Halloween might have passed but the chills continue into November! 'Spooky Night of Halloween' is a project by Senior Environment Artist Jhosep Chevarria Capacoila.He made the project in UE5 using MegaLights, Lumen and Nanite, with assets from Fab and Megascans.

Whether you or your team are new to Unreal Engine or seasoned veterans, our Begin Play Workshop, 'First steps in Unreal Engine 5' with Untold Games, has the high-level information you need to expedite onboarding process and the learning curve of game development. The workshop takes place Monday December 2nd at 9AM ET Sign up deadline is this Friday November 29th Sign up today: https://epic.gm/begin-play-workshop-sign-up#EpicForIndies

Seok Jiung talked about the Ansuz project, showing the sculpting, texturing, and lighting work behind the girl, her hair, and winter outfit.Full interview: https://80.lv/articles/breakdown-modeling-texturing-realistic-3d-girl-with-bow/

Daniel Merticariu shared the workflow behind The Man Who Laughs project created in ZBrush, which was based on a 2D concept, explaining how his exaggerated facial expression and pose were sculpted.Read here: https://80.lv/articles/how-to-sculpt-a-man-with-exaggerated-facial-expressions-in-zbrush/

Welcome toAI Decoded,Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekhere.Anthropics new MCP protocol quickly connects AI assistants with data and dev toolsWe create technical standards to simplify and ease common ways of moving information around the internet. Email protocols (SMTP, POP3, and IMAP) let different email servers and clients talk to each other. The Bluesky protocol lets users move their content and connections among social platforms. As AI models emerge as a central part of the information ecosystem, well also need standardized ways of moving information to and from them.On Monday Anthropic offered such a standard to the online world. Its open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) lets developers easily connect AI assistants (chatbots and agents) with databases of information (i.e. knowledge bases or business intelligence graphs) or tools (i.e. coding assistants and dev environments). At present, developers must custom-build new connectors to each resource.[E]ven the most sophisticated models are constrained by their isolation from datatrapped behind information silos and legacy systems, Anthropic writes in a blog post Monday. MCP can be used to connect any kind of AI app with any data store or tool, provided both support the standard. During the preview period, developers can use MCP to connect an instance of Anthropics Claude chatbot running on their own computer to files and data stored on the same machine. They can also connect the chatbot to services including Google Drive, Brave Search, and Slack, via an API. The protocol will later allow developers to connect AI apps with remote servers that can serve a whole organization, Anthropic says.Were well past the days of chatbots spitting out text based only on their training data (primarily, content scraped from the public web). Their usefulness (and accuracy) was limited. The MCP protocol makes it simple to arm AI apps with far more diverse and reliable information. The protocol could let developers more easily build more agentic AI appsthat is, apps that can move between various tools and data sources, working through the steps necessary to generate a desired output.Microsoft researchers show that supersizing model pretraining works on robot brains, tooThe linguistic magic of ChatGPT came about when some researchers radically supersized a large language model as well as its training data. But language models arent the only game in town. Other kinds of AI models can also grow much smarter by scaling up training. Microsoft researchers recently showed that scaling can lead to smarter forms of embodied AIthat is, AI that interacts physically with the world, such as robots and self-driving cars.One of the biggest challenges of training a robotic arm, for example, is teaching it to project the probable results of its next movement. One way of doing that is world modeling, wherein a robots AI brain analyzes photos, audio, and video recordings of actions in its environment to build an internal model of the spaces physical dynamics. Another method, called behavioral cloning, involves training the AI by having it observe human demonstrators performing specific tasks within the environment.For their study, Microsoft researchers focused on game play within a complex multiplayer video game called Bleeding Edge, in which players strategize and use fine-grained reactive control during combat. They found that the AI became better at world modeling and behavior cloning as it was given more gameplay video data and more computing power to process it. The researchers observed that the rate of improvement caused by adding more data and compute closely resembled the progress seen in the training of large language models.People building and training the AI models that power robots and self-driving cars may be able to take a lesson from LLM training when making decisions on model size and training resources. The research suggests that the transformer models invented at Google in 2017 have a unique capacity for growing smarter with increased pretraining, no matter if the model architecture is used for language generation or image generation or other kinds of AI.Trump is reportedly considering a new AI czar in the White HouseThe incoming Trump administration is thinking seriously about adding an AI czar to the White House staff, Axios reports. The person would advise government agencies on their use of AI over the next four years, and could influence government policy regarding AI in the private sector.Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will lead Trumps so-called Department of Government Efficiency, will reportedly help select the czar. Thats in part because the incoming administration believes AI could be used to help find and eliminate government waste and fraud, including entitlement fraud.Bloomberg reported last week that the Trump team also wants a cryptocurrency czar in the White House, and that the Trump transition team has been vetting cryptocurrency executives for the role.More AI coverage from Fast Company:How Scale became the go-to company for AI training10 ways AI can make farmers jobs easierThis TikTok user says a popular YouTube music channel is in fact AI5 ways that filmmakers are using AI to create a new aestheticWant exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.

Black Friday transforms consumerism into a blood sport. Even before the Thanksgiving meal is over, Americans are scanning brands websites for promotions. The day itself is the biggest day of the year for in-person shopping, as people brave the crowds to score deals. But the day is also a disaster for the planet. One study, from the University of Leeds, found that 80% of Black Friday purchases are discarded after minimal use. And those are items that people keep. Consumers return half of all gifts, and retailers discard a quarter of returns, which leads to six billion pounds of brand-new items in landfills. Many discarded products and returns are shipped off to Africa and South America, where local governments struggle to manage enormous mountains of waste. For instance, 15 million garments arrive at Kantamanto Market in Ghana every week, and 40% of them leave as waste.This is something that Liz Ricketts has seen herself. Shes the cofounder and executive director of the Or Foundation, a Ghana-based nonprofit that asks brands to disclose their annual production volumes. Every week, our team is removing an average of20 tons of discarded secondhand clothingfrom a small section on a local beach, she says. This is a place where many of our team members grew up playing football and saw sea turtles laying eggs. The clothing waste has made this impossible, and fishermen are catching more clothing and other plastic waste than fish.Most brands feel pressure to give in to the frenzy and offer deals that will compel consumers to open up their wallets. But a few brave ones are using the day to push back against the system. Here are brands you can support if you want to take a more ethical approach to Black Friday.[Photos: Vestiaire Collective]Vestiaire CollectiveTo draw attention to the state of fashion waste, the Or Foundation has partnered with the luxury resale site Vestiaire Collective to offer a collection of upcycled garments and accessories created by Ghanaian designers. Given the billions of garments that now circulate in Ghana, there are now 30,000 people working in markets to upcycle, reuse, and repair garments. Many of the pieces they create are even more beautiful than the original garment. Ghana has a rich culture of bespoke tailoringmost people here know their measurements and know how to sew, sowe also wanted to challenge traditional definitions of luxury products, including the assumption that luxury is associated with certain geographies like Italy, Spain, or France, or with materials like leather or silk, says Ricketts.[Photo: Julia Ishac/Freitag]FreitagFreitag is a Zurich-based brand that makes brands from durable upcycled materials, including truck tarpaulins and bicycle inner tubes. It has a cult status among designers, who love the functionality and indestructibility of the final products.Freitag wants to take a stand against mindless mass consumption. It shuts down both its brick-and-mortar, as well as its online, stores on Black Friday. Instead, it offers what it calls Shopping Without Any Payment, or S.W.A.P., where it encourages customers to exchange bags. Its designed to be a solution for people who have gotten tired of their existing bag and want something new and different, without adding to waste.[Photo: REI]REI Since 2015, the outdoor gear store REI has closed its doors on Black Friday, encouraging its employees to take the day off and go outsideall while being paid. They urge their customers to do the same. While the goal is to help curb unnecessary consumerism, REI also makes a broader point: time is a valuable resource. We can reclaim Black Friday as a day to enjoy time in nature and with our loved ones, rather than shopping for products we neither need nor want.When REI first chose to reject Black Friday, it caused a stir. More than 170 outdoor companies, nonprofits, and organizations decided to shut their doors and spend Black Friday in nature; 1.4 million people also chose to follow suit. But some of the energy around this effort has lagged. Still, REI is continuing with its tradition, and encouraging others to do the same. View this post on Instagram A post shared by EVERLANE (@everlane)Everlane Everlane participates in Black Friday. It is currently offering a sale of up to 50% of most items on the site. However, 10 years ago, it created the Everlane Black Friday Fund to raise money for good causes. This year, it is partnering with Fibershed, a nonprofit that develops regenerative agriculture in the United States. It will donate $50,000 to cultivate 170,000 pounds of cotton that is good for the climate, across six farms, spanning 120 acres of land.[Photo: Asket]ASKETThe Swedish sustainable clothing brand Asket is known for its very deliberate approach to designing garments. It spends years developing new products that are meant to last a long time and withstand trends. In keeping with this ethos, no new clothes are available for sale on its online store, or in brick-and-mortar stores, on Black Friday. Instead, customers can get free repairs on their garments in-store, or order spare parts for their existing garments.

The latest edition of our weekly Dezeen Agenda newsletter features Kvadrat's launch of its first recycled polyester textile. Subscribe to Dezeen Agenda now.Textile brand Kvadrat launched Ame, its first recycled polyester textile made of waste fabric instead of plastic bottles.Created with designer Teruhiro Yanagihara, the brand calls the fabric an important step toward closing the loop in the textile lifecycle.Taiwan-Reyhanli Centre for World Citizens named architecture project of the year at Dezeen Awards 2024This week's newsletter also featured the winners of this year's Dezeen Awards, an interview with Dezeen Awards 2024 designer of the year Sabine Marcelis and Forensic Architecture developed an interactive map to show the "compounding effect" of attacks on Gaza.Dezeen AgendaDezeen Agenda is a curated newsletter sent every Thursday containing the most important news highlights from Dezeen. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Agenda or subscribe here.You can also subscribe to our other newsletters; Dezeen Debate is sent every Thursday and features the hottest reader comments and most-debated stories, Dezeen Dailyis our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours andDezeen In Depthis sent on the last Friday of every month anddelves deeper into the major stories shaping architecture and design.The post Dezeen Agenda features a recycled polyester textile by Kvadrat appeared first on Dezeen.

Canadian studio Robitaille Curtis has completed a cedar-clad family retreat called Chalet Papillon, which features sweeping views and queen-sized bunk beds to accommodate numerous guests.Built for a young family, the holiday home is tucked within the Laurentian Mountains, about 100 kilometres north of Montreal. It sits on a steep, wooded site that slopes down toward Lac Notre-Dame.Robitaille Curtis has completed a cedar-clad family retreat called Chalet PapillonA master plan for the site was completed in 2017, but the family took a pause before proceeding with construction. In 2020, work on the project resumed.Rising two levels, the house is T-shaped in plan, consisting of a long, slender bar and a perpendicular entry bar. The home is fronted by a compact entry court and detached garage.The team used minimalist detailing and light-toned materialsIn addition to providing a comfy home for family and friends, a primary aim for the project was to limit disturbance to the terrain."To achieve this, the house was positioned parallel to the site contours, atop a particularly steep section of exposed granite ledge," said Robitaille Curtis, a Montreal-based studio.Exterior walls are wrapped in pre-weathered cedarThe house was positioned to have views of the lake from two sides of the house. Along the eastern end, a balcony is 85 feet (26 metres) above the site and reaches toward the lake.Exterior walls were wrapped in pre-weathered cedar, which matches the grey tones of bark on surrounding trees.It matches the grey tones of bark on surrounding trees"A standing-seam metal roof continues this colour palette for a unified appearance," the team said."The result is a home at one with its surroundings."Minimalist details feature on the interiorWithin the dwelling, the team used minimalist detailing and light-toned materials, including white walls, concrete floors and pale timber surfaces.The material palette, paired with an abundance of glazing, helps establish a bright and spacious atmosphere.The material palette was paired with an abundance of glazingThe home's primary living spaces are located on the upper level. One side contains an open-plan kitchen, dining area and living room.Running along one wall is a low storage bench made of plywood, which offers a spot to sit and gaze upon the landscape.Overhead, a vaulted ceiling is lined with woodOverhead, a vaulted ceiling is lined with wood and draws the eye toward a glazed wall overlooking the lake."At night, a pair of delicately thin, linear lighting elements evenly illuminates the living area's wood ceiling, adding to the warm and inviting atmosphere," the team said.The other side of the upper level contains the home's main bedroomThe other side of the upper level contains the home's main bedroom. Rather than attaching a bathroom, the clients requested to use the bathroom near the home's entrance.The home's lower level features clever spatial planning, allowing for three bedrooms, one with a queen bed and two with queen bunk beds.Queen bunk beds feature in one of the bedrooms"Carefully laid out in a row, each of the compact bedrooms has a large window, and closet space accessed from the corridor," the team said, noting that the trio of rooms can sleep up to 10 people.The lower level also encompasses a den/playroom, a bathroom and ancillary spaces.Read: Robitaille Curtis pairs dark and light hues in renovated Montreal kitchenBoth floors have access to covered porches with operable screens. Moreover, the lower-level porch connects to a path that winds through the trees and arrives at the lake's edge."Altogether, this residence provides the perfect setting for the family to entertain guests, launch year-round weekend adventures, and enjoy the tranquillity of such a scenic location," the team said.Chalet Papillon is tucked within the Laurentian MountainsOther projects by Robitaille Curtis include a Montreal townhouse that features a trapeze net stretched across an atrium, and a Quebec ski cabin that is propped up by pilotis, allowing snowmelt to pass under the building.The photography is by Adrien Williams.The post Robitaille Curtis perches slender house above Quebec lake appeared first on Dezeen.

Tiny House Listings recently unveiled a new towable dwelling called the Lad. It is perfect for those seeking low-budget downsizing options that are comfortable and cozy. The Lad features a practical and compact interior that can happily house two people. The Lad is an updated version of one of the firms previous models, and it is based on a double-axle trailer. It features a length of 20 feet and is the same size as most European tiny homes. The exterior includes painted metal and is topped off with a metal roof.Designer: Tiny House ListingsThe interior of the house occupies around 160 square feet, and it features a finishing in ply. An open layout has been placed on one floor, with the entrance leading to a compact living area that includes a sofa and space for a TV. A storage unit has been integrated as well. The kitchen is closely located, and it isnt fully featured.But it does include a countertop, a sink and an electric stove, a fridge/freezer, and an area for appliances and extra storage. The bathroom is also placed nearby, and you can access it via a sliding door. It contains a flushing toilet, a shower, and a small sink.The tiny home only includes one bedroom, and since it is on the ground floor, it includes plenty of headroom to stand upright. The bedroom includes a double bed with integrated storage, as well as a mini-split air-conditioner, which will heat and cool the entire home. Enough though the bedroom isnt the largest, the fact that you can stand upright, unlike most bedrooms in other tiny homes is a plus point.The Lad isnt the best option if youre looking for a spacious and roomy tiny home. But if youre a couple or a small family, then the Lad could be a good fit for you. It includes all the basic amenities, as well as a sense of comfort and coziness that other modern homes often miss out on. Currently, the Lad is priced atUS$47,500.The post This Compact, Cozy & Affordable Tiny Home Is A Great Bet For Couples Seeking Their First House first appeared on Yanko Design.

Christmas is less than a month away, and were seeing an influx of creative and passionate designs. Designer Anna Lomax recently unveiled the All Lit Up! glowing Christmas tree-inspired sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museums South Kensington Grand Entrance. The sculpture draws inspiration from the museums entryway columns, and it stands tall as an interesting spiraling column that adopts the form of a traditional Christmas tree.Designer: Anna LomaxThe installation is whimsical and playful and was created to evoke the feelings of joy and child-like wonder and embody the vibrant Christmas spirit. It takes the traditional Christmas tree and adds an amusing and contemporary twist to it, creating something that instantly sparks wonder and curiosity. A rounded metallic plinth serves as the base of the installation, and it is surrounded by four large columns. The base rises upwards in a fascinating spiral, serving as a lovely decorative design illuminated by LED lights.My design for the 2025 V&A Christmas Tree uses the iconic V&A dome columns as a starting point but gives them an actual playful twist, embodying the Christmas Spirit through a spectacle of light, Lomax said.The installation creates a subtle connection between trees and columns, attempting to unify the elegance of a tree with the strength of a column, the museum added. The result is something refreshing and yet traditional. You are reminded of a comforting Christmas tree when you look at the installation, but you also feel curiosity as you observe its fresh new form.Lighting up and lifting spirits this festive season, we are thrilled to commission Anna Lomax for this years V&A Christmas tree installation, senior curator Meneesha Kellay said. Delighting visitors with her playful site-specific response, Anna has taken inspiration from the iconic columns in our Grand Entrance.This mesmerizing installation is a part of the museums annual Christmas installations, and it will remain on display till January 5th, 2025. If you want to get into some early festive cheer with a twist, then we would recommend a quick visit to the V&A Museum, if you have the time.The post Reimagined Christmas Tree Sculpture At The Victoria & Albert Museum Is Getting Us Into Early Festive Cheer first appeared on Yanko Design.