Looking for NYT Strands answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, including the spangram.

One analyst said Microsoft changes will provide better visibility into the software company's Azure cloud infrastructure business.

The old-school (and new-school) effects used to make the Taika Waititi series. Warning: this article contains spoilers!The Apple TV+ series Time Bandits, based on the 1981 film from Terry Gilliam, goes to many, many locations in telling the story of a gang of thieves traveling through time with a new member of their troupe: the eleven-year-old history nerd, Kevin.The gang finds themselves in prehistoric times, the ice age, ancient Troy, the Mayan period, New York City during prohibition, and several other locations and times.To realize so many settings, Time Banditscreated by Jemaine Clement, Iain Morris, and Taika Waititirelied heavily on visual effects. In fact, there are almost 5000 VFX shots, overseen by production visual effects supervisor Tobias Wolters.Looking to lean in on its classic roots, the visual effects work featured classic approaches such as miniatures and even oil paintings for some matte painting work. Animatronics were also a key part of bringing creatures to life.Alongside this old-school work, Time Bandits relied on the latest virtual production approaches and digital visual effects, too. The key vendors included DNEG, Rodeo FX, Dimension Studio, ILM, Distillery VFX, Platige Image, Cause and FX, Leitmotif, Bot VFX and ReDefine.Here, Wolters breaks down just some of the keyand crazymoments in the series.b&a: I think you used many different techniques for the show, including classic ones. Where did you get started on creating so many shots?Tobias Wolters: Being a Terry Gilliam classic, it really allowed us to embrace everything that has been done in the past and marry it up with what were doing right now in VFX, even including virtual production. We would ask ourselves, say, How can we involve miniatures in a way where we dont just replace them all in the end? I think a lot of people are trying this and it often doesnt quite work, but I think here it worked well, because it gave that handcrafted feel of the miniature that we actually wanted.Filming the Wt Workshop mammoth on the LED wall.Through the art department, we built our own miniatures. Sometimes we scanned them outside in real light, so wed have the light baked into the miniature. We would use that photogrammetry of the asset, put it on the Volume and marry it in with CG assets. And in the background wed have big panoramas that we shot with camera arrays all over New Zealand.Early on it was pretty much just going through the script and identifying which technique was best. Where could we use the Volume? Where could we use miniatures? Wed go, OK, the ships are good for miniatures. Or, little moments like the head in episode one coming through the wardrobe, that was great for a miniature element. And where can we even use oil paintings? Where can we do a classic hand-painted matte painting?Oil painting matte painting underway.Actually, the first idea was doing a glass matte shot on the set, but when we thought about it further, with the HDR camera resolution nowadays and the time we actually had to achieve the effect, that was not feasible. We contacted a great matte painter, Deak Ferrand from Rodeo FX. He also did a lot of our concepts. We wanted to do some classic establishers, such as for Troy in episode one or when they enter Cairo in episode six. Those are like Lawrence of Arabia or Spartacus shotsthose big reveals and classic crane up shots.The idea was, wed go to a location, we film a plate and then we build an asset of the city to 50% completion. Wed print that as a reference for Deak to create the oil matte painting. We then took that oil painting and reprojected it over our asset. Now we have all the parallax, we have the lighting work together, because it has been informed by a lighting pass and we can now add in sprites, we can add in some people moving, we can add in fog, whatever we need to really make it come to life and not be just static. It actually worked really well.b&a: You mentioned miniatures as well for the Chinese ships. Were the ships the only miniatures?Tobias Wolters: We did a few things with miniatures. Ive always had a big love for miniaturesthe texture, just the feel. You look at shots in Lord of the Rings and you can perhaps see that its a miniature, but you still accept it, you still know its a real tactile thing. Its a bit tricky on the schedule of a TV show to incorporate miniatures, so we had to think outside the box. We assembled a little VFX shoot unit to do miniatures. The good thing in New Zealand is that theres a lot of incredibly talented model artists from previous well known projects that we could hire.Miniature ship.The miniatures we ended up building were the ships, a Mayan pyramid, and parts of the Fortress of Darkness, which was more for texture and getting assets. So, theres a shot of a ship in the background explodingthats a miniature. In episode three, the camera orbits around a ship at night before we find Saffron on the chinese junk. For that, we shot a drone plate of a lake. We then tracked that plate, applied the move to a camera mo-co crane, which was scaled down to work in scale with the miniature. The only thing we had to do in post, was add some more ripples to the sails and wake on the water.We also built miniature elements such as the wardrobe in Kevins bedroom. We built a quarter scale version of his wardrobe inside a little blue box, which was a quarter scale representation of Kevins bedroom with cutouts for the windows so the lighting would be correct. And then we had a scale version of the head made out of rubber. Using an air piston, we shot the rubber head through the balsa wood wardrobe for the splintering effect when the head comes through, which was then used as an element for all the debris.Miniature Mayan pyramid.We were constantly trying to mix our techniques and to never have the same effect twice. In the case of the head in the bedroom, the sequence continues and the head walks through the room. Well, that was a guy wearing a wearable head stumbling through the bedroom, which was very strange to shoot. But it gave us all the right movements and the light interaction, because there were some practical lights glued to the prop. So, when we replaced it and added all the smoke, we were still working with a real plate. The wall falling away was a practical effect on an elevated set, the infinite bedrooms behind created by DNEG. Then when the room reassembles itself, we basically blew up the room with air cannons and in post played it in reverse, together with a CG version of the head and smoke.b&a: Tell me about the virtual production side of the show. I imagine that helped you go to so many places?Tobias Wolters: When it came to the decision of building an LED wall, it was quite daunting because there wasnt a stage you could walk into. There are stages all over the world, but this was the first time virtual production was done in New Zealand to this degree where we were building a fully tracked stage with live rendered content.Camp fire scene on the LED wall.The second you start suggesting the use of a Volume, it does become interesting for people in production because they see it as a time saver where we dont need to travel anymore. The challenge is, it works well for certain things, but not others. Hard light situations dont work. Its a big soft box. Its light from all directions and you dont get a 12K light source through a Volume unless you dismantle the panels and put actual physical lights in there. Plus, it being comedy, we needed a lot of flexibility. We needed a lot of improvisation and multiple cameras. We knew we had to be a bit more flexible than usual.However, we knew the Volume would work well for night scenes. It worked well for shaded scenes, say, when theyre in a tent looking out over the desert, or when theyre in the ice age. Actually, the ice age was pretty much all Volume work, which proved to be the most challenging, because snow being white meant you could see any kind of light mismatch. Its immediately apparent and blending this seamlessly into the world required a lot of work. We spent a lot of time prevising the set builds. The art department trusted us at that stage to help and design the physical set together. Sets needed to be designed together with our virtual art department (VAD) so that theyd be influenced by each other.Virtual production shoot for snow.For the Volume, the panels were rented from one company. The tracking came from another. Then DNEG 360 and Dimension Studio operated the Volume and supplied the build teams. The entire team really did an outstanding job. The job of the virtual production teams and built team is often misunderstood and the huge effort it requires to bring to life should really be appreciated. Im also so thankful to my VFX producers Will Reece and Max Serges for handling most of the logistics.b&a: Was bluescreen and greenscreen photography still used as well?Tobias Wolters: Yes. What we really stressed to everyone, in working out how to shoot something, was what it meant to change an environment or how long we needed to turn around the set schedule-wise. So for the ship, for instance, we did not shoot that on the Volume because we had to have the weather elements. We wanted to shoot on a gimbal and have wind elements and physical explosions, so it was easier to shoot on a bluescreen. We also put the Fortress of Darkness, because it was so big, on a bluescreen. It would just have taken too long to occupy a volume stage with that. Its always a case-by-case scenario where we explore all options and then find the best solution.b&a: Lets talk about the creature work, starting with the flying dinosaur in episode three.Tobias Wolters: When we started with the dinosaur, I felt a bit insecure about it. I felt like it had been done so many times and we have all the Jurassic franchises and even some dinosaur documentaries that have been done really well. We decided, lets not just make another scary dinosaur, lets make this a character. This is when we used our concepting team to make something fun and create something more flamboyant and more like an angry grandma dinosaur rather than your typical just monster.The team meets a dinosaur.I figured we could really do something special through the design and create a character. We looked at the bird kingdom, looked at how many colors there were, and used feathers for expressions. The dinosaur has that feather crown on the back of the head similar to a cockatoo. We used that to emote. And we gave her a name, its Trudie. ILM did fantastic work on the dinosaur.We wanted to make the dinosaur very fun and clumsy and when it moves on the ground its constantly slipping and falling. When we shot it we used an AR tool which was an iPad where you could always see the scale of the dinosaur. The camera work was informed where the creature was. I wanted to stay away from too wide plates where its always perfectly framed for the dinosaur. We also built some practical bits for the beak. Theres even a shot where its literally the practical beak in shot.One big challenge was the character of Fianna. When I started thinking about what her design could look like, we were nearing post. It was important that it made her appear almost like a shadow. Played by Rachel House, we had this fantastic performance that we wanted to preserve with all details and nuances. I think we went through almost 100 versions of designs to achieve what we had in mind. We looked at skins of toads, turtles and various burnt surfaces for reference. The biggest challenge was actually the mouth and nailing the various levels of stiffness of the skin and muscle textures. Rodeo FX led this work and absolutely nailed it.b&a: Then theres the saber-toothed tiger, the woolly mammoth and the rhino creature in episode seven. How did you approach these?Tobias Wolters: They all have three very different techniques that we used to make them. The rhino is an animatronic. The mammoth is actually a half-scale puppet. Wt Workshop built this amazing mammoth costume, which looks absolutely real. Two people were operating it, one was the front legs, another one rear legs, and then the snout was operated with wires. This was partly shot on the Volume.Wt Workshops practical mammoth.Theres even half scale puppets on the back for Saffron and Kevin. So, for all the wide shots and those aerial shots when theyre traveling, its literally the puppets on the back.Then there was a full scale buck, which was a full scale build of the upper half of the mammoth, which was on a remote controlled motion base. We animated the mammoth movements early so that we could ingest that animation data into the motion base and it would give us the correct movement. We could even scale down the content on the Volume, so it would all be the same size.Filming a mammoth riding scene.The saber-toothhis name is Diegowas another ILM build. Im quite proud of that one, because I wanted it to feel really lived in, in that world. The ice, the wind, the harshness. Part of the brief was, we wanted to feel the snow land in the fur, melt from the warmth in the fur, drip down and then freeze again, forming clusters of icy fur. ILM actually created a new toolset for that to achieve this. I think it just adds so much realism in those close-up shots.b&a: I also love when the cat was paused in the next episode, that was kind of cool.Tobias Wolters: For that we actually built a stuffy again, a full-scale bust, for the shoot. The mouth was operable, so the actors had something to interact with. When it came to the shot work, we started with it just being frozen and it looked just a bit weird, so it became about bringing back some life and also enhancing the comedy. The saber-tooth tiger is so confused while its really fighting against that frozen pose. So we conveyed all its emotions with the eyes. You can sometimes see that the paw is doing little flinches trying to break free. Theres drool coming out of the mouth, you still feel the cold breath, that really sold it.b&a: Another creature was Posiedon, as played by Taika. What was the mix of real Taika and CG here?Tobias Wolters: That was quite a thing, quite a challenge together with all the giants at the end. We wanted to, of course, avoid the Uncanny Valley, which was hard because its this 80-meter tall version of a well known person. But we thought, lets embrace it and lets go for this over-the-top heroic, backlit dramatic version, with hair thats always very floaty as if its underwater. I think that worked because youre not trying to be too realistic.We shot Taika with a beard and the staff and he was in complete blue except for his face, which then ended up being a projection of his face onto a CG version. So we did scan him, but the face itself is not a complete CG creation. Theres a mix of projections of his actual acting. The body is fully CG. This was done by Rodeo FX.b&a: Finally theres Hen the Giant, with the island on his head. How did you tackle that, especially with the scale challenges?Tobias Wolters: That entire sequence was quite a challenge and we went through a lot of versions of how we could shoot it. We found this island, which is actually a peninsula, its not an island, that we then changed the layout of to match in a miniature that we built that was glued on top of the actors head. We then shot him on Phantom cameras just to get the slow-mo movements and all that muscle jiggle and all the details working well on that scale, which required a lot of light. Even though hes not wearing a lot, it was really hot on stage.We used certain scale cues such as the clouds moving down, the constant seagulls and little bits falling off the island. With the makeup and the skin texture, that was something we couldnt really change without going full CG on the face. So we said, Okay, it is fine to feel that theres makeup in play. Its a human. We embraced that handcrafted feeling, but then using depth, using haze, using clouds, using birds and the waterwhich was fully CGas our scale cues. With the camera, we made sure it was never too crazy and almost felt like it was operated by a helicopter, which sometimes was me just filming a cardboard box in my office with my phone to give us a handheld movement which we tracked and applied to the plate. This work was done by ILM. That entire sequence is quite mythical and right up in the Gilliam visual language that we embraced for the show.Vendor breakdownRodeo FX: Concepting, Troy, traditional DMP work, Poseidon, all ship work, Harlem, Fianna the Demon, portal workDNEG: Fortress of Darkness, Sky Citadel, desert work, Supreme Being head, Mayan world, bedroom slide portalILM: Dinosaur, saber-tooth tiger, Hen the Giant, the mammothDistillery VFX: Time of Legends salt desert, stately homePlatige Image: Fianna in rock form, the black voidCause and FX: Additional Fianna workLeitmotif: Supporting compositing and FX work across all episodesBot VFX: Cleanup and 2D work, Kevins glassesReDefine: Supporting compositing across all episodesThe post Miniatures, animatronics and even oil paintings were part of the effects of Time Bandits appeared first on befores & afters.

Asher Zhu(Duck Shake Games) was a senior Tech artist at Epic before leaving in April to chase his dream of making a slime game A specialist in fluid simulation, he recommends this article he wrote "Working with Niagara Fluids to Create Water Simulations," to those interested in creating real-time 3D water. https://80.lv/articles/working-with-niagara-fluids-to-create-water-simulations/

Join this session with SpeedTree artist Mira Pichai, who will take you through the core SpeedTree tools and workflows. Get to know the latest features and leave inspired to unleash your creativity in the Unity Editor to quickly craft optimized, captivating, and immersive environments with SpeedTree. Register today: unity.com/unite#Unite2024

Its been a raucous week in Chicago, both inside the Democratic National Convention and outside on the streets. While party delegates and supporters have been rallying around Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, protestors have descended on the Windy City to rally around one primary topic: the war in Gaza.Chief among the demands of pro-Palestinian protestors is an end of U.S. aid to Israel. The Israel-Hamas war has stretched on for nearly a year and killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to the latest estimates.In Chicago, thousands of protestors have gathered this week in Union Park, which is a few blocks from the United Center, where the convention is taking place. The March on the DNC 2024, a coalition of 220-plus different organizations, organized a march between the park and the convention on Monday.Organizers estimate the march brought together 20,000 people from around the countrya diverse base that the Democrats claim to representin a group that was largely peaceful, though there were some arrests, Faayani Aboma Mijana, a spokesperson for the coalition, tells Fast Company. The march was really successful.Protests disrupt politicians on TuesdayBut protestors have also sought out other opportunities to make their demands heard. An unsanctioned march outside of the Israeli consulate resulted in 72 arrests, according to reporting by the Chicago Tribune. Earlier on Tuesday, a small group of protestors briefly disrupted Minnesota Governor Tim Walz when he made a surprise appearance at the Democratic womens caucus.A few audience members also interrupted a live episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday when the talk show host was interviewing former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Colbert asked Pelosi to address the complaints of protestors, noting that her statement that war has no role in a civilized society was seemingly unsatisfying to some.Pelosi told Colbert that peace is only possible with a two-state solution. This message is consistent with the 2024 Democratic Party Platform, a 90-plus page document released ahead of the convention. The party platform noted that President Joe Biden, who is finishing out his final months in office, has been determined to broker an immediate and lasting ceasefire deal.More protests scheduled this weekOne-off protests are likely to continue, though at least two other major marches are scheduled this week, both originating from Union Park. On Wednesday, the Coalition for Justice in Palestine is planning a march on the convention, followed on Thursday by another event organized by the March on DNC 2024 coalition.While this years convention has drawn parallels to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which also took place in Chicago, clashes this year have yet to be violent. Local law enforcement has worked in conjunction with federal agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service, to prepare for the convention.Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling praised his officers for their response to demonstrators on Monday, even though protestors briefly breached a security barrier. He condemned those protestors trying to wreak havoc at the consulate on Tuesday and noted that about half of those arrested were from out of town. Arrest records for this week are not yet available on the Chicago Police Departments website.The Chicago metropolitan area is home to the largest population of Palestinian Americans in the U.S., according to the Center for Arab Narratives.President Biden acknowledged protestorsOne positive indication that the message of pro-Palestinian protestors is resonating with convention attendees, Mijana says, came Monday when President Biden addressed the convention. Those protesters out in the street, they have a point, Biden said. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.But protestors indicate their frustrations with the lack of progress with chants that include Free, free Palestine or Kamala, Kamala, you cant hide, we wont vote for genocide or No more money for Israels crimes. Many of these protestors are people within the party who are trying to enact change, says Mijana, who uses they/them pronouns. And in this election, 10,000 votes could make all the difference, they add. Various polls currently show that the race is close, though Harris may have a slight lead on former President Donald Trump.We dont just want words, we want action, Mijana says. We want to see, writ large, an end to all U.S. aid to Israel.

Local architecture studios Pelletier de Fontenay and Leclerc Architects have created a Quebec primary school organised around an open courtyard to create a "permeable" boundary with nature.Located outside of Montreal in Shefford, cole du Znith is composed of a chain of five one-storey volumes or "pavilions" that wrap around a central open space recess yard.Pelletier de Fontenay and Leclerc Architects have created a primary school outside of MontrealThe building is the result of a 2019 architecture competition hosted by local non-profit Lab-cole, which focuses on developing school models that encourage active and healthy lifestyles for students.Pelletier de Fontenay and Leclerc Architects won the competition with their entry, a design that encourages connection to the outdoors.The school is organised around a courtyard to encourage an active lifestyle for studentsElements such as its courtyard, large windows and multiple openings are meant to lessen the boundary between the interior and exterior for students, according to the team. The school is also oriented towards views of the neighbouring Mont Shefford."With large windows, overhanging roofs, and multiple entry points, the architecture aims to make the boundary between inside and outside as permeable as possible, thus connecting the architecture with the landscape," said the team.The courtyard contains a mixture of local plantings, surfaces, boulders and an edible gardenThe courtyard contains a mixture of local plantings, surfaces, boulders and an edible garden, which students are encouraged to explore.The building is defined by its low-lying roof, which features generous eaves, and triangular skylight "chimneys" that protrude from each volume and also act to expel warm, rising air through shafts.Stadium-style seating is used as common space throughout the buildingThe gabled forms are meant to offer familiarity to students, as they echo the language of surrounding countryside architecture."Without literally reproducing the vernacular architecture of the surrounding area, the school, with its low volumes and sloped roofs, offers archetypal forms that echo the nearby houses or farm buildings," said the team.The single-storey structure features cosy mezzanine spaces"Thus, children enter a world that is familiar to them; a warm and welcoming world."The school branches out from a single volume that contains public and administrative spaces, which form the backmost perimeter of the building.A wooden structure runs throughout the buildingIts interior contains a set of large pale green stairs that act as a "common space" leading down towards a ribbon of floor-to-ceiling windows that lead into the courtyard. A smaller play area is contained in the mezzanine above, topped by the gabled roof and a triangular skylight.Administrative spaces, a staff lounge area, two multi-purpose studios and other amenity spaces were tucked around the stairs.Read: Haller Gut Architekten adds "light and delicate" extension to Swiss schoolA similar strategy was implemented into the other volumes, which contain classrooms of mixed ages organised around sets of brightly coloured stadium-style stairs."Shared among four classes, the collaboration zone partly unfolds in double height and partly in a mezzanine accessible by a bleacher stair," said the team.Large windows were implemented into classroomsThe classrooms themselves also feature large, operable windows, which are covered by the overhanging eaves to "help control summer radiation and minimize solar gains".Another volume contains a subterranean gymnasium, which is illuminated through ribbon windows and another large, triangular skylight.A subterranean gymnasium is lined with ribbon windowsA heavy timber ceiling is exposed throughout the project, which drove the interior palette of neutral materials and "muted" blues and greens."The material and colour palette is in harmony with the exposed wood," said Pelletier de Fontenay founder Hubert Pelletier. "Warm whites, off-white wood-fiber acoustic panels, light grey pinboards it creates a warm natural background for the school, making it a soft and calming environment."Pelletier de Fontenay is a Montreal-based architectural studio founded in 2010 by Hubert Pelletier and Yves de Fontenay and Leclerc Architects was formed in 1998, afterGeorges Lemay and Claude Leclerc founded Lemay-Leclerc in 1957.Pelletier de Fontenay recently drew from vernacular farms for a residential project and also worked on an insectarium in Montreal.The photography is by James BrittanProject credits:Architecture: Pelletier de Fontenay + LeclercLandscape architecture: Agent Relic DesignStructure: Lateral ConseilCivil: GravitaireElectromechanical: BPAThe post Pelletier de Fontenay creates "permeable" boundary for Quebec school appeared first on Dezeen.

This Axon Connector is by Berlin-based 1x1 Systems, a company that empowers local production of furniture. It's a 3D-printed connector that allows the user to quickly knock together a coat rack out of wooden rods. The idea is that you use the company's online configurator to tell it how many rods you want to use (3-5), and the diameters available to you. Then it spits out the .stl file, for you to print the part on your own. "It adjusts to various diameters of the legs, allowing it to fit almost any material users can find in their surroundings. It can be customized to fit between 3 and 5 legs and also changes the angles of the leg mounts within the connector based on the total dimensions of a configurationall while maintaining the same height, wall thickness, and screw placement position."The .stl files run 10 (USD $11) to 20 (USD $22), depending on configuration.

Designed by Australias Ridgeline Tiny Homes, the Sun Valley model showcases that sometimes less is truly more. The tiny home features a simple and light-filled layout, making the best use of available space. The home serves well as a vacation home, or a second home. The Sun Valley tiny home features a sloping roof, and a sleek black exterior. It is founded on a triple-axle trailer with a length of 23.7 feet. The home has a metal finish, and is amped with loads of glazing, which allows it to be pretty light-filled.Designer: Ridgeline Tiny HomesThe Sun Valley tiny home can be entered via glass double doors, and the interior occupies around 15.4 sq m. The entire house is arranged on one floor, and there isnt any loft, which helps the home feel more light-filled and airy. The entrance leads to the living room which is quite small and simple. The living room includes a sofa, and integrated storage. The kitchen is closely located, and it includes a sink, a two-burner propane-powered stove, plus a small fridge and some cabinetry.The kitchen is connected to the bedroom. As you enter the bedroom, you are welcomed by a double bed with built-in storage and generous glazing. Since the bedroom is located on the ground floor, there is plenty of headroom to stand straight, unlike typical loft-style bedrooms where residents need to bend and reach their beds.Like other tiny homes, the Sun Valley has a lot of customization options available, such as the color of the home, the cladding, and the cabinetry. We are unaware of the price of the home, or on the availability of it. The Sun Valley home proves how you can actually do a lot with less, and represents the smart utilization of limited space. The layout of the home is simple but clever, with all the essential amenities integrated. If youre looking for a compact and well-planned tiny home, then the Sun Valley house is the one for you.The post This Sleek All-Black Tiny Home Proves How Less Is More With This Simple & Compact Layout first appeared on Yanko Design.