Cartesian Caramel, an artist known for their impressive Blender works, shared a fun Geometry Nodes physics test that made a fern look like some kind of friendly tentacle monster, eager to get acquainted.It twirls, jumps, and looks around like a bizarre puppy, and wouldnt that be a terrifying game concept a forest full of moving plants?If you need more Blender experiments, check out Cartesian Caramels X/Twitter, where youll find some funny rig tests,shark spin,fractal animation,extrude cuts modifier,procedural robot hand, and other cool projects.Perhaps all of these will be a part of one big project one day. If not, we will surely see the results of the tests in the artists next works.Meanwhile, join our80 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.Keep readingYou may find these articles interestingTake a Look at This Realistic 3 Gun Prop Made with BlenderWeirdly Satisfying Blender Animation Of Soft Golden Cube Getting CrushedWatch This Blender Short Film About Inspiring Adventure with Porco Rosso VibesSource link The post This Blender-Made Ferns Physics Make It Look Like Tentacle Monster appeared first on CG SHARES.

Game Developer jourverse, who started working on a tutorial series last year focused on building a traffic system in Unreal Engine 5 and later shared a demo project file featuring a procedural road network with vehicle AI for obstacle avoidance system, has now released the full version of this tool.Intelligent Road Vehicle AI streamlines the process of integrating vehicle AI into your projects, enabling you to create roads and add AI components without the need for a NavMesh. Design road intersections, both straight and curved roads, and automatically generate procedural meshes. The system also deforms the landscape to align with the road network during creation, includes a feature to detect and prevent overlapping roads, and is optimized with quadtree data structures for fast nearest-road lookup.It also comes with a flexible pathfinding algorithm that allows vehicles to drive autonomously on both roads and uneven terrain. Vehicles can dynamically reroute around obstacles using spline paths, with grid-based tracing and the A* algorithm to navigate complex barriers. Intelligent Road Vehicle AI also supports reverse turns to prevent vehicles from getting stuck.You can purchase Intelligent Road Vehicle AI here. The tutorial above demonstrates how to create a Traffic Manager that spawns vehicles and randomly sets target locations on roads, a feature that will be included in the upcoming Fab version of the tool.Findall the released chapters in the dedicatedplaylistand subscribe to jourverses YouTube channelfor more:Also, join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us on Instagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post Create Road Networks & Add Vehicle AI For Obstacle Avoidance With This UE5 Tool appeared first on CG SHARES.

HBO's The Last of Us will soon return for its second season as the live-action show begins adapting The Last of Us Part II. And while the upcoming season will introduce the major characters from that sequel, it will also feature the debut of a character who was only mentioned in the game."There is a pretty prominent character that is talked a lot about in the game, similar to what we did with Frank [Murray Bartlett] in season 1, that is in this season," said showrunner and Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann during a feature interview with EW. "There's a very, very cool casting that I hope we can talk about soon."Druckmann and his co-showrunner Craig Mazin didn't share any additional details about the mystery character or who would play them. They did, however, explain why the show's depiction of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) won't be as overtly muscular as her in-game counterpart. The showrunners also teased some non-linear storytelling in the second season.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Grand Theft Auto V actor Ned Luke, who played Michael in the incredibly popular game, has spoken out about his thoughts on Grand Theft Auto VI. He said in an interview with Fall Damage (via Dexerto) that he's confident the game will be "fantastic," going on to say no one ever knows what to expect from Rockstar Games, and that's part of the reason why he's so eager to see what the studio is cooking up."You never know what Rockstar is going to do," he said. "What I tell people is, be patient. It's going to be worth the wait. From what I've seen, it's going to be amazing. They're going to blow our [GTA V] numbers away."By "numbers," Luke was referring to the $800 million that GTA V earned in its first 24 hours back in 2013. Luke said he expects GTA VI to make $1.3 billion in its first day.Continue Reading at GameSpot

One of the most underrated characters in the My Hero Academia series, Mina Ashido also known by her hero alias-Pinky, is the bubbly yet emotional student of class 1-a of U.A. High School. Mina eventually graduates U.A. High School and becomes the No.28 Hero.

With January now a thing of the past, many people are now looking forward to February's Valentine's Day to find and play games with their loved ones, and the Epic Games Store may provide a few interesting freebies to choose from in the meantime. The storefront is particularly famous for offering titles at no extra cost each week, with the rotation happening every Thursday at 11 AM CT on the free games section of the Epic Games Store and launcher. This tradition has been going on since 2019, and thankfully for those who need a game to kill time between releases, it doesn't show any signs of stopping.

Storage space, especially for your handheld PC, always feels like its at a premium. But not today! The Corsair MP600 Mini M.2 SSD is currently on sale for its lowest price ever at Amazon, in both its 1 TB and 2 TB configurations. Right now, you can pick up the 2 TB version of the MP600 Mini for just $139.99 (was $229.99), but you can also pick up the 1 TB model for $74.99 (was $114.99), which is less than many microSD cards with the same capacity.It might require a little elbow grease and know-how, but upgrading your storage is one of the best ways to improve your experience with your handheld PC. Not only does it give you more room for games, but improved transfer speeds can mean faster loading times for some titles. Just note that while the MP600 Mini is a great option for the Steam Deck or ROG Ally, the newer ROG Ally X is only compatible with more conventional 2280 SSDs like the Samsung 990 Pro or WD_Black SN850X.

Any developer can take exploring an abandoned space station or mysterious small town and make it scary. Its interesting to see a concept for a horror game thats equally ominous, but with a much more unexpected start. Forbidden Solitaire is an upcoming game from Night Signal Entertainment that asks a simple question: what would you do if you purchased a game of Solitaire, only to find out it was haunted?The games Steam page sells this premise with a simple, three-line summary: Its 2019. You brought home a strange yet familiar 1995 CD-ROM game from the thrift store. You vaguely remember seeing ads for this game, and some kind of controversy, but you never got the chance to play it. Until now.Its hard to imagine how solitaire gameplay can be scary, but I also wouldnt have expected basic poker mechanics to make a banger of a roguelike in Balatro. The developer previously worked on Home Safety Hotline, a tech support simulator with some delightfully devilish writing and scary segments, so I have high hopes. Players will have to survive bloodletting solitaire gameplay, purchasing upgrades between rounds from the friendly eye that watches you from the walls, and discovering a variety of game-changing Jokers, some helpful, some malignant.According to the Steam page, an average run of Forbidden Solitaire will take between two and three hours. Night Signal Entertainment has yet to share a release date, but Im interested to see the developers take on a double period piece, depicting a gamer in 2019 playing a game from the 90s.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.GoPro has such a hold over the action camera world, casual users might assume its brand name is synonymous with action cameras as a whole. But simply assuming GoPro is the be-all and end-all of small, dedicated cameras would do a disservice to popular competitors like DJI. It wont take long when watching any tech YouTubers behind the scenes videos to start seeing DJI's products pop upone creator has even famously gotten in trouble for stress testing a DJI camera by speedingand thats for good reason. DJIs gear tends to punch in the same weight class as GoPros while costing a little less, and arguably having slightly better specs. The DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro is no different. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt What is the DJI Osmo Action Series?If your parents saw you with a DJI Osmo Action camera, they might ask is that a GoPro? But if your nerdy tech friend saw the same thing, theyd probably say nice. Since 2019, Chinese company DJI has been trying its best to make a foothold in the United States action camera scene, using what its learned from making drones and professional level gear (DJI equipment has been used in shows including Better Call Saul and Game of Thrones) to appeal to a more casual market while still maintaining an edge among power users. Thats resulted in a moderately affordable camera line that can really sing if you know what youre doing, but can take a little time for everyone else to get accustomed with.Whats new with the Osmo Action 5 Pro?To that end, the improvements to the Osmo Action 5 Pro (which is a sequel to the Osmo Action 4, with "Pro" tacked onto the end as a new marketing term) tend to be a bit nerdier than the flashy modular lenses GoPro announced alongside its new Hero 13 Black, but theyre no less meaningful, especially if raw numbers are what you care about most.In other words, open the box and youll get the same small rectangular form factor that youre probably used to by now (the camera measures in at a rough 1.7 x 2.8 x 1.3 inches), plus a larger rear screen, but you wont see any major surprises. Take one look at the spec sheet, though, and you might start to understand the appeal. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt Yes, the raw resolution and frame rate limits are the same as on the Osmo Action 4, ranging from 1080p at 240 fps to 4K at 120 fps, and the field of view still tops out at a respectable 155 degrees. But inside the camera, you have a new image sensor with a larger pixel size (meaning better lighting and motion clarity), a more efficient processor for larger battery life, a bigger battery at 1,950 mAh, 48GB of internal storage, and touch-sensitive OLED panels for both displays.Some of those specs immediately put the DJI ahead of the competition, since GoPro cameras have a slightly smaller pixel size, do not have internal storage, have no OLED, and only come with one touch-sensitive screen. GoPro cameras also have a smaller aperture, which could make shooting in low-light conditions more difficult than with a DJI camera, although the aperture in the Osmo Action 5 Pro remains unchanged from the past few models.Do the Osmo Action 5 Pro's improvements make a difference?The DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro is my first time actually going hands-on with a DJI camera, so for my own testing, Ill be placing it up against the competition more than prior models. My biggest takeaway? Wow, this thing is long-lasting. Usually, when I take an action camera out for testing, I expect to lose about 30 or even 40% of my battery life in one to two hours of on-and-off recordingthese devices arent really intended to run continuously for long periods of time. With the Osmo Action 5 Pro, I only lost about 20% after going on a 90-minute excursion. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt Thats a little better than I got on the Hero 13 Black, which was down to 20% after only an hour, and matches the testing done by Lifehacker sister site PCMag. While both numbers are admirable, the Osmo Action 5 Pro is class-leading.PCMag also mentioned that its review unit of the GoPro Hero 13 Black suffered from overheating, and while I only experience mild heat spikes, I had similar issues with the Hero 12 Black. Meanwhile, the DJI camera was always cool to the touch. As for the footage itself, Im sated. Nothing is exceptionally good or bad, and all results are about as expected, although maybe a little brighter than what I was used to with my GoPro. Image stabilization is smooth and moving objects have little blur to them, at least during the daytime, but I dont want to oversell it. With the exception of slightly brighter footage, most of the video improvements here are a bit too slight for my casual eyes. Ive been sitting on this footage for a little bit now, so youll see some Halloween decorations in my example shots, and the camera performed well in capturing all the details of artificial spider webs and skeletons. It also did well in capturing more natural environments, like the fall leaves in the trees overhead. But while this does the job of producing footage worthy for use in professional projects, it doesnt necessarily stand out. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt Where the Osmo Action 5 Pro does make a bit more of a name for itself, though, is with photos. I was impressed with the out-of-the-box detail here, especially in low light, while I pretty much refuse to take photos on the Hero 13 Black without the $129 Macro Lens Mod attached. With that add-on, its a bit more of an even experience, but its clear that the DJI camera offers more bang for your buck. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt A split accessory ecosystemIt might sound odd to say, but the quality of your footage might not be the deciding factor in which action camera you get. There are only so many ways to make 4K at high frame rates look better, so its supplemental features that can be the kingmaker here.Aside from improving battery life or built-in screen quality, the big way to make a name for yourself in this space is with accessories. Here, GoPro and DJI take two separate approaches, with neither being objectively better.Both companies offer the basics, including mounts (which are generous enough to work with either brand), cases, extra batteries, and as of the GoPro Hero 13 Black, magnetic adapters, but their approaches differ a little bit when it comes to video and audio. Credit: Michelle Ehrardt Essentially, if you want more lens options, GoPro is your go-to. If you want more microphone options, then youll want to opt for DJI. There are third-party options for both, but there are perks to buying straight from the manufacturer.For instance, the GoPro Hero 13 Black introduced a series of modular lenses that I was pretty impressed by, since they open up new aspect ratios, better close-up detail, various ND filters for different lighting conditions, and a wider field-of-view. DJI, meanwhile, only makes ND filters and one lens for upping the field of view, although that lens does give you 182 degrees vs. the GoPro Ultra Wide Lens 177 degrees.By contrast, GoPro doesnt make any microphones, whereas DJI is arguably known just as much for its microphones as for its drones and cameras. And while you can use DJI microphones with GoPro devices, the benefit of using them with the DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro is that certain newer mics will support a direct connection with the camera, resulting in higher quality audio than youd get over Bluetooth without the need for an adapter.Ultimately, Id say that the accessory field for either brand is strong, and ultimately depends on what you need. However, given that every video needs audio, but not all of them need, say, an anamorphic lens, DJI might have a slight advantage for most people.The confusing app ecosystemOne place where DJI does not have an advantage is the app experience. On the surface, both DJI and GoPro offer similar features, including a player for your cameras video clips and a basic editor, but with an optional subscription, GoPros app also offers unlimited automatic cloud backups, cross-device sync, an expanded editor, and automatic highlight generation.None of these features are strictly necessary, although its nice that theyre an option. But what really makes the GoPro app stand out over DJIs, even on the free tier, is that its optional and easier to navigate. Credit: DJI Frustratingly, setting up the Osmo Action 5 Pro requires activating it via the app, or else youre not going to get its needed firmware. That means sitting through an entire front page of ads, and if youre like me, plenty of pairing issues. I actually had to settle for installing the needed firmware through an SD card, but even then, I still needed to use the app to initialize the install.Meanwhile, the GoPro app is much more what-you-see-is-what-you-get, with easy to understand menus and no ads for other GoPro products cluttering up the interface. And if youd rather ignore it, you can.Should you buy the DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro?With a lower price point and specs matching or sometimes exceeding GoPros recent flagship, the DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro seems like the best action camera for most people on paper, but its not quite that simple. Its still an excellent camera, but Im hesitant to say its the best one for everybody.If all you need is a simple, point-and-shoot device and you dont rely on a lot of different lenses or mobile editing too much, then yes, the DJI is probably for you. If you need professional-level audio, its also a good choice. But theres no denying that GoPro offers an easier-to-understand user experience, and its modular lenses are still a cool add-on option.With that said, Id say the Osmo Action 5 Pro is probably better for power users, who likely have other gear to help supplement it, while the GoPro Hero 13 Black might be better for beginners who want one device that can do it all, supported by an intuitive mobile experience.But with the Osmo Action 5 Pro starting at $350 (you can pay extra to get bundles with various mounts or backup batteries) and the GoPro Hero 13 Black costing $400 without any of its extra lenses or its mobile app subscription, thats a fine line to walk. Youd certainly be happy with either, assuming youre willing to sit through DJIs subpar mobile app long enough to set up the Osmo Action 5 Pro.Its also worth pointing out that these are both flagships. If you need a rugged dedicated camera, but dont need modularity or extra high frame rates, cheaper options like the $180 GoPro Hero should do the job just as well.

Not to be out-done by Deepseek, OpenAI is launching a new Deep Research feature in ChatGPT. This is OpenAI's newest Agentic AI feature (after Operator), which builds on the recent trend of making AI more autonomous. According to OpenAI, Deep Research is capable of producing detailed reports matching the level of a research analyst. In a layperson's terms, it browses and interprets the internet for you.Deep Research uses OpenAI's upcoming o3 reasoning model to perform complex tasks, taking its own sweet time to do so. The feature is available now for ChatGPT Pro customers (the pricey sub that costs $200/month), but will soon be available for ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise users as well.How OpenAI's Deep Research AI Agent worksOpenAI's Deep Research tool is designed to work independently from you. You give it a detailed prompt, after which it'll ask some clarifying questions. Then, it will go and do its own thing in the background. According to OpenAI, a Deep Research stint can last anywhere between 5 minutes and 30 minutes, but the company claims it's able to do multiple hours worth of human-level work in the span within just a dozen or so minutes.While it's working, there's a panel on the right side of the page that shows everything it's doing, live. Think of this as the bot's citations, but it also explains its "thought process." It can connect to the internet, search online, read web pages, and analyze or synthesize massive amounts of information in the form of text, images, and PDFs. All of this is a bit compute-intensive, so OpenAI is limiting Pro users to just 100 queries a month. A smaller, more efficient model will be rolled out in the coming months, as well.The Deep Research feature is purpose-built for knowledge workers in the field of science, finance, engineering, and policy. But OpenAI says that it can be equally useful for consumers too. OpenAI gave an example of how Deep Research can help perform hyper-personalized research for big shopping decisions. Things like helping you decide between cars, furniture, appliances, or electronics. Since the tool can synthesize information from thousands of articles and reviews, it can supposedly build a report customized to your needs. Credit: OpenAI According to OpenAI, "deep research was rated by domain experts to have automated multiple hours of difficult, manual investigation"OpenAI offers multiple examples where Deep Research's insights can be valuable to users, saving hours of research time. The company says it can be used to understand extremely niche and specific problems via scientific studies and journals. Credit: OpenAI For example, a Chemistry prompt asks ChatGPT to "discuss the differences between pure- and mixed-gas sorption for glassy polymers, how the dual-mode sorption model can be used to predict mixed-gas sorption behavior in glassy polymers," the model then goes on to understand sorption models, accesses open-source information, clarifies key problems, pulls up PDFs, and even refines the model before piecing together all the content. According to OpenAI, this task helped save 4 hours of time. OpenAI's post also highlights similar use cases for Deep Research in the healthcare industry and linguistics, saving five hours and two hours, respectively.Deep Research also supposedly performed well on Humanity's Last Exam, an AI benchmark, testing expert-level knowledge across more than 100 fields. Deep Research scored 26.6% accuracy, the highest score yet on the text. By comparison, DeepSeek-R-1 scored 9.4%, and GPT-4o managed just 3.3%.While Deep Research is based on a reasoning model, and not an LLM, it still uses a language model to work with the input, and generate the output text. OpenAI warns that the Deep Research model can still hallucinate and make up facts, so it's still better to keep an eye on the research output, and not to trust it blindly.