sent that e-mail to everyone. No. You should only send that to the people who actually got in. Don’t get me all excited about something only to tell me I’m not on the list. Just don’t send it do me if I didn’t get in. It’s not that difficult.

As I said at the start, this is probably my last year going to CTN. I just don’t feel the event is worth it for me.

What other events are there?

I know of two:

ACM SIGGRAPH. I haven’t been to this show, SIGGRAPH is for those of you who do more of the tech side of things. Computer driven graphics, interactive design, VFXs (so I hear), 3D modeling, things like that. This event is held up in Vancouver around the August-September time frame so you’ll want a passport. They do also have one in Asia.

Ground Zero Animation Expo. This event is relatively new and I haven’t gone yet, but I’m really thinking about going this year. In it’s 3rd year, GZAExpo will be in Santa Ana this June. It’s been in Anaheim in the past. Admission and parking are free and while there is a separate charge for panels and stuff, it only starts at $15. Again, I might be going to this show in 2018 to see what it’s all about.

 Have you been to CTNX? What are your thoughts about it?

Know of any other events like it? Spread the love!

[inkyfingerstoo]

aos rewatch

2x19 - The Dirty Half Dozen Thanks again @consoledacup !!!!

In this one: Team SHIELD is reunited and it feels so good wrong! Mike and Lincoln get cut up then saved. Jemma commits murder. Fitz pea-cocks. The Bus dies. Jai-ying talks a lot. Gonzalez talks more. Coulson talks the most. Raina has visions of Ultron.

-Coming to you in full Raina-vision - Hi Ruth Negga! -I loved Kyle Mclaughlin as Cal - he brought a lot of spark and heightened emotion to the show -Whatever happened to all these rando inhumans at the sanctuary? -Felt no connection to Robert Gonzalez (getting major Malick vibes), slow, low growly voice -Coulson exposition might be the worst part of the show -Boring Jai-ying/Skye scene, more exposition, less action -BAKSHI (I love him) - I can’t believe the villains end their phone calls with “Hail Hydra” ::snortlaughter:: -eugh back to Coulson/Gonzalez exposition -FITZ! First appearance at the 8:31 minute mark (standard Fitzsimmons first episode appearance average is probably ~10minutes - forever salty about it). -Iain, you’re adorable. AND HUNTER, I love and miss you -Nice saucy comment by Ward there “May’s actually pretty friendly…once you get to know her.” -“What happened?” “They removed Deathlock’s eye.” Yikes. Captain obvious. -JEMMA at the 12:00 minute mark (Fitz just staring at her) and a Fitzsimmons scene. “Whatever that is, it’s not love.” “Tsh, course not.” THE TENSION IN THAT SMALL SILENCE AFTER THIS EXCHANGE IS UNBEARABLE. Jemma’s reaction after this excahnge is very interesting. Nervously clasped hands, looking down to her feet, not looking at Fitz. Poor girl. She’s in so much pain -FitzSimmons sandwich of love. Fitz’s earnest thanks and Jemma’s soft “you’re welcome.” -Fitz pea-cocking is my favorite thing in the world -“You know what I should have done is toss him from the plane.” “Yeah, that would have been fitting.” I guess it’s good they can (kind of) joke about it now? -Never really unpacked how I feel about murderous Jemma. On one hand I get, bc Ward is evil and deserves to die and he nearly destroyed the most precious thing in the world to Jemma. But on the other hand, it’s murder, it’s taking a human life, that’s pretty intense. I'm sure there were some agents who joined SHEILD with the understanding that at some point, they will likely have to take a human life. But I don't think that ever occurred to Fitz or Simmons. They joined (well she joined, he followed) for science, discovery, exploration and adventure. And look at them now. It's all quite tragic really. Always wonder about these secret agent shows and how much murder is going on and the lines of morality that get pushed, and the justifications that occur. It’s all too deep for me to dive into so…..I’m just gonna not do it. -Whoa Coulson going to Andrew behind May’s back (to me that makes Coulson/May weirder, sorry I’m not on that ship, I like them as devoted friends only). I wonder how many times in the series Coulson has said the words, “but right now” - I bet it’s a lot -Afterlife crap, Ward/Kara crap, Bobbi/Gonzalez exchange, not really paying attention -Jemma and Coulson……man she really wants to murder Ward! Look how tense she is, her body language is very desperate borderline manic. (Ok, here’s a complaint I have about the show, Jemma says she should come on the mission for medical support…but she’s not an MD. Sure, she’s a genius but she didn’t go to medical school. I feel like this is something the show has forever been a bit confused about (like later in the season when she’s part of the surgery team for Bobbi - that made zero sense). I’m undoubtedly in the minority here, but I wish they would focus Jemma’s science prowess back to what it was in season 1 with the chemistry portion of her expertise and how that works in conjunction with biology. The only slack I’ll give for this case is that it was Mike Peterson who is half cyborg and as she states, she knows all his tech.) -Fitz in tach gear…..yes please (I wonder if he questioned or asked Jemma why she was there since she was a last minute add to the crew) -I’ll always be salty about the way Coulson clearly cares about Skye above all others -Trio™ pow-wow is adorable. -Ward, King of Excuses. He doesn’t regret killing people???? What a sociopath!!!! -Cal/Jai-ying scene…..boooooring -Hunter/Mack scene, all the awz, Bobbi/Kara scene, don’t care -The twins! Wanda and Pietro mentioned. Neat -All this choreographed hustle is hilarious (when they’re running around in the bus before it’s shot down) -RIP Bus - I’ll forever miss the lab and the little cubbie bedrooms (and forever have AUs where Fitz and Simmons cuddled in them.) -Shaky camera acting is always silly looking (weird moment at 28:11 - during one of the cuts to the team as the quinjet falls, Simmons holds her fist out, as if she wanted a bump from Fitz, haha). -Nice vfx Kolpack! -Man did the SHIELD team easily get into the base. No follow-up from Team Hydra to check for survivors, I guess. Lazy villains will never prosper. -“Be careful, Jemma.” Fitzsimmons for: “I love you.” -This one-shot action sequence with Daisy was SICK. Probably my second favorite Daisy scene in the series (The Fitzsimmons shipper speech is #1 obviously.) -Jemma with some nice moves against Bakshi. I wish more than anything we saw Jemma and Fitz doing the physical training (the way we always see Daisy) -Bakshi dies! Aw saddddd. Fun fact: after this episode aired I tweeted Simon Kassianides about how I was sad Bakshi died because I loved him as a villain and he liked and retweeted my tweet! (Said something along the lines of maybe he’s just “mostly dead,” Princess Bride style). -Why is Jemma so willing to die? “Get it over with you monster.” (“Just let them kill me.”) - did they forget at the end of s1 of Jemma refused to die, refused to let Fitz die? OOC (I suppose you could argue that it was a front of bravery in front of Ward. She just assumed he’d kill her so why give him the satisfaction of showing fear. Better scene in my opinion? Let her ‘go down’ fighting, let her say fuck it and pull the gun out and try and shoot Ward, but he shoots her in the vest she’s wearing, more dramatic fodder for FitzSimmons) -Love how these agents just murder people with no qualms. (May shooting the guards). I’m glad Fitz didn’t kill anyone. -Awww Fitz standing next to Jemma over Lincoln’s med bed -Aww2.0 Fitz and Jemma talking to Mike Peterson, like old times. “He didn’t make it.” (re. Bakshi) Jemma gives no shits. -lol This episode setting up Ultron. “It’s all connected.” bahahahaha

Fitzsimmons screen time once again woefully inadequate at 7.25 minutes 

Tagging: @wheres-your-rum @nerdlove4thewin @jemmathepoptart

[vi0lentquiche]

RDC3

I don’t think I fully admitted to myself that this con was a different beast long after it was over. After swanning through BTRDC last October, chatting to tons of people and getting to all the photo and autog sessions and Q&As on time and having time to chill and people-watch, I did expect this one to be less relaxed, but I didn’t expect a 3-day endurance catharsis. 

Friday

Every guest who walked onto the stage at the opening ceremony appeared momentarily stunned, all wide eyes and “woahh” expressions. Except Bryan, of course, who clearly wanted to crowdsurf but had to settle for high-five running through the crowd instead. For the rest of them, I guess they genuinely hadn’t expected quite so many people or quite so much noise and enthusiasm. 

Met my hero @bansheegrahamtao during registration, cracked up at her bag: 

As for the M&G, well, as @existingcharactersdiehorribly remarked midway through our suffering, it’s a tough tough thing, having to sit around drinking whiskey and wine, waiting for Bryan Fuller to come talk to you. Especially tough when Ellen, Hugh, Aaron and Scott all stop by for a brief chat at some point as well. I remember realizing around midnight that we’d be there for three more hours at least and wondering if I should go to my room for a quick nap, but that’s just not how it’s done, so I napped right at the table instead. When Bryan did get there he was greeted by a sight unlike any other, leading him to grab one of the straws and wave it about and tell us an AG production story about the sex scene between Salim and the jinn. The size and shape of the VFX jinn penis had to be juuust right because they couldn’t have a goofy-looking penis in a sexy scene, but production was hellbent on 12 inches because they had made some odd assumptions. Mousa Kraish the jinn actor was also more than fine with 12′, which is when Bryan stepped in and firmly said no that’s ridiculous, we’ll go with 9′. He then showed us a picture of the flame-eyed ifrit with the vetoed penis on his phone. We wrapped up around 3:30 am on a sobering SOTL vs Will note that sent everyone into black despair, but All Seems Well Now after some panicking and course correction. He wants to write for them forever and ever, gotcha, we’re good, whew. 

Saturday

What even are alarms and wake up calls, we don’t hear them and sleep straight through breakfast and the first photo op like real men. Shrugged it off assuming they’d let me do Aaron and Scott on Sunday and queued for Bryan instead, got a nice hug and a concerned “did you get any rest?” from this miracle of a man, who apparently made a point of inquiring this of everyone he remembered from the night before, which if you’re Bryan is probably easily all 200 of us. 

Demore turned out to be the breakout guest of the weekend. I say this as someone who is so hypersensitive to the quality of public speaking/presenting/live performance/showmanship that I’ll walk out if something is so off it starts bothering me. Case in point: the crowd fluffer later that night; literally 45 seconds into his routine I noped out of the room and didn’t return until he was done. With Demore, it was immediately apparent it would be a smooth sailing throughout. I don’t know if he came prepared or if he is just that good, but there was a friendly and warm quality to his command of the audience that I’ve never experienced before. I wish someone *glares at self* had recorded the Q&A, because I’ve since forgotten most of the specifics. He made a very #relatable point about how both Hannibal and Tobias prize authentic expression above all else. Overall I am left with an impression of a nice balance between thoughtful and playful, funny and profound. Bonus: amazing moment that was more than the sum of its goofy parts. I got goosebumps. 

Another thing that stands out from the afternoon is Hugh freaking Dancy with his freaking word choice poetry. I don’t know if it only seemed this way to my ESL brain but he did that thing where he paused for a moment while appearing to pick a word and then the word he went for was on point, and not in a suffocatingly completist way but rather in a fresh and elegant way. So basically he’s a terrible man and I’ve been very distracted. I’ll even give Sabbath’s Theater a go, that’s how bamboozled I am by the whole thing. 

I won’t recap Bryan and Hugh’s Q&As since you can actually listen to them thanks to the brilliant @pka42. The highlight for me was Bryan talking about how he would have revisited Miriam Lass given the chance: as a law enforcement officer too traumatized to continue active duty, she would have been hidden away in some FBI basement doing clerical work so the sight of her wouldn’t make anyone uncomfortable, and the rhetorical question here would be whether Hannibal made a better family for her than the FBI *cue instant anguished Will and Abigail feels, oof* 

Another highlight was Bryan referring to Sean’s “time to wrap this up” gesture as a “sexy dancing fingers thing”, which evolved into “the nipple thing” by Sunday. Bless. 

Was seated too far back to actually watch the Fannibal musical so buried myself in the booklet instead, pausing every now and again to loudly exclaim “NO BUT ACTUAL HUGH DANCY IS WATCHING THIS”. Loved the firefly from the costume competition, shame it got no mention. 

Sunday 

Things I learned Sunday morning: a Bryan&Hugh sandwich grips you like a vice, whereas being in the middle of an Aaron&Scott sandwich is a much squishier experience. 

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. Started seriously flagging so skipped the first two Q&As in favor of sitting on a bench staring dazedly into middle distance, which is when @louiselux and @emungere materialized next to said bench in a fine example of just how surreal things can get at a Hannibal con, <3. 

At the Q&A, most of which I spent in the question line, Bryan went on being highly #relatable telling us about how he lives his life in constant fear of mediocrity, Hugh cracked jokes about Will possibly being into Austrian chamber music (or was this Saturday, who even remembers anymore). Bryan was honest about the things he would have done differently in S1-S2 but didn’t venture into S3 territory at all. Still too soon and too fresh, I suppose. 

Glad I had a quiet moment sitting down with @byronicwoman before that brutal autog session started, or was that Saturday? *cries* I have no idea. 

Two things I have to say before I bring this meandering report to a close: 

1. Since I listed all of the low points of this con in the Gothic post I feel like I have to point out that there are highs that balance all of them out xD Aside from the obvious thrill of meeting Bryan and co, there’s really nothing quite like The Second Wave of Fannibal Recognition where you’ve exchanged real names with someone to no effect and then you exchange Twitter/Tumblr handles and a lot of AAAAAAHHHHhshfsflskdfjhsdf ensues. It’s fascinating to see the people behind the writing and the art. It’s fun when previously two-dimensional things come alive in the real world. It’s a real trip to get drunk on something pink and sit in a cloud of Bigarade xD  

2. Those of you I got very little or no quality time with besides hurried hellos, hugs, snippets of conversation and trying to survive the con right alongside you, and I won’t tag you all - firstly wtf, secondly how frustrating, thirdly ilu anyway and will talk to you anyway so whateva, we’ll make it up next Feb, unless of course Mads is there in which case we’ll all just huddle together and cry, <3. 

Finally, a helpful tip: the only way to avoid PCD is to actively preempt it in any way you can. What I did was get together with @lactobacille, @meres-argias, @rav3nsta9 and @fourth-axis for some ~thematic entertainment: 

REPRESENT. We sure survived that killer good \m/

Went wandering around Sir John Soane’s, well, mind palace, complete with oubliettes, weird little recesses, moveable planes, holes in the floor and a slightly demented-looking collection of antiquities and paintings. 

Naturally could not walk past a museum of anatomy and surgery. Check out the light and air and color on these nervous and circulatory systems! 

All in all, some seriously good, funny times <3.  

P. S. The context for Hugh uttering the words “Pacman uncontrollably guzzling cum” is Cards Against Humanity.  

[terryblount]

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Title Update 9 releases tomorrow and here are its full patch notes

Ubisoft has announced that Title Update 9 for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will be releasing tomorrow. This patch is 10GB in size for those that are already on version 8.5. For everyone else, Title Update 9 weights around 70GB in size. Additionally, Ubisoft revealed the full notes for this upcoming update.

According to the changelog, Title Update 9 adds an Exotic Reconfiguration. Players will now be able to upgrade Exotic items to level 40, as well as re-roll their attributes with the new Reconfiguration system available in the Crafting bench.

Moreover, this patch brings a number of performance improvements. For instance, it fixes several issues causing low FPS in various Side Missions. It also fixes several streaming issues in the Open World, as well as several performance issues during the Operation Dark Hours Raid.

As always, UPLAY and Epic Games Store will download this patch once it becomes available tomorrow. You can also find its complete changelog below.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Title Update 9 Release Notes

New features

Exotic Reconfiguration

Game Balance

Exotics, Talent, Named items

Exotics

Sawyer’s Kneepads – Reworked

Cannot be staggered by explosions.

Increase total weapon damage by 3% each second you are not moving. Stacks up to 10x and stacks are lost when moving

This exotic only provides defensive attributes and no brand bonus, so now has potential for high damage and makes it appealing to both red and blue builds.

Imperial Dynasty – Buff

Reduced cooldown to 35s (down from 40)

Developer comment: This buff is to better compensate for the lack of brand bonus.

Dodge City Gunslinger

Reduced charge up time 30s (from 50s)

Developer comment: This buff is to better compensate for the lack of brand bonus.

Diamondback – Reworked

Now Grants all shots guaranteed crits for 5s after hitting a mark

Merciless/Ruthless – Buff

Explosion damage increased to 1200% (up from 900%)

Developer comment: Explosion Damage doesn’t scale with crit stats, so boosted to compensate.

Lady Death

No longer enhances Turret Skills.

Bullet King

Base damage is now the same as the non-exotic LMG version.

Exotic attribute roll quality

All exotics will now roll at the highest possible minimum roll regardless of the difficulty they are obtained in.

Exotic items can still roll higher than the minimum but minimum rolls are now higher.

Talents

Tag Team – Reworked

The last enemy you have damaged with a skill is marked.

Dealing weapon damage to that enemy consumes the mark to reduce active cooldowns by 6s.

Cooldown: 4s

Does not consume mark if no skill is on cooldown.

Reassigned – Buff

Killing an enemy adds 1 round of a random special ammo into your sidearm.

Reduced cooldown to 15s (down from 20s).

Tamper Proof – Reworked

Enemies that walk within 3m of your hive, turret, or remote pulse are shocked.

Arm time: 2s.

Increased cooldown per skill to 10s (up from 5s).

Empathic Resolve – Buff

Repairing an ally, increases their total weapon and skill damage by 3-15% for 20s (up from 10s). 1-7% if self.

Developer comment: Currently it is difficult to keep a high uptime in 4-man content as non-tank players try to be as safe as possible and NPCs have higher lethality, so chip damage is less frequent.

Creeping Death

When you apply a status effect, it is also applied to all enemies within 8m (up from 5m) of your target.

Reduced cooldown to 15s (down from 20s).

Overcharge talents now properly state they don’t work in PVP.

Named Items

Contractor’s Gloves

Damage to Armor lowered to 8%.

Firm Handshake

Status Effects increased to 15%.

Ammo Dump

Now correctly rolls 2 additional attributes.

Claws Out

Now correctly has a skill tier core attribute roll.

Now correctly rolls an attribute in addition to pistol damage and melee damage.

Melee damage increased to 400%.

Fox’s Prayer

Damage to out of cover lowered to 8%.

The Hollow Man

Damage to Health lowered to 10%.

Punch Drunk

Headshot Damage increased to 20%.

Send-Off

Removed Perfectly Rooted Talent.

Weapons

Assault Rifles:

Increased maximum roll of Damage to Health to 21%.

Players on Stadia will not see this be displayed correctly and instead see an increase to Damage to Health on other weapon types. This is an UI issue only and will be fixed with the next client update.

Gear Sets

True Patriot

White buff armor repair lowered to 2%/3% once every second.

Main Missions

Pentagon & Darpa Research Lab

Lowered difficulty to be more on par with other missions.

Liberty Island

Lowered difficulty to be more on par with other missions.

Wall Street

Reduced health and damage of the APC.

Stranded Tanker

NPC composition has been adjusted.

AI & NPCs

Signature Weapons Against Named NPCs

Slightly increased damage signature weapons deal to named enemies

Elite NPCs Damage Against Player Skills

Reduced damage elite NPCs deal to player skills.

Tank Sprint Speed

Reduced sprint speed of Tank archetype from all hostile factions

NPC Shotguns

Reduced damage of all NPC shotguns

Adjusted range of some NPC shotguns (including shotguns used by Black Tusk Rusher)

Status Effects

Reduced duration of Poison and Cleaners’ Napalm Ensnare (when applied to players)

Special Ammo Signaling

Any NPC with special ammo has the same UI indication as from the Special Ammo Directive.

Examples of who this affects:

Outcasts who pick up special ammo from boxes deployed by their Support archetype.

Bounties who spawn with special ammo.

Rogue Agents

Significantly reduced the armor of dynamically spawning Rogue Agents.

To prevent this from being too large of a nerf in 3-4-player co-op a Rogue Agent can spawn with an armor kit which can repair their armor up to 70%.

Slightly reduced the damage output of dynamically spawning Rogue Agents.

NPC Buff Allies Ability Changed

Previously, certain bosses and bounties would?magically?overheal?themselves and their fireteam. This “buff allies” ability lacked clear messaging, so it has been replaced with a “leader?overheal” ability. This is the same ability that the Rikers’ Leader archetype has. Once the boss (leader) is killed, all their friendlies lose their?overheal. The UI indicator of pulsating circles inward/outward in their nameplate signals when this ability is active.

Loot/Rewards

Increased power of dropped Exotics to always be of the highest tier, giving the highest minimum rolls.

Added Operation Dark Hours raid gear set Chest and Backpack items to the general loot pool, making them available outside of Operation Dark Hours.

Lowered number of Exotic Components awarded from Exotic deconstruction to match the cost of Exotic reconfiguring.

Lowered Conflict XP amount from PVP weekly projects to match the required XP for 1 Conflict level.

Blueprints

Combined all Skill Mod blueprints of different qualities into a single blueprint per Skill, scaling quality with that of the Crafting Bench.

Added Skill Mod Blueprints for the Skills introduced in Warlords of New York.

Also added Blueprints from the general Blueprints pool to first-time weekly completion rewards of Invaded Missions.

Added Blueprints from the general Blueprints pool to the rewards of Daily Projects.

Skills

The Sharpshooter’s Tactician Skill base radius has been increased to 50m.

Scoping is now enabled when using a Shield Skill.

Bug fixes

Gear and Skills

Fixed several magazine attachments not matching their weapons and/or clipping with their models.

Fixed several Scopes being offset on multiple weapons.

Also fixed a missing animation when picking up the Skill variant after defeating the final boss in The Tombs Main Mission.

Fixed an issue causing deployable Skills to not refresh their duration when receiving the Artificer Hive buff.

Fixed an issue causing some items created before Warlords of New York to have wrong attribute values.

Also fixed an issue causing the “Glass Cannon” gear talent to amplify all healing received.

Fixed the text of the “Perfect Overflowing” talent to correctly state that it increases the base magazine capacity at the 3rd reload from empty.

Fixed the text of the Acosta’s Go-Bag talent “One in Hand…” to correctly state that the buff triggers when the grenade is thrown.

Also fixed an issue causing cards to not correctly flip when having the “Poker Face” backpack talent of “Aces & Eights” Gear Set equipped.

Gear and Skills #2

Fixed an issue causing the Nemesis Exotic to not trigger the Focus Gear Talent while scoped.

Fixed an issue causing the muzzle flash VFX to be missing for the Lady Death Exotic submachine gun.

Also fixed an issue causing agent to get stuck on slopes and stairs when having a shield equipped and moving diagonally.

Fixed an issue causing the Demolisher Firefly to sometimes target and destroy friendly decoys.

Fixed an issue causing the Sniper Turret to have odd behaviour when shooting at enemy NPCs with shields.

Also fixed several issues causing attachments being misplaced on the Carnage and IWI NEGEV weapons.

Fixed the text for the Booster Hive to now correctly state that it delivers a stimulant to nearby allies that increases their weapon damage and handling.

Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to purchase the “Holster Intel: Go West, Young Agent” at Inaya.

Also fixed an issue causing the “Plague of the Outcasts” debuff of the Pestilence to transfer the lower amount of stacks under certain circumstances.

Fixed an issue that allowed wild life to count towards the Technician and Flamethrower Special Field Research. Be nice to the animals, y’all!

Gameplay

Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to progress to a higher World Tier when completing any required Stronghold in another player’s session and leaving that session.

Fixed an issue causing The Violent Delights bounty to not be completable when it spawns at certain locations.

Also fixed an issue that could cause players to not gain any Seasonal XP when disconnecting or crashing, requiring an additional restart of the game.

Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to reach The Angel of Mercy contaminated area.

Fixed an issue causing low level agents to deal higher than intended melee damage while in co-op with a player at Level 40.

Also fixed an issue causing players to be able to change Global Difficulty when in a party with players without Warlords of New York or below Level 40.

Gameplay #2

Fixed an issue that allowed a party leader to invite crossplay players into the group while other party members had crossplay turned off.

This would cause the non-crossplay players to be kicked off the group. You will now no longer be able to invite crossplay players into the group if any group member has deactivated crossplay.

Fixed an issue that could cause odd grouping behaviour when a non-Warlords of New York player interacted with the helicopter pilot in Washington to transfer to New York.

Fixed an issue causing Specialization Skill Mods to not scale correctly at level 40.

Also fixed an issue causing Global Event NPC challenges to only count for the player landing the killing blow.

Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to gain the Armor Breaker Distinction commendation under certain circumstances.

UI

Fixed misleading GPS pointing towards a SHD Tech position in the Civic Center area.

Fixed an issue causing Control Point Alert Level to remain after a player captured a Control Point in New York.

Also fixed an issue causing Gear Score to be displayed when creating a raid group at Warlords of New York maximum level.

Fixed an issue causing the Directives tutorial to not trigger after finishing the Liberty Island Main Mission and activating Keener’s watch.

Fixed an issue causing the “Opt in to participate” message to show in the “Rewards” and “Challenges” menu when performing a server transfer despite the event being already activated.

Also fixed an issue causing the “League activity started” celebration and “League activity: Time trial” objective to appear when starting a Time trial Mission on any difficulty.

Fixed an issue causing the buff icon after using an armor kit with the System Corruption Gear Set to disappear before its visual timer was finished.

Fixed an issue causing the Keener’s Watch tutorial to trigger on subsequent characters.

UI #2

Fixed an issue causing the UI to enlarge when pressing the “I” key while browsing an inventory section through an item.

Fixed an issue causing non-functional apparel menu to remain on screen when exiting Apparel, Emotes or Weapon Skins while holding option button on any controller.

Also fixed an issue causing non-functional inventory UI to remain On-Screen when accessing and then exiting the store menu through a lootable item.

Fixed missing VFX for completing a Rogue Agent Encounter.

Fixed an issue causing the Expedition matchmaking UI element to be available for Warlords of New York players that have not reached level 40 yet.

Also fixed visuals for some modding icons in the weapon modding screen.

Fixed an issue causing the incorrect message “You left the group” to repeat when trying to invite a player on another platform when you have Crossplay disabled on Stadia or PC.

Fixed the text of the Shield Skills to correctly reflect that they also scale with the Blue / Defensive Core attributes.

Also fixed an issue causing the “Please wait” message to remain on screen when the player quickly sells and buys back any item from the vendor menu.

Fixed an issue causing Warlords of New York skills to have placeholder render and missing stats on the Skills overview page of the Quartermaster menu.

Localization

Fixed missing Italian, Spanish and Arabic voice translation for cinematics.

Fixed an issue causing the error text “Can’t invite players that have not started the expansion” going out of border for certain languages.

Audio

Fixed an issue causing the voice over to overlap if the player goes through the Keener’s Watch tutorial too quickly.

Missions

Fixed an issue causing the Outcast Support NPC to remain stuck in the spawn area in the Federal Emergency Bunker Main Mission on Challenging difficulty.

Fixed an issue causing too many Outcast Tanks to spawn at the same time during the Stranded Tanker Main Mission.

Also fixed an issue causing the mission objective to not update if the agent did not interact with the already open elevator doors when entering the Pentagon Main Mission a second time.

Fixed an issue making it possible to destroy the fuse box before raising the shutter in the New York Federal Reserve Side Mission causing progress to be blocked.

Fixed an issue causing the interaction with a door look weird after respawning during the Stranded Tanker Main Mission. Yes, technically this is a weird door.

Also fixed a missing interaction highlight on a prop blocking the way during the Pathway Park Main Mission.

Fixed an issue causing too few Rogue Agents to be spawned for 4-player group in the Stranded Tanker Main Mission.

Missions #2

Fixed an issue causing the error message “Outside playable area” to appear when walking against sandbag props in the City Hall Side Mission.

Fixed an issue causing the Razorback generator hacking to not start when a player is inside the radius before it activates during the Liberty Island Main Mission.

Also fixed an issue causing the objective “Meet with Faye and Rhodes” to not update after a Delta disconnect during cinematic during the City Hall Side Mission.

Fixed an issue causing the player character to not correctly be placed back in the mission area when disconnecting or quitting during the New York helicopter cinematic for the City Hall Side Mission.

Fixed an issue causing players to not receive any damage from airburst seeker while sitting behind a specific cover piece during the Liberty Island Main Mission.

Also fixed an issue causing players on PC and Stadia to become stuck after climing a metal prop during the Pathway Park Main Mission when being in a 2-player group.

Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to fast travel to a group member when that group member was in a Classified Assignment entrance.

Fixed several issues with props in Missions.

Also fixed collision issues in Missions.

Fixed a number of cover issues.

Fixed several occlusion issues.

Operation Dark Hours

Fixed an issue causing Razorback to not drop any subsequent keys after defeating it once.

Open World

Fixed an issue causing players to become stuck in a container after freeing a hostage.

Fixed an issue causing Black Tusks to take over too many activities in New York. They also need some time to relax.

Fixed some weird stairs.

Fixed an issue causing players to be able to loot a weapon container through a wall.

Also fixed an invisible loot crate. You will ask yourself if there ever was an invisible crate or not…

Fixed several doors not opening when doing Bounties.

Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to re-spawn a Hunter encounter when they die to it.

Also fixed an issue causing players to be unable to open a door after taking the appropriate key for a Hunter encounter.

Fixed an issue causing NPCs to spawn from a manhole and then become stuck in a wall.

Fixed some lighting issues in the Open World.

Also fixed some issues with buildings.

Fixed occlusion issues in the Open World.

Dark Zone & PvP

Fixed an issue causing Agent nameplates to be visible at incorrect distances.

SHD Agent name plates are now visible at 15m.

Rogue Agent name plates are now visible at 30m.

Manhunt name plates are now visible at 50m.

These values can change depending on Dark Zone perks.

Fixed several props.

Fixed a prop that could cause players to become stuck and immune when dropping from a certain location.

Vanity & Store

Fixed some animation errors when a player uses the “Gunslinger” emote.

AI & NPC

Fixed an issue that could cause players to become immobilized by the Riot Foam of enemy NPCs through cover.

Fixed several issues where enemy NPCs would not shoot at the decoy.

Performance

Fixed several issues causing low FPS in various Side Missions.

Fixed a streaming issue in Haven at the beginning of the cinematic after the objective “Meet Faye and Rhodes”.

Also fixed a streaming issue players could encounter when starting the Pathway Park Main Mission.

Fixed several streaming issues in the Open World.

Fixed several performance issues during the Operation Dark Hours Raid.

The post Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Title Update 9 releases tomorrow and here are its full patch notes appeared first on DSOGaming.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Title Update 9 releases tomorrow and here are its full patch notes published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[meingenious]

‘Gemini Man’ Overview: Two Will Smiths And Technical Brilliance Can’t Fill The Void Left By An Uninspired Script

http://www.digitalmarketingbyrohit.com/?p=3028 ‘Gemini Man’ Overview: Two Will Smiths And Technical Brilliance Can’t Fill The Void Left By An Uninspired Script - http://www.digitalmarketingbyrohit.com/?p=3028   This textual content is part of our Mash’O’Meter analysis sequence, the place Mashable India delves deep and obsessively into movies and displays. Sit once more, seize a cuppa. That’s going to be a protracted expertise. For the uninitiated, it ought to come as a shock to know that Gemini Man was caught in developmental purgatory for practically 20 years, sooner than it observed the sunshine of day. All through these 20 or so years, numerous massive names received right here to be associated to it—from directors like Tony Scott, Curtis Hanson and Joe Carnahan to actors like Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Sean Connery. When Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer lastly took over the rights from Disney, they launched on board Ang Lee to direct and Will Smith to reprise the dual operate of the protagonist(s). Actually, discovering the becoming ‘Gemini Man’ wasn’t as insurmountable an issue as a result of the one to hold the ‘Gemini Man’ to life. The makers of the film had been adamant on one issue—they wouldn’t make the movie until they could get the know-how correct. “The concept of Gemini Man,” says Will Smith, “with two characters carried out by one particular person all through generations, the know-how didn’t exist until proper this second to have the power to ship this in a nicely timed technique. So it’s really the first time that the imaginative and prescient of the film was technologically able to be realized.” So what is the story of Gemini Man that will require such slick tech and outcomes to tell? Henry Brogan is a world-weary authorities assassin who wraps up a robust hit by taking photos a aim in a transferring put together. We’re instructed it is his last mission sooner than he retires and begins a easy life at his rustic rural Georgia home and enjoys crusing on the waterways in his tiny little boat, the Ella Mae. Nonetheless in actual fact, luckily ever afters aren’t really that, on the very least when the story is solely beginning. His decision to retire triggers a sequence of events that locations his life in jeopardy. He’s acquired an assassin on his heels, dispatched by the very firm he works for, who’s hell bent on ending him on account of he’s conscious of of their deception and can develop to be an publicity menace. This assassin is as professional, as environment friendly as Brogan. When Henry lastly catches a glimpse of this potential killer’s face, he realises why. The assassin is Junior, who may cross off for his son nevertheless is certainly a 23-year-old clone of Henry’s! A gathering with an informant reveals that once more when Henry was in teaching, Clay Varris (Clive Owen), head of a top-secret black ops unit codenamed ‘GEMINI’, used his DNA to create a clone of Henry’s. Clay named him Junior, educated him to be as professional an operative as Henry, nevertheless minus all of Henry’s shortcomings, similar to the fear of getting drowned. What thus ensues is a high-octane sport of cat and mouse, as Henry and Junior try and catch up not merely with each other however moreover with the very fact of their ‘gemini’ or ‘double’ existence. Caught inside the crosshairs are Danny (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), an spy who Henry runs away with him from Georgia when he realises his life is in peril, and Henry’s pal and former colleague, Baron (Benedict Wong), who helps him on one of the simplest ways. The appeal to of Gemini Man undoubtedly lies in two points—its movement and the technical brilliance behind creating two Will Smiths on show. Ideas you, this isn’t your strange double operate gig, the place the older mannequin is solely de-aged with grey hair and a few wrinkles. Neither is it digital de-aging, similar to the one we observed with Michael Douglas in Marvel pretty not too way back. Says producer Jerry Bruckheimer, “The creation of Junior is simply not de-aging. This could be a 100% digital human character as portrayed by Will Smith. And for this, our Oscar-winning seen outcomes supervisor Bill Westenhofer (he labored with Ang Lee on Lifetime of Pi) and his workers of artists, along with Weta Digital, wanted to punch by the envelope and navigate their technique out of the uncanny valley.” “We’ve developed over tens of hundreds of thousands of years to have the power to identify little points about which makes a recognizable human, so if we get that incorrect on the digital facet, it appears a little bit of weird. They title that the uncanny valley, the place one factor is off about it that’s type of disturbing to take a look at. So until very not too way back, the uncanny valley has been insurmountable. With Gemini Man, we’re crossing the uncanny valley for the first time.” – Bill Westenhofer (Seen Outcomes Supervisor) Man Williams of Weta Digital, decoded a number of of the magic that went into bringing Junior to life on show. “One permutation that we do on set is that if we’re taking photos a scene whereby Junior is alone inside the scene, we now have Will performing the operate carrying a helmet rig, which tracks his facial animation, allowing him to hold out the operate with the other actors in physique. There’s a stereo pair of cameras hanging in entrance which might be attempting once more at Will, with little monitoring dots on his face. These cameras allow us to understand what expressions he makes use of so we are going to make sure that we’re dedicated to his effectivity in post-production.” All through filming, particularly designed and positioned cameras allowed Smith to see himself projected on a show as Henry, so that when he was performing reverse Junior, he may play in direction of his private traces. Notes Westenhofer, “We wished to make sure that the timing of the scenes with Henry and Junior occurred naturally, so we had his precise self collectively together with his precise dialogue. Then we re-did the scene in motion seize for Junior.” Technical factors aside, portraying the older and youthful variations of himself ought to’ve been a hell of an experience for Will Smith himself. Henry Brogan is a classy man. A steely killer with a conscience, he believes that these he is ordered to remove deserve their future, nevertheless nonetheless absorbs the have an effect on of taking their lives. As for Junior, he has the info and talent, nevertheless continues to be inexperienced and reckless from lack of knowledge on the sector. Smith apparently rewatched his older works ike Up to date Prince of Bel-Air, Unhealthy Boys, Independence Day and Males In Black to channel that carefree persona of his youthful years. “Merely to try to get into the concepts, and to be free to hunt out the concepts of the 23-year-old mannequin of my character / or Henry was fascinating, on account of of us normally contemplate the information of age as being additional extremely efficient. Nonetheless as I was attempting, and as I was having fun with these characters, there’s a positive vitality to naivete. There’s a extreme vitality to not understanding you probably can’t do one factor, and I really bumped into that in having fun with these characters. The deficiencies of every, and the strengths of every, was an fascinating exploration.” – Will Smith With Gemini Man, two-time Academy Award winner Ang Lee marks his second strive at taking photos a film in a extreme physique charge (HFR), using a 3D digital format (his first was Billy Lynn’s Halftime Stroll). And everytime you see the movement sequences unfold on show, considerably this one bike chase inside the first half between Henry and Junior, you realise Lee’s pursuit of digital excellence is certainly scaling newer heights with each film. “With new pondering and enhancements, we flip seen outcomes into seen paintings. The VFX and the smart ought to fuse into one beautiful chord.” Add to that the star vitality of a Hollywood bigwig like Will Smith, who blossoms in his movement roles, the entire seen can get you large pumped up for the film. Sadly, neither the technical brilliance of its movement sequences nor the star vitality and pleasure of watching two Will Smiths on show can salvage Gemini Man from the curse of an uninspired story. Personally, I felt that the film acquired over a little bit of too shortly, and one in all many causes that would probably be was that it didn’t have enough character enchancment. As is the case with most movement motion pictures, the script will get sidelined, the emotions don’t exactly translate on-screen, and all of the items seems to miss hitting the sweet spot. The actors put inside the efforts, and Will Smith’s laborious work shines by most of all. Nonetheless you don’t care enough for his clone, or actually even Henry and Varris, to place cash into their survival. The ‘cloning’ bit isn’t exactly a hardsell; we’ve seen ample movies and displays deal with it. Nonetheless on account of we don’t delve so much into the know-how of all of it, the shock problem wears off after the preliminary shocker of seeing a youthful Smith and we’re left with a run-of-the-mill movement movie that’s merely shot slickly. And let’s discuss Junior, lets? The youthful mannequin of Will Smith takes some getting used to, however when there’s one issue that doesn’t sit successfully, it’s the mouth space. Every time Junior talks, you probably can’t help nevertheless be a little bit of fixated on his mouth, à la Henry Cavill’s Superman in Justice League after they used CGI to eliminate his beard. But it surely certainly will not be merely his look that bothers you. Your entire nature v/s nurture debate rears its head proper right here, and in addition you are left questioning if maybe Junior was a little bit of too merely remodeled in his beliefs, no matter his upbringing. Having not too way back seen Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff in Warfare, I couldn’t help nevertheless draw comparisons. Every motion pictures present massive star vitality and some pretty unimaginable movement shot brilliantly. Nonetheless whereas Warfare’s stylish masala entertainer system works for the Indian viewers, Gemini Man falls a little bit of bland and flat for everyone nevertheless diehard Will Smith followers. Gemini Man waited for higher than 20 years to get its know-how correct. It lastly did, and that could be a matter of good achievement on Ang Lee, Will Smith and the workers’s half. Nonetheless lastly, the film failed as a consequence of a script that couldn’t maintain with its high-power DNA. Work: Dhawal Bhanushali / Mashable India Provide hyperlink JOIN DIPLOMA IN DIGITAL MARKETING https://www.ingeniousacademy.in/digital-marketing-classes-aurangabad-digital-marketing-course/

[mikemortgage]

The secret sauce that’s made Montreal a global hot spot for making video games

Budge Studios Inc. has spent the better part of a decade making video game apps for kids, banking on its in-house abilities and relationships with the owners of popular children’s content such as Thomas & Friends, Barbie and My Little Pony to compete in a hotly contested industry.

But its recent launch of Transformers: Bumblebee Overdrive, a game that is tied to Hollywood hit Bumblebee and available on the Apple App Store, shows the studio is proving its tricks are more than just for kids by ramping up operations and broadening its focus with a game designed to appeal to players of all ages.

A key to both its past and future growth and success, the company’s founders say, is its location: Montreal, a global hot spot for making video games because of provincial tax incentives for the industry and an education system that churns out ready-to-play talent.

Aside from Budge, the city is home to giants such as Ubisoft Entertainment SA, Warner Brothers Interactive and Eidos, the studio behind the Tomb Raiser games. Teams from Montreal have even won the Entertainment Software Association of Canada’s annual Student Video Game Competition in each of the past two years.

Read our entire Innovation Nation series

Intellectual property may be a state of mind, but Canada’s mind is not on the game

Canada’s deeper dive into the oceans aims to tap industry’s uncharted frontier

Sitting nicely between those two extremes, Budge has steadily grown from an initial collaboration in 2010 between its three founders to a current staff of 115. Over the years, the studio has built up a library of nearly 50 apps for kids that have amassed close to half-a-billion downloads globally.

As the studio evolved, it chose to focus on and embrace mobile. For one thing, the company started up when Apple Inc.’s original iPad launched, so its hallmark innovations revolve around developing natural and intuitive ways for young children to use touch screens and motion-based controls. Phones and tablets also provide more flexible publishing and simpler technical transitions compared to other platforms.

Budge co-founder Michael Elman in 2012.

The company also chose to partner with companies such as Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc. that own internationally recognized children’s brands, which makes it easier for its products to find audiences in the highly competitive world of mobile apps. Furthermore, it can rely on those deep-pocketed companies’ legal teams to guard against piracy.

Another critical decision was to become its own publisher, which has allowed Budge to develop its brand in such a way that millions of people now recognize and trust it.

Perhaps most importantly, however, it committed to do everything — from art and programming to marketing and analytics — in-house, which the founders knew would be best served by setting up and staying in Montreal.

“We always knew we wanted to be in Montreal,” said David Lipes, one of the studio’s co-founders. “We’ve seen a lot of momentum in our space here over the last 20 years. Being in Montreal meant we would have the expertise we needed at our fingertips.”

Quebec — particularly Montreal — is the beating heart of the Canadian gaming industry, which is the world’s third largest, behind only the U.S. and Japan.

Canada has about 600 active studios that collectively employ nearly 22,000 full-time workers, adding $3.7 billion to GDP each year, according to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC). Nearly half of those employees work in Quebec.

A big reason for that concentration is the Quebec government’s decision to grow the video-game industry as part of its economic development strategy.

“The momentum from the 1997 decision to introduce a tax incentive for the video-game industry continues more than 20 years later, spinning off talent into other sectors like AI, VFX and simulation firms,” said Jayson Hilchie, ESAC’s chief executive. “The mix of government support, world-class talent and a culture of creativity make Quebec, and Montreal specifically, the perfect environment for a video-game industry to thrive.”

Lipes said the tax incentives — including a credit for a percentage of eligible employee salaries — that lure game companies from around the world to set up shop locally are working, and the province’s “current status and recognition on the world stage is proof positive of that.”

Adds Budge co-founder Michael Elman, “I look around the world at other cities and companies that aren’t in our position, and I imagine they need to lobby their governments to create the sort of ecosystem we have.”

Part of that ecosystem is education: schools in both Montreal and the province have technical programs that churn out more skilled workers for the industry every year.

“If you don’t have the talent, it doesn’t matter how many tax credits you get,” Elman said. “You need to have people who are passionate and skilled in games and technology. There’s a tremendous amount of young people coming out of the school systems that we hire. They’re hungry, and skilled and knowledgeable in the latest technologies.”

But even with an annual wave of new expert workers and a community of studios famously cooperative and supportive of each other, the competition for talent can be fierce.

For instance, the annual Montreal Game Summit is a conference where game designers and innovators gather to share their ideas and innovations as well as their stories of success and failure with one another. But landing the very best talent can turn otherwise friendly companies into rivals in an industry where the average salary is more than $77,000.

Indeed, Lipes said, human resources has been the company’s biggest challenge as it grows.

“There’s a lot of competition. Finding talent and putting the right people in place is always a challenge,” he said. “We have a great HR team that draws locally, but we’ve also brought in employees from across Canada to join us.”

Another big key behind Budge’s growth was partnering with the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), which has backed its vision since the very start and helped it plan for — and succeed in achieving — profitability almost since day one.

“BDC was an early supporter of what we were trying to do here,” Lipes said. “They take a very entrepreneurial approach to supporting businesses. They really want to see innovative Canadian businesses grow and become strong.”

The next phase of Budge’s growth focuses on its action games division, Budge Games. Over the past couple of years it has hired 25 new people to fill technically specialized roles in the development of Transformers: Bumblebee Overdrive, the division’s first game.

Despite being based on a kids’ toy, the game is geared for players of all ages. It contains a strong dose of action — including frenetic racing and intense battles — that sets it apart from Budge’s games designed with younger kids in mind.

Both Lipes and Elman believe this is the perfect time to broaden their company’s demographic to include older players. Kids who have been playing Budge games from an early age are now ready for more sophisticated games, and their parents — many of whom also play games on their mobile devices — have come to trust the brand through the apps their kids have played.

“We want to grow our company with our audience,” Elman said. “A lot of these kids are older now, and we want to widen our demographic to include them. We want to make games the whole family can play together.”

Also acting in their favour is that long-time partner Hasbro came to them a couple of years ago with the idea of making an action-oriented game based on the movie Bumblebee, which hit theatres just before Christmas. It was the perfect IP for Budge to leverage while making its transition.

“Transformers fans are young and old,” Elman said. “It’s for everyone. It’s perfect for us to line up with. It meant we could create a game for the whole family. It meant we could grow our company. We’re all gamers, and it’s exciting now to take home games not just for our families, but also that we want to play.”

And it all began with the founders’ initial and, it turns out, essential decision to set up shop in a city with all the resources necessary to get started and keep growing.

“Montreal is just a great place to start a company making games,” Elman said.

Financial Post

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2DIChj6 via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[vfxserbia]

Eric lives in Montreal, Canada where he works in the Entertainment Creation Products Division of Autodesk as a Senior Software Development Manager for Arnold, Bifröst and Maya where he’s been for more than 10 years. Before joining Autodesk, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Pierre Poulin at the University of Montreal in the LIGUM graphics lab. Eric obtained his PhD in Computer Science from McGill University where he specialized in computer graphics at the Centre for Intelligent Machines under the supervision of Gregory Dudek. He has also completed a Master of Science (computer science) at McGill and a Bachelor of music at McGill where he majored in jazz performance (saxophone) and computer science.

Great to see you back again Eric! Does this mean you had a great time at CGA conference last year? 

Definitely! Last year was my first time in Belgrade, but I was spoiled since one of my close colleagues at Autodesk is from here (Nikola Milošević), and made sure that I got to see many of the special things Belgrade has to offer. It was clear from the outset that VFX Serbia and CGA Belgrade take this event very seriously and the organization and content are top-notch. It was great to hang out with everybody, make new friends, and catch up with others during the event. The presentations were great, and I had some good meetings with customers as well. The student participation is high, which is always encouraging to see at these kinds of events.

Developing the CG community must be very important to Autodesk as one of the main supporters of CGA conference from day one? How do you see your users worldwide?

Yes, at Autodesk we try to support the VFX community as much as we can. We sponsor many conferences as well as events worldwide and also host some of our own community events in various cities to try to keep the local communities thriving. We understand that people are using many products to accomplish their ultimate job of making art, and are happy to do our part to try to keep the ecosystem healthy.

Judging by your research publications, your interest in computer graphics has started, for most of our audience, in the early days. How do you see the 90s compared to almost now 20s in the CG industry and the software development?

Yeah, I guess I’m old! Hehe 🙂 I can still remember seeing some of the earlier renders with global illumination for the first time and how amazing they were! They were using all kinds of approximation techniques just to make the rendering tractable on the Silicon Graphics machines at the time. Fast forward, and we have things like deep-learning-based denoisers for Monte Carlo renders that are performing remarkably well for static images. This would have looked like science fiction back then!

Blade Runner 2049 by Framestore

One of the things I find really cool looking back is that Marcos Fajardo bet his future on pure Monte Carlo path tracing when it wasn’t the popular thing to do at the time. As CPUs got faster and started having higher thread counts, and recently as GPUs are starting to exist with dedicated path tracing hardware, pure path tracing is proving to be the most widely adopted approach to final frame rendering for Film & TV. It’s really impressive that Marcos committed to that idea early on, and didn’t stray from it while others kept adding different approximation features which made many of the renderers more complicated to use. Arnold’s ease of use and artist friendliness stems from that commitment early on to Monte Carlo path tracing. It’s also great to see that while rendering could be considered to be a mature research area now, there is still a lot of great research work going on in light transport, material representation, participating media, etc.

Thor: Ragnarok by Rising Sun Pictures

Programming and jazz music, how do they play together?

“The finest dozen computer scientists I know are all musicians” – Steve Jobs.

There’s really some truth to this 🙂 Most people I knew when I was studying music were immensely talented at mathematics and computer science, and most computer scientists that I’ve met along the way have shown a serious interest in music. I think jazz musicians are even more adept at dealing with abstract problems, and reacting to the system around them since that’s what they’re always doing when they’re playing. I guess jazz musicians would make great pipeline engineers 🙂 While software development can be seen as being methodical, there is definitely art in programming. And even more creativity in debugging! I’ve always enjoyed pair debugging with someone to observe how they tackle a problem, and what “tools” they’ve built up over their career. The same way it’s really fun to watch a shot and figure out all the details of how the plate was filmed, lit, and how the CG elements were added to it. Sometimes on interviews I show candidates short selected clips from movies and ask them to tell me what they’re seeing – it’s a great way to see how people think and communicate about what they’re seeing 🙂

Moving from a programmer to a lead and manager role, what is the difference for you? Do you still have fun?

Yeah, I guess I’ve just continued to scale through our organization, first moving from an individual contributor, then to the lead of a small team, then a bigger team, then a few teams, and now I have an organization of around 50 people in my group. It’s really a lot of fun – I have people on my team all over Europe, the US and Canada, and a lot of very interesting people who have deep specializations in rendering, simulation, pure mathematics, systems programming, etc. As I’ve moved up the ranks, I’ve also been able to visit a lot more of our customers all over the world which is really inspiring since it’s great to see all the great work people are doing. While I manage a large team now, I do still get to have fun and find the right places to have an impact. Sometimes it’s through architectural work, sometimes it’s just about social engineering; putting the right people together so that the sum is greater than the parts.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 by Framestore

Is your team all in one building or on multiple locations, how do you manage to support them on the distance, what are the tools to keep the whole team up-to-date?

I have larger teams in Montreal, Toronto, London, and Madrid, a few people scattered in Scandinavia, and then other individuals a little all over the place. We always try to use video for our meetings (currently using zoom for video conferencing which is great!) because that somehow bridges the divide, and lets you get all the non-verbal. We do try to bring people together at least once a year for bigger planning meetings and team building since it’s always easier to work with someone remotely after you’ve met them in person. We use a bunch of online tools like trello, mural, jira, etc., but I have yet to find something ideal for whiteboard sharing. I think that’s what I miss the most when doing a remote meeting with people vs a local one – I really like to use a whiteboard.

At the last year CGA conference, we had the honour to get the first-hand update on Arnold development from Frederic Servant, Arnold celebrity. What can we expect this year?

Arnold celebrity … hehe. Love it! Fred’s awesome – I’m sure he has something exciting up his sleeve. He’s a French rendering nerd with a British sense of humour, so his presentations are always fun.

What is the latest news in the Bifröst world of particles and liquids?

The work we’re doing on Bifröst is really exciting. Our adaptive data structures and new solvers that run on top of them are making for really impressive high-resolution volumetric simulations for a fraction of the memory (both during the solve and for the cached result). The same adaptivity applies to the other elements in the scene like colliders and emitters, so we’re able to get some great improvements in efficiency. Check out our SIGGRAPH paper presented by Michael Nielsen from this year for more details! The main thing we’re working on right now is making really nice artist tools for people to be able to do arbitrary procedural work using the Bifröst visual programming language. Keep checking The Area (http://area.autodesk.com) for the latest updates, or join the Bifröst beta for a sneak peek.

Leading the team on both Arnold and Bifröst, can you tell us about their relationship? Any juicy gossip? 🙂

Bifröst and Arnold are definitely in a relationship, and it’s not “complicated” 😉 Expect a baby Arnold Bifröst procedural sometime soon …

The latest trend in deep learning is to go into the computer graphics. Has this buzzword the same interest in your team too? Where do you see deep learning implementation in the rendering technology in the future?

I think there are a lot of interesting possibilities using deep learning for rendering. But at the same time, I think it’s important to understand that it’s not a panacea: the main drawback with AI today is that while it can do things that are very impressive based on good training data, it’s not possible to fine-tune the result. In our industry, that’s a pretty big problem since artists are always looking to tweak things, create variations, and to creatively go from one variation to another. AI-based denoising is a great example of how you can assist a look-dev artist by allowing them to iterate faster since they can render at lower sample counts, and therefore reduce their iterative render time while developing the look of the asset. It should also be possible to use AI in other ways as well to assist artists; for example to catch a mis-configured scene before spending time rendering it, or helping to light a scene from scratch based on a bunch of a priori scenes used for training. I think those areas are actually quite interesting and exciting. Another would be to use AI to help choose optimal paths for light integration in a Monte Carlo path tracer. But my hesitation will remain around general use of AI until we develop ways to fine-tune deep networks and to understand what’s in the black box to a point where you can push it artistically in a given direction. Otherwise, there will be too many stressful moments when the director asks for that last minute change 😉

  You’ve been to Belgrade for the first CGA Belgrade conference; how was your experience? What are your thoughts on our local talents and Serbian CGA scene?

I had a great time at the first CGA Belgrade for many reasons. I liked the intimacy of the event; it really felt like you could talk to everybody, and the events surrounding the conference were a lot of fun. I still recall an impromptu dinner where we had Mikhail from Mainroad, Szabolcs from Digic, a few guys from the Foundry, and a few of us from Autodesk. We had a bunch of great food, good laughs, great stories, and some fun competitive banter 😉 I also got a chance to visit Nordeus, where Ivan Stojisavljević treated us like royalty. It was a great experience, and some local artists like Igor Žanić and Dušan Ković attended and gave us feedback on the direction our products are taking. There’s obviously some very strong talent in Belgrade if Igor’s FX work and Dušan’s look-dev work are any indication.

Oh, and please, let us know – are there any places that you would love to visit in Belgrade again this time? What’s your impression of the city? How would you describe the flavour of Belgrade? Anything to recommend to our new guests?

I got to do a lot of fun extra-curricular stuff last time, and hope to again this year! We got to see a basketball game between Serbia and Austria last year, accidentally met Novak Djoković and his wife, walked all around the ruins, ate too much great food, found the best bartender in Belgrade, maybe even in Europe in my opinion, had some great espresso at a few different discerning coffee shops … and I might have had a bit too much rakia 😉 If I can do half as much this year as I did last year, it will be a success for me! Now, to find that bartender, since I heard he left Bar Central …

  Once again, November becomes the month of computer graphics, as CGA Belgrade hosts its two-day journey through the latest news, trends and developments in the VFX industry. We have worked especially hard this year to expand our main program, which we are proud to announce will feature two separate tracks! For big-picture thinking and groundbreaking ideas, make sure to look for the Know It All sign. For hands-on training and insider tips & tricks, don’t miss the Know How stage.

Eric Bourque, Autodesk (CGA2018) Eric lives in Montreal, Canada where he works in the Entertainment Creation Products Division of Autodesk…

[inernjournal-blog]

WEEK 1

This week, I started my intern position at Visual Playground, a Design, VFX and VR production house in South Melb. I found this company when attending a VR meet up at loop bar. They are one of the organisers so i thought they would be a good company to get in with. They saw my VR work at RMIT end of year exhibition 2016 so they where keen to have me on board.

On my first day I met everyone and they are really nice people and very friendly. The guy who I would be working with mostly is the Technical Director Niel. He was working on stitching some 360 video footage and walked me through the process in both After effects and Nuke.

Later, Niel and Creative Director, Pat came and asked if I had done much AR (Augmented Reality) I said i hadn’t but was keen to try. Excellent they said and told me they had a project for me.

So I was set to work developing a company logo that could be used as an AR tag. This didn’t take too long and they where imp[pressed that my design achieved and AR tag rating of 4 stars. This simply means that the AR content will stick to the tag very well, which is important.

I then moved on to Unity and created a simple glowing cube to test the AR app and deployed it to the Samsung s7. It worked perfectly. When Pat was looking at my work he came up with another idea... To make an AR business card which when viewed through the phone, turns into a ball maze where you tilt the card (not the phone) to move the ball though the maze. So I began researching and beginning a test build of the maze.

[exilesofembermark]

Game Dev Update | 9.7.17

It’s not just a Seer’s Staff. It’s a greeeedy Seer’s Staff. And it’s looking at your stuff, so better hide the valuables.  

Animated gear is just one of many upgrades we got working last month on Exiles, so we’re back with another host of new developments and updates. 

Last Update, we saw the Forge come online, showed a first-look at the evolution of combat mechanics, UI design, animations and the new avatar system. This time around, we’re going to dive into Ranked play, our progress on VFX, tiering Exiles loot, Difficulties, Faction relationships, and a very angry Elk. 

As always, let’s dig into it together in live Discord chat or on the forums!

RANK

Our last build of Exiles featured some long-awaited systems coming online. I’ve written about the Forge at length, but no less exciting for me is the PVP Rank system now in operation. 

It’s a single-point Rank system where players go from Rank 25 down to 1 and then enter the Legendary ladder for supremacy. As you can see from the badges here, there are a number of steps (gems) to progress through each badge, each with commensurate rewards at the end of each Season. 

I’ll share the exact rule system as we finalize it, but we’re experimenting with streaks and progressions. Right now, it’s one win/loss, one point plus or minus, coupled with a couple of streak options. Naturally, I spent the first several hours of the build’s existence power-ranking to 1 to make sure that our resident Bard (SingmeAsong) didn’t attain that rank with his cheater-admin-OP characters. 

/scowls at the Bard.

VFX

Across Player Abilities, NPCs and Battle Environments, visual effects are starting to make their way into the game’s innards. 

We started with effects for Player Abilities, and will soon share these in the context of battle, but here’s 1st looks at

Gravity Prison - Alters the gravity around the target dealing damage and slowing them at an increasing amount for several rounds.

Destruction’s Wake - Deals heavy damage, reduces the target's Martial Resistance and increases Strength of the caster

And my current favorite, Unstable Magicks (that is spelled CORRECTLY) -Consume all buffs to self to cast a chaotic spell that increases in damage by 10% for each buff consumed.

We’re working on applying effects to Legendary items as well. You’ve seen this sword before, but now it’s so much frostier...

Have a look at these and more Exiles effects in this video posted by our own Yoeri Luos Vleer, who’s been cranking them out with crazy gusto.

DIFFICULTIES

The map continues to evolve, as does the game’s PVE systems. For challenge and replayability, we’re working on a system of difficulties for Quests to provide different levels of combat. Here, you’ll see the South end of the Wildewoods Zone, with Port Endmore there above the Difficulties menu. The activities to do on the map here will be filtered by difficulty as well as Events, so you can quickly see what is available to your character and choose (some Events will be rooted geographically, some not).

And yes, with greater risk comes greater reward-- we’re starting to input the Quest chains and their tasty treasures now...

A NEW LOOK FOR LOOT TIERS

We’ve shown the visual tiering system all along the way, and just as the gameplay and UI have evolved, so too has the way we’re approaching tiers. After experiments with changing model geometry and textures, then just textures, then both again, we’ve hit on what we think is the right solution.

The intent is to give the lower-level player interesting gear while offering a significant visual bump up as the same equipment levels-up (via upgrade in the Forge) or is earned in battle once the player is at the appropriate level. 

Here’s the system for a basic Warrior helm:

The Tower Shield:

And the Barricade Shield:

This results in a tough, banged-up, less-refined look at Tier 1 and a more elegant power-lookat Tier 3 (and allows for further creativity to the color-tells of Rare and Epic gear). 

We’ve also been busy “component-izing” weapons to allow us to create as much variety as possible without going back to square one. A system of weapon-LEGOs, if you will. Using this, we’re starting to see the opportunity for --in the example here-- 9 different weapons, including axe, mace, spear and staff variations from one-ish set of parts.

BOSS ENEMIES GET TURNED INTO LOOT

You might feel sorry for ol’ Grimhowl until you learn what he’s been up to. And you will, but not for a ways into your levelling Quest line. Suffice it to say, he’s not a nice wolf and this fate is perhaps too good for him. 

He does make a nice set of Shoulders though.

PUT IT ALL TOGETHER

There will be a near-limitless number of looks you can achieve with your character’s gear, but here’s one based on the helm we showed last Update, the Narrator’s chest piece, Grimhowl’s Pelt and the weapon/shield combo from this post. 

Note: comments about his ears clipping through the helmet will merit a SMITATION. We fixed it.

NEW BATTLE SYSTEM COMING ONLINE

Last Dev Update, we covered the changes to the combat system that we’ve been working on and this month, those changes are going into the build of the game. By month’s end, we should be testing those changes in earnest and we’ll report on the results right here. 

Notice the current Stance-- the eye next to your avatar and health bar-- as well as the Stance you will move into should you choose each Ability. 

(Go here for an explanation of Stances). 

Here, you will cycle through your available Ability Loadout. 

FACTIONS INFOGRAPHICS

We’re starting to experiment with how to display the goings-on within Embermark for your lore pleasure. Factions within the continent will be allies, indifferents and mortal enemies of each other, and your actions within the game will affect them in a host of different ways. 

And for every action, there is a reaction, right? We’re working on how completing certain Quests or defeating certain foes will affect your place in the world as well as what might become available (or locked) to you. In addition, the plan is for a changing landscape-- so one Season (remember a Season in Exiles is currently a month of real-time) might see the Siege Dwarves and the Manifested at each other’s throats. Another, they might enjoy an uneasy alliance. How we’ll ultimately roll this out is up to what we learn in testing and beyond-- we’re just digging in. 

Thus, don’t try to fully understand this infographic-- it’s a work-in-progress snapshot on Factions and how many allies/enemies they each have. Note that House Ronin... just doesn’t care. And The Purge wants to see everyone burn.  

(For a higher res version, click here)

THE LENARI ELK

The Zone of Lenari is a landform sandwiched between the rocky ruins of Siege and the frigid forests of Eremis. Many species of forest-dwelling animal, including this massive Elk, call the Zone home.

After the Collapse, “embers” issued forth from the Breaches that appeared across the continent. Those embers fell on flora, fauna, inorganics, everything. In some cases, nothing happened. In others, the embers brought pain or death. And in other cases still-- the embers created fantastic alterations to whatever they fell upon. Marks. These Marks created visual mutations, sometimes with power increase or change. 

The elk of Lenari are a species whose biology was changed-- they’re faster, smarter and imbued with a power you will have to experience in the game. 

The markings along their coats and the coloration of the antlers will be significant to understanding how to take one of these down (and whether you even should). 

NOW REMEMBER

We’ll keep sharing details as we soon head into testing (remember to PM TheWizard on the Exiles forums with your device type if you want in on closed testing & beta later), and you can count on early impressions from the testers throughout our various channels.

If you haven’t already, follow along with Exiles development on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven’t, I’ll find you. And SMITE you.

THERE’S CHAT CHATTER EVERYDAY AS WE READY TO BATTLE

If you want to hear about the game, ask questions or connect with others who are helping the development team think about features, design and narrative, hop into the Discord Channel for live chat and say hi– it’s a friendly lot with plenty of daily shenanigans (there’s even– still– a Shenaniganizer).

BONUS: IT JUST WOULDN’T BE THE SAME WITHOUT... TATTERS

You can’t very well start the game adorned in glittering armor and glorious whatnot. Thus, I present to you a bit of Common gear that does--um-- very little for you. Gotta love them... Tatters!