Tuesday, November 12th, 2024Posted by Jim ThackerGet the Blender Studios free Brushstroke Tools for Blenderhtml PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"The Blender Studio has released the Brushstroke Tools, a free Blender extension for applying painterly brushstrokes to the surface of 3D models.The add-on, developed for Blender Studio tech showcase Project Gold, lets users create and edit layers of procedurally generated 3D brushstrokes.With it, users can generate stylized looks for 3D assets while texturing them for use in illustrations, animations, game development or motion graphics projects.Generate painterly brushstrokes across the surface of a 3D model to create stylized looksThe Brushstroke Tools were developed as part of the R&D work for Project Gold: originally a painterly 3D short, but later scaled back to a showcase of stylized asset creation techniques.It makes it possible to apply brushstrokes to the surface of 3D models, either filling the entire mesh surface with procedurally generated strokes, or drawing directly onto the surface.The brushstrokes can be applied in layers, with the option to control the shape and visual style of the strokes on a layer-by-layer basis, along with the material and effects applied.The extension mimics a range of natural media types, as shown in this online workshop, with future add-on packs due to add support for a wider range of brushstroke styles.For animation, the brushstroke layers should deform with the mesh surface, and there is an experimental option to animate the drawing of the strokes, as with the Grease Pencil toolset.License and system requirementsThe Brushstroke Tools extension is compatible with Blender 4.2+. It is available under an open-source GPL license.Download the free Brushstroke Tools extension for BlenderRead more about the Brushstroke Tools extension in the online documentationHave 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 NewsBlackmagic Design releases Fusion Studio 19.1Update to the 3D compositing app extends USD and OCIO workflow, and adds new options for toggling between inputs in compositions.Wednesday, November 13th, 2024Blackmagic Design releases DaVinci Resolve 19.1Discover the key features for VFX artists and colorists in the free grading and editing software and its $295 Studio edition.Wednesday, November 13th, 2024Get the Blender Studio's free Brushstroke Tools for BlenderNeat free extension lets you apply painterly brushstrokes to the surface of 3D models while texturing them, and control the strokes procedurally.Tuesday, November 12th, 2024Foundry releases Mari 7.1 in betaUpdated for Beta 2: 3D texture painting app gets new 2D painting mode for editing source images or creating custom decals.Tuesday, November 12th, 2024Scene Group releases Cavalry 2.2Next-gen motion design software gets support for OpenType fonts, plus the option to create color gradients along strokes.Monday, November 11th, 2024Maxon releases ZBrush for iPad 2025.1First update to the iPad edition of the digital sculpting software adds support for texture maps, UV layouts and displacement maps.Friday, November 8th, 2024More NewsFoundry discontinues ModoEpic Games to share new free assets on Fab every two weeksGet 100+ free modular airport assets for Unity and Unreal EngineReallusion adds AI Smart Search to Character Creator and iClonePoly Hammer unveils MetaHuman DNA add-on for BlenderAcademy Software Foundation adopts OpenAPVWRetargetTool is a versatile free Maya animation retargeting toolSketchsoft releases Feather 1.0Tutorial: Creating Cinematic Concept ArtGet ProductionCrate's three new free After Effects pluginsDownload VFX artist David Llopis's free Maya dragon rigChaos releases Enscape 4.2Older Posts

Tuesday, November 12th, 2024Posted by Jim ThackerFoundry releases Mari 7.1 in betahtml PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"Originally posted on 11 October 2024, and updated for Beta 2.Foundry has released Mari 7.1, the next version of its 3D texture painting software, in beta.New features include a 2D Painting Mode for creating or editing 2D images without having to switch to another application, and a new Switch node for creating texture variations.The beta is available to existing users with paid subscriptions or maintenance contracts.New 2D Painting Mode lets users edit source images or create decals without leaving MariThe main new feature in Mari 7.1 is the new 2D Painting Mode, for creating or editing 2D images without the need to open an external application like Photoshop.Suggested use cases include cloning out imperfections in source images, and creating custom decals and grunge maps.It supports the key features of Maris 3D painting toolset, including the Paint Buffer, Node Graph and Layer Stack, and can be accessed via a new 2D pane next to the Orthographic view, making it possible to switch between 3D and 2D modes quickly.Users can export the Node Graph to disk in 2D mode in a new .mrimg file format.The update also adds a new Image Write node type intended for use in 2D mode, equivalent to the existing Bake Point node for 3D workflows.It makes it possible to bake out a 2D image to the Image Manager that is automatically updated on each rebake.Updates to the Node GraphOther key changes in Mari 7.1 include the new Switch node.It enables artists to create multiple variants of a texture for example, clean and dirty states by choosing which parts of the Node Graph to render, switching between them with a UI toggle.There are also a number of quality-of-life improvements to the Node Graph, including the option to choose from swatches of commonly used colors when creating a new Paint node.Users can add their own custom colors to the swatches via a new Color Presets shelf.Custom Procedurals renamed Smart MasksIn addition, Maris existing Custom Procedurals system has been renamed Smart Masks to help users visualise how they might want to use the procedural groups in their projects.The same terminology is used in Adobes 3D painting software, Substance 3D Painter.The update also adds over 50 readymade Smart Masks, for creating texture breakup, wear and grunge effects, created by Digital Domain Lead Texture Artist Stuart Ansley.Still on the CY2023 spec for the VFX Reference PlatformAlthough Mari 7.1 remains on the CY2023 specification for VFX Reference Platform, two versions behind the latest spec, several third-party libraries have been updated. Find a full list here.Price, system requirements and release dateMari 7.1 is compatible with Windows 10+ and Rocky Linux/RHEL 9. It is currently in beta, for users with active maintenance: the beta isnt available for users of Mari Non-commercial. Foundry hasnt announced a final release date.Mari is available subscription-only. Individual subscriptions have a standard price of $86/month, or $689/year. Subscriptions for teams cost $1,169/year.Read a full list of new features in Mari 7.1 in the Beta 2 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 NewsBlackmagic Design releases Fusion Studio 19.1Update to the 3D compositing app extends USD and OCIO workflow, and adds new options for toggling between inputs in compositions.Wednesday, November 13th, 2024Blackmagic Design releases DaVinci Resolve 19.1Discover the key features for VFX artists and colorists in the free grading and editing software and its $295 Studio edition.Wednesday, November 13th, 2024Get the Blender Studio's free Brushstroke Tools for BlenderNeat free extension lets you apply painterly brushstrokes to the surface of 3D models while texturing them, and control the strokes procedurally.Tuesday, November 12th, 2024Foundry releases Mari 7.1 in betaUpdated for Beta 2: 3D texture painting app gets new 2D painting mode for editing source images or creating custom decals.Tuesday, November 12th, 2024Scene Group releases Cavalry 2.2Next-gen motion design software gets support for OpenType fonts, plus the option to create color gradients along strokes.Monday, November 11th, 2024Maxon releases ZBrush for iPad 2025.1First update to the iPad edition of the digital sculpting software adds support for texture maps, UV layouts and displacement maps.Friday, November 8th, 2024More NewsFoundry discontinues ModoEpic Games to share new free assets on Fab every two weeksGet 100+ free modular airport assets for Unity and Unreal EngineReallusion adds AI Smart Search to Character Creator and iClonePoly Hammer unveils MetaHuman DNA add-on for BlenderAcademy Software Foundation adopts OpenAPVWRetargetTool is a versatile free Maya animation retargeting toolSketchsoft releases Feather 1.0Tutorial: Creating Cinematic Concept ArtGet ProductionCrate's three new free After Effects pluginsDownload VFX artist David Llopis's free Maya dragon rigChaos releases Enscape 4.2Older Posts

Congratulations to the winner and nominees of the 2024 Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design! Shgun, the winner of this years prestigious award and created by design studio Elastic, along with the nominees Fallout, 3 Body Problem, and Silo, created by design studio antibody.tv, showcase the exceptional artistry and innovation within the television industry, and how #MaxonOne tools help bring these extraordinary stories to life. https://maxonvfx.com/48NdRSi

Tomorrow on #CreateWithMaxon, learn about the new features in #ZBrushForiPad. Explore the new surface noise, undo history, UV texture maps, hover and roll states, custom toolbar updates, and more!Join ZBrush Trainer Rodolfo Silva for an exciting livestream about the new features in ZBrush for iPad 2025.1.

Why theres no such thing as an untranslatable wordPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter2 min read4 hours ago-- Were back with the Medium NewsletterIssue #206: befriending good communicators and a roadtrip through the 11 distinct subcultures that comprise the U.S.Untranslatable words are sort of a trope on the internet. Google that phrase and youll find a series of overlapping lists often written by English speakers. A classic: hygge, which one of my friends who used to live in Denmark tells me definitely does not mean cozy. (Its more nuanced than that, a combination of rusticity and simplicity.)At a certain point, these lists can feel like cultural fetishism to me, like theyre flattening all of Denmark into an appreciation for candles and chunky blankets.On Medium, linguist Tom Scullin believes nothing is truly untranslatable some concepts just take more syllables to express in one language than another. Tsondoku (), for example, is a Japanese word for something thats easy to communicate in English: buying books but not reading them (guilty). Saudade, which tops most lists of untranslatable words, is a Portuguese term at the intersection of longing and nostalgia. I think English speakers are fascinated by these words not because they feel foreign to us, but because they feel so familiar and because whenever you learn a new word for something abstract, it makes the abstract thing floating around your head more concrete.Plus: English contains just as many words that dont easily translate, too. I dont know what this says about the UK and America, but most of them have to do with social norms. Take awkward. It comes from a Norse word meaning turned the wrong way but has picked up all kinds of emotional and cultural valences over the last few decades, and it has no equivalent outside of English. The same is true of cringe and fair. Harris SockelWhat else were readingA progressives road trip through red states, featuring 11 distinct subcultures that comprise the U.S. (Cory Vinny)Joni Mitchell pairs well with a bowl of pho. (Ryley Graham)If you want to be a better communicator, befriend people who are good communicators. (Ava Huang, aka Bookbear Express)Your daily dose of practical wisdomTrue confidence = the courage to be disliked.

How to See the Stunning Leonid Meteor Shower This WeekendThough the nearly full moon will likely outshine some of these speedy meteors, you may still be able to catch a glimpse of bright fireballs and low Earth-grazers The Leonids sometimes produce fireballs, or unusually bright streaks of light that linger in the night sky. NASA / Getty ImagesLooking for something to do this weekend? Stay up lateand look upfor a chance to see the annual Leonid meteor shower.This year, the Leonids are active from November 3 to December 2, according to the American Meteor Society. The shooting stars are expected to reach their peak this weekend, from the night of November 16 into the early morning hours of November 17 and from late November 17 until dawn on November 18.Unfortunately, the meteors might be a bit tricky to spot this time around. The moon will be roughly 98 percent full the night the Leonids peak (in its waning gibbous phase), meaning that even if you head somewhere with very little light pollution, you wont be able to escape the bright moonlight. Still, you might get lucky and catch a glimpse of a dazzling fireball.Heres what to know about the dazzling and speedy Leonids.Where the meteors come fromThe Leonidslike all meteor showersoccur when Earth passes through a natural debris trail in space. These bits of dust, rock and ice left behind by a comet or asteroid enter Earths atmosphere, where they burn up and create streaks of light that are sometimes visible from the ground. These streaks are meteors, also known as shooting stars.The comet responsible for producing the Leonids is called 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids parent comet, which measures 2.24 miles in diameter, makes a trip around the sun every 33 years. It was discovered independently by two men: Ernst Tempel in 1865 and Horace Tuttle in 1866. Its next foray into our solar system will come in 2031.The Leonids are the worlds fastest annual meteor shower, traveling up to 158,400 miles per hour. Because Earth and 55P/Tempel-Tuttle are traveling in nearly opposite directions, the meteors collide head-on with the planets atmosphere, according to the European Space Agency. At their peak, under prime conditions, the Leonids produce about 15 meteors per hour.The Leonid Meteor Shower: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher 11/11/2024Watch on A history of meteor stormsThis year, the Leonids are expected to be a regular meteor shower. But every 33 years or so, they produce whats known as a meteor storm, or a much more intense version of a meteor shower. During a meteor storm, at least 1,000 meteors pass through Earths atmosphere in an hour, NASA writes. These dazzling storms result from Earth crossing an ultra-dense cloud of debris, which typically happens when 55P/Tempel-Tuttle is at or near its closest point to the sun, known as its perihelion.In November 1833, stargazers witnessed one of the Leonids meteor storms, with between 50,000 and 150,000 meteors visible per hour. Earth-bound observers were simultaneously amazed and befuddled by the unusual celestial show, as Eli Wizevich reports for Smithsonian magazine.In the ensuing days, a meteor craze swept across the nation, Wizevich writes. Americans were talking about the night the stars fell from the heavens, trying to find meaning, inspiration or prophecy in the spectacle. Some speculated that the meteor shower was a telltale sign of a hard winter to come or that it was an omen of evil.The last time the Leonids produced a meteor storm was in 2002so the next one wouldnt typically be expected to occur until around 2035. But the American Meteor Society says the wait could be even longer. Unfortunately, it appears that the Earth will not encounter any dense clouds of debris until 2099, according to the societys website.In the meantime, though, Earth-bound viewers of the Leonids should keep an eye out for two special kinds of meteors, called fireballs and Earth-grazers, according to NASA. Fireballs, which are produced by larger pieces of debris, are unusually bright, colorful streaks that last longer than typical meteors. Earth-grazers, meanwhile, appear to shoot across the sky near the horizon and produce long, colorful tails.Tips for viewing the Leonid showerThe Leonids get their name from Leo, the vast and well-known lion constellation. The meteors appear to originate from the part of the sky where Leo lies, so astronomers call the constellation the radiant. However, the Leonids dont actually come from Leothey just look like they do from here on Earth.During the Leonids peak this weekend, you might be tempted to find Leo and stare in its direction. But experts recommend taking a wider view of the night sky instead. If you bring a friend or two, you can each gaze in different directions, then call out to each other when you spot a shooting star.The Leonids will be competing with the moon this year. But, to set yourself up for the best chances of success, you should still head to a dark place thats far away from artificial lights. Refrain from looking at your phone and other forms of light for 20 to 30 minutes to give your eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. Bring a blanket or a comfortable chair, then lean back and relaxyou dont need binoculars, a telescope or any other special equipment to see meteors.Another tip for seeing the Leonids in this years less-than-ideal viewing conditions? Find a place where some or all of the moonlight is blocked outknown as a moon shadow. EarthSky recommends a plateau next to tall mountains or a field bordered by tall trees. If these are not options, find a building and sit in its shadow.Ensconced within a moon shadow, and far from the glow of city lights, the night suddenly darkens and can help you see more meteors, according to EarthSky. You cant run from the moon, but you can sure hide from it.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Astronomers, Astronomy, Comets, Meteors, Outer Space, Sky Watching Guide

The decorative coffin of Lady Chenet-aa, a high-status woman who died some 3,000 years ago Morgan Clark / The Field MuseumScientists at Chicagos Field Museum are studyingEgyptian mummies using a mobile CT scanner. Earlier this year, they spent four days carefully scanning 26 mummies in the museums collections. Theyre still analyzing the results, which are already shedding new light on the ancient burials mysteries.From an archeological perspective, it is incredibly rare that you get to investigate or view history from the perspective of a single individual, saysStacy Drake, the museums human remains collection manager, in astatement. This is a really great way for us to look at who these people werenot just the stuff that they made and the stories that we have concocted about them, but the actual individuals that were living at this time.The team also hopes to learn more about the mummification process, which todays historians dont fully understand, as J.P. Brown, the museums senior conservator, tells NBC5 News Charlie Wojciechowski.The researchers took thousands of scans of the mummies. By stacking the scans together, they were then able to create 3D images of each one without causing any damage. Experts scanned 26 mummies from the Field Museum's collections. Morgan Clark / The Field MuseumThis technique is a sharp contrast to how scientists once examined ancient mummies. As CNNs Ashley Strickland writes, it wasn't unusual for 19th-century researchers to remove wrappings off of bodies in order to see what was insideruining the mummys burial dressings in the process.In fact, a mummy known as Harwa, who died in his early- to mid-40s some 3,000 years ago, was handled so carelessly that he was briefly lost amidst airplane luggage. In 1939, the Field Museum sent Harwa to New York, where he was displayed at the New York Worlds Fair. However, on the way back home, the body was accidentally sent to San Francisco instead of Chicago.Its maybe not what we would consider ethical anymore, Drake tells CNN. One of the big things for these ancient Egyptian individuals is how you continue to live after death. And that is part of his story and his journey.Now, the CT scans are revealing new information about these individuals stories. For example, experts had long been stumped by the burial of Lady Chenet-aa, a high-status woman who lived during the 22nd Dynasty. Lady Chenet-aas body is inside a form-fitting coffin, which doesnt have visible seams on the sidesjust a tiny opening at her feet. Researchers couldnt figure out how the body had been placed inside.The CT scans revealed a laced seam at the back of the coffin. According to the museum, the ancient Egyptians may have molded the funerary box around Chenet-aas body while she was in an upright position before closing the seam. Additionally, painted supplementary eyes were placed in her eye sockets so that she would maintain her vision in the afterlife. Field Museum researchers analyze composite scans of a mummified child. Bella Koscal / The Field MuseumThe ancient Egyptians conception of the afterlife was similar to our ideas about retirement savings, as Brown says in the statement. The additions are very literal. If you want eyes, then there needs to be physical eyes, or at least some physical allusion to eyes.The scans are also revealing more about Harwa, who was once a doorkeeper of an Egyptian granary. He appears to have lived a comfortable life, as his spine didnt show any signs of problems that may have developed during physical labor. He also had well-kept teeth, suggesting that he had access to high-quality food.The research will continue throughout 2025. Drake hopes the project will help change museumgoers perceptions about mummies, which are often informed by popular culture."These are people. They lived lives. Had names, Drake tells FOX 32 News Dane Placko. We are using these scans to learn more about these individuals and the experiences they may have had.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Egypt, Archaeology, Chicago, Death, Egypt, History, Innovations, Mummies, Museums, New Research, Rituals and Traditions, Technology

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn MoreOne-bit large language models (LLMs) have emerged as a promising approach to making generative AI more accessible and affordable. By representing model weights with a very limited number of bits, 1-bit LLMs dramatically reduce the memory and computational resources required to run them.Microsoft Research has been pushing the boundaries of 1-bit LLMs with its BitNet architecture. In a new paper, the researchers introduce BitNet a4.8, a new technique that further improves the efficiency of 1-bit LLMs without sacrificing their performance.The rise of 1-bit LLMsTraditional LLMs use 16-bit floating-point numbers (FP16) to represent their parameters. This requires a lot of memory and compute resources, which limits the accessibility and deployment options for LLMs. One-bit LLMs address this challenge by drastically reducing the precision of model weights while matching the performance of full-precision models.Previous BitNet models used 1.58-bit values (-1, 0, 1) to represent model weights and 8-bit values for activations. This approach significantly reduced memory and I/O costs, but the computational cost of matrix multiplications remained a bottleneck, and optimizing neural networks with extremely low-bit parameters is challenging.Two techniques help to address this problem. Sparsification reduces the number of computations by pruning activations with smaller magnitudes. This is particularly useful in LLMs because activation values tend to have a long-tailed distribution, with a few very large values and many small ones.Quantization, on the other hand, uses a smaller number of bits to represent activations, reducing the computational and memory cost of processing them. However, simply lowering the precision of activations can lead to significant quantization errors and performance degradation.Furthermore, combining sparsification and quantization is challenging, and presents special problems when training 1-bit LLMs.Both quantization and sparsification introduce non-differentiable operations, making gradient computation during training particularly challenging, Furu Wei, Partner Research Manager at Microsoft Research, told VentureBeat.Gradient computation is essential for calculating errors and updating parameters when training neural networks. The researchers also had to ensure that their techniques could be implemented efficiently on existing hardware while maintaining the benefits of both sparsification and quantization.BitNet a4.8BitNet a4.8 addresses the challenges of optimizing 1-bit LLMs through what the researchers describe as hybrid quantization and sparsification. They achieved this by designing an architecture that selectively applies quantization or sparsification to different components of the model based on the specific distribution pattern of activations. The architecture uses 4-bit activations for inputs to attention and feed-forward network (FFN) layers. It uses sparsification with 8 bits for intermediate states, keeping only the top 55% of the parameters. The architecture is also optimized to take advantage of existing hardware.With BitNet b1.58, the inference bottleneck of 1-bit LLMs switches from memory/IO to computation, which is constrained by the activation bits (i.e., 8-bit in BitNet b1.58), Wei said. In BitNet a4.8, we push the activation bits to 4-bit so that we can leverage 4-bit kernels (e.g., INT4/FP4) to bring 2x speed up for LLM inference on the GPU devices. The combination of 1-bit model weights from BitNet b1.58 and 4-bit activations from BitNet a4.8 effectively addresses both memory/IO and computational constraints in LLM inference.BitNet a4.8 also uses 3-bit values to represent the key (K) and value (V) states in the attention mechanism. The KV cache is a crucial component of transformer models. It stores the representations of previous tokens in the sequence. By lowering the precision of KV cache values, BitNet a4.8 further reduces memory requirements, especially when dealing with long sequences.The promise of BitNet a4.8Experimental results show that BitNet a4.8 delivers performance comparable to its predecessor BitNet b1.58 while using less compute and memory.Compared to full-precision Llama models, BitNet a4.8 reduces memory usage by a factor of 10 and achieves 4x speedup. Compared to BitNet b1.58, it achieves a 2x speedup through 4-bit activation kernels. But the design can deliver much more.The estimated computation improvement is based on the existing hardware (GPU), Wei said. With hardware specifically optimized for 1-bit LLMs, the computation improvements can be significantly enhanced. BitNet introduces a new computation paradigm that minimizes the need for matrix multiplication, a primary focus in current hardware design optimization.The efficiency of BitNet a4.8 makes it particularly suited for deploying LLMs at the edge and on resource-constrained devices. This can have important implications for privacy and security. By enabling on-device LLMs, users can benefit from the power of these models without needing to send their data to the cloud.Wei and his team are continuing their work on 1-bit LLMs.We continue to advance our research and vision for the era of 1-bit LLMs, Wei said. While our current focus is on model architecture and software support (i.e., bitnet.cpp), we aim to explore the co-design and co-evolution of model architecture and hardware to fully unlock the potential of 1-bit LLMs.VB DailyStay in the know! Get the latest news in your inbox dailyBy subscribing, you agree to VentureBeat's Terms of Service.Thanks for subscribing. 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Disney is reportedly considering Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson as a successor to Disney CEO Bob Iger, the Wall Street Journal said.Read More

ZeniMax QA workers to strike over concerns about return to office mandate and outsourcingMembers of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA say firm didn't notify union about contracting out work News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Nov. 13, 2024 Hundreds of employees from ZeniMax Studios are striking today in response to its remote work policy and outsourcing of quality assurance work.The Communication Workers of America filed an unfair labour practice charge against ZeniMax last month for allegedly contracting out QA work without notifying the union.Members of the ZeniMax Workers United-CWA have raised concerns that this decision "threatens job security amid record layoffs across the video games industry."The protest will take place in ZeniMax offices across the US, including locations in Maryland and Texas.Last month, workers from Activision's QA department in Eden Prairie, Minnesota walked out in protest against return-to-office mandates. Activision workers group ABetterABK claimed the firm "refus[ed] accommodations as a way to force them to quit."In January 2023, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA became the first video game studio union at Microsoft, and represents over 300 QA workers in Maryland and Texas.