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Creating Arcane-style characters is now easier than ever with tinynockys new Tiny Hair Shader, a procedural tool for Blender that gives stylized hair that special shine.You can adjust its color, gradient, specular values, roughness, sheen, strand properties, and more with a couple of clicks, making the add-on as simple and useful as tinynockys famous Tiny Eye tool.If you want to see the nodes the creator used and what they do exactly, check out this video where tinynocky breaks them down and also shares the file for free.A limited version of Tiny Hair Shader is available for free, but you can buy the full license to get all the functions and presets. It works with EEVEE and Cycles in Blender 3.4+, with the Node Groups optimized for 4.2 and above.Share your creations with us and 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.Source link The post Tiny Eye Creator Releases Procedural Hair Shader for Blender appeared first on CG SHARES.

Last month, Microsoft held its first Xbox Developer Direct of 2025 and announced Ninja Gaiden 4 and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black among other titles. But fans won't have to wait very long to learn what else Microsoft's gaming division has planned for the future, as the next Xbox Showcase is scheduled to take place in February.According to IGN, this year's IGN Fan Fest will begin with an Xbox Showcase on February 24. Aside from the reveal of "the next big collaboration for Balatro," details are scarce about what to specifically expect beyond trailers and gameplay footage. However, the announcement of the showcase does note that there will be several reveals from indie studios including Raw Fury, Team 17, Akapura, 11 Bit, and more.During one of last year's Xbox Showcases, Microsoft announced World Of Warcraft: The War Within and Doom: The Dark Ages, as well as 2025 titles including South of Midnight, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Fragpunk, and Fable. We can only speculate which titles will be showcased in February, but we'd certainly like to see more of Gears of War: E-Day, the upcoming prequel to the long-running shooter franchise.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Halo Infinite's upcoming Spring Update will add its first new power weapon since launch, and it's one that will be familiar, yet different, to longtime Halo fans--the Fuel Rod SPNKr.It's not exactly the Fuel Rod Cannon first introduced as a usable weapon in Halo 2, but rather a UNSC SPNKr rocket launcher that has been heavily modified by Halo Infinite's enemy faction, the Banished, to fire fuel rods. While the weapon shares many similarities with the franchise's classic Fuel Rod Cannon--like a large magazine and massive green bolts of exploding plasma--it does behave a little differently. Most notably, the Fuel Rod SPNKr's plasma bolts don't bounce off targets, acting more like Halo's traditional rocket launcher.Continue Reading at GameSpot

While Gears 6 might have been the easiest route for the Gears of War series to take, it opted instead for Gears of War: E-Day, and that might benefit the franchise in the long run. The Gears series has been on a bit of a downward slope since the original trilogy ended, but Gears of War: E-Day's prequel status as well as the fact that it is focusing on Emergence Day, the most important event in Gears of War's overarching narrative may be the jumpstart that the series needs to get it back on its feet again. In fact, Gears of War: E-Day's story offers a prime opportunity for worthwhile DLC to follow the game's release, potentially expanding both its narrative and its lifespan.

A player makes a leap of faith in Farcry and more accidental wins.

I have a name for the forgotten, forgettable, off-brand, off-axis games of our youth. I call them: Cousin Games.The best way to get in the Cousin Game mindset is to imagine being dropped off in a house that smells different from how you think a house is supposed to smell and you go into a room with a guy whos like a weird version of you, and hes playing Nintendo which you understand but when you look at the screen, its like What is that? What the hell is that?(Its Iggys Wreckin Balls.)A Cousin Game is a game you dont own, and dont necessarily want to own. But Cousin Game is not a euphemism for bad game. There are lots of bad games that are not cousin games.Heres a quick list of Cousin Games:Army Men: Sarges HeroesUniracersRise of the RobotsIggys Wreckin BallsOperation WinbackColiseum: Road to FreedomSpy HunterLoaded187 Ride or DieBug!Cousin Games arent normie games. Madden is not a Cousin Game. It is just a game your cousin plays. This is true for most sports games, but not always true in extreme sports and motorsport.Tony Hawks Pro Skater is not a Cousin Game, but Tony Hawks Underground 2 is. AirBlade is a Cousin Game.A game with Spider-Man in it has a 75 percent chance of being a Cousin Game. Eighty percent for Wolverine. Ninety percent for Taz.In general, licensed tie-in games have a higher chance of being Cousin Games. @polygon For me? It was Pajama San and Freddy Fish. #gaming #gamingontiktok original sound Polygon First and third-party mascot games are rarely Cousin Games, but there are many exceptions in the Sonic franchise. First-party Nintendo games are never Cousin Games. Except for Geist, which is definitely a Cousin Game.PC games can be Cousin Games, but are far more likely to be Uncle Games, which we dont have time to get into.The Cousin Game is defined by a mystery. How did this game come to be in this wrong-smelling house? Was it a gift from a parent, plucked arbitrarily from a Babbages shelf? Or did your cousin believe in BattleTanx 2? Do they still think of it fondly today? Is it as sweet and familiar in their memory as it is strange in yours?And if you see any of the games mentioned here and said, thats not a Cousin Game, you may have to consider the troubling possibility that you are the cousin. Help is available.

If youre staring at the more than three dozen books in Terry Pratchetts internationally bestselling Discworld fantasy series and wondering where to start, it probably wouldnt occur to you to dive in with the standalone series Pratchett wrote for YA readers. But if it did, you wouldnt be wrong. And if you wanted to do it, you could pick up Kindle ebooks of all five of the Tiffany Aching books for $3.99 total right now.Pratchetts Tiffany Aching books following a young girl as she grows into the role of magical protector and caretaker for her rural sheepherding community begin in a classic Discworld mode, with only a few digs at that other well-known British book series about magical education. But as Tiffany grows up, the books and their subject matter grow up with her. Discworld books are always insightful, but as Tiffany ages, her books even begin to bite harder than their adult-aimed predecessors.She reaches her age of majority in The Shepherds Crown, the final book Pratchett wrote before dying of complications from Alzheimers disease at age 66. That book is expressly about dealing with death the death of a major Discworld character, and with Pratchetts death by extension. By that point, its impossible to separate Tiffanys challenges from the authors. These are books from a great author who was well aware he was running out of time, and made a point of writing down what he found most important.Through that journey, you can feel Pratchetts fierce attachment to and pride in Tiffany Aching, which makes her commensurate with any of his other great Discworld protagonist-mouthpieces, like Granny Weatherwax or Sam Vimes. And theyre just as good showcases of his humor and worldbuilding as any other latter-day Discworld novel. If you have read the rest of the Discworld series, youll find some cameos here that might surprise you.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Unsightly water stains will kill the vibes ineven the most beautiful bathroom, to say nothing of what they do to the look of other parts of your home. From shower humidity to internal leaks and ventilation problems, these stains have all kinds of causes. But after youve identified what made the mark on your wall in the first place, you still need to remove it without making the problem worse. Water stains typically won't appear on tile; they need a more absorbent surface, which is why they show up on bare walls. Since your walls are probably painted, this presents a problem: How can you wash a wall without damaging it and risk needing to repaint the entire room? A few days ago, I was presented with this very issue when I noticed a water mark on my walls. How did it get there? Hell if I know; it's always something around here. As a renter, I wanted to remove it without causing more damage. Method #1: Soap and waterBefore you try anything more complicated, experiment with a simple solution of dish soap and warm water, at a ratio of about one to two. Use a cloth dipped in the mixture to apply the soapy water to your stain. Gently rub it in from the top down, then rinse with plain water and dry thoroughly with a hair dryer on a cool setting.I gave this a shot, scrubbing at half the stain with a soapy water mix. The stain faded somewhat, but it wasn't really magical and it required a lot of elbow grease on my part. I don't own this home, so I resent having to break a sweat here. I moved on to the next step.Method #2: Lemon juice, vinegar, and baking sodaIf that doesnt worklike it didn't for meI tried a mixture of vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda. This is a classic solution that goes a little like this: Shake it up and spray it on the stain. Leave it for about an hour, then use a damp cloth to rub it away. You may have to repeat this process a few times to get the stain all the way out, so do this when you have time for multiple hour-long soaking intervals.So this workedbut it came at a price. As I was filling my container, I forgot every lesson I learned in third-grade science class. It bubbled up and out of the bottle all over my table. My dining area reeks like vinegar now. Eventually, the reaction calmed down and I was able to proceed with the wall-cleaning. And it worked: The rubbing required was also significantly less than when I was going the soap-and-water route. I easily cleared the half of the stain I designated for this test, then used the excess on my rag to go over the other side again, too. The stain disappeared and I went back over everything with a dry rag to make sure I didn't leave any wetness behind and cause any more problems on an already problematic day.Method #3: Lemon juice and waterAfter I finished this method, however, I found a lot of online conversation about how vinegar and baking soda cancel each other out, as baking soda is a base and vinegar is an acid. Which makes sense. (Again, I have forgotten my grade-school science lessons.) My conclusion, then: The lemon juice is what helped me. If soap and water aren't working for you, you can try adding four tablespoons of lemon to a cup of water and using that first. Here's a triptych of my progress, though the stains were light enough that this image isn't going to win any awards for contrast. Still, you can see that the middle picture, which shows my attempt to clear the left part of the stain with soap and water, is nowhere near as streak-free as the right picture, which shows what I got out of using the bubbled-up lemon juice/vinegar/baking soda combo. Me vs. water stain Credit: Lindsey Ellefson How to get water stains out of woodIf you have wood paneling or cabinets that have water stains, too, you have a few options for removing the marks on your wooden surfaces. You can cover the stain in mayonnaise and let it sit on there overnight, then wipe it away in the morning and polish your wood afterward. You can also mix equal parts vinegar and olive oil and apply to the stain with a cloth, wiping in the direction of the grain until the stain disappears. Afterward, wipe the surface down with a clean, dry cloth. Try placing an iron on a low heat setting over a cloth on top of the stain. Press it down for a few seconds and remove it to see if the stain is letting up, then try again until youre satisfied. (Be advised that this works best for still-damp stains.)

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Heading out to a dazzling restaurant for a lovely meal is certainly the traditional option for a memorable Valentines Day, but I've heard more complaints of plans gone awry rather than romantic stories. There are many stress points: reserving a table weeks in advance, unpredictable restaurant atmosphere, holiday price gouging, not to mention that you might get rushed out the door because the place is trying to turn over tables on a tight schedule. Luckily, eating out is hardly the only option for treating yourself (or your valentine) on February 14. Here are nine of my favorite alternatives to dining out at a restaurant for Valentines Day.Cook an at-home meal kit togetherCooking can be meditative solo activity, or a fun project to do with a companion. (Plus, you get to eat the project at the end). The beauty of a meal kit is that every step is mapped out, so even novice cooks have a fighting chance at making a restaurant-level meal, and the ingredients are portioned to the recipe, so if youre a once-a-week sort of cook, you dont end up with a fridge full of leftover ingredients destined for the trash. Tons of companies offer different types of kits for differing palates and varying interest levels. For those whod like to try cooking scallops for the first time, try Blue Apron. For a refreshing and satisfying dinner, try a sushi kit from Williams Sonoma.Dinner at the moviesAccording to the internet, dinner-and-a-movie is terrible and horrible for Valentines Day, and I agree. Why waste time doing two separate things when you can do them at once? The first time I set foot in an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, I enjoyed a cocktail, a plate of buffalo cauliflower, and a pizza all while watching a movie. I've since deleted other normal movie theaters from my mind. Even if you dont have an Alamo Drafthouse nearby, select locations of AMC, Regal, and other theaters offer a dine-in movie experience. My advice, go see the latest weird horror movie, order some carbs, and get buzzed off a fruity cocktail.Make a charcuterie boardGrazing as a meal is a valid choice, and a selection of cured meats and aged cheeses might be all you need for a romantic Valentines Day. Harry and David offers many a meat and dip kit, that you can slice and arrange with your special salami. For those who dont enjoy indecisive moments in the wine store, try a kit that includes it already. Most of these kits include the pieces, but rarely are they presentation ready. Try your hand at artistically arranging the sliced meats, tapenade, and crackers, and get ready to snack for the evening. (Read here for more ways to give the gift of meat.)Hire a chefA restaurant date isnt in the cards, and youll be damned if you have to turn on the stove. Get a little bougie and hire a chef to come and cook for you. You can receive the ultimate food pampering without having to do any work yourself, so you can spend quality time with your valentine. There is a great range of pricing when it comes to bringing in a professional, so do a bit of research.You can cut costs by offering to gather the ingredients before they arrive, search for individual chefs who run their own catering, or try companies like Cozymeal. If your budget is real tight, hit up the local culinary school. Schools, like the Institute of Culinary Education, will offer job postings for their students to respond to for extra work and real-life experience. You can post the opportunity and rate, and see if you get any bites.Host a potluck with friendsValentine's day might be "special day" for couples or whatever, but if love is what you want to celebrate, why not gather your chosen family for a meal instead? Ask folks to bring a small side dish, warm up the air fryer with some of these recipes, batch a pink cocktail, and throw on a perfectly cheesy rom-com in the background. Whether it's one friend or 12, it'll be a truly memorable Valentine's Day. The dress code: sweatshirts and stretchy pants. Sign up for a cooking classFor more of a shared experience, sign up for a cooking class. You get the guidance of a chef instructor, top-notch ingredients, and maybe youll even learn something new. One-time classes, especially themed ones, are usually fun, light-hearted, and low-pressure events. Its an opportunity to work as a team with your significant other, or be passive aggressive in public if thats your thing. Introverts, worry not, you can even keep things cozy at home and do an online cooking class instead. This isnt a cooking competition show (unless you want it to be) but you will get a food prize at the end.Do a wine tasting and pairingWine used to be grapes, and grapes are food, so you can do a wine tasting as your dinner with no argument from me. Fine, you can do a wine pairing; after all, wine tastes even better with snacks. It can also taste god-awful if you pair it wrong, and thats where the professionals come in. Check out your local wineries or wine stores to see if theyre hosting any Valentines Day tastings. (And again, similarly to cooking classes, you can do a virtual pairing class at home.)Make a tinned fish boardPreserved fish is having a moment (or, ya know, a couple centuries). Why leave all the fun to cured meats? Go to the local fishmonger for advice, raid the canned fish shelves of your supermarket, or order a spread of specialty sardines, cockles, mackerel, and salmon to put together your own board. I respect keeping things protein-forward, but add a smattering of crackers, bread, and vinegar-pickled items to keep the oils from overwhelming your palate.Order delivery (It needed to be said.)At the risk of seeming obvious, ordering delivery needs to be on this list. Its the go-to option because its brilliant. You pay a fair price for a host of people to create and deliver exactly what you want, straight to your door. No need to make reservations, unearth charcuterie boards, see other people, or even put on pants. To some folks, nothing is more romantic than that. Some date night-worthy restaurants even offer delivery so even if you couldn't get a reservation you can still have a beautiful, perfectly prepared, three-course Valentines dinner. Be a real hero, and use a service like Goldbelly to secretly have your partner's favorite NYC ramen shipped to them (even though you both live in LA now).