Hello, and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. There was absolutely no news last week because nothing happened.Just kidding. Defying all early polling, Donald Trump swept the election and will soon be sworn in for his second term in office. From a space policy perspective, things are already starting to look interesting. Thats mostly due to the prominent role SpaceX CEO Elon Musk played in the run-up to the election, and the role he could play in the next administration.Theres already been some great reporting from The New York Times on their relationship; Ill point to this story, which describes how Musk joined a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and this one, in which sources say that Musk wanted Trump to hire SpaceX employees to top government positions, including at the Department of Defense.If Musk manages to secure even a fraction of the influence that he has talked about in recent weeks like heading a Department of Government Efficiency we could see the head of the biggest space company, the biggest electric vehicle manufacturer, and one of the largest social media platforms gain as-of-yet-unheard of influence.Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at aria.techcrunch@gmail.com or send a message on Signal at 512-937-3988. You can also send a note to the TechCrunch crew at tips@techcrunch.com.For more secure communications,click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop instructions and links to encrypted messaging apps.Story of the week Senior reporter Rebecca Bellan and I dove into what Trumps presidency might mean for Elon Musk. Bellan covers all things transportation, so she took a close look at the prospects for Tesla, and I threw in my two cents about the implications for space policy. We tried very, very hard not to speculate too much at this point, its too easy to drift into fantasy, and there are too many unknowns but theres still plenty of info to go on.Image Credits:Adam Gray/Bloomberg / Getty ImagesWhat were looking forward to this monthSpeaking of SpaceX, the company is gearing up to launch its sixth integrated flight test of Starship on November 18. Many of the test objectives are the same as the fifth test, which saw the Super Heavy booster return to the launch site for the first time ever, but SpaceX did say it will be testing some hardware and software upgrades.Image Credits:SpaceXThis week in space historyWith Musk having the ear of the next sitting president, Mars is on everyones minds in a new way. Its entirely possible that SpaceX could indeed launch an uncrewed Starship to Mars when the next Earth-Mars transit window opens in 2026. But this week, were looking back at a very small spacecraft that made history as the first human-made object to orbit the red planet: Mariner 9, which entered Mars orbit on November 13, 1971.When the probe arrived, a massive dust storm was obscuring most of the planets features. That calmed down, and Mariner 9 was able to take a number of incredible images over its 10 months orbiting the planet. Much of what it saw completely shocked scientists.olympus mons, the largest shield volcano on mars and earth.Image Credits:NASA

Disney has just released an all-new short film, A Disney Holiday Short: The Boy & The Octopus, in collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmaker Taika Waititi, premiering today on YouTube.The film follows the journey of a child who discovers a curious octopus has attached to his head during a seaside vacation. After returning home, the boy forms a true friendship with the octopus by introducing his new companion to his life on land harnessing the power of the Force with his Jedi lightsaber, playing with his Buzz Lightyear action figure, and imagining Santa Claus route around the world with the map on his wall before taking the lovable octopus out into the world to experience the joy of the holidays, hidden under his Mickey Mouse beanie.While watching the Disney holiday classic, The Santa Clause (1994), the boy comes to understand the extent of the octopus desire to explore everything the world has to offer, and he sets in motion a plan to make it happen. For the boy and the octopus, it is the precious everyday moments of childhood and friendship, as much as the magic of the season, that make their time together so meaningful. Numerous hidden easter eggs include nods to films like Moana (2016), Lilo and Stitch (2002), and Toy Story (1995), among others.The story manages to connect the feelings that you get around the holidays, and the joy, the goodwill and everything, with those same emotions and those same sensibilities you get from Disney films, said Waititi. I think they go hand in hand and it's the perfect match and only Disney could have made something like this with me. The short was created in conjunction with global creative agencies adam&eveDDB and Untold Studios, and produced by Hungry Man. A melodic rendition of Part of Your World from the Disney classic The Little Mermaid (1989) can be heard throughout the short, highlighting the octopus desire to explore the world above. This take on the fan-favorite song was recorded live by a 60-piece orchestra and mixed in the legendary recording studio Abbey Road.Tim Pennoyer, Director of Brand Marketing and the and themarketinglead whohelpedspearhead the campaign, shares with AWN, The biggest challenge in bringingA Disney Holiday Short: The Boy & The Octopus to life was creating an octopus character that felt both realistic and emotionally expressive. Working with our amazing partners in adam&eveDDB and VFX experts Untold Studios, we knew we were asking a lotan octopus with eight tentacles that could move independently, shapeshift, and even change skin color, all while conveying the warmth and charm needed for our story. It was the most complex character Untold Studios has ever brought to life, requiring an incredible level of detail in VFX to capture those intricate movements and transformations. He adds, The octopus had to feel both lifelike and relatable, with a full range of motion that would make the character truly magical on screen. It was a huge technical and creative challenge, but we knew it was key to making the story unforgettable. We would spend hours talking through every single scene with the octopus debating each expression on his face, and even the sounds he would make. All these details bring him to life.Take a few moments to enjoy the film:For generations, Disney has been an ever-present part of the holiday season all over the world, and this short builds on the enduring connection that so many families have with Disney during this special time of year, said Asad Ayaz, Chief Brand Officer, The Walt Disney Company. Were thrilled to collaborate with Taika Waititi on this timeless story of childhood friendship against the backdrop of this magical season.A Disney Holiday Short: The Boy & The Octopus is the latest creative collaboration between Waititi and The Walt Disney Company. The acclaimed filmmaker directed Marvel Studios Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Searchlight Pictures Jojo Rabbit (2019) and Next Goal Wins (2023), as well as executive produced Hulus Reservation Dogs, What We Do in the Shadows, and the forthcoming limited series, Interior Chinatown.Source: The Walt Disney Company Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

Epic Games has released Unreal Engine 5.5, featuring major enhancements to animation authoring, rendering, virtual production, mobile game development, and developer iteration toolsets.Here are some highlights: Animation - UE 5.5 new features and enhancements facilitate high-fidelity in-editor animation authoring workflows. There are also additions to the animation gameplay authoring toolset.Sequencer - Unreal Engines nonlinear animation editor now boasts a more controllable interface with better filtering and easier access to properties.Animation deformers Users can craft more realistic animation effects such as contact deformation or better cartoon-style squash-and-stretch, with the new ability to author animatable animation deformers inside Control Rig and easily apply them to characters in Sequencer with a single click.Modular Control Rig - Modular Control Rig moves to Beta with UI and UX improvements; new quadruped and vehicles modules; and support for common bipedal skeleton types, while the Skeletal Editor is now Production-Ready with improvements that include quicker and simpler workflows for painting and editing weights. MetaHuman Animator - Part of the MetaHuman Plugin for Unreal Engine, MetaHuman Animators upgrades include an Experimental feature, allowing users to generate high-quality facial animationincluding inference of upper face gesturesjust from audio performances.Mutable character customization - Game developers whose projects require content that changes dynamically at runtime will benefit from the addition of the Mutable character customization system. The system can be used to generate dynamic skeletal meshes, materials, and textures for characters, animals, props, and weapons while optimizing memory usage, keeping shader cost low, and reducing the draw call count.Choosers Now production-ready Choosers offers a framework for selecting animations for playback based on game context without having to write complex logic, this game context asset selector can be used to select nearly any type of asset; this can encompass multiple levels of complexity, from simple random selectors to database-driven logic involving thousands of animations. Lumen - Now runs at 60 Hz on platforms with supported hardware due to improvements to the systems that underpin hardware ray tracing (HWRT). These improvements also impact the performance and capabilities of Path Tracer and light baking.Path Tracer - The DXR-accelerated, physically accurate progressive rendering mode is now production-ready, for creating final pixels for nonlinear applications or fully featured ground-truth reference images. This release sees a series of performance and fidelity improvements, Linux support, and support for all other Production-Ready features, including sky atmosphere and volumetric clouds. Substrate - The material authoring framework introduced as Experimental in Unreal Engine 5.2, moves to Beta. All features of legacy materials are now supported, as are all platforms to which UE deploys.Movie Render Graph (MRG) - Introduced as Experimental in Unreal Engine 5.4, Movie Render Graph (MRG) moves to Beta in this release, with further investment in the graph-based configuration workflow.MegaLights - This release offers a sneak peek at an Experimental new feature being called MegaLights. Already being dubbed the Nanite of lights, MegaLights enables users to add hundreds of dynamic shadow-casting lights to scenes, without constraints. Lighting artists, for the first time, can freely use textured area lights with soft shadows, Light Functions, media texture playback, and volumetric shadows on consoles and PC, focusing on artistic considerations rather than performance impact. Virtual production - Unreal Engines dedicated in-camera visual effects (ICVFX) toolset powers a myriad of productions in film, television, and commercials internationally. UE 5.5 sees the accumulated investment across multiple releases bringing the ICVFX toolset to full production-readiness, as well as advances in other features for virtual production and visualization.SMPTE 2110 - Unreal Engines support for SMPTE 2110 includes numerous stability improvements; automatic detection and repair of framelock loss; the ability to use PTP as a timecode provider; OCIO support for 2110 media; and other improvements to IP video signal flow, its ready to meet the needs of the real-world ICVFX projects as they make the transition to SMPTE 2110 deployments.Camera Calibration - Production-Ready with UE 5.5 is the Camera Calibration solver, with improved accuracy for lens and camera parameters estimation. Stemming from this work, Overscan is now built into all cameras, to support use cases like rendering with lens distortion or adding camera shake in post.Virtual Scouting Production-ready updated Virtual Scouting toolset introduced in UE 5.4, offers an out-of-the-box experience using OpenXR-compatible HMDs (with Oculus and Valve Index supported by default), and new opportunities for customization via an extensive API. The toolset now features a new VR Content Browser and asset placement; a Transform Gizmo that is customizable via Blueprint; and further polish, including a color-correct Viewfinder.Color Grading Panel - Previously part of the ICVFX Editor, the Color Grading Panel is now available for general use in the Unreal Editor, providing an artist-friendly interface for creative color manipulation in any Unreal Engine scene. The panel now also supports post-process volumes, cine cameras, and color correction regions.DMX - With applicability not just within virtual production, but also in broadcast and live events, Unreal Engines DMX tech stack joins the list of Production-Ready toolsets, with enhancements to the Control Console, Pixel Mapping, and Conflict Monitor.This release also adds GDTF compliance to the DMX Plugin for interfacing with GDTF- and MVR-enabled control devices and software, among other enhancements.Mobile game development:Mobile Forward Renderers new features increase visual fidelity on the platform and now supports D-buffer decals, rectangular area lights, capsule shadows, moveable IES textures for point and spotlights, volumetric fog, and Niagara particle lights. Screen-space reflections now work in both Mobile Forward and Deferred Renderers.Mobile Previewers improvements help with content development for mobile games including the ability to capture and preview a specific Android device profile, and to emulate half-precision 16-bit float shaders, making it easier to detect and deal with artifacts.Visit the Unreal Engine blog for more detailed information.Source: Epic Games Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.

Breakdown & ShowreelsDeadpool & Wolverine: Opening Sequence VFX Breakdown by FramestoreBy Vincent Frei - 12/11/2024 The opening of Deadpool & Wolverine isnt just an action scene; its a VFX-fueled adrenaline rush! Thanks to the teams of Framestore, every second is a blend of chaos, comedy, and spectacular visuals that will leave you speechless. Ready to get your senses kicked into overdrive?WANT TO KNOW MORE?Framestore: Dedicated page about Deadpool & Wolverine on Framestore website.Matthew Twyford: Heres my interview of Matthew Twyford, VFX Supervisor at Framestore.Swen Gillberg & Lisa Marra: Heres my interview of Production VFX Supervisor Swen Gillberg and Production VFX Producer Lisa Marra. Vincent Frei The Art of VFX 2024

Breakdown & ShowreelsHalo Season 2: VFX Breakdown by El RanchitoBy Vincent Frei - 12/11/2024 Step into the heart of the action with the second season of Halo! The visual effects made by El Ranchito bring the heat of battle to life, as Master Chief takes on relentless enemies in epic combat sequences!WANT TO KNOW MORE?El Ranchito: Dedicated page about Halo: Season 2 on El Ranchito website.WATCH IT ON Vincent Frei The Art of VFX 2024

Adeles recent concert residency, Adele in Munich, wasnt just a live performance; it was a groundbreaking display of technology and design. Held at the custom-built Adele Arena at Munich Messe, this ten-date residency captivated audiences with both the music and an unprecedented visual experience. We spoke to Emily Malone, Head of Live Events and Peter Kirkup, Innovation Director at Disguise, about how it was done.Malone and Kirkup explained how their respective teams collaborated closely with Adeles creative directors to ensure a seamless blend of visuals, music, and live performance.Malone explained the process: The aim was not to go out and set a world record it was to build an incredible experience that allowed Adeles fans to experience the concert in quite a unique way. We wanted to make the visuals feel as intimate and immersive as Adeles voice. To achieve this, the team used a combination of custom-engineered hardware and Disguises proprietary software, ensuring the visuals felt like an extension of Adeles performance rather than a distraction from it.The Adele Arena wasnt your typical concert venue. Purpose-built for Adeles residency, the arena included a massive outdoor stage setup designed to accommodate one of the worlds largest LED media walls. The towering display, which dominated the arenas backdrop, set a new benchmark for outdoor live visuals, allowing Adeles artistry to be amplified on a scale rarely seen in live music.Adeles recent Munich residency played host to more than 730,000 fans from all over the world, reportedly the highest turnout for any concert residency outside Las Vegas. We are proud to have played an essential role in making these concerts such an immersive, personal and unforgettable experience for Adeles fans, says Emily Malone, Head of Live Events at Disguise.Thanks to Disguise, Adele played to the crowd with a curved LED wall spanning 244 meters, approximately the length of two American football fields. The LED installation was covered with 4,625 square meters of ROE Carbon 5 Mark II (CB5 MKII) in both concave and convex configurations. As a result, it earned the new Guinness World Record title for the Largest Continuous Outdoor LED Screen. The lightweight and durable design of the CB5 MKII made the installation possible. At the same time, its 6000-nit brightness and efficient heat dissipation ensured brilliant, vibrant visuals throughout the whole duration of the outdoor performance.With over 20 years of experience powering live productions, Disguise technology has done an enormous variety of outdoor performances and concerts. For Adeles Munich residency, Disguises team implemented advanced weatherproofing measures and redundant power systems to ensure reliability. Using Disguises real-time rendering technology, the team was able to adapt and tweak visuals instantly, even during Adeles live performances, ensuring a truly immersive experience for the audience.Adele in Munichtook place over 10 nights in a bespoke, 80,000-capacity stadium. This major event called for an epic stage production. Having supported Adeles live shows before, Disguise helped create, sync, and display visuals on a 4,160-square-metre LED wall assembled to look like a strip of folding film.Kirkup was part of the early consultation for the project, especially regarding the feasibility of the project and the deliverability of the original idea for the vast LED screens. There was a lot of discussion about pixel pitch and fidelity, especially as there was an additional smaller screen right behind the central area where Adele would stand. The question was raised if this should be the same LED products as the vast main screen or something more dense; in the end, they landed on using the same LEDs for the best contiguous audience experience, he explained.The Munich residency was unique; there was no template for the team, but their technology scaled to the task. The actual implementation went incredibly smoothly, explains Malone. There was so much pre-production, every detail was thought about so much by all the collaborators on the project. As there was so little time to get the stage and LEDs built on site, it was all extensively pre-tested before the final shipping. It would be so hard to fault find on location- I mean, it took me 15 minutes just to walk to the other end of the LED wall, and lord forbid if you forgot your radio or that one cable and you had to walk back for anything!The 2-hour concerts generated 530 million euros for the city of Munich throughout the ten shows from the concert attendance, with each night having a stadium capacity of 80,000 fans. 8 x Disguise GX3 servers were used to drive the LED wall, and 18 x Disguise SDI VFC cards were required. There was a total pixel count of 37,425,856 being driven, split over 3 actors.Actor 1: Left 7748 x 1560Actor 2: Centre 2912 x 936 + scrolls and infill 5720 x 1568 + lift 3744 x 416Actor 3: Right 7748 x 1560Disguises Designer software was used to preview visuals before going on stage and to control them during the show, which was sequenced to timecode. Given the nature of the live event, there was a main and backup system for full 1:1 redundancy. The footage from Adele singing was shot 4K with Grass Valley cameras. With a live performance, there is a degree of unpredictability, with live shows, says Malone. There was a tight set list of songs which did not change from night to night, all triggered by timecode, but structures were built in so that Adele wanted to speak to the audience or do something special on any night, they could get her closeup face on screen very quickly. Additionally, there is a major requirement to be able to take over the screens at a moments notice for safety messages should something completely unexpected happen. In reality, the screens serve many functions; it is there so the audience can see the artist they are there for, but also it is their safety, for the venue, for the suppliers.This was the first time Adele has played mainland Europe since 2016, and the 36-year-old London singer signed off her final Munich show, warning fans, I will not see you for a long time. Adele, who last released the album 30 in 2021, is set to conclude her shows at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace this month and then is not expected to tour again soon. Both the Vegas and Munich residencies give the singer a high level of creative and logistical control compared with normal live touring a luxury option only available to entertainments biggest stars. Such residences also allow for the investment in such bespoke technical installations. The Munich LED stage would simply not be viable to take on a world tour, both due to its size and how it was crafted explicitly for the German location.Disguise is at the heart of this new era of visual outdoor experiences, where one powerful integrated system of software, hardware and services can help create the next dimension of real-time concert. They have partnered with the biggest entertainment brands and companies in the world such as Disney, Snapchat, Netflix, ESPN, U2 at the Sphere, the Burj Khalifa, and Beyonce.Thanks to the massive technical team; for Adeles fans, Adele in Munich was more than a concertit was an immersive experience, seamlessly blending state-of-the-art visuals with world-class music.

This week, the team discusses the visual effects of the HBOs limited series The Penguin from The Batman by director Matt Reeves.The Penguin is a miniseries developed by Lauren LeFranc for HBO. It is based on the DC Comics character of the same name. The series is a spin-off from The Batman (2022) and explores Oz Cobbs rise to power in Gotham Citys criminal underworld immediately after the events of that film.Colin Farrell stars as Oz, reprising his role from The Batman. He is joined by Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Deirdre OConnell, Clancy Brown, Carmen Ejogo, and Michael Zegen. Join the team as they discuss the complex plot, effects and visual language of this highly successful mini-series.The Penguin premiered on HBO on September 19, 2024, with eight episodes. The series has received critical acclaim for its performances, writing, direction, tone, and production values.The VFX are made by: Accenture Song, Anibrain, FixFX, FrostFX, Lekker VFX and PixomondoThe Production VFX Supervisor was Johnny Han, who also served as 2nd Unit Director. Johnny Han is a twice Emmy nominated and Oscar shortlisted artist and supervisor.The Supervillains this week are:Matt Bane Wallin * @mattwallin www.mattwallin.com.Follow Matt on Mastodon: @[emailprotected]Jason Two Face Diamond @jasondiamond www.thediamondbros.comMike Mr Freeze Seymour @mikeseymour. www.fxguide.com. + @mikeseymourSpecial thanks to Matt Wallin for the editing & production of the show with help from Jim Shen.

There are multiple ways to convert color to black-and-white image in Blender, and some are more perceptually correct than other (yet theres no truth).AgX, Filmic & Creative LUTs for DaVinci Resolve (Free)The post Use This Trick to Convert to Black and White in Blender appeared first on Creative Shrimp.

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