People often go to the bathroom in groups, and according to new research chimpanzees do the same, possibly to strengthen group social bonds.

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LiquiGen is getting better and better: VFX Artist Dobromir Dyankov experimented with JangaFXs newly launched fluid simulation software to create the Liquid Playground series, utilizing Cinema 4D and Redshift while testing various scenarios.The artist shared that while LiquiGen isnt on the level of Houdini, it offers a fast and intuitive experience, and despite some features still being absent, its still powerful enough even in its current alpha version. Here are the rest of these simulations:Follow Dobromir on X/Twitter for more and have a look at acoupleofmoreLiquiGen experiments showcased by JangaFXsJason Key,along with thisJeremy White elephant in water, aforest waterfall scene by Ryan Duff, and zero gravity liquid splash by Kevin Lim Wanasili that we recently shared:Also, join our 80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post Check Out This Gel-Looking Simulation Made With JangaFXs LiquiGen appeared first on CG SHARES.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies next map is just over a week away, and fans have no shortage of reasons to be excited. An iconic SMG from Zombies past is on the way, while a Wonder Weapon inspired by Origins staves has been both leaked and teased. The story is starting to pick up as Treyarch further explores Chaos connections via the Sentinel Artifact, another CoD Zombies song from Kevin Sherwood is on the way, and numerous side Easter eggs will apparently be scattered throughout the new playspace. In addition to all of this, an evocative Pack-a-Punch camo has been teased, which could turn out to be more impactful than one may think.

The HouseStarting as a curious journalist, you'll find yourself immersed in paranormal activity, horror and psychological suspense as you try to escape from an abandoned house.Investigate, find and crack the codes to get out of here

Brandon Sanderson is one of fantasys most successful authors of all time,a prolific mega-bestseller whos built a fandom so voracious and dedicated that they paid a record-setting $41 million on Kickstarter to launch four books he wrote in secret while still maintaining his other series. Hes written epic fantasy, superhero fiction, science fiction, YA novels, short stories, and graphic novels, with a deck-building card game and a strategy video game out, and an RPG spinoff on the way. His latest book, Wind and Truth, has been on the New York Times bestseller list since it was published in December.So where are the Brandon Sanderson movies? With seemingly every fantasy epic ever published being optioned by Netflix, Amazon, and other streamers, wheres the TV show adapting Brandon Sandersons five-book (so far) Stormlight Archive series, or seven-book (and counting) Mistborn series?In a December 2024 blog post, Sanderson breaks down the stages of film and TV development at length, and explains which of his works have been optioned and where they are in development. The project that was furthest along, a live-action movie adaption of the Mistborn books, recently fell apart due to creative differences between the producers that had signed on to the project and the studios they were pitching to.But Sanderson says hes also rejected a lot of the offers to adapt other works within the Cosmere,the universe of Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, and many of his other works. Why? Polygon sat down with Sanderson and asked what hed need to make an adaptation worth his time, and what hed want his universe to look like on the screen.This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.Polygon: While reading up on the status of your many projects, I ran across a Reddit thread where fans were saying theyre glad you arent further along with a film or TV adaptation of your work, because theyre afraid of the time it would take out of your writing schedule. What kind of involvement would you ideally like to have in an adaptation?Brandon Sanderson: It depends on the project. Certain ones, I would want to be way more involved in. Ive said before that if I were going to do an adaptation of The Way of Kings, I would want to write all of Kaladins scenes in screenplay form for the whole season. Thatd take a lot of time, so their worries are not unfounded.I have had a lot of offers for The Stormlight Archive, people wanting to make prestige television for cable networks or streamers. Very nice offers from very great people that I would want to work with. And Ive said no because I dont feel its the right time for Stormlight Archive yet. I am in the fortunate position where I can walk away from some of the best deals that might be offered to authors, and do what I think is best for the story.What would convince you the time was right? What signs are you looking for?The solid answer is: I dont know. Hopefully I will recognize it when I see it. But the reason I dont know is, Im not convinced that we have hit stability in the streaming market. Streaming has had a big problem with epic fantasy, and this has me worried. Rings of Power and Wheel of Time have not gone as well as I wouldve hoped. Shadow and Bone lasted only two seasons, after a very strong first season. Streaming hasnt figured out epic fantasy yet.Maybe this is a holdover from network television days, where theyre trying to make the episodes fit into the structure of how episodic television used to work, rather than filming an eight-hour movie and showing it in chunks. But maybe thats a bad idea. All I know is, right now we havent seen really great epic fantasy film television since the early, mid seasons of Game of Thrones. Fifty million dollars per episode has not done it, so its not a matter of the money theyre throwing at it. The other thing we havent seen is any of these shows really taking off to the extent that I would like with the general public.There is one excellent [fantasy] show: Arcane. But Arcane costs so much money, and its hard to reproduce that with an IP that doesnt have League of Legends behind it. Arcane, I guess, is proof that it can happen. But I want to see what shakes out. I want to see how traditional cinema shakes out.I would like to [adapt The Stormlight Archive through] films. Part of the reason I worry with streaming is, its mostly people who want to dual-screen, and epic fantasy just does not work with dual-screening. Eventually, Ill give [adaptation] a try, but I want to learn more first. So my goal is to make some things that are not Stormlight Archive, that are not Mistborn. Im really excited to make other things, and make them really well, and test some things out.I saw youre working on an animated version of Tress of the Emerald Sea, which seemed like it might be a story on a small enough scale that it could be done separately from a lot of the rest of your work. If youre focusing on movie adaptations over what would have to be long-running TV series, are there other stories you feel are scaled at a feature-length size?You cant really do Way of Kings as a film series. I am confident that would be a bad idea. I think Mistborn could work as a film series, particularly if we made it in some of the ways I would like to make it, that Im trying to talk to Hollywood about. And I think some things that would really work there, but well see what happens. The streamers are not dedicated to cinema, for good reason. Thats not where their market is.But because of that and the dual-screening, it makes me cautious [to pursue television]. Im gun-shy about going forward, and I want to see how things stabilize and steady. Maybe well have a nice epic fantasy renaissance in cinema after How to Train Your Dragon comes out in live action. Im hopeful it will do very well, and people will be like, Yeah! Big fantasy! So who knows?Hollywood operates so much around trend cycles, and it seems like were dialing down on superheroes, for instance.We are.Do you ever worry about missing your moment, about the post-Game of Thrones fantasy-TV boom dying down and shifting into something else?Maybe, maybe not. Its a good question. Post Lord of the Rings-era cinema is really interesting, because Hollywood did not understand fantasy, and they picked the wrong properties to throw their weight behind. We did have a successor to Lord of the Rings: Its called The Pirates of the Caribbean. What people were looking for was adult-oriented not in the adult content sense, but mature characters and plots like Lord of the Rings had. So The Golden Compass and The Dark Is Rising and a lot of the YA properties turned out to be the wrong way to go, partially because Hollywoods like, Well, well take these and turn them into Lord of the Rings. And it didnt match the soul of several very excellent book series, and it didnt fit the market, because the people who wanted Lord of the Rings didnt want a YA property.And then basically Hollywood squandered the opportunity to have an epic fantasy wave following the success of Lord of the Rings. The closest we have is the James Cameron Avatar movies and Pirates of the Caribbean proof that people still deeply want fantasy epics. People have always liked fantasy. Im not so worried about missing my moment by being extra cautious. If thats the case, then oh well. The books are still there. I am more worried about making the wrong shot in the wrong spot, and then it taking 20 more years to get another try.Really, what I want its just a little thing, just a little thing I just want a genius filmmaker on the level of Denis Villeneuve, someone who grew up loving my work [the way Villeneuve loved Frank Herberts Dune], and wants to bring it to the screen with the mix of fidelity and adaptation required to make a great epic like Dune. You do have to change things [for a screen adaptation], but this filmmaker would really understand the property, and have an artistic vision that matches the property.For epic fantasy and science fiction, we have rarely seen that, but it happened with Dune, and it happened with Lord of the Rings. So hopefully theres someone out there that can work with me to make Mistborn.Leaving aside everything else budget, adaptation concerns, directors, the platform if you could only adapt one of your projects with a guarantee that it would come out the way you wanted, which story would you most want to see on the screen?Infinite budget, make it my way? I would absolutely pick Stormlight, and I would do it on one of the streaming services. With an unlimited budget and unlimited creative control, I think I could make something really good. But who knows? I mean, Lord of the Rings essentially had that, and its not very good. Its fine, but is it the thing that you want? I mean, I really think the key member is that visionary filmmaker. Epic fantasy has responded poorly to too much oversight from above. I think that was The Witchers problem. You had that visionary: It was Henry Cavill. And they didnt want to listen to him. So, well, there you go.

I'm old enough to remember when Facebook was the hip and cool new social media network, giving you a way to keep up with all your friends and family, reconnect with long-lost contacts, and share as many party and vacation photos as you liked. It was cleaner and more intuitive than MySpace, and people flocked to it.These days, it's the opposite of hip and cool. It's loaded down with AI slop, advertising, and clickbait, and has now decided fact checking on the platform is too much effort. Most users are now much busier on other apps, while social media sharing has evolved to become more private and limited (WhatsApp group chats, anyone?).If you've decided the time has come to break up with Facebook, here's how to go about itand what to do before pulling the plug completely. It's also worth noting you can deactivate your account but keep on using Facebook Messenger for chats, which I'll explain in more detail below.The instructions here are for Facebook on the web, but you'll find the same menus and options inside the mobile apps.Before you delete Facebook You can download everything you've ever posted to Facebook. Credit: Lifehacker There are some housekeeping jobs you'll want to take care of before you wipe your Facebook account from existence: not just grabbing any of the content you want to keep, but also disconnecting Facebook from third-party apps and services, to prevent errors or security issues in the future.After logging into Facebook on the web, click your profile picture (top right), then Settings & privacy. On the next screen, choose Settings, then Download your information and Continue: Facebook will then guide you through the process of choosing the data you want to download, and compiling an archive of it.The information you can download covers messages, posts, photos, and videos, as well as other data like the friend connections you've got, and whatever's on your profile. You can also choose a date range, so pick All time if you want everything. How long you'll need to wait depends on what you've selected, but when the download is ready, you'll get a notification at the email address you've specified.With that done, it's worth checking in on the apps and platforms you've got connected to Facebook. From your Facebook profile, click your profile picture (top right), then Settings & privacy > Settings > Apps and websites. Here you'll find all the connections you've allowed Facebook to make down the years, from browser extensions to gamesclick Remove next to each one.Lastly, have a look at the places where you're logged into Facebook. Click your profile picture (top right), then Settings & privacy > Activity log. On both the Where you're logged in and Recognized devices pages, click the three dots to the right of each entry, then Log out or Remove. This means there's no trace of your Facebook activity lingering anywhere else.How to delete Facebook You get a choice of deactivation or deletion. Credit: Lifehacker With all the preparation done, it's time to delete your Facebook profile for good. To start the process, click your profile picture (top right, then choose Settings & privacy > Settings > Accounts Center. Here you'll see all the accounts registered with Meta (so Instagram and Horizon accounts as well as Facebook, for example), and they can be managed and deleted separately.Click Personal details, then Account ownership and control and Deactivation or deletion, then select the Facebook account you want to wipe. The next screen lets you choose between Delete account (everything gets wiped) and Deactivate account (a more temporary measure that lets you bring back your account at a later date).Choose the deactivation option if you're not sure about leaving Facebook, or if you want to carry on chatting using the Facebook Messenger app: Your profile will be hidden, but people will still be able to contact you on Messenger. Your posts, photos, and videos won't be erased, in case you want to come backand there's no time limit in terms of reactivating your account again in the future.If you're sure you've had enough of Facebook and want everything wiped, select Delete account and click Continue. You'll be asked to give a reason for the deletion, given the option to deactivate instead, and invited to download all your Facebook data (a handy safety net if you've forgotten to do this). Eventually, you'll get to the final confirmation screen, which starts the deletion process and logs you out of Facebook.You've got 30 days to change your mind: If you log back into Facebook within that time period, you'll get the option to bring your account back again, even if you chose permanent deletion. Facebook says it may take up to 90 days for all traces of your activity on Facebook to be erased from the record.

The filmmakers behind The Brutalist, a likely Oscar contender currently being distributed by A24, used AI to alter actor's dialogue and create images used in the film's epilogue, the film's editor Dvid Jancs shared in an interview with RedShark News.The epic drama follows a fictional Hungarian architect (as played by Adrien Brody) who struggles to make art under the fickle system of American capitalism (and the weirdos that run it). To make Brody and his costar Felicity Jones' Hungarian pronunciation as accurate as possible, Jancs says the production used AI from a company called Respeecher to alter the actor's speech.Respeecher was able to adjust the actor's vocals to make them match a native Hungarian speaker's pronunciation, though Jancs says the process didn't do anything you couldn't achieve with traditional dialogue editing. "You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process, otherwise we'd still be in post.Generative AI was also used to help create architectural drawings used near the end of the film, according to Jancs. Both decisions were made because of the budgetary constraints the production was under. The Brutalist is an over three-hour film with multiple stars, period-appropriate costuming, and elaborate sets, that was reportedly made for less than $10 million.A little over a year after multiple Hollywood unions went on strike over the possibility of studios using AI to replace workers, it's still highly controversial to use the tech, let alone be open about it. But the problem is undeniably complicated when there are so many different ways AI can be used. "The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicitys performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft," Brady Corbet, the director of The Brutalist, told The Hollywood Reporterin a statement.Respeecher was previously used to create new Darth Vader dialogue for Disney+'s Obi-Wan-Kenobi, and this likely won't be the last time similar tools are used to cut costs. Making movies requires a lot of resources, and while companies are trying to get AI to catch on, using AI tools will likely remain a viable options to save time and money.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/oscar-hopeful-the-brutalist-used-ai-during-production-223016216.html?src=rss

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Donald Trump launched a meme coin Friday night, while many of his backers were partying at the Crypto Ball in Washington, D.C.