By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of Rodeo FX and Netflix.In Season 2 of The Sandman, Dream, after reclaiming his kingdom, goes about restoring his castle, which is guarded by a wyvern, griffin and hippogriff. The responsibility for the reconceived residence and mythical creatures that reside there was given to Rodeo FX, which produced more than 200 shots through a long-standing relationship with Production Visual Effects Supervisor Ian Markiewicz.A sandstorm engulfs the Season 1 palace, which then transitions to a massive, pristine, well-preserved, clean architectural style for Season 2.In Season 2, [the Guardians] become real flesh-and-bone, talking creatures, so the approach was completely different [from Season 1].Martin Pelletier, VFX Supervisor, Rodeo FXIan was a visual effects producer and, at some point, was missing that creative input he wanted so much to give, states Martin Pelletier, VFX Supervisor at Rodeo FX. When the opportunity arose, Ian jumped to the other side. Hes realistic as far as expectations and how things work based on budgets and time. Yet, Ian is never going to pretend that he knows the technical aspect of what were doing. Ian gives pointers to get us headed in the direction he wants and then leaves. He lets the process do its own little magic. Given that visual effects work takes place strictly in the Dreaming, there was more room to be creative and break free from the restrictions imposed by reality. He adds, I like invisible effects, but The Sandman was that opportunity where creativity can go wild.The weather in the Dreaming is determined by the emotional state of Dream.Emotion determines the weather in the Dreaming. The Guardians are exposed to the elements, Pelletier explains. In Season 2, we quickly establish that the mood of Dream determines if its going to be stormy, rainy or the stars or sun are shiny, or a clear blue sky. The Guardians were established as stone creatures in Season 1. In Season 2, they become real flesh-and-bone, talking creatures, so the approach was completely different. The wyvern comes with his fair share of challenges because we never get to see the back of his body or use the tail. The only thing that we ever get to do with the wyvern was for him to lean and stand on the ledge right over the main door entrance. You get to see his wings moving, but its mostly about the neck, torso and head. Posture helped to convey emotion. Pelletier notes, Whenever the wyvern was happy or aggressive, things would be pointing upward in a more rigid and energetic way. The movements would be snappier. Whereas the minute he was in a sad mood, his body sagged and his head leaned lower. The dialogue was synced through keyframe animation. We got the audio track and tried a couple of different ways with the wyvern. The scale and the fact that the mouth opens up made it a little trickier to get the speaking action to look right.Environmental elements such as trees helped to convey the proper scale of Dreams Palace.The Guardians are exposed to the elements in Season 2. We quickly establish that the mood of Dream determines if its going to be stormy, rainy or the stars or sun are shiny, or a clear blue sky.Martin Pelletier, VFX Supervisor, Rodeo FXWings were prominent on both the hippogriff and griffin. We could set the tone, whether they were energetic or sad, by playing with how fast the wings were moving around in animation, Pelletier remarks. The hippogriff was probably the easiest of all three animals because of the fact that we have so many references to look over. White technically creates more issues, especially with feathers. But the good news was that we knew that Season 2 was going to be mostly moody. If you look at the overall chunk of shots where we see the Guardians, 85% of them were either overcast or indirect light. We never had to deal with bright, intense sunlight hitting the hippogriff. The diffused light was a challenge. Pelletier says, All three Guardians are living in some kind of a box. If you look at the entrance and the design of the palace in that area, theres a back wall behind the Guardians as well as sidewalls next to them. Theres not a whole lot of places for light to scatter and bounce off anything that is bright. We had to do lot of cheating, especially on overcast sequences, to get shapes out of them because otherwise they would come out dull and flat.The decision was made to situate Dreams Palace on an isolated island to avoid it looking like Disneyland.Anatomy was a major issue for hybrid creatures like griffins. You start with what was a lion for the reference of the body, Pelletier states. Yet, the body of the griffin is maybe 10 times the size of a lion. The head was mimicking a Golden Eagle, but the Golden Eagle is so much smaller in so many ways. How do we approach the feathers in relation with the scale difference? Are we going with fairly small feathers and make a number required to cover the griffin, which is so much bigger? Or, are we going with much bigger feathers and keep the same relationship size-wise with the Golden Eagle? Which is what we did. Then we had this rig that allowed the feathers to flare upwards and outward as if hes reacting to something. We had to tone it down quite a lot and play subtly with the feather movements to keep in mind the scale of it. You rarely have a human next to it until Episode 210 where hes almost dying and gets rejuvenated with Dream.A number of the shots of Dreams Palace involve top-down perspectives.A puppet head was utilized on set to get the proper interaction between Dream and the griffin. There were a couple of shots where the puppet head wasnt necessarily accounting for the space that the body would take, Pelletier reflects. We had to cheat things because if we would line up our griffins head with the puppet, then the body would be half intersecting with a wall. We had to do a little bit of magic tricks here and there to make things work. But, in the end, it turned out that this sequence looks amazing. Situating the Guardians on a raised platform looking down altered the dynamics of the shots. Its a restriction as far as movements, Pelletier observes. We ended up making the pedestal wider as we quickly understood that it was going to be a struggle to get the wings to open up freely without intersecting with a wall. Feathers added to the complexity of the wings. Regular grooming is a lot easier to deal with, especially with an animal such as a horse because its a short groom. The main thing that we had to deal with was when the wings open up and showcase the full open feathers, because you see a whole lot of little technical details that wouldnt make sense and would create hard shadows, unnecessary gaps and unwanted penetration. There were numerous quality control passes to fix all those issues.A holdover from Season 1 is the bridge being held by a pair of hands, which was inspired by the Golden Bridge in Vietnam.We could set the tone [on the hippogriff and griffin], whether they were energetic or sad, by playing with how fast the wings were moving around in animation.Martin Pelletier, VFX Supervisor, Rodeo FXOpening Season 2 is the reveal of Dreams Palace. Pelletier explains, The shot where the Season 1 palace is being completely engulfed in the sandstorm is much bigger than it should be in relation to the Season 2 palace. Interestingly, enough of the opening of Season 2 was not planned that way. Originally. we were only building the finished version of the Season 2 palace, but then an executive at Netflix said, We need a new opening to get the people in the audience to understand that we have come into the Dreaming, the palace is not the same, and the Dreaming environment has changed as well. Dreams Palace is massive. When we first started presenting the palace to the client in the established initial scale, it was four to six times bigger than what we ended up doing. The minute I showed Ian how small a human being is next to that entrance, he said, Okay, we have a problem because were never going to be able to read a human being in semi-wide shot. We ended up scaling down the palace to something that made more sense. It was still a challenge because on aerial shots where you see the Fates coming in, theyre like tiny dots, so we had to fake longer shadows and a bright spot to cause your eye to look over that area of the garden to make sure you get to see the four figures walking.Vegetation like bushes were important to make sure that the imagery did not look too clean and CG.An iconic castle had to be avoided. They wanted to stay away from that Dracula kind of a mood, Pelletier notes. The palace was to be a pristine, well-preserved and clean architectural piece. They didnt want us to age it or weather it too much. The gardens had to look like theyre being taken care of on a daily basis. There were moments where we had to bring in a bit more brush to our shots because from a certain distance it was looking a little too clean and CG. Another famous image was not to be replicated. How do we present different pieces like a rocky desert landscape on one side and a lush, green jungle environment on the other side without making it look like Disneyland? We decided to place the palace on an isolated piece of land surrounded by a lot of water. The first thing we did was to scatter a bunch of trees next to it to convey the size both of the environment and the palace. And we played quite a lot with the size of the the vegetation next to the palace so it could make sense.Located above the entrance of Dreams Palace are the three Guardians consisting of a griffin, wyvern and hippogriff.The Guardians of the Palace evolve from stone statues in Season 1 to living creatures in Season 2.The size of the Guardians did not always allow for stand-ins or puppets to be utilized in shots.The initial size of Dreams Palace had to be significantly scaled back to enable humans to stand out in semi-wide shots.The pedestal was made wider to enable the wings of the Guardians to open freely without intersecting with a wall.A skinny version of the griffin that would shrink and lose muscle mass over time was developed by Rodeo FX.The fact that the mouth opens made it trickier to get the speaking action to look right for the wyvern.How fast the wings were moving indicated whether the hippogriff was happy or sad.The griffin has the body of a lion and the head of a Golden Eagle.A head of a puppet was utilized to get the proper interaction as Dream attempts to heal the griffin.Rodeo FX created more than 200 shoots for Season 2 of The Sandman.Watch two dramatic VFX breakdowns by Rodeo FX of its work creating the surreal world of The Sandman, Season 2, Volume 1 for the Netflix series. The first video chronicles the initial development of Dreams Castle and the mythical creatures. Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=Kwd5AWGhTE0&t=1s. The second video details the Guardians the wyvern, hippogriff and griffin as they are brought to life from stone statues to soaring, lifelike CG creatures. Also explore the rise of the towering palace they protect. Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=IMoDkVnYwlk&t=2s

Im Baiyon, the director of Dreams of Another and a multimedia artist. The release date for the game, October 10, is fast approaching.In this post, Id like to share the inspiration behind the themes of the game, the ideas behind the object dialogues, which is one of the aspects that makes the game special, and my personal dedication to the soundtrack I created.Play VideoHow did the theme no creation without destruction come about?Dreams of Another is built around the philosophical theme of no creation without destruction. Rather than destroying objects by shooting, as in traditional shooting games, here, your shots materialize and create the world around you.I have a memory about destruction and creation that has stayed with me. It happened during my middle school cultural festival. According to the school rules, everyone had to prepare some kind of exhibit, and my friend and I collected cardboard to make and display a cardboard sculpture.When the chime signaling the end of the one-day festival rang and cleanup began, I lightly started punching and breaking the sculpture. Since it was going to be thrown away anyway, perhaps it was a lighthearted thought born of youth: If its going to be cleaned up anyway, lets have some fun.At first, my friend laughed as he watched, but after a while, I felt a pain in my back. When I turned around, I saw my friend, with an angry face, kicking my back. From there, it escalated into a full-on fight, and a teacher, noticing, came into the classroom and shouted at me, Are you making something to destroy it?!Those words stayed with me in a way different from the teachers original intent. I think I understood that the teacher meant I should take care of what I create, but I kept thinking, Its going to be thrown away anyway Yet I found this human contradiction somehow interesting.That feeling has always run deep in my approach to creating things, and this game allowed it to take shape.Unique dialogue with objects like trees and doorsIn this game, you can not only interact with people in the dream world but also talk with objects such as trees and doors. One of the games major charms is being able to hear their sentiments and experience their emotions.For example, when I am thinking about ideas for this doors dialogue, I first realized that even when we say door, there are many kinds and positions. Doors in public places, such as buildings, schools, or shopping malls, doors in ones home, doors of the living room or bedrooms of children and teens, the door of the family home lived in for decades, or the door of a grandmothers house after losing her husband Each door is connected to human life, and I imagined that, like us, they might feel pride or even envy other doors.If I were a door, I would want to be a door that is there for an individuals personal space, rather than merely a being that separates spaces. At the same time, some doors might actually feel comfortable being roughly used by a large family in a living room, while others might feel suited to existing for strangers in a public facility.Imagine doors having a variety of preferences and ways of thinking. In the dialogues, nothing is imposed as right or a conclusion. I wanted players to reflect on their own environment, access past memories, and have a moment of reflection.In this way, the dialogues are not just flat and one-dimensionalthey can be experienced in a multi-layered way, from various perspectives, and connected to ones own memories.Of course, its perfectly fine to enjoy it simply as a door saying something a little strange. That playfulness and unexpectedness of the dialogues are part of the unique charm of this dream world.A unique approach to composing the soundtrackI have worked on various game soundtracks alongside my own projects over the years, but this time, I felt especially the sense of I made the music for a game.I wanted to create music that resonated with the scenarios and dialogues I wrote myself, as well as the situations and atmosphere of each scene, which made me approach the music in a way different from before. For each scene, I composed music with the intention of evoking certain feelings in the player and expressing particular emotions myself.Additionally, a key theme was to convey the instability and ambiguity of the dream world with music. One thing I consciously tried to avoid was being too polished. As a musician, this approach is somewhat challenging, but instead of creating compositions that are overly tight or densely structured, I aimed for music that flows.Also, for example, For a particular river scene inspired by my own memories and experiences, I actually spent a long time traveling to the location for field recordings to compose the music for the scene, capturing sounds such as flowing water and stones being rubbed togetherthe latter of which I then incorporated as rhythmic elements. These particular touches may go unnoticed by anyone, but for me, the focus was on keeping things genuine. By incorporating elements drawn from the source of inspiration as much as possible, I believe it could enrich the experience.I think there are many sounds that arent often heard during gameplay. While playing, I hope you take a moment to listen closely to these subtle detailsthey might lead to small discoveries or interesting experiences.Dreams of Another will launch on October 10 for PS5 and PS VR2. A special bundle is also available for pre-order, which includes the previous game I directed, PixelJunk Eden 2.If youre interested, please check out the store page. I truly look forward to you enjoying this special experience.

Meta Connect a été le théâtre de la présentation des nouvelles lunettes intelligentes Oakley Meta […] Cet article Oakley Meta Vanguard : les nouvelles lunettes connectées de Meta sont officielles ! a été publié sur REALITE-VIRTUELLE.COM.

In the second episode of Peacemaker season 2, an ARGUS squad goes to the home of Chris Smith (John Cena) to investigate signs of extradimensional activity. They find the mission is far more dangerous than they expected when Chris bald eagle sidekick Eagly absolutely dismantles the group, forcing Langston Fleury (Tim Meadows) and his agents to run for their lives.

Climate change is the single biggest health threat to humanity, accelerated by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, which generate greenhouse gases that trap the suns heat.The average temperature of the earths surface is now 1.2C warmer than it was in the late 1800s, and projected to more than double by the end of the century. The consequences of climate change include intense droughts, water shortages, severe fires, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms, and declining biodiversity. The Internet Is A Significant Part Of The ProblemShockingly, the internet is responsible for higher global greenhouse emissions than the aviation industry, and is projected to be responsible for 14% of all global greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.If the internet were a country, it would be the 4th largest polluter in the world and represents the largest coal-powered machine on the planet.But how can something digital like the internet produce harmful emissions?Internet emissions come from powering the infrastructure that drives the internet, such as the vast data centres and data transmission networks that consume huge amounts of electricity.Internet emissions also come from the global manufacturing, distribution, and usage of the estimated 30.5 billion devices (phones, laptops, etc.) that we use to access the internet.Unsurprisingly, internet related emissions are increasing, given that 60% of the worlds population spend, on average, 40% of their waking hours online.We Must Urgently Reduce The Environmental Impact Of The InternetAs responsible digital professionals, we must act quickly to minimise the environmental impact of our work. It is encouraging to see the UK government encourage action by adding Minimise environmental impact to their best practice design principles, but there is still too much talking and not enough corrective action taking place within our industry.The reality of many tightly constrained, fast-paced, and commercially driven web projects is that minimising environmental impact is far from the agenda.So how can we make the environment more of a priority and talk about it in ways that stakeholders will listen to?A eureka moment on a recent web optimisation project gave me an idea.My Eureka MomentI led a project to optimise the mobile performance of www.talktofrank.com, a government drug advice website that aims to keep everyone safe from harm.Mobile performance is critically important for the success of this service to ensure that users with older mobile devices and those using slower network connections can still access the information they need.Our work to minimise page weights focused on purely technical changes that our developer made following recommendations from tools such as Google Lighthouse that reduced the size of the webpages of a key user journey by up to 80%. This resulted in pages downloading up to 30% faster and the carbon footprint of the journey being reduced by 80%.We hadnt set out to reduce the carbon footprint, but seeing these results led to my eureka moment. I realised that by minimising page weights, you improve performance (which is a win for users and service owners) and also consume less energy (due to needing to transfer and store less data), creating additional benefits for the planet so everyone wins.This felt like a breakthrough because business, user, and environmental requirements are often at odds with one another. By focussing on minimising websites to be as simple, lightweight and easy to use as possible you get benefits that extend beyond the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit to include performance and purpose.So why is minimising such a great digital sustainability strategy?ProfitWebsite providers win because their website becomes more efficient and more likely to meet its intended outcomes, and a lighter site should also lead to lower hosting bills.PeoplePeople win because they get to use a website that downloads faster, is quick and easy to use because it's been intentionally designed to be as simple as possible, enabling them to complete their tasks with the minimum amount of effort and mental energy.PerformanceLightweight webpages download faster so perform better for users, particularly those on older devices and on slower network connections. PlanetThe planet wins because the amount of energy (and associated emissions) that is required to deliver the website is reduced.PurposeWe know that we do our best work when we feel a sense of purpose. It is hugely gratifying as a digital professional to know that our work is doing good in the world and contributing to making things better for people and the environment.In order to prioritise the environment, we need to be able to speak confidently in a language that will resonate with the business and ensure that any investment in time and resources yields the widest range of benefits possible.So even if you feel that the environment is a very low priority on your projects, focusing on minimising page weights to improve performance (which is generally high on the agenda) presents the perfect trojan horse for an environmental agenda (should you need one).Doing the right thing isnt always easy, but weve done it before when managing to prioritise issues such as usability, accessibility, and inclusion on digital projects. Many of the things that make websites easier to use, more accessible, and more effective also help to minimise their environmental impact, so the things you need to do will feel familiar and achievable, so dont worry about it all being another new thing to learn about!So this all makes sense in theory, but whats the master plan to use when putting it into practice?The MasterplanThe masterplan for creating websites that have minimal environmental impact is to focus on offering the maximum value from the minimum input of energy.Its an adaptation of Buckminister Fullers Dymaxion principle, which is one of his many progressive and groundbreaking sustainability strategies for living and surviving on a planet with finite resources.Inputs of energy include both the electrical energy that is required to operate websites and also the mental energy that is required to use them. You can achieve this by minimising websites to their core content, features, and functionality, ensuring that everything can be justified from the perspective of meeting a business or user need. This means that anything that isnt adding a proportional amount of value to the amount of energy it requires to provide it should be removed.So thats the masterplan, but how do you put it into practice?Decarbonise Your Highest Value User JourneysIve developed a new approach called Decarbonising User Journeys that will help you to minimise the environmental impact of your website and maximise its performance.Note: The approach deliberately focuses on optimising key user journeys and not entire websites to keep things manageable and to make it easier to get started. The secret here is to start small, demonstrate improvements, and then scale.The approach consists of five simple steps:Identify your highest value user journey,Benchmark your user journey,Set targets,Decarbonise your user journey,Track and share your progress.Heres how it works.Step 1: Identify Your Highest Value User JourneyYour highest value user journey might be the one that your users value the most, the one that brings you the highest revenue, or the one that is fundamental to the success of your organisation. You could also focus on a user journey that you know is performing particularly badly and has the potential to deliver significant business and user benefits if improved.You may have lots of important user journeys, and its fine to decarbonise multiple journeys in parallel if you have the resources, but Id recommend starting with one first to keep things simple.To bring this to life, lets consider a hypothetical example of a premiership football club trying to decarbonise its online ticket-buying journey that receives high levels of traffic and is responsible for a significant proportion of its weekly income.Step 2: Benchmark Your User JourneyOnce youve selected your user journey, you need to benchmark it in terms of how well it meets user needs, the value it offers your organisation, and its carbon footprint. It is vital that you understand the job it needs to do and how well it is doing it before you start to decarbonise it. There is no point in removing elements of the journey in an effort to reduce its carbon footprint, for example, if you compromise its ability to meet a key user or business need.You can benchmark how well your user journey is meeting user needs by conducting user research alongside analysing existing customer feedback. Interviews with business stakeholders will help you to understand the value that your journey is providing the organisation and how well business needs are being met.You can benchmark the carbon footprint and performance of your user journey using online tools such as Cardamon, Ecograder, Website Carbon Calculator, Google Lighthouse, and Bioscore. Make sure you have your analytics data to hand to help get the most accurate estimate of your footprint.To use these tools, simply add the URL of each page of your journey, and they will give you a range of information such as page weight, energy rating, and carbon emissions. Google Lighthouse works slightly differently via a browser plugin and generates a really useful and detailed performance report as opposed to giving you a carbon rating. A great way to bring your benchmarking scores to life is to visualise them in a similar way to how you would present a customer journey map or service blueprint. This example focuses on just communicating the carbon footprint of the user journey, but you can also add more swimlanes to communicate how well the journey is performing from a user and business perspective, too, adding user pain points, quotes, and business metrics where appropriate. Ive found that adding the energy efficiency ratings is really effective because its an approach that people recognise from their household appliances. This adds a useful context to just showing the weights (such as grams or kilograms) of CO2, which are generally meaningless to people.Within my benchmarking reports, I also add a set of benchmarking data for every page within the user journey. This gives your stakeholders a more detailed breakdown and a simple summary alongside a snapshot of the benchmarked page.Your benchmarking activities will give you a really clear picture of where remedial work is required from an environmental, user, and business point of view. In our football user journey example, its clear that the News and Tickets pages need some attention to reduce their carbon footprint, so they would be a sensible priority for decarbonising.Step 3: Set TargetsUse your benchmarking results to help you set targets to aim for, such as a carbon budget, energy efficiency, maximum page weight, and minimum Google Lighthouse performance targets for each individual page, in addition to your existing UX metrics and business KPIs. There is no right or wrong way to set targets. Choose what you think feels achievable and viable for your business, and youll only learn how reasonable and achievable they are when you begin to decarbonise your user journeys.Setting targets is important because it gives you something to aim for and keeps you focused and accountable. The quantitative nature of this work is great because it gives you the ability to quickly demonstrate the positive impact of your work, making it easier to justify the time and resources you are dedicating to it.Step 4: Decarbonise Your User JourneyYour objective now is to decarbonise your user journey by minimising page weights, improving your Lighthouse performance rating, and minimising pages so that they meet both user and business needs in the most efficient, simple, and effective way possible.Its up to you how you approach this depending on the resources and skills that you have, you can focus on specific pages or addressing a specific problem area such as heavyweight images or videos across the entire user journey.Heres a list of activities that will all help to reduce the carbon footprint of your user journey:Work through the recommendations in the diagnostics section of your Google Lighthouse report to help optimise page performance.Switch to a green hosting provider if you are not already using one. Use the Green Web Directory to help you choose one.Work through the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines, implementing the most relevant guidelines to your specific user journey.Remove anything that is not adding any user or business value.Reduce the amount of information on your webpages to make them easier to read and less overwhelming for people.Replace content with a lighter-weight alternative (such as swapping a video for text) if the lighter-weight alternative provides the same value.Optimise assets such as photos, videos, and code to reduce file sizes.Remove any barriers to accessing your website and any distractions that are getting in the way.Re-use familiar components and design patterns to make your websites quicker and easier to use. Write simply and clearly in plain English to help people get the most value from your website and to help them avoid making mistakes that waste time and energy to resolve.Fix any usability issues you identified during your benchmarking to ensure that your website is as easy to use and useful as possible.Ensure your user journey is as accessible as possible so the widest possible audience can benefit from using it, offsetting the environmental cost of providing the website.Step 5: Track And Share Your ProgressAs you decarbonise your user journeys, use the benchmarking tools from step 2 to track your progress against the targets you set in step 3 and share your progress as part of your wider sustainability reporting initiatives.All being well at this point, you will have the numbers to demonstrate how the performance of your user journey has improved and also how you have managed to reduce its carbon footprint. Share these results with the business as soon as you have them to help you secure the resources to continue the work and initiate similar work on other high-value user journeys.You should also start to communicate your progress with your users.Its important that they are made aware of the carbon footprint of their digital activity and empowered to make informed choices about the environmental impact of the websites that they use. Ideally, every website should communicate the emissions generated from viewing their pages to help people make these informed choices and also to encourage website providers to minimise their emissions if they are being displayed publicly. Often, people will have no choice but to use a specific website to complete a specific task, so it is the responsibility of the website provider to ensure the environmental impact of using their website is as small as possible.You can also help to raise awareness of the environmental impact of websites and what you are doing to minimise your own impact by publishing a digital sustainability statement, such as Unilevers, as shown below. A good digital sustainability statement should acknowledge the environmental impact of your website, what you have done to reduce it, and what you plan to do next to minimise it further.As an industry, we should normalise publishing digital sustainability statements in the same way that accessibility statements have become a standard addition to website footers.Useful Decarbonising PrinciplesKeep these principles in mind to help you decarbonise your user journeys:More doing and less talking.Start decarbonising your user journeys as soon as possible to accelerate your learning and positive change.Start small.Starting small by decarbonising an individual journey makes it easier to get started and generates results to demonstrate value faster.Aim to do more with less.Minimise what you offer to ensure you are providing the maximum amount of value for the energy you are consuming.Make your website as useful and as easy to use as possible.Useful websites can justify the energy they consume to provide them, ensuring they are net positive in terms of doing more good than harm.Focus on progress over perfection.Websites are never finished or perfect but they can always be improved, every small improvement you make will make a difference.Start Decarbonising Your User Journeys TodayDecarbonising user journeys shouldnt be done as a one-off, reserved for the next time that you decide to redesign or replatform your website; it should happen on a continual basis as part of your broader digital sustainability strategy.We know that websites are never finished and that the best websites continually improve as both user and business needs change. Id like to encourage people to adopt the same mindset when it comes to minimising the environmental impact of their websites.Decarbonising will happen most effectively when digital professionals challenge themselves on a daily basis to minimise the things they are working on.This avoids building carbon debt that consists of compounding technical and design debt within our websites, which is always harder to retrospectively remove than avoid in the first place.By taking a pragmatic approach, such as optimising high-value user journeys and aligning with business metrics such as performance, we stand the best possible chance of making digital sustainability a priority. Youll have noticed that, other than using website carbon calculator tools, this approach doesnt require any skills that dont already exist within typical digital teams today. This is great because it means youve already got the skills that you need to do this important work.I would encourage everyone to raise the issue of the environmental impact of the internet in their next team meeting and to try this decarbonising approach to create better outcomes for people, profit, performance, purpose, and the planet.Good luck!

Contemporary architecture often references ideals from modernism canonical elements like clean lines, open plans, and material honesty further tempered to suit current tastes and needs. This Highland Park residence, designed by SmithArc with interiors by Joshua Rice, belongs firmly in that lineage. While expressing its modernist DNA, the home reconsiders what it means to be a machine for living, with an emphasis on how color, material, and built-in conveniences will impact a growing family. Far from the white, minimal modern box stereotype, this house proves that the subtleties of tone and texture can enhance modernism to create something sensual and moody.The structure is set on the east side of Highland Park one of Dallass most storied neighborhoods positioning the location as a canvas for architectural experimentation. From early 20th-century Tudors and Mediterranean revivals to the later arrival of starkly contemporary projects, the neighborhood reflects a layered history of design. Building there is both a privilege and a challenge. But this new construction home, integrated into a difficult corner lot, respects the established visual narrative while offering something distinctly of its time.The architecture is anchored by gray limestone walls, a material chosen for both its durability and its sculptural quality. These walls flow between exterior and interior, creating a sense of continuity. Expanses of glass connect the family to the outdoors while raked wood panels and stucco soften the rigor of the stone. But the interiors are where the project most clearly establishes its voice. Rice builds on modernisms lesser-known experiments with color by leveraging the hue derived from the very character of materials used.The interior palette ebbs and flows through 5,600 square feet with tones that are muted but never flat. Ceppo marble floors, fumed oak cabinetry, warm-gray laminates, and plaster matched to the architectural stone all bring depth and variation within a tightly edited spectrum. In the primary suite, natural white oak meets deep blue Japanese tile and Icelandic marble, combining warmth with shadow. Light oak wide-plank floors contrast with the darker elements, ensuring the atmosphere remains balanced.Programming is also central to the projects success. From north to south, the homes ground floor unfurls to reveal a wide range of spaces: a covered outdoor living area that spills into the kitchen and scullery; a partially sunken, open living and dining zone; and a well-dressed hallway leading to the primary suite, powder room, office, yoga studio, media room, mudroom, and laundry. The distinct, paneled-oak wall designed in a racetrack shape organizes the plan while discreetly enclosing private functions at the center of the home.Upstairs, a treetop family room anchors four childrens bedrooms, each an en suite, along with a second laundry to ease daily life. The arrangement reflects a contemporary sensibility: communal spaces flow into one another for family gatherings, while tucked-away rooms allow for quiet work, exercise, or retreat. The programming demonstrates that while the house pulls inspiration from modernisms open plans or mid-century novelties, it adapts them to the complexities of raising a young family today.For Rice, the choice to embrace a darker, moodier palette was a deliberate challenge to prevailing expectations. In residential architecture, modern is often equated with bright, white, and minimal. Yet the designer understood that a palette grounded in shadow would create a calmer, more serene experience, given the abundant Texas daylight. The strategy was less about resisting the inundating rays and more about shaping them. Darker materials absorb and diffuse the sun, creating a sense of grounding that allows rooms to feel restful rather than overexposed.Rice does not treat color as an accent but as integral to architecture itself something that emerges from the natural variations of stone, the smoked tones of oak, the mineral depth of tile. The palette is structural, not decorative.The furnishings further this dialogue between modernist lineage and contemporary sensibility. Instead of defaulting to the familiar icons of mid-century modern design, Rice curated a collection that blends rare vintage pieces with limited-edition works by contemporary designers. Sculptural lighting, carved wood chairs, and stone tables enrich the interiors with history and personality while remaining in harmony with the homes muted chromatic atmosphere. Each piece contributes not only function but also a unique sense of self, reflecting the clients passion for the unexpected design.This house demonstrates how contemporary architecture can honor modernism without mere imitation. It draws from the movements clarity of space and truth to materials, but modifies those ideas for the realities of 21st-century family life. Albeit restrained, it reclaims the role of color too often forgotten in the retelling of modernisms history as central to architectures emotional impact.The clients are big fans of modern design but wanted something more unique and unusual than the typical design classics, Rice says. Luckily, that is my passion.Here, color is not bold or loud, but quiet, grounding, and enduring. It is embedded in the limestone walls that define the house, in the marble veining beneath ones feet, in the shadows that move across oak grain. This contemporary sanctuary proves that color in current architecture is far more impactful than the clichs of white walls and glass boxes. And that by returning to those roots, designers can craft homes that are as timeless as they are deeply personal.To see this and other works by the architect and interior designer, visit smitharc.com and joshuaricedesign.com respectively.Photography by Robert Tsai.

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