Sounds disruptive: How video games are resetting the music medium's conventions | Playable FuturesGames have become destinations to host concerts, share singles, and support stars but the potential impact on music is only just getting started Feature by Will Freeman Contributor Published on Dec. 13, 2024 This series of Playable Futures articles considers how the design, technology, people, and theory of video games are informing and influencing the wider world.The snowballing intersection of music and video games has been a near-obsessive talking point across both sectors over recent years. From famed musicians taking starring roles in triple-A titles, to placement on FIFA playlists starting to rival Spotify for gathering new fans, opportunities abound.At the same time, the music industry is still guided by concepts established decades ago, from the dominant licensing model, to the album and single release framework. The potential for even more happenings around music and games coming together is profound, and yet until recently, the former's legacy conventions have arguably held things back.That was something very much on the minds of Alex Tarrand and Oleg Butenko as they began to concoct their concept for Styngr, a gaming-focused blend of music industry joint venture and technology platform. The duo of co-founders saw an opportunity to modernise the ecosystem that connects music and games."Music [has] this legal architecture that's been in place for a long time and it doesn't really match the speed or requirements of game companies""We were looking at how the potential crossover of music and games wasn't being fully realised, and we saw that this old model of music licensing didn't really work for most games," offers Tarrand, Styngr COO. "That's how it was, and how it still is to a degree. But things are changing, and they have to."Video game companies, essentially, are software companies. Software companies want to be able to move fast, socket into APIs, or take a code library like an SDK for advertising or analytics. They keep moving, are used to immediate integrations, needing to move fast and iterate. And then when it comes to music, there's this legal architecture that's been in place for a long time some of it from the Motown era and it doesn't really match the speed or requirements of game companies. We wanted to change that."By 2020 the same year that 12 million fans turned up at a Travis Scott show hosted in Fortnite Tarrand and CEO Butenko had established Styngr, which self-identifies as the gaming tech and development arm of the major and indie music labels.Styngr ultimately provides game developers and studios with an effective, efficient way to bring both major label and top indie music into games, while presenting artists and labels with increasingly dynamic, even personalised ways to connect with fans. It operates as a joint venture between major rights holders from the world of music, with a focus on passthrough licensing via a bespoke technology platform, over traditional sync and licensing models."If you're a game maker, we probably look like ad tech to you, at least in principle," Tarrand explains. "But instead of sending you ads, we send you music. On the back end, our guts look very similar to a DSP. You get the same granularity of usage reporting, and marketing reports and also royalty payments and structures that are broken down. And then on top of that, we have a blanket license structure. So if you are a platform probably an enterprise platform or platform-like game, and you want to cut tonnes of licenses, you can just leverage what we have, keeping it really simple."And then with the passthrough licensing model, you can import anything from radio feeds and playlists to tones and snippets into an environment in your game, and offer them as micro transactions, subscriptions, or have brands fund them for uses We've built a lot of stuff that's really, really tailored for games, and really focused on surfacing music in a way that works for games and their players." Styngr has worked with Motown Records to create music-led experiences in Second Life | Image credit: StyngrTarrand is full of enthusiasm and insight when it comes to looking at a future where music enjoys a new freedom in terms of its presentation in games. He sees a world where games' sonic elements are increasingly personalised, and where music extends the very modern phenomena of people putting as much effort into expressing identity, individuality, and personal brand in games as they do in reality.For years, music has guided popular culture. Decades worth of young people have built their identity, style, ethos, and presentation around music-led subculture, from punks and mods to ravers and goths. That phenomenon now very much exists in games, albeit without music playing such a present role. A change is coming there, however, and it may completely reinvent the conventions of the music medium."Until recently we haven't seen a lot of sonic equivalent to people using the likes of skins to express their online identity." Tarrand confirms. "There has always been a lot of great music in games and games often served as this platform for music discoverability. So games like the original Tony Hawk titles way back, and now we see games like NBA2K doing a phenomenal job of that. But personalisation of connecting players with music will bring so much more."What do you want to listen to in a game? What do you want other players to hear around you? We already see audio emotes proving increasingly popular. They sell, and now they are part of this movement of people expressing their identity in games. If suddenly those emotes might be a little snippet of Post Malone saying 'goodbye, goodbye, goodbye', or you play a snippet of Lizzo loudly saying 'It's thick 30', that's the start of a big change for music.""Perhaps the ultimate influence of games here is changing how music is seen and interacted with by consumers, and the forms in which it's delivered"The Styngr team has recently launched their latest product for Roblox, Boombox. Inspired by nostalgic memories from the 1990s of people sitting on their stoops with a cassette player thumping, drawing in neighbours, expressively sharing their latest music discoveries, Boombox's powers the same experience in Roblox. Players can carry a digital ghetto blaster with them, unleashing a feed of tunes as they go.It's an example of a pivotal shift: where once music was thrust upon players, and limited by games' once offline nature, today users can choose music, share music, use it for the likes of emotes, and be proactive in the soundscape of the titles they love.Music as a means to express identity, then, is increasingly moving from the high street to the live video game and increasingly, games are starting to take a share of music's status as a cultural speartip."Music has always been really good at leading culture, setting style, and almost distilling what's going on in the world and synthesising it into something that's accessible, and that you can hear and feel and form a personal connection with," Tarrand enthuses. "And in games right now we see how into skins people are, and those skins are almost a simulacrum of how we use fashion and style in the real world or maybe they are a play on that."But thinking about how for decades music has led culture, and thinking about music personalisation in games, it's mainlining what's happening at a cultural level. And the more people can personalise it, the more social it becomes." Styngr's Boombox for Roblox allows players to play tunes wherever they go via a digital ghetto blaster | Image credit: StyngrPlayers, Tarrand believes, will increasingly contribute more to the in-game music ecosystem, giving more genres a slice of the gaming pie. And increasingly, games are where younger demographics are going for their music. Soon they will be subscribing to in-game radio services, or finding potential for new game-exclusive streaming platforms, or want ultra short form music they can deploy as emotes. Creators in the likes of Minecraft and Roblox increasingly want music to fit around the experiences they build, rather than fit their creations around old conventions of three-minute linear songs.Tarrand even speculates that where once fans might meet at a concert, form a band and practise in their garage, they could now discover music, connect with one another, for acts, and even produce music in games. For now, we are seeing an emergence of digital-first bands more concerned with their presence in the likes of games, but soon bands may form, exist, and create exclusively inside titles like Roblox."I think soon we'll see Gen Alpha and Gen Z going to games as their first place to find and consume music, and that means interacting with music in new ways," Tarrand continues. "So perhaps the ultimate influence of games here is changing how music is seen and interacted with by consumers, and the forms in which it's delivered. The focus isn't as much about physical concerts and bars and radio plays anymore, and traditional streaming has proven hard. And now in games we're seeing this shift away from labels and artists focusing only on placement. Now they're thinking about engagement.""I think soon we'll see Gen Alpha and Gen Z going to games as their first place to find and consume music"In fact, we are already seeing early signs of artists and labels looking more like game companies, including when they are focusing on Discord for fan engagement, as seen with Coldplay. Increasingly, musicians could be seen to start thinking with an acquisition and retention mindset, starting to provide something like updated, maintained, 'liveops albums'. Others might start producing micro tracks made for emotes.Over in stand-up comedy, TikTok's dominance has seen routines restructured with something of a focus on less intertwined, elaborately structured gags, so they are more readily plunderable for clips. Video game emotes might soon have a similar impact on the way individual tracks are made."We really might soon see the definitions of what music is, and what performance is," Tarrand concludes. "The motivations of artists, what their aims are, and how they manifest their art and brand might also change. How they present themselves as digital entities over physical ones is really interesting. Then you add the ability through things like AI to completely and constantly rework your visual identity, maybe even personalising your brand and sound for different fans it's a really exciting space."None of those things are certain, but they are looking increasingly likely. And with games continual rise as a guiding force of popular culture, the chance that music will have to change to share its kingdom with its new bedfellow is increasingly likely.Playable Futures is a collection of insights, interviews and articles from global games leaders sharing their visions of where the industry will go next. This article series has been brought to you by GamesIndustry.biz, Ukie, and Diva. You can find previous Playable Futures articles and podcasts here.

Marvel Rivals is a bright spot in a dark year for live service | OpinionWith so many expensive, high-profile live service games failing, the early success of NetEases title is a welcome relief but the risks of this model have never been more clearImage credit: NetEase Opinion by Rob Fahey Contributing Editor Published on Dec. 13, 2024 Turning points are tricky things: they seem so obvious in hindsight, but are tough to spot when theyre actually happening. False positives are common, because all manner of things can seem pivotal in the moment, but transpire to be far less important in the long term.This probably speaks to a general tendency to underestimate the sheer power of inertia. Especially in an industry like video games, where product development cycles now run for many years, changing course is rather like steering an oil tanker and even very consequential-seeming events can have little real impact on the direction of publishers and studios.All of which is to say that Im cautious about declaring that 2024 has been a pivotal year for the industrys obsession with live service models. I know how many projects are still lumbering forward fuelled by a dangerous cocktail of inertia and sunk-cost fallacy, sweetened by a dash of hope (and a lot of cope).Nonetheless, theres undoubtedly change in the air discussions about the merits of live service models are more rational and grounded, and executives who have spent the past few years frothing at the notion that every IP in their companys back catalogue is the next Fortnite just waiting to happen have finally stopped getting quite so high on their own supply. If this hasnt been an actual turning point of a year, then at least it might herald a 2025 when product planning meetings can consider the merits and drawbacks of live service models objectively, rather than acting like wild-eyed prospectors in a gold rush.The reason for the sudden onset of sobriety over live service games is, of course, that 2024 has really been a brutal year for so many high-profile titles. Sonys Concord is the new poster child for failed live service games shutting down after only a matter of weeks, and unfortunately taking its studio with it but as dramatic as that may have been, its on-theme for the year. Concord never looked destined for success, having failed to stir consumer interest right from the outset.Executives who spent the past few years frothing at the notion that every IP in their back catalogue is the next Fortnite have finally stopped getting quite so high on their own supplyWeve also recently seen what are effectively end-of-life announcements for titles whose failures were arguably much harder to forecast, though. Warner Bros Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Ubisofts XDefiant are both on their way out; the former based on a well-known DC Comics IP and developed by Arkham series veterans Rocksteady, and the latter being launched in May to much fanfare about achieving millions of players in a very short space of time.There are, of course, specific reasons for the failures of each of these titles. You can take them on a case-by-case basis and pick apart their issues. Concord was a hero shooter with an astonishingly uninspired and boring roster of characters (the design of which, both visually and in terms of abilities, is arguably the single most important aspect of a hero shooter), Suicide Squad made the frankly baffling decision to have you tasked with killing the characters people actually want to play as, and XDefiant, though far more competent overall than the other two, was competing directly with Call of Duty (and slightly less directly with Apex Legends) and simply couldnt maintain its momentum in the face of that juggernaut.The specifics of each case, though, dont change the existence of the trend; expensively developed service based games were an insanely risky prospect in 2024. The trend goes far beyond the games mentioned; Square Enix effectively sunset Marvels Avengers last year and cancelling plans for further Foamstars development (despite it only launching in February), while Ubisofts long-delayed Skull & Bones flopped at launch, to name but a few more. Marvel Rivals' success is partly due to well executed designs for a hero roster that combines fan-favourites with some real deep cuts from comics | Image credit: NetEaseSome publishers have already started to sense that risk and pull back, such as Sega, who cancelled Creative Assemblys extraction shooter Hyenas before it even got to market. This isnt a new trend, after all you can go all the way back to the likes of Biowares ill-fated Anthem to find cases of successful, well-established developers getting badly tangled up in the nets of their efforts to launch live service games.There is important nuance here, however. Live service games are difficult, demanding, and extremely risky, but the baby shouldnt go out with the bathwater even if consumers have become much more cynical and negative about these games in recent years (with good reason), that doesnt preclude major success in this field.2024 will probably be remembered for its live service failures, but the year was also bookended with successes. Helldivers 2 was the surprise hit of the first half of the year; meanwhile, NetEase may have cracked the code for making a successful live service game with the Marvel IP, with its hero shooter Marvel Rivals generally getting a very positive response from players in its first week or so on the market.The things that these successful (thus far) games do need to be considered alongside the factors that drove other titles to failure. Both of them have a very clear, memorable personality the Starship Troopers-style satirical tone of Helldivers 2 immediately sets it apart from almost everything else on the market (another of the years hits, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, notwithstanding), while Marvel Rivals sets out its stall with fantastically executed designs for a hero roster that combines fan-favourites with some real deep cuts from Marvels comics.2024 will probably be remembered for its live service failures, but the year was also bookended with successesThese games instantly have a hook; theyre visually and thematically distinct, easy to remember and reference, and immediately recognisable when someone posts a short gameplay clip from them on social media.Theyre also, of course, good games. When we talk about trends and monetisation models and various other factors around games, we sometimes just take the question of game quality as a given not least because some people on the business side of the industry arent all that comfortable with talking about game quality, especially since frustratingly, it doesnt seem to be something that you can easily improve just by throwing money at it. Its a source of annoyance and mystery to them that there can be games developed on a shoestring that are hailed as brilliant, and games with hundreds of millions of dollars thrown into their development that are considered to be absolutely terrible.One of the great risks of live service games, and one thats consistently underestimated precisely because so many people are discomfited by these seemingly subjective discussions of game quality, is that live service monetisation generally gets in the way of making a game enjoyable, fun to play, and generally good. Its not impossible to do, as successful games in this space show, but its an extra design challenge; making a live service game good is objectively a harder task, and there are actually very few game designers and directors out there who have practical experience of doing so (for the simple reason that there have been relatively few successful live service games). Concord has become the poster child for live service failures in 2024, and other such games have struggled, but there have still been success stories | Image credit: Concord, by Firewalk Studios and Sony Interactive EntertainmentMarvel Rivals, assuming its success lasts and at the moment it does seem to be building a solid foundation for ongoing success and Helldivers 2 are the silver lining to this years cloud. They, along with other ongoing live service success stories like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Genshin Impact, etc., show that good, fun games can still work in a live service paradigm, even as consumer cynicism has intensified over the whole idea.Yet the field of corpses through which these successful games stride cannot be ignored. Adding up the costs incurred in development, marketing, and operation for all the live service games which have failed or announced their sunsetting this year probably gets you past $1 billion dollars and those are just the projects we know about. Thats an astonishing amount of money thrown away on disastrous projects, which rankles especially in an industry thats still reeling from a couple of extremely rough years of layoffs and studio closures.Live service isnt going away the sheer amount of money being generated by the big success stories in this space ensures that but perhaps 2024s failures, and some careful analysis of the rather more limited roster of 2024s successes, will really make this into a pivotal year; the point where the tide turned and ebbed, and this business model started being applied judiciously and smartly, rather than being treated as the Holy Grail that would cure all the industrys ills.

Geoff Keighley's Game Awards aired last night, and the 10th annual awards show once again presented some awards in between those big game reveals.The top Game of the Year prize was granted to Team Asobi's Astro Bot. The PlayStation platformer was nominated alongside Black Myth Wukong, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Balatro, and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.Astro also won awards in the Game Direction, Action/Adventure, and Family Game categories. Balatro and Metaphor also took home three wins each: the deckbuilder won for Best Independent Game, Best Mobile, and Debut Indie, while Atlus' RPG was rewarded with Best Narrative, Art Direction, and Best RPG.A partial list of winners is down below, and the full roster of winners can be seen here.Game of the YearBalatro(Localthunk)Metaphor: ReFantazio(Atlus)Final Fantasy VII Rebirth(Square Enix)Black Myth: Wukong(GameScience)Astro Bot(Team Asobi/PlayStation)Elden Ring: Shadows of the Erdtree(FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)Best Game DirectionBalatro(Localthunk)Metaphor: ReFantazio(Atlus)Final Fantasy VII Rebirth(Square Enix)Black Myth: Wukong(GameScience)Astro Bot(Team Asobi/PlayStation)Elden Ring: Shadows of the Erdtree(FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)Best Innovation in AccessibilityCall of Duty: Black Ops 6(Treyarch/Activision Blizzard)Dragon Age: The Veilguard(BioWare/EA)Diablo IV(Blizzard Entertainment)Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown(Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft)Star Wars Outlaws(Massive Entertainment/Ubisoft)Best PerformanceBriana White (Aerith Gainsborough,Final Fantasy VII Rebirth)Hanna Telle (Max Caulfield,Life is Strange: Double Exposure)Humberly Gonzlez (Kay Vess,Star Wars Outlaws)Luke Roberts (James Sunderland,Silent Hill 2)Melina Juergens (Senua,Hellblade II: Senua's Sacrifice)Best AdaptationArcane (Riot/Fortiche/Netflix)Knuckles (Sega/Paramount)Fallout (Bethesa/Prime Video)Like a Dragon: Yakuza (Sega/Prime Video)Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (Powerhouse Animation/Netflix)Best Ongoing GameDestiny 2 (Bungie/PlayStation)Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead/PlayStation)Diablo IV (Blizzard/Xbox)Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)Fortnite (Epic Games)

Last night's Game Awards featured several reveals, one of which was a sequel to Okami. The original cult classic was developed by Clover Studio, and its sequel will be developed by...Clovers Studio.The developer was spun up in 2023 and is headed up by director Hideki Kamiya, who also helmed the first Okami. Unlike its predecessor, Clovers is not a Capcom subsidiary, and is working with staff from Capcom's M2 and Machine Head teams on the sequel.In his announcement post, Kamiya admitted that he "didn't think the day would really come where I'd return to Okami and continue the story with my own hands. [...] All of this has come together to create this miracle, for which I am deeply grateful.""This project is finally in motion," Kamiya concluded. "We are ready to fill this new Okami with many colorful flowers, and to do our best to fulfill the promise of 'next time' in the best way. Everyone please wait with anticipation."The once and future OkamiOkami released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2, and was Clover's penultimate game before the studio closed the following year. Prior to its shutdown, Kamiya was one of several high-profile exits alongside Shinji Mikami and Atsushi Inaba. Mikami went on to found the once dead, now revived Tango Gameworks, and Kamiya started PlatinumGames before leaving in 2023.In August 2023, Capcom revealed Okami and the 2010 Nintendo DS game Okamiden have collectively sold over 4 million copies. In the 18 years since its initial release, Okami has been remastered for successor consoles like the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.The unnamed Okami project wasn't last night's only surprise blast from the past. Capcom also revealed another project at the Game Awards: Onimusha: Way of the Sword, the first new major entry in its samurai hack-and-slash series since 2006's Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. Unlike Okami, that game has a release target of 2026.

OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever says the way AI is built is about to changeOpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever says the way AI is built is about to change / Weve achieved peak data and therell be no more, OpenAIs former chief scientist told a crowd of AI researchers.By Kylie Robison, a senior AI reporter working with The Verge's policy and tech teams. She previously worked at Fortune Magazine and Business Insider. Dec 14, 2024, 12:34 AM UTCShare this storyIlya Sutskever. Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty ImagesOpenAIs cofounder and former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, made headlines earlier this year after he left to start his own AI lab called Safe Superintelligence Inc. He has avoided the limelight since his departure but made a rare public appearance in Vancouver on Friday at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).Pre-training as we know it will unquestionably end, Sutskever said onstage. This refers to the first phase of AI model development, when a large language model learns patterns from vast amounts of unlabeled data typically text from the internet, books, and other sources.Weve achieved peak data and therell be no more.During his NeurIPS talk, Sutskever said that, while he believes existing data can still take AI development farther, the industry is tapping out on new data to train on. This dynamic will, he said, eventually force a shift away from the way models are trained today. He compared the situation to fossil fuels: just as oil is a finite resource, the internet contains a finite amount of human-generated content.Weve achieved peak data and therell be no more, according to Sutskever. We have to deal with the data that we have. Theres only one internet.Ilya Sutskever calls data the fossil fuel of AI. Ilya Sutskever/NeurIPSNext-generation models, he predicted, are going to be agentic in a real ways. Agents have become a real buzzword in the AI field. While Sutskever didnt define them during his talk, they are commonly understood to be an autonomous AI system that performs tasks, makes decisions, and interacts with software on its own. Along with being agentic, he said future systems will also be able to reason. Unlike todays AI, which mostly pattern-matches based on what a model has seen before, future AI systems will be able to work things out step-by-step in a way that is more comparable to thinking. Do you work at OpenAI? Id love to chat. You can reach me securely on Signal @kylie.01 or via email at kylie@theverge.com.The more a system reasons, the more unpredictable it becomes, according to Sutskever. He compared the unpredictability of truly reasoning systems to how advanced AIs that play chess are unpredictable to the best human chess players.They will understand things from limited data, he said. They will not get confused.On stage, he drew a comparison between the scaling of AI systems and evolutionary biology, citing research that shows the relationship between brain and body mass across species. He noted that while most mammals follow one scaling pattern, hominids (human ancestors) show a distinctly different slope in their brain-to-body mass ratio on logarithmic scales. He suggested that, just as evolution found a new scaling pattern for hominid brains, AI might similarly discover new approaches to scaling beyond how pre-training works today.Ilya Sutskever compares the scaling of AI systems and evolutionary biology. Ilya Sutskever/NeurIPSAfter Sutskever concluded his talk, an audience member asked him how researchers can create the right incentive mechanisms for humanity to create AI in a way that gives it the freedoms that we have as homosapiens.I feel like in some sense those are the kind of questions that people should be reflecting on more, Sutskever responded. He paused for a moment before saying that he doesnt feel confident answering questions like this because it would require a top down government structure. The audience member suggested cryptocurrency, which made others in the room chuckle.I dont feel like I am the right person to comment on cryptocurrency but there is a chance what you [are] describing will happen, Sutskever said. You know, in some sense, its not a bad end result if you have AIs and all they want is to coexist with us and also just to have rights. Maybe that will be fine... I think things are so incredibly unpredictable. I hesitate to comment but I encourage the speculation.Most PopularMost Popular

Tim Cook is the latest tech CEO to meet with Trump at Mar-a-LagoTim Cook is the latest tech CEO to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago / Cook established a personal relationship with the President-elect during his first term.By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. Hes submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium. Dec 14, 2024, 12:24 AM UTCShare this storyApple CEO Tim Cook will meet with President-elect Donald Trump for dinner on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to The New York Times. Its reportedly Cooks first time meeting with Trump since the election.During Trumps first term, Cook established a direct relationship with the president that other tech CEOs have wanted to replicate. As Trump prepares for his second term, Cook may want to discuss potential tariffs, which could significantly affect Apples business. RelatedCook may also want to discuss the European Unions actions against Apple; during his presidential campaign, Trump claimed that Cook called him to complain about the fines Apple faces in the European Union, with accusations of anticompetitive behavior in App Store policies and how it manages platforms like the iPhone and Mac.Cooks visit follows reports of Trumps conversation with Google CEO Sundar Pichai yesterday and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos next week. Trump met with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November.Tech companies and leaders, including Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have also been appealing to the President-elect with $1 million donations to his inauguration fund.Most PopularMost Popular

As part of their ongoing holiday rerun of the best bundles of 2024, today Humble Bundle have brought back the Blender Markets Essential Game Modding Toolkit for two days only. This bundle is a collection of assets from the Blender Market, including popular plugins like Retopoflow 3, as well as tutorials, environments and more. A very important thing to realize is these are frozen in time versions of the assets and they will not receive updates! Unlike the original bundle, this one only has a single tier with all of the assets in it.Bundle Contents $30 TierUvpackmaster 3TreadBlender to UnityBlender to UnrealMassive 240-Piece Modular Mega PackBlender to Godot 4 Pipeline AddonFaceitAction CommanderTrash Kit50 Sword Base Mesh Vol 5Ultimate Game Asset Course with BlenderFull Environment Creation in UE5 & BlenderScattershotREVModeling a Robot Game Character with BlenderRetopoflowBetter Fbx Importer & ExporterBakemasterOutpostStylized Castle Ruins Asset PackFantasy Cemetery 2Empire of the SandsGame and Render Ready Rock PackAK-47 Game ReadyBlender & Unreal Massive Stylized Sci-Fi Crate PackStylized Low Poly Food Pack 01Cairo City Cyberpunk StreetsSci-Fi Modular Panel Kit Vol 2Sci-Fi Modular Asset PackFamilyGame Rig ToolsUltimate Basemesh CollectionAuto BakeQuick BakerHero Asset Creation TutorialAnimation BootcampRIGAnimating First Person Character Weapons in BlenderRigging a Transforming Rifle in Blender 2.8UV FlowBlender Game Development TutorialScifi Station Vol 2You can learn more about the Blender Markets Essential Game Modding Toolkit in the video below. Using links on this page helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do). If you have an issue with the link not opening and are running uBlock, try pasting the link into a new tab and it should work just fine.

HaxeFlixel 5.9.0 Released / News / December 13, 2024 / HaxeFlixel is as the name suggests an implementation of the Flixel game framework using the Haxe programming language. Flixel is an incredibly easy to use game library for creating 2D games from back in the Flash/ActionScript days. It is an incredibly easy to use framework and due to the nature of Haxe, it is easily ported (or technically compiled) to a variety of different platforms. I like HaxeFlixel to the point that I actually did a pretty in-depth tutorial series on getting started with it.We discuss HaxeFlixel today because HaxeFlixel 5.9.0 was just released with the following changes:FlxInputText: Add improved input text to core flixel (flixel-uis implementation will be deprecated) (#3219)FlxReplay: AddgetDuration(#3135)InputFrontEnd: (#3134)AddaddInputandaddUniqueTypeto replaceaddadddestroyOldarg to thereplacemethodAllow more than one instance of a certainIFlxInputManagertypeSoundFrontEnd: AddonVolumeChangesignal (#3148)FlxBasePath: (#3153)Create base class forFlxPathfor simpler custom path following logicAdd signalsonEndReached,onFinishedandonNodeReachedReplacement fields:startAt,direction,loopType,target,currentIndex,nextIndex,currentandnextFlxGraphic: AddtrackingInfoto help debugging graphics (#3183)FlxFlicker: Addpauseandresume(#3179)FlxRect: AddclipToand fixintersectionbug (#3190)FlxPointer: AddgetGamePosition,gameX/Y,getViewPosition, andviewX/Y, to replace screen fields (#3210)FlxAnimationController: AddonLoop,onFrameChangeandonFinish, to replacecallbackandfinishCallback(#3205) (#3216)FlxStrip: Add support for blendmodes (#3213)FlxTextBorderStyle: Add SHADOW_XY, prevent border clipping (#3236)LogStyle: AddonLogsignal to replacecallbackFunction(#3239)(#3307)FlxBar: Add custom border sizes (#3234)Gamepads: AddacceptModeand mapped inputs (#3276) (#3280)AddACCEPTandCANCELinput IDs that conditionally map to eitherAorBdepending onFlxG.gamepads.acceptModeAddgamepad.getMappedInputto get an anum value of every possible gamepad input from various devices, i.e.PS4(PS4ID.X)FlxG.assets: A way to overwrite and customize the way HaxeFlixel fetches or produces assets from ids (#2982)FlxG.cameras: Addinsertmethod (#3290)FlxSave: Allow custom handling of parsing errors (#3286)FlxDirectionFlags: Addup,down,leftandrightfields (#3303)FlxG.assets: AddgetSoundAddExt(#3311)FlxG.assets: Add-DFLX_DEFAULT_SOUND_EXTto automatically append file extension to sound asset ids (#3314)Key LinksHaxeFlixel HomepageHaxeFlixel GitHubHaxeFlixel 5.9.0 Release NotesHaxe Programming LanguageYou can learn more about FlaxPixel and the 5.9.0 release in the video below.

Language model routing is a growing field focused on optimizing the utilization of large language models (LLMs) for diverse tasks. With capabilities spanning text generation, summarization, and reasoning, these models are increasingly applied to varied input data. The ability to dynamically route specific tasks to the most suitable model has become a crucial challenge, aiming to balance efficiency with accuracy in handling these multifaceted tasks.One major challenge in deploying LLMs is selecting the most suitable model for a given input task. While numerous pre-trained LLMs are available, their performance can vary significantly based on the task. Determining which model to use for a specific input traditionally involves relying on labeled datasets or human annotations. These resource-intensive methods pose significant barriers to scaling and generalization, particularly in applications requiring real-time decisions or a wide range of capabilities.Existing approaches for routing tasks to LLMs typically involve auxiliary training or heuristic-based selection. These methods often depend on labeled datasets to rank or predict the best-performing model for a given input. While effective to some degree, these strategies are limited by the availability of high-quality annotated data and the computational costs of training auxiliary models. As a result, the broader applicability of these methods remains constrained.Researchers from Stanford University have introduced SMOOTHIE, an innovative unsupervised language model routing approach designed to overcome the limitations of labeled data. SMOOTHIE leverages principles from weak supervision, employing a latent variable graphical model to evaluate the outputs of multiple LLMs. By estimating sample-specific quality scores, the method routes each input to the LLM most likely to produce optimal results. This approach provides a novel solution by eliminating the dependency on labeled datasets, significantly reducing resource requirements.SMOOTHIE consists of two primary variations: SMOOTHIE-GLOBAL and SMOOTHIE-LOCAL. SMOOTHIE-GLOBAL derives quality estimates for all test data, creating a broad model performance evaluation. Conversely, SMOOTHIE-LOCAL refines this process by focusing on the nearest neighbors of a sample in the embedding space, enhancing precision in routing. The methodology employs embedding representations of observable outputs and latent variables to model differences between generated outputs and hypothetical true outputs. These differences are represented as a multivariate Gaussian, allowing the researchers to derive closed-form estimators for quality scores. The method also incorporates kernel smoothing in SMOOTHIE-LOCAL to further tailor quality estimates to individual samples, ensuring that routing decisions are dynamically optimized.The performance of SMOOTHIE was evaluated extensively across multiple datasets and settings. SMOOTHIE-GLOBAL demonstrated its capability to identify the best-performing model in 9 out of 14 tasks. For instance, on datasets such as AlpacaEval, SMOOTHIE-GLOBAL improved win rates by up to 15 percentage points compared to random-selection baselines and by 8 points on SQuAD. The LOCAL variant further excelled, outperforming global and supervised routing methods in multi-task scenarios. In mixed-task datasets, SMOOTHIE-LOCAL improved task accuracy by up to 10 points over baseline methods. Furthermore, it achieved strong correlations between estimated and actual model quality, with a rank correlation coefficient of 0.72 on natural language generation tasks and 0.94 on MixInstruct. SMOOTHIEs local routing enabled smaller models to outperform larger counterparts in several configurations, highlighting its effectiveness in resource-efficient scenarios.The results underscore SMOOTHIEs potential to transform LLM routing by addressing the reliance on labeled data and auxiliary training. Combining weak supervision techniques with innovative quality estimation models enables robust and efficient routing decisions in multi-capability environments. The research presents a scalable and practical solution for enhancing LLM performance, paving the way for broader adoption in real-world applications where task diversity and accuracy are paramount.This research signifies a pivotal advancement in the field of language model routing. Addressing challenges in task-specific LLM selection with an unsupervised approach opens avenues for improving the deployment of LLMs across diverse applications. The introduction of SMOOTHIE streamlines the process and ensures a significant enhancement in output quality, demonstrating the growing potential of weak supervision in artificial intelligence.Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our60k+ ML SubReddit. Nikhil+ postsNikhil is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is pursuing an integrated dual degree in Materials at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Nikhil is an AI/ML enthusiast who is always researching applications in fields like biomaterials and biomedical science. With a strong background in Material Science, he is exploring new advancements and creating opportunities to contribute. [Download] Evaluation of Large Language Model Vulnerabilities Report (Promoted)

Google Unveils Gemini 2.0 0 like December 13, 2024Share this postLast Updated on December 13, 2024 by Editorial TeamAuthor(s): Get The Gist Originally published on Towards AI. Plus: Midjourney Unveils Collaborative Storytelling ToolThis member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.Welcome to Get The Gist, where every weekday we share an easy-to-read summary of the latest and greatest developments in AI news, innovations, and trends all delivered in under 5 minutes! In todays edition:Midjourney Unveils Collaborative Storytelling ToolApple Intelligence Launches in AustraliaApple Launched Apple Visual IntelligenceAnd more AI news.Image by: GoogleThe Gist: Gemini 2.0, Googles latest AI model, introduces advanced agents capable of reasoning, planning, and multitasking. This marks a major upgrade from previous versions and promises more powerful, versatile tools for users and developers alike.Key Details:Gemini 2.0 Flash, the first version released, is twice as fast as its predecessor and excels in coding, problem-solving, and multilingual understanding.The model can generate multimedia content, answer complex questions, and integrate tools like Google Search for enhanced functionality.Developers can experiment with Gemini 2.0 Flash in AI Studio and Vertex AI, with an official release slated for January.Regular users can try Gemini 2.0 on the app and website, with expanded capabilities rolling out soon for broader applications.Image by: MidjourneyThe Gist: Midjourney has introduced Patchwork, a new platform for building interactive narrative worlds with AI-generated content. The tool allows users to create Read the full blog for free on Medium.Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming asponsor. Published via Towards AITowards AI - Medium Share this post