• Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound brings Ryu Hayabusa back to modern gaming with style
    www.videogamer.com
    You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereA brand-new Ninja Gaiden game is coming returning to the classic side-scrolling beat-em-up gameplay of the NES classics. After years of 3D hack-and-slash titles, DotEmu is going back to the series roots with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound.Developed by Blasphemous developer The Game Kitchen and published by DotEmu, the new game is a stunning return to form for the series.Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound announcedConfirmed at The Game Awards 2024, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound puts players back in the shoes of Ryu Hayabusa in a new sidescrolling adventure for Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and PC.Our story begins when Ryu Hayabusa journeys to America to honor his fathers will, the games official synopsis reads. While he is away, the barrier between the human and the demon worlds suddenly shatters, unleashing a terrifying army upon the Hayabusa Village, which now faces an unprecedented threat in Ryus absence. To stand against this new threat, Kenji Mozu, a young ninja from the Hayabusa Village, rises to the challenge!With beautiful hand drawn 2D visuals and a frenetic side-scrolling combat system, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound looks to be more than just an awesome name. Combining the tense level design of the series 2D games with the intensity of the 3D action games, this is a bold new direction for the hardcore gaming franchise. Subscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share
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  • 7 DIY Trends Youll Be Seeing in Home Renovations in 2025
    www.architecturaldigest.com
    Sometimes the only way to achieve the look you want is to do it yourself. Thats the motto, at least, for scores of DIYers who modify their homes again and again for the sake of personalization. They scour TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for the newest DIY trends and projects making the rounds andwhether theyre renovation experts or noviceslikely give it a whirl.Interior designers, contractors, and other home experts have a front-row seat to the kinds of requests homeowners are making these days, as well as what projects are taking off on and offline (for better or worse). Last year, for example, they pointed to bold tilework as a bathroom trendand shower tiles indeed had a moment. Plus, they know which dated and cringey project ideas to ditch too. In tandem with new industry research, weve identified seven DIY trends youll be seeing in home renovations in 2025. Charge up your cordless drill and start planning now.Alcoves for everythingPunching up seemingly mundane home features is the name of the game for DIYers. So it makes sense that alcoves will be having a moment from the kitchen to the bedroom. According to Houzzs 2025 trend report, range alcoves are on the rise, in which an oven is tucked into its own recessed corner.Similarly, Gabriela Narvaez, general contractor and founder of Guild Properties, shares that requests for principal bedroom alcoves are increasing. In the bedroom, you can create an inset in the wall for the bed and the nightstands, she says. The effect on the room is that you get a clean look with a cozy feel.Accent lighting anywhereAdding more accent lighting to a room can get tricky, depending on your approach. Even the boldest DIYers have been stymied by electrical work, particularly relocating or adding wiring for new fixtures, says Madelaine Mayer, founder and design principal at AD:ROIT Architecture and Interior Design. Thats where cordless rechargeable lights come in. These fantastic fixtures can be installed in a matter of minutes, adding accent lighting wherever needed, she notes.Mayer is partial to the dimmable wall sconces and picture lights from Pooky, though stick-on wall lights from Poplight and table lamps from Mantar Lamps are also popular. As cordless lighting fixtures continue to flood the market, the trend toward layered lighting is gaining momentum, add Mallory Robins and Elizabeth Bennett, founders of Kansas Citybased interior design firm Kobel + Co. The layered approach is all about creating a dynamic, ambient atmospherewhere each light source contributes to the overall mood and style of a room.
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  • Will Bitcoin and Data Centers Soon Heat Your Home?
    www.architecturaldigest.com
    Though it may currently seem easy to opt-out of day-to-day interaction with artificial intelligence, the expected growth of its demand is already increasing real-life infrastructure. Data centers and supercomputers are being constructed across the globe to support our world becoming more computer-processed, including actions that range from an AI-automated Google search to NASAs planetary rover modeling to cryptocurrency Bitcoin mining. These powerful machines need electricity both to function and to keep them continuously cool. Heat is a natural byproduct of their energy-intensive processes.Some companies are finding creative solutions to make sure that excess thermal energy doesnt go to waste by funneling it into passive heating for residences and businesses alike. Could this data center output be the key to more environmentally-friendly homes? Climate experts are skeptical that consumption is the most sustainable solution.What is certain is that our electricity demands are growing. According to a forecast by the International Energy Agency (IEA), after globally consuming an estimated 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2022, data centers total electricity consumption could reach more than 1,000 TWh in 2026. This nearly 120% increase is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan, the report continues.An aerial view of Hamina, a town in Finland that heats 80% of the homes in the district by the thermal output from a nearby data center.Photo: Getty Images/Jarmo Piironen
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  • Create Vintage Style Christmas Lights in Blender
    www.blendernation.com
    In this Blender tutorial Ryan King will show you how to make these Easy Vintage Style Christmas Lights with Geometry Nodes.Source
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  • Tired of Code Errors from Your ChatGPT Blender Add-on? Here's the Fix! [$]
    www.blendernation.com
    Joe Morris introduces his new Ultimate Script Generator for Blender 4.3.Our cutting-edge script generator harnesses the power of OpenAI's advanced technology, using the exact same model available with the ChatGPT Pro subscription on the ChatGPT website, to create scripts from your detailed user commands. If a generated script encounters an error, our system automatically tests it and, if necessary, sends it back to the OpenAI model for revision. This iterative process, which defaults to five iterations, works in a loop: it reads your user command, generates a script, tests it for errors, looks up the Blender API, manual, Blender Stack Exchange, and more, and then sends it back to the OpenAI model for revision.Notable features include: OpenAI-powered script generation for automation. Automatic error testing and revision. Boost User Command feature upgrades your command to be Blender Manual-compatible. Verified compatibility with Blender 4.3 only (but will convert scripts to Blender 4.3!) Automatically locates example scripts from our database based on errors. Easily updates older scripts to the latest Blender version. One-click error fixing in the text editor. Allows you to provide your own code examples. Can find/pull (and fix as necc.) code examples from Stack Exchange. Optimized functionality for creating animation scripts. Optimized functionality for creating small/medium shader/compositor/geo-node setups. Deep Dive:And one final caveat thats also a bonus: in some cases, our system may encounter an error it cant automatically resolve. When this happens, weve made it so simple that anyone can resolve these errors themselves, even non-programmers, using our easy-to-follow instruction set system thats so straightforward even kids* can create working scripts for Blender.This is a major bonus as programming has been around for decades and nowhere else, as to our research, can non programmers guarantee error free code!*(Kids 6th grade and higher as there is some required reading of techy stuff.)
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  • The Art Of Florent Desailly
    www.iamag.co
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  • The Art of Quentin Stipp
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  • EA Sports FC Empires looks to take on Football Manager with weird 4X strategy that's Ultimate Team meets Clash of Clans
    www.vg247.com
    YOU'VE GOT NO FANSEA Sports FC Empires looks to take on Football Manager with weird 4X strategy that's Ultimate Team meets Clash of ClansIts available on iOS and Android in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand right now, with a global release soon.Image credit: EA Sports News by James Billcliffe Guides Editor Published on Dec. 12, 2024 EA Sports has just released the early access for FC Empires, a new football 4X Strategy game thats kind of like Football Manager meets Clash of Clans.Its available on iOS and Android in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand right now, with a global release scheduled at some point in the near future.FC Empires focuses as much on the business side of modern football as the sport itself, tasking players with building their club up into a worldwide superpower with smart merchandising, the best medical and scouting facilities and experienced coaching staff.Watch on YouTubeWeve played a closed alpha version of FC Empires prior to this release, and it was strange and strangely compelling in equal measure. The different mechanics will be instantly recognisable to anyone thats played either EA Sports FC 25s Ultimate Team and any other mobile strategy game like Clash of Clans or even The Simpsons: Tapped Out.You invest your in-game cash into building up infrastructure, which is constructed in real-world time but can be sped up with premium items. That infrastructure then has in-game utility, like the hospital speeds up the recovery time of injured players. So far, so very mobile strategy.Building your squad is where EAs Ultimate Team comes in, as you get a drip feed of transfers like opening up packs in EA Sports FC 25. You can then mix and match different players based on their nationality, real-life team and the league they play in, to build up team chemistry for stat boosts.Where the Football Manager similarity appears is in the match engine, where you dont control each player individually, but rather set the formation and tactics and watch the game play out from the sidelines.FC Empires is much more streamlined than the in-depth tactical plans you can devise in Football Manager, but its clear that EA is targeting a similar kind of football fan whos turned off by the fast, twitch-intensive hundred-miles-a-minute gameplay of EA Sports FC, but enjoys the squad building and tactics, albeit more casually. Image credit: EA SportsOnce youve settled on your squad, you can either invite AI controlled squads to visit your home stadium for exhibition matches, or strike out into the wider world to compete against other players, with the victor winning the adoration of more fans throughout the world and increasing their clubs worth.Its a pitch thats about as far away from proper football as you can get. The notion that you can become a fan of a team because theyre winning is in and of itself utterly alien to most avid supporters. Supporting Leeds United makes me miserable, ruins my weekend and spikes my blood pressure - I love it.But theres no getting away from the fact that FC Empires is a confluence of two key game mechanics that have proven to be both incredibly popular and compelling on a global scale - plus, its worth mentioning, literally addictive in many unfortunate cases.FC Empires has an official website with more information, as well as an official Facebook and Discord you can follow for release announcements.
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  • Good Mews, Pokmon TCG Pocket's Mythical Island expansion is set to offer new booster packs with a chance to grab everyone's favourite pink cat
    www.vg247.com
    I'm MythbustingGood Mews, Pokmon TCG Pocket's Mythical Island expansion is set to offer new booster packs with a chance to grab everyone's favourite pink catThe game has also now surpassed the 60 million download milestone.Image credit: Pokemon News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Dec. 12, 2024 Desperate for more content to drop in Pokemon TCG Pocket? Well, good news, a new expansion is dropping for it next week, featuring a new booster pack that'll give you a chance grab yourself a Mew.As outlined in a fresh Tweet from the game's official account, this expansion is dubbed Mythical Island, and will be arriving on Tuesday December 17. "I kicked in a lot of doors to get this information to you. (Realistically, I asked REALLY nice and cried a little)," the TCG Pocket social person wrote.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. As you can see in the trailer below, there'll be a bunch of new cards - with Mew, Aerodactyl, and Celebi are among the ex ones - up for grabs in the new Mythical Island booster pack, which will provide a nice fourth option for those who've already packed ten million Doduo (Doduos, Dodui, who knows?). "The Mythical Island expansion features over 80 cards, including five new exciting Pokmon ex cards, five new Trainer cards, and gorgeous immersive cards ready to bring you into the wondrous world of Pokmon," reads the trailer's description.Watch on YouTubeThere are also new binder and display board covers that include the scenery of the Mythical Island for you to grab, so you can send your little gang mythical animal slave gladiators off on a little holiday - or have them pretend they're on one, which seems more on brand for Pokemon's flavour of weird zookeeping, which gets a bit morally dubious if you think about it for more than five minutes.Do the Pokemon enjoy being seemingly immortal beings that get enslaved and made to fight to the death in card colosseums? I don't know, but The Pokemon Company's also announced that TCG Pocket's now exceeded the 60 million download mark, so I'm not going to argue too much, as that's a lot of people to p**s off. It also includes me, so I'd be annoying myself, which is far too meta.Anyway, let us know how excited you are about Mythical Island! Also, you can consult our huge array of helpful TCG Pocket guides for expert advice on things like getting started and assembling decks based around Pokemon ranging from Alakazam to Vileplume.
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  • Chaos Launches V-Ray 7 for SketchUp and Rhino
    www.chaos.com
    Photorealistic Renderers Add Over 30 Features/Improvements for Beginners and Specialists Working in AEC, Product Design and MoreKARLSRUHE, Germany December 10, 2024 Today, Chaos releases V-Ray 7 for SketchUp and V-Ray 7 for Rhino, helping designers tap the power of Gaussian Splats, virtual tours and eye-catching effects all in one place. With V-Ray 7, designers can start accelerating everything from 3D environments to immersive experiences, using presets and other tools that reduce most processes down to a couple of clicks.3D Gaussian Splats, the talk of this years SketchUp 3D Basecamp, are becoming prized as a rapid way to create complex 3D environments from photos or video. With native support for Gaussian Splats, SketchUp and Rhino users can now leverage this trend, as they easily place buildings in context or render rich, detailed environments that can be reflected and accept shadows.V-Ray 7 is also a fast path to creating interactive virtual tours that will entice clients and effectively communicate design intent. These immersive, panoramic experiences can easily be customized with floor plans, personalized hotspots and other contextual details that will highlight a spaces unique attributes.New Material Override options have been added to make massing/form studies a breeze. While anyone can make a model monochrome with a click, V-Ray 7 allows them to also preserve specific surface details like bump maps, and material characteristics like refractions, reflections and self-illumination, offering more control over the final presentations. Stylized rendering presets are also available, including options for clay, plastic, wood and more.Additional Features and Improvements Include:V-Ray Frame Buffer UpdatesFreeform Render Region Designers can now re-render specific parts of their image with any shape they want. With limitless flexibility, users can render multiple regions at once, or hone in on a single area they want to fine-tune.Color-Correction Presets A new color-correction filters library can quickly boost the visual appearance of a render, providing users with quick access to many high-quality grading options.Vignetting Layer Vignette camera effects can now be added using quick shaping controls, helping users bring more attention to the center of an image.Artistic AidsLayered Textures A powerful new layering system will bring a Photoshop-esque experience to high-detail textures. Each texture layer can be stacked and tweaked with complete control over opacity, blending modes and more.Gradient Texture Remapping Advanced UV mapping capabilities now enable an advanced texture recoloring workflow. This is especially useful for procedural texture edits like pattern colorization, brick randomization and custom wallpaper designs.V-Ray Luminaires The ever-expanding Chaos Cosmos asset library, accessible through V-Ray, now brings a new light fixture optimization called Luminaires, which preserves the accurate light distribution while optimizing render times. Most of the light fixtures within Chaos Cosmos are now Luminaires in V-Ray 7.Light Mix for Emissive Materials Light Mix now lets designers adjust the intensity and color of specific emissive materials after rendering, for better lighting control and customizable renders.Enhanced V-Ray Sun & Sky For designers looking to create nautical twilight looks, V-Ray 7 offers an improved PRG sky model that can create more realistic images and immersive animations. V-Ray Sky can also now render various observer altitudes up to several kilometers.Firefly Removal V-Ray 7s new algorithm automatically detects and finishes unresolved pixels, known as fireflies, during bucket rendering, greatly reducing the time needed to produce final images.Scatter ToolsEdge Trimming Scattered elements now fit perfectly within set boundary lines, making it easier to populate any precisely defined area.Camera Clipping Users can now limit scattered instances to the current view of their camera.Chaos Cosmos ImprovementsNon-Destructive Material Override Users can now swap out Cosmos object materials without breaking the assets connection to Cosmos.Asset Variants Support Chaos Cosmos now has more asset variations to choose from, including seasonal options for 3D vegetation models (ex: summer or autumn leaves). Once users select their desired variant, they can just drag and drop it into their scene or even change the variant at a later stage.400 New Render-Ready Assets V-Ray 7 incorporates the latest Chaos Cosmos update, which is packed with 250+ vegetation models, 70+ static people featuring both single and couple-based poses and new furniture from IWC Home and Fanuli.GPU BoostsFaster Time to First Pixel New optimizations for scatter rendering, texture heavy scenes, data uploads and geometry compilations offer a better interactive rendering experience and a faster time to first pixel for speed-conscious users.Caustics Support V-Ray GPU now supports caustics, enabling realistic surface reflections and refractions in both production and interactive rendering. The new Caustics solver is also optimized to fully utilize GPU hardware, delivering significantly faster results than a CPU.RAM for Texture Memory Textures are no longer processed by V-Ray GPU, giving users the ability to employ even bigger textures without worrying about memory constraints.Up to 3X Faster on MacBooks New Metal support triples rendering performance when using both the GPU and CPU sides of Apple M4 processors, while doubling performance on M3 processors.SketchUp-Only UpdatesFaster Rendering in the SketchUp Viewport Users will find a significant speed boost when utilizing the viewport rendering overlay in SketchUp 2024.Simplified Material Binding Users can now configure the way V-Ray materials are displayed in the SketchUps viewport in a more intuitive and straightforward way.Rhino/Grasshopper-Only UpdatesNew Object Modifiers UI A new and improved user interface makes managing object modes like Fur, Clipper, Mesh Light, Displacement and Scatter a lot easier.Swarm in V-Ray for Grasshopper Distributed rendering is now possible in Grasshopper, making it easier to use the power of multiple machines to turn out faster renders.To see all the new features, explore the Whats New pages for V-Ray 7 for SketchUp and V-Ray 7 for Rhino/Grasshopper today.Pricing and AvailabilityV-Ray 7 for SketchUp is available now for Windows and MacOS, while V-Ray 7 for Rhino/Grasshopper is available for Windows. All V-Ray subscription plans work for all supported host applications, including Rhino, SketchUp, 3ds Max, Revit, Maya, Cinema 4D, Houdini and Blender. Pricing can be found on the Chaos website.About ChaosFounded in 1997, Chaos is a leading global visualization technology company. Chaos is defining visualization by offering accessible tools, simplifying and accelerating workflows, and empowering visual storytelling for artists, architects, designers and other creative professionals.Chaos portfolio of visualization technologies for architecture and design, media and entertainment, and product e-commerce includes:V-Ray, a physically based renderer that has been honored with an Academy Award and an Engineering EmmyEnscape, a high-quality real-time rendering and virtual reality pluginCorona, an artist-friendly photorealistic rendererCylindo, a 3D furniture product visualization platform for e-commerceAnima, a 3D/4D animation software to add realistic people and crowds to visualizationsHeadquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, Chaos has nearly 800 employees and offices in 11 cities worldwide. It is actively seeking new talent across multiple departments to continue expanding its ecosystem.For more information, visit chaos.com, chaos-enscape.com, chaos-cylindo.com and axyz-design.com.Press ContactsChaosYara Ryabovayara.ryabova@chaos.comwww.chaos.com
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