Seouls 46-year-old Coex Convention Centre will be getting a much-desired facelift courtesy ofHeatherwick Studioafter the firm was announced as the winner of an international competition to deliver a new facade and efficiency upgrades by the year 2029.Their winning design for the future project calls for adding module boxes of varying sizes in a stack along the perimeter, serving to create 'ever-changing' and more exciting spaces for public exhibitions, engagement, and enhanced conference functions.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) have released a new status report on emissions benchmarks with findings relevant to the global building sector.Chief among its discoveries was the fact that total emissions in the sector did not increase in 2024 for the first time in four years. Buildings now account for 34% of all global emissions, down from the 40% figure that has been widely cited by many in government and industry in their push to decarbonize and promote projects accordingly.Emissions were also shown to have 'plateaued' in 2023. The UNEP says, however, that funding challenges pose a serious threat to achieving other climate-related targets. This comes after the UNEP announced theformation of its Intergovernmental Council for Buildings and Climate (ICBC) last November.

Pokmon Legends: Z-A has won an award at the recent Famitsu Dengeki 2024 Awards as the most anticipated title for 2025. The game beat out other nominees, including Grand Theft Auto 6 and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. In addressing this award, we have also now learned that Pokmon Legends: Z-A is being directed by Haruka Tochigi.Tochigi has released a statement where he thanked Famitsu for the award, while also speaking about development on Pokmon Legends: Z-A being in the final phase. In the statement, translated by X user Lewtwo, Tochigi has said that Pokmon Legends: Z-A is undergoing its final fine-tuning.Were very grateful and honoured to receive this, said Tochigi. Being awarded even before we ever show published [gameplay] videos showed us the high expectations of the main series.We, the Pokmon Legends: Z-A dev team, have been putting in daily effort to deliver the new game. The release is just around the corner please wait a little longer!Pokmon Legends games are filled with [new] attempts by Game Freak, his statement continues. As was the case prior, to bring new surprises for player experience, [Pokmon Legends: Z-A] will Mega Evolve, incorporating new battle mechanics and plenty of gameplay elements unique to urban environments; its in the final fine-tuning phase now. Look forward to a new adventure in Lumiose City.Pokmon Legends: Z-A will be the first time that Tochigi heads up a major game in the franchise. He originally joined Game Freak back in 2013, and worked on the mainline Pokmon games as an artist. He is also credited as the CG director on Pokmon Legends: Arceus.While we havent yet seen much in the way of extended gameplay for Pokmon Legends: Z-A, a gameplay trailer was released back in February that gave us an outline of the titles main setting of Lumiose city. The trailer also revealed the three starter Pokmon in the game: Chikorita, Totodile, and Tepig.Pokmon Legends: Z-A was originally announced all the way back in February 2024. Since then, Nintendo had confirmed that the game will take place entirely within Lumiose City, which is situated in the Kalos region. The game is coming out on Nintendo Switch some time this year.For more details about Pokmon Legends: Z-A, here are 10 new things weve learned about the game. Also check out why were excited about the game despite the lack of details. https://t.co/WgkiQMvuw4 Tochigi Haruka (@TinyHaruru) March 15, 2025Weve translated a new statement from Pokmon Legends: Z-A director Haruka Tochigi, claiming the game was in its final fine-tuning phase at the beginning of 2025. pic.twitter.com/9h9n53ij5W Lewtwo (@Lewchube) March 17, 2025 https://youtu.be/GCl0kPsebwo

Ubisoft is seemingly moving ahead with its previously-rumoured plans of spinning off a new venture that would include Ubisofts assets. According to a report by Bloomberg, the company has begun looking for investors for this new entity, and some of the IP that the new venture will bring with it from Ubisoft includes Assassins Creed.As part of this move, Ubisoft is reportedly looking to sell a minority stake in this new entity, and has also started contacting potential bidders. This includes Tencent, with whom the company was originally rumoured to be founding this new entity.Since it is taking Ubisofts big IP with it, the new venture is also looking to get a larger valuation from investors. The company itself has simply pointed to its statements from during its last quarterly earnings report, back when it had revealed that it is exploring transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders.For context, this statement was made back in January, when Ubisoft announced that it would be hiring new advisors to look into these options going forward. The team of advisors will be overseen by independent members of Ubisofts board of directors.These rumours of a new venture by Ubisoft might tie in with reports from earlier this month where the company was reportedly in talks with various major gaming companies for sales of some of its IPs. When asked for comment, however, Ubisoft once again reiterated its Q3 earnings report statements.As we mentioned during our Q3 sales, the review of various transformational strategic and capitalistic options is ongoing, said Ubisoft. The Board has established an ad-hoc independent Committee to oversee this formal and competitive process so as to extract the best value from Ubisofts assets and franchises for all stakeholders. Ubisoft will inform the market in accordance with applicable regulations if and once a transaction materialises.Reports of Ubisoft potentially moving to create a brand new venture that would also own some of Ubisofts major IP first came about back in January. At the time, reports indicated that Ubisoft was in talks with Tencent for this move. Neither company has made any new statements regarding the matter, however.Back in January, Ubisoft had also shut down its Leamington-based studio. Ubisoft Dsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections were also hit by layoffs around the same time, which ultimately affected around 185 employees of the company from across Europe.On the gaming side of things, Ubisoft is currently gearing up for the March 20 release of Assassins Creed Shadows on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Along with letting us know what kind of PC hardware we would need to run the game, Ubisoft has also announced that Assassins Creed Shadows will be supported on the Steam Deck.For more details about Assassins Creed Shadows, here are a few things we hope it learns from Ghost of Tsushima. Also check out our thoughts on its open world design, as well as a TV ad from earlier this month.

Monday, March 17th, 2025Posted by Jim ThackerAdobe releases Substance 3D Painter 11.0html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"An overview of the new features in Substance 3D Painter 11.0, the new version of the 3D texture painting software, compiled by Adobe Creative 3D Evangelist Wes McDermott.Adobe has released Substance 3D Painter 11.0, the latest version of the 3D texture painting software for games, animation, motion graphics and VFX.The release adds a new Auto-update system for project dependencies, updates the path tools, adds new utility filters and texture generators, and introduces native Metal support on macOS.In related news, Substance 3D Painter is now available via a new Substance 3D Indie subscription on Steam, which also includes Substance 3D Designer and Substance 3D Modeler.New Auto-update system automatically updates external resources used in a projectThe headline feature in Substance 3D Painter 11.0 is the new Auto-update system, for automatically updating the external resources used in a project, like textures and 3D models.Painter now automatically checks for changes, and automatically reloads updated assets.The process can be triggered manually, or set to happen at user-defined intervals, and the functionality is exposed via Python, making it possible for technical artists to customize the workflow.Updates to the path tools, including a new Filled path optionThe release also updates the path tools introduced in Substance 3D Painter 9.0, adding a new Filled path tool (shown above) for creating filled areas on the surface of a 3D model.The fills can cross gaps and object boundaries, and support mirror and radial symmetry, making them a quick way to create geometric patterns.Workflow updates to the other path tools include a viewport preview while drawing out a path, auto-closure of paths, and the option to copy and paste path positions from materials to masks.There are also new path snapping options, including angle snapping for path segments, and the ability to snap path points to mesh vertices.You can find a full list of changes in the online release notes.New filters and texture generatorsThe update also adds some of the image-manipulation filters that Adobe rolled out last year in Substance 3D Designer 14.0, the latest major version of the material-authoring software.That includes the Quantize filter for posterizing an image, Stylization for creating painterly effects, and Anisotropic Kuwahara and Directional Distance for smudging brush strokes.A new Bevel Smooth filter supersedes the existing Bevel filter.There are also three new texture generators Triangle Grid, Tile Random, and an improved Scratches Generator and Voronoi and Voronoi Fractal can be used as 2D as well as 3D noises.Other workflow improvementsOther changes include an experimental new option to have Substance 3D Painter automatically generate an optimal baking cage when baking textures from a 3D model, rather than using a custom mesh or setting the cage a fixed distance from the models surface.There are also a number of smaller workflow updates, particularly when working with UV Tiles, copying and pasting layers and paths, or sending assets to other software.Mac edition now uses Metal for rendering, not OpenGLFor Mac users, Substance 3D Painter 11.0 now uses Apples Metal graphics API for rendering in place of OpenGL, which Apple officially deprecated in 2018, in macOS 10.14.The update also ends support for old Intel Macs, Apple having begun to switch to its own Apple Silicon processors now used in all current Macs in 2020.Now available via the new Substance 3D Indie subscription on SteamIn related news, Substance 3D Painter is now available via Adobes new Substance 3D Indie subscription plan.Available via Steam, it includes Substance 3D Painter, Substance 3D Designer, VR modeling app Substance 3D Modeler, and a library of 1,000 3D assets, and costs $24.99/month.It seems to be intended as a more games-focused alternative to the existing Substance 3D Texturing plan, which includes Substance 3D Painter, Substance 3D Designer and asset capture app Substance 3D Sampler.Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions include unmetered access to the Substance 3D Assets library, and cost $19.99/month, although that price will also rise to $24.99/month next week.Price and system requirementsSubstance 3D Painter 11.0 is available for Windows 10+, RHEL 8.6/9.2+ and Ubuntu 22.04+ Linux and macOS 12.0+. Perpetual licences are available via Steam and cost $199.99. You can find details of the new Steam-based Substance Indie subscriptions in the story above.The software is also available via Adobes Creative Cloud-based Substance 3D subscriptions. Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions cost $19.99/month or $219.88/year; Substance 3D Collection subscriptions cost $49.99/month or $549.88/year. Both prices rise on 25 March 2025.Read a list of new features in Substance 3D Painter 11.0 in the online release notesHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest NewsAdobe releases Substance 3D Painter 11.0Check out the new features in the 3D texture painting app, including an Auto-update system, and more path tools, filters and texture generators.Monday, March 17th, 2025Free tool: Lens Cap for BlenderDecoded's frustration-saving add-on adds new features to Blender's camera system, streamlining keyframing DOF and object visibility.Sunday, March 16th, 2025Celsys releases Clip Studio Paint 4Check out the new features in the digital painting software for comics, illustrations and concept art, including the new Puppet Warp.Saturday, March 15th, 2025Assetify 2.1 converts Blender assets to game-ready formatsAsset baking and export add-on can now bake PBR textures from any Blender shader set-up, not just the Principled BSDF shader.Saturday, March 15th, 2025Tutorial: Creature Combat Animation in MayaDiscover how to create a King Kong-style creature fight sequence with The Gnomon Workshop's new five-hour Maya masterclass.Saturday, March 15th, 2025Wonder Studio becomes Autodesk Flow StudioAI-based service for VFX and animation gets rebranded as part of Autodesk's Flow cloud platform. Check out its latest features.Friday, March 14th, 2025More NewsPolygonflow releases Dash 1.9Get KitBash3D's Gaea fantasy architecture asset pack for freeCheck out open-source Blender character generator MPFB 2Check out neat AI-trained hand mocap tool HandCraft ProTutorial: Creating Production-Ready Hero Assets Using MariAMD releases Capsaicin 1.2AMD launches FSR 4, AFMF 2.1 and RIS 2.0AMD launches Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070D5 Render 2.10 adds real-time path tracingDownload Marmoset's free materials for Toolbag 5Autodesk lays off 1,350 staff3d-io releases Unwrella-IOOlder Posts

Matthew Ball started a big conversation about the state of the game industry when he launched a 224-slide PowerPoint deck. We continued it.Read More

While impressive in controlled demos, today's AI technologies expose critical limitations when transitioning to production-ready games.Read More

A new survey published by Unity suggests 79 percent of developers are feeling "positive" about generative AI tools.The annual Unity Gaming Report, based on a Clint survey with 300 respondents (150 based in North America, 60 in EMEA, 60 in APAC, and 30 in South America), claims the vast majority of developers are upbeat about the encroachment of generative AI tools on the game industry.It states that 31 percent of developers are feeling 'extremely positive' about the technology, with an additional 48 percent feeling 'somewhat positive.'The report adds that developers were "apprehensive" about generative AI tech at first, but claims that a mere 5 percent of creators now hold that view. Meanwhile, 17 percent of developers were reported to have "neutral" feelings about the tech."After ChatGPT hit the market, generative AI tools were suddenly everywhere, and a lot of game developers and other creators seemed apprehensive at firstbut today, 79 percent of devs polled report feeling positive about using AI in gaming, while a mere 5 percent are apprehensive," reads the report.Although the report indicates sentiment towards AI tools is shifting, it claims AI uptake is merely "holding steady.""Devs report picking up AI tools at a similar rate to last year, but AI applications and use cases have matured considerably in the interim. They've grown faster and are better trained, and we as users have honed our ability to guide generative AI toward desired results as AI use has grown normalized," it continues.Related:As the chart below shows, over 40 percent of developers said they have used AI to deliver automated playtesting, improve character animations, and write or improve code.30 percent explained they have used AI tools to facilitate adaptive difficulty, and 35 percent said they have leveraged AI to generate artwork and game levels. Only 4 percent of respondents said they haven't used AI tools at all."Since AI tool use is so much more widespread a year later, the slight downtick in several categoriesadaptive difficulty, generative art, and writing or narrative designis striking. It may suggest that devs may be less interested in exploring AI tools in creative or problem-solving dimensions of game development, possibly because theyve tested these use cases and havent been leveraging strong concerns there," adds the report."Meanwhile, AI use for automated playtesting, moderating in-game comms, and improving code have risen, implying that AI tools (so far) are most effectively used in support capacities, rather than generating original work."Related:Although Unity, which offers a number of AI-powered tools, claims developers have pinned their colors to the generative AI mastthere is some evidence to suggest that might not necessarily be the case.According to the GDC's 2025 State of the Game Industry Report, only 13 percent of developers surveyed felt generative AI tools would have a "positive impact" on the industry. Meanwhile, 30 percent claimed generative AI would actually leave a "negative" footprint.That report was based on responses from over 3,000 game developers and industry professionalsand although it found that generative AI was becoming increasingly unpopular, it also suggested that more studios have been adopting the technology.Additional findings from the latest State of the Industry Report can be found right here.Game Developer and GDC are sibling companies under Informa.

Weve seen plenty of leaked Pixel 9A renders and images over the past few months, but now we have full-on videos of what looks like Googles not-yet-announced phone. YouTubers Sahil Karoul and The Mobile Central posted reviews of the Pixel 9A, showing off its refreshed design and performance, as spotted earlier by Android Police.Just like what weve seen in previous leaks, the Pixel 9A seems to ditch a prominent camera bump for a flat back. The videos also show the budget-friendly phone with a noticeable bezel bordering the slightly larger 6.3-inch display, along with an upgraded 5,100mAh battery.Both videos include images and videos taken with the phones rumored 48-megapixel main camera, 13-megapixel ultrawide sensor, and 13-megapixel selfie camera, and they look pretty sharp. However, The Mobile Central notes that video quality takes a dip at night.Googles Pixel 9A reveal may only be just days away. Android Headlines previously reported that the company could introduce the device on March 19th in a variety of colors, including purple, pink, black, and white.

Six months after introducing its fifth-generation Spectacles and the second version featuring AR capabilities, Snap has announced new features and functionality. Lenses what Snap calls the Spectacles various AR effects can now utilize GPS data for simple navigation, multiplayer gaming, and other experiences. Theres also improved hand tracking, along with an AR keyboard that allows for text entry without pulling out a connected smartphone.Lenses can now use location data, including GPS, GNSS, and even compass headings. As part of todays announcement, Snap shared demos of Lenses using the new capabilities, including Utopia Labs NavigatAR, which creates arrows pointing in the direction users should be headed en route to a specific destination. Another lens, Path Pioneer, allows developers to create AR walking courses with waypoints that guide users along a specific path, which could be useful for city walking tours or museums and art galleries.Niantic has also updated its Peridot Beyond game with multiplayer capabilities made possible with access to location data. Users can see and interact with AR versions of their own Dot characters as well as their friends Dot characters in the same session. Developers will also now be able to add leaderboards to AR games to help draw players back to set a new high score.The Spectacles now feature a system AR keyboard. Screenshot: SnapThe Spectacles new AR keyboard features a full and numeric layout and takes advantage of refinements that Snap has made to hand tracking to improve targeting intent while reducing false positives while typing. Theres also a new grab gesture that can be used in Lens experiences, and hand tracking now knows when youre holding your smartphone.Unfortunately, what Snap didnt announce is a version of its AR Spectacles for general consumers. The fifth-gen Spectacles, featuring a limited 45 minutes of battery life, are still only available to developers who have to apply for access through the companys Lens Studio desktop tool. Pricing is still $99 per month, and you have to commit to renting them for at least a year.See More: