The Robert and Barbara A. Hillier College of Architecture and Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has shared its Spring 2025 conversation series lineup to go with our Get Lectured look at whats happening this term.Included in the list are appearances from Anda French of French 2D (February 20); Miguel Quismondo of MQ Architecture (March 6); Adam Frampton of Only If (13); John Hulme of Hulme Productions (March 27); Dense magazine's Petia Morozov (April 10); and Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano of LOT-EK (April 17).Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your poster and details toconnect@archinect.com.

Mithun has completed work on one of the largest passive house-certified student dormitory designs in the U.S. for Princeton University. The almost 330,000-square-foot Meadows Apartments are reserved for Graduate students on campus and provide 604 total beds at a cost 35% lower than a typical student housing design, leveraging a prefabricated wood frame and other locally sourced materials to maximize its credentials for sustainability.Photo: Chris Cooper/ArchExplorerMassings are laid out in the image of a tigers paw, evoking the university mascot. Thereafter four interconnected courtyards form around the development defined by their own purpose and identity. The program includes a community center with a mass timber roof. Mithun is currently under contract with SOM to deliver the replacement design for Munger Hall at UCSB after winning the AIA Architecture Firm Award in 2023.Photo: Chris Cooper/ArchExplorerPhoto: Chris Cooper/ArchExplorerPhoto: Chris Cooper/ArchExplorerP...

Calling all architects, landscape architects and interior designers: Architizer's A+Awards allows firms of all sizes to showcase their practice and vie for the title of Worlds Best Architecture Firm. Start an A+Firm Award Application today.Public buildings often serve as landmarks of human connection, but some go even further by connecting people with the land itself. From rolling hills to fertile valleys, the designs in this collection integrate with their surroundings, becoming part of the terrain they inhabit.By sinking into the earth or following the contours of the landscape, these cultural, commercial and community-focused buildings honor natural forms while creating spaces for learning, working and gathering.So without further ado, lets explore these seven remarkable examples where design meets the land.Anji Creative & Design CenterBy Atelier Deshaus, Huzhou, ChinaJury Winner, Architecture +Landscape, 12th Annual A+AwardsIn the tea fields of Anji County, the ACDC follows the natural contours of the land, integrating architecture with the rolling terrain. The roof is planted with greenery to echo the patterns of tea cultivation, creating a strong connection to the landscape.Spaces for co-working, creative labs and public events are spread across the site, linked by elevated walkways that guide visitors through the fields. The design reflects the agricultural heritage of the region while supporting modern uses.Visitors are free to explore the corridors and pathways, staying connected to the tea fields at all times. The architecture brings together tradition and contemporary needs, creating a meaningful addition to the countryside.Skamlingsbanken Visitor CentreBy CEBRA, Kolding, DenmarkPopular Choice Winner, Cultural and Expo Centers, 12th Annual A+Awards Carved into the rolling hills of Southern Jutland, the Skamlingsbanken Visitor Centre lies almost hidden within the glacial landscape. Its design draws inspiration from the sites contours, creating a curved hill that houses exhibitions, teaching spaces and a caf.Visitors walk through pathways that flow between the land and interior spaces, where earthy materials like clay and terrazzo reflect the natural surroundings. A panoramic window at the heart of the centre frames sweeping views of the Little Belt Strait, offering a moment of reflection.The project expanded the protected area from 35 to 128 hectares, supporting rare local flora with carefully selected grass mixtures. It honors the sites history and biodiversity in equal measure.Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art, Tianfu Library of Humanity and ArtBy CSWADI, Chengdu, ChinaJury Winner, Libraries, 12th Annual A+Awards Tianfu Art Park combines art and nature with two key landmarks: the Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art and the Tianfu Library of Humanity and Art. Their curved roofs rise like mountains, inspired by the nearby western Chengdu landscape.The Chengdu Museum is a space for exhibitions, installations and events. Large curtain walls and skylights bring in natural light and views of the surrounding lake.The Tianfu Library, designed as a Book Mountain, features terraced reading platforms and book walls that encourage exploration. Visitors can move through paths designed for discovery and quiet moments. The park provides a space where culture, learning and the outdoors come together.Bona Villa Gaoling SujiBy ANT ARCH, JiAn, ChinaPopular Choice Winner, Architecture +For Good, 11th Annual A+Awards This project addresses the challenges of disappearing hollow villages by reconnecting architecture with the natural environment. Inspired by traditional ecological wisdom, the design preserves the rustic character of the site while integrating buildings into the valley.Using local materials such as rammed earth, black tiles and timber, the project restores the villages pitched roofs, earth walls and courtyards. Sunlight filtering through century-old ginkgo trees creates shifting patterns of light and shadow, adding a poetic quality to the space.Construction avoided large machinery to protect the site, relying on local resources. New spaces like a makers center and agricultural workshops support local tourism and economic growth, creating a sustainable model for rural development in South China.Museum of EthnographyBy NAPUR Architect, Budapest, HungaryPopular Choice Winner, Museum, 11th Annual A+AwardsPopular Choice Winner, Architecture +Facades, 11h Annual A+Awards As part of the Liget Budapest Project, the Museum of Ethnography is a striking addition to City Park, with over 60% of its structure built underground. Its curving, grass-covered roof creates a public space while linking the urban area with the park.The buildings faade features nearly half a million metal pixels arranged in ethnographic patterns, reflecting the museums global and Hungarian collections. Inside, flexible spaces accommodate exhibitions, events and research, offering visitors an immersive experience of cultural heritage.Supported by cutting-edge structural technology and designed for sustainability, the museum provides a home for its 250,000-piece collection in harmony with its natural and urban surroundings.Library in the EarthBy Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP, Japan Located within an agricultural site, Library in the Earth is built beneath the surface to preserve the fertile soil above. Shaped like a water drop when seen from above, the library offers a quiet retreat for farmers and visitors.A corridor of bookshelves greets visitors as they enter the earthen structure, where walls, floors and ceilings are finished with soil. The roof is covered with lush greenery, aiding water retention and irrigation. Inside, spaces vary in height, with hidden rooms for children and a storytelling hall surrounded by stepped seating and bookshelves.The design reflects the interconnectedness of life, soil and community, creating a space that celebrates both nature and human wisdom.Office crahayjamaigneBy crahayjamaigne, Malmedy, Belgium This workplace is designed to integrate into its natural surroundings with minimal visual and environmental impact. Built into a hillside, the structure is partially underground, with green roofs and grey-toned wood siding that echo the landscape.Access is discreet, with the entrance and underground parking tucked into the slope. Inside, spaces transition from reception areas to work zones, with large windows maintaining a constant connection to the surrounding nature. A central multipurpose area encourages interaction while offering views of the hill.Sustainability is key, with zero-energy certification, solar panels, rainwater storage and geothermal systems. A flower meadow, maintained by sheep and bees, further connects the project to its environment.Calling all architects, landscape architects and interior designers: Architizer's A+Awards allows firms of all sizes to showcase their practice and vie for the title of Worlds Best Architecture Firm. Start an A+Firm Award Application today.The post Dug, Carved and Hidden: 7 Designs That Make Landscape the Main Event appeared first on Journal.

Sony has announced that the next PlayStation State of Play will occur on February 12th at 2 PM PT. Airing on YouTube and Twitch, it will run for over 40 minutes and showcase a creative and unique selection of exciting games for PS5 from studios worldwide.Based on the PS5s release schedule, its likely that well see updates for Sucker Punchs Ghost of Yotei and Kojima Productions Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Director Hideo Kojima has been teasing editing a trailer for the latter recently and previously promised a release date announcement this year.Haven Studios co-op heist title Fairgame$ could receive an update if its survived the recent shift in Sonys live-service initiative. One rumored title that could appear is Sony Santa Monicas next God of War, reportedly set in Greece with a younger Kratos as the protagonist. Rogue Factors Hell is Us could also appear especially with its release date seemingly leaked. Stay tuned for more details when State of Play returns tomorrow.

PR manager for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 studio Warhorse, Sir Tobi, has revealed that working on the Xbox Series S version of the game helped the studio greatly improve optimisation for the other platforms as well. In an interview with the Iron Lords podcast, Tobi spoke about the titles development.When asked about how the studio went about getting Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 to run at 60 frames per second in performance mode and 30 frames per second in quality mode, Tobi spoke about the level of optimisation the studio was able to get into.The priority was to make it 30 and make it run good and make it stable and make it bulletproof, said Tobi when asked about the games console performance. And when they found out, hey, wait a second, it seems like we can do moor especially with the new PlayStation [PS5 Pro] releasing that offered more power on the hardware, we were like if we test a few things here and there, and the optimisations also for the Xbox Series S helped greatly the other platforms as well.Its the weakest of the four [consoles], I mean thats not even a secret, but since you have to dial down on a few things and have to be cleverer where you can in the programming and the code and so on and be able to save memory here and there, some of these optimisations for the [Xbox Series S] benefit the other consoles as well, said Tobi when asked to elaborate on the idea.Because you can either go full force ahead with the big ones, or you use those memory savings that you found out for the S and use it for the bigger ones as well so that it runs smoother. Not saying that it looks worse or whatever than it could, but it runs better than it could, he explained.Tobis comments about the Xbox Series S helping developers optimise their games better for other platforms has been a sentiment shared by other developers, but has also been a contentious one with some developers criticising the consoles weaker hardware. Back in January, Black Myth: Wukong studio Game Science spoke about the console being a painful one to work on, and especially criticising its relatively lower amount of memory.Other developers, on the other hand, have praised the console with helping them further optimise their titles. Larian revealed back in 2023, for instance, that it was able to get the VRAM usage of Baldurs Gate 3 down by 34 percent thanks to the work needed to get the RPG running on the Xbox Series S.While the limitations of the weaker console had forced Larian to forego local split-screen co-op for the Xbox Series S version of Baldurs Gate 3, an upcoming update will seemingly bring the feature to the console. The update also got a stress test back in January.Microsoft itself has also spoken favourably about the console, with Xbox boss Phil Spencer dismissing the idea that the company would drop support for the Xbox Series S.Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review for more details.

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"VFX artist Robert Rioux has released two free add-ons for managing complex Blender scenes.Render Manager provides a dedicated UI for managing render layers and render passes, and exporting them in a format suitable for use in compositing apps like Nuke and DaVinci Resolve.Light Editor provides a spreadsheet-based UI for managing the lights in a scene.Render Manager: manage complex render setups for export to apps like NukeRender Manager follows the approach used by the in-house tools at VFX studio Real by Fake, where Rioux was previously a CG Supervisor.It streamlines work in complex scenes by providing a single unified interface for managing render layers, from which you can create, delete or reorder layers.Separate sections of the interface control which Collections or render passes contribute to each layer, with the option to copy and paste sets of passes between layers.Render Manager also streamlines the process of exporting render layers from Blender in a form that can be used in compositing applications like Nuke and DaVinci Resolve.It outputs separate 16-bit color and 32-bit data passes for each layer the latter includes Cryptomatte data for each render layer, alongside an overall precomp.There are also options to convert Blenders Z-up axis orientation to the Y-up orientation used in Nuke; and to combine the individual components of glossy, diffuse and transmission passes.Light Editor: quickly toggle or isolate lights within complex lighting setupsLight Editor provides a spreadsheet-style interface for managing the lights in a scene.Its simpler than the spreadsheet views available in software like Houdini, but works for toggling or isolating individual lights or Collections, with the option to filter by name or light type.System requirementsRobert Riouxs Blender add-ons are available under a GPL v3 license.Download Robert Riouxs free Blender add-ons from GitHubHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.

Tuesday, February 11th, 2025Posted by Jim ThackerRichard Rosenman releases IK Studio for After Effectshtml PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"Tools developer Richard Rosenman has released IK Studio 1.0, a new IK solver for After Effects.The blazing fast native plugin generates a characters joint angles using inverse kinematics, speeding up character animation workflows.A fast IK Solver for After Effects, specialized on rigging arms and legsIK Studio generates joint angles using inverse kinematics, enabling an animator to pose a characters limbs by moving their hands and feet, rather than posing each joint individually.Although it can be used as a more general-purpose IK solver, its specifically designed for arms and legs, with presets for clothing styles and limb end caps.Users can also customize the proportions of the limbs and their curvature, making it possible to create rubber hose-style animation.Although other After Effects character rigging toolkits both free tools like Duik and commercial tools like Limber include IK capabilities, Rosenman cites IK Studios performance.As a fully multithreaded native After Effects plugin, IK Studio is described as blazing fast; and is compatible with After Effects Multi-Frame Rendering system.We dont often cover 2D animation, but you can find more details on IK Studio via the link at the foot of the story, and more details on Richard Rosenmans other After Effects plugins here.Price and system requirementsIK Studio 1.0 is compatible with After Effects CS6+ on Windows 7+ only. It costs $49.99. Find more details on IK Studio for After Effects on the product websiteHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest NewsFree tools: Render Manager and Light Editor for BlenderVFX artist Robert Rioux's handy add-ons streamline the process of managing lights and render layers within complex production scenes.Tuesday, February 11th, 2025Richard Rosenman releases IK Studio for After EffectsNew native After Effects plugin provides a fast, efficient way to create IK rigs for arms and legs for character animation.Tuesday, February 11th, 2025Topaz Labs releases Gigapixel 8.2Updated: AI app for upresing photos and 3D renders gets generative AI-based upscaling model; option to batch process images in the cloud.Monday, February 10th, 2025See CG benchmarks for NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 GPUsDiscover how NVIDIA's Blackwell GPUs performed in CG software like 3ds Max, Arnold, Blender, Maya, UE5 and V-Ray in our early tests. Friday, February 7th, 2025Chaos releases Beta 2 of the new V-Ray for BlenderUpdated: New free public beta build of the long-awaited Blender integration for V-Ray based on the V-Ray 7 core is now availableFriday, February 7th, 2025Review: Huion Kamvas 22 Plus pen displayThe Kamvas 22 Plus is an affordable pen display for beginners and pro artists on a budget. See how it handled 3D as well as 2D workflows.Thursday, February 6th, 2025More NewsCETA Software launches Artist AccessTutorials: Creating a Character for Games - Vol. 1 and Vol. 2LightWave Digital previews LightWave 2025Check out the new features in the ForestPack 9.1 updatesSee five great VFX breakdowns from the 2025 V-Ray showreelHow Vine FX created a parasitic underwater forest for The RigBoris FX releases Optics 2025Thinkinetic releases Pulldownit 6 for MayaAdobe launches unmetered access to Substance 3D AssetsAdobe releases Photoshop 26.3Check out free Android and iOS 3D scanning app RealityScan 1.6Free tool: Animation Render Time Estimator for BlenderOlder Posts

Why thousands of fake scientific papers are flooding academic journalsPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Hello!Issue #265: auditioning for SNL, an engineers Hippocratic Oath, and waking up at 5 a.m.By Harris SockelBuilding on yesterdays theme of not taking what you read online at face value, I want to share a new report coauthored by two computer scientists and a former health reporter who, after a six month investigation, discovered a disturbing trend: thousands of fake academic papers, especially in cancer and Covid-19 research, flooding the system and blocking real science.Fake means written by AI (or at least with a lot of help from AI). In academia, more papers usually leads to more funding, so theres an unspoken incentive to churn out whatever will get past journal editors (aka publish or perish). This can have disastrous consequences. Not only do bogus papers mislead scientists trying to do real research, they can actually make people sick. One example: Research used to recommend ivermectin, an early Covid-19 drug, was later found to be fraudulent and not based in real clinical trials. One man spent nine days in the hospital after taking the pill.One of the engineers who coauthored the report created the Problematic Paper Screener, a tool that trawls millions of new scholarly reports looking for clues of deceit. One giveaway: awkward writing phrases that no one would ever say in conversation (crude information instead of raw data). If you see that, someone may have used AI to rewrite someone elses academic paper, subbing in verbose synonyms to evade plagiarism detection software.You cant just read an abstract and have any faith in it, says a cancer researcher quoted in the story whos been digging into this, I kind of assume everythings wrong.What about peer review, you ask? From everything Ive read, peer review kind of feels like the book blurb industry a system running on personal connections and favoritism. Most people who write a blurb (or a peer review) do so with some level of motivated reasoning. Ill blurb you, youll blurb me even if we dont love (or even read) each others books and the cycle continues. Also, ~17% of peer reviews are now written by ChatGPT.You can read the full report here. Im sharing it because, yes, its shocking, but its also a lesson in incentives. (Some) governments fund institutions purely based on metrics (# of papers published), and use quantity as a proxy for quality. Thats a bad way to measure value. But the root problem, I think, is this: Most people never read these academic papers. Theyre written for the writer, not for readers. A statistician quoted in the report sums it up well: We need less research, better research, research done for the right reasons.* Were also readingIn honor of Kendrick Lamars historic performance at the Superbowl, Im re-upping a rec from issue #80: Leila Renees list of Lamars writing tips, including this: Concision is power. You can cut sentences, paragraphs, even whole pages out of the story and be okay.Comedian Stacey Smith auditioned for SNL three times and was ghosted by producers, but somehow came out of it with a lot less performance anxiety: Those auditions taught me something way bigger than getting the gig ever could: how to live with uncertainty. (Also, she snapped a covert pic of Colin Jost and Michael Che, who were sitting in front of her on one of the audition days.)Software engineerings new Hippocratic Oath: I will remember that I do not write code just for fun, for business success, but for humans (Attila Vg) Some practical wisdomBryan Ye trained himself to wake up at 5 a.m. so he could start his day by pursuing personal projects, and learned the only way to start a new habit is to be honest with yourself about what youll lose when you do. (He lost about two hours every evening, because he now needs to be in bed by 9 p.m.)

NatePacyga had a big thought inside a cathedral, where he saw donors credited by their support of the Bath Abbey in the United Kingdom. He wondered why that cant happen in video games. As game developers build their monumental creations, Pacyga thought that players could also get credit for their contributions inside the game. And so MinneaRead More

AI-driven virtual recruiters that handle key elements of the hiring process, from sourcing to engaging candidates to screening and placement.Read More