William Morris Biscuit Set. All images courtesy of Ella Hawkins, shared with permission Dr. Ella Hawkins Reimagines Ancient Artifacts and Prized Objects as Edible Replicas May 31, 2025 Grace Ebert Academic research is notoriously niche and often opaque, but Dr. Ella Hawkins has found a crowd-pleasing way to share her studies. The Birmingham-based artist and design historian translates her interests in Shakespeare performance, costume, and matieral culture into edible replicas. Hawkins bakes batches of cookies that she tops with royal icing. Decorating takes a scholarly turn, as she uses tiny paintbrushes and a mini projector to help trace imagery of William Morris’ ornate floral motifs or coastal scenes from English delftware. Rendering a design on a single cookie can take anywhere between two and four hours, depending on the complexity. Unsurprisingly, minuscule calligraphy and portraits are most demanding. Ancient Greek Pottery Sherds Hawkins first merged baking and her research about a decade ago while studying undergraduate costume design at the University of Warwick. She decided to bake cupcakes based on Shakespeare productions that her class examined. “It felt like a fun way to look back at all the different design styles we’d covered through the year,” she tells Colossal, adding: I carried on decorating cakes and cookies based on costume design through my PhD (mainly as goodies to give out during talks, or as gifts for designers that I interviewed), then branched out and spent lots of time doing cookie versions of other artefacts to keep busy during the pandemic. She has since published an academic book on the topic and is a senior lecturer at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. But she also continues to translate artifacts and prized objects held within museum collections into delicious canvases. There’s a set made in collaboration with Milton’s Cottage, a museum in the country house where John Milton finished his epic Paradise Lost. Anchored by a delicately crosshatched portrait evoking that of the frontispiece, the collection contains typographic titles and signs that appear straight from a 17th-century book. Delftware Tiles Hawkins ventures farther back in history to ancient Greece with a collection of pottery sherds inspired by objects within the Ashmolean Museum. With a bowed surface to mimic a vessel’s curvature, the irregular shapes feature fragments of various motifs and figures to which she applied a sgraffito technique, a Renaissance method of scratching a surface to reveal the layer below. The weathered appearance is the result of blotting a base of pale brown-grey before using a scribe tool to scratch and crack the royal icing coating the surface. She then lined these etchings with a mix of vodka and black food coloring to mimic dirt and wear. (It’s worth taking a look at this process video.) Other than a select few preserved for talks and events, Hawkins assures us that the rest of her cookies are eaten. Find more of her work on her website and Instagram. Medieval Tiles, inspired by The Tristram Tiles, Chertsey, Surrey, England (c. 1260s-70s) Milton’s Cottage Biscuit Set developed in collaboration with Milton’s Cottage Outlander Biscuit Set Elizabethan Gauntlet Biscuit Set Next article

AR developer DreamPark secures $1.1m in seed funding round Investment will support expansion plans, partnerships with established IP, and growing its development team Image credit: DreamPark News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on May 30, 2025 Mixed reality developer DreamPark has raised $1.1 million in a seed funding round. DreamPark develops AR experiences at physical locations via markers including QR codes that change real-world spaces with digital features. Led by Long Journey Ventures with participation from Founders Inc., the investment will help the firm accelerate creating partnerships with established IP, expanding the amount of rental Quest headset units it has, and growing its development team. So far, DreamPark has installed experiences in Santa Monica and the LA County Fair, with plans to expand to Seattle, Orange County, and corporate events. "We're not just creating content, we're building a platform that revitalises communities by giving people a reason to gather, play, and connect in physical spaces in real life," said DreamPark CEO and co-founder Aidan Wolf. "DreakPark bridges the digital and physical worlds, creating a new category of play where the magic of virtual worlds enhances real-life connections. We're reimagining what's possible when the spaces around us become canvases for shared adventure and imagination." DreamPark co-founder and business director Brent Bushnell added: "We're building the world's largest theme park – one that exists everywhere and is accessible to everyone. We want to make getting out to play worthwhile again. "This investment allows us to expand our footprint of access points across the country rapidly, develop partnerships with premium IP holders, and continue enhancing our technology to deliver magical experiences that bring people back to real-world spaces."

DreamPark, the creator of what it calls “the world’s largest downloadable mixed reality (XR) theme park,” said it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding. The investment will accelerate DreamPark’s mission to make Earth worth playing again by transforming ordinary spaces into extraordinary adventures through mixed reality technology. I got a demo of the game in Yerba Buena Park in San Francisco and it made me smile. It also made me think it was part of a pretty good plan to convince property owners to get more out of their entertainment venues. But we’ll get to that in a bit. Long Journey Ventures led the investment round, with participation from Founders Inc. The company is the brainchild of Aidan Wolf, CEO of DreamPark; Kevin Habich, cofounder; and cofounder Brent Bushnell. They came up with the idea while working at Two-Bit Circus, a zany entertainment venue in Los Angeles run by Bushnell. Bushnell encouraged the idea, incubated it and became a cofounder. The DreamPark founders (left to right): Brent Bushnell, Aidan Wolf and Kevin Habich. Positioned at the forefront of mixed reality innovation, DreamPark said it is capturing a significant early advantage in the global XR (extended reality) live event market, valued at $3.6 billion in 2024 and projected to surge to $190.3 billion by 2034 at a 48.7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). This explosive growth trajectory presents an opportunity that DreamPark’s technology and business model are uniquely designed to address, the company said. “We’re building the world’s largest theme park – one that exists everywhere and is accessible to everyone. We want to make getting out to play worthwhile again,” said Bushnell. “This investment allows us to expand our footprint of access points across the country rapidly, develop partnerships with premium IP holders, and continue enhancing our technology to deliver magical experiences that bring people back to real-world spaces.” Bushnell is the eldest son of Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell. And the younger Bushnell knows the costs of investing in physical properties, as he runs Two-Bit Circus in downtown Los Angeles. It’s built inside a physical warehouse, and Bushnell’s company has to pay for that property — even weathering the pandemic. But with DreamPark, he can reinvigorate a physical venue without investing anything in a new property. By contrast, a new virtual reality entertainment venue can cost more than $1 million to open. Hands-on demo DreamPark foundes in Yerba Buena Gardens park in San Francisco. Wolf and Habich, and Bushnell’s sister Alyssa Bushnell, showed me the DreamPark virtual theme park in San Francisco in the park near the Metreon building. There was a concert going on at the time and it was very noisy. But the game worked fine anyway. Looking down at my feet, Wolf said the QR code on the mat on the groun was an “access point.” That’s where you can scan and enter the virtual world. The company is still building a front end for distributing the headsets, but people will be able to bring their mixed-reality headsets from home and play the same content. “We’re setting these up all over,” Wolf said. “Once an area is mapped, it’s there and you just show up and play. The big difference here is that DreamParks are places. They exist in the real world.” Don’t be surprised if you see people doing this soon. The mapped area was around 50,000 square feet in the park, so it was a pretty big game space. Soon, the company will break into 100,000 square feet for the game with another update. That’s about 10 times the restricted size of Meta’s VR headsets. “We’re going way past the usual limits,” Wolf said. “I think this fundamentally changes what mixed reality means. Now it’s not this living room experience bound to the couch. It’s an actual world to walk around and explore and touch. Once we get people there, we’re gonna really see that cognitive shift, where now augmented reality (AR) is something I can go out and experience, like enjoying a concert.” The cofounders gave me a headset to wear. The first one didn’t work, but a second one functioned fine. It was a modified Meta Quest 3 headset that was locked down so it would play just the DreamPark game. It took a short time to load and then I looked through the headset. Thanks to the outward-facing cameras, I was able to see the park in mixed reality. That meant I didn’t trip over anything as I walked around. I held the headset to my forehead and looked around. I could see a Mario-like set of bricks floating in the air, and floating virtual coins along the physical path. I started walking around and picking up the coins and tapping the bricks to collect points in the game. I didn’t go where there were people lying on the grass, but I didn’t manage to navigate to some lava pits in the middle of the park. The founders pointed out that far away from me, on the Carnaval concert stage, there was a boss. Normally, if there was no concert, I could have waltzed over to that location and engaged in a boss fight. DreamPark overlaid on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California. The graphics were rudimentary, 8-bit style, and yet I didn’t mind it at all due to the novelty of seeing them overlaid on the real world. Still, I was reluctant to go walking in the lava pits, as that was a bad idea in the virtual world and I somehow felt like it would be a bad idea to walk there in the physical world. “Our graphics are more cartoonish, but our Wizard theme has a more realistic look,” Wolf said. “We’re creating four theme parks.” One of them is a sci-fi Crash Course, which is an obstacle course. And DreamPark is working with a partner as well. There’s one with a psychedelic theme and one that is ambient fun. It’s easy to turn the experience into a multiplayer game. You can, for instance, race around the park and complete a timed experience in competition with your friends. The appeal of a virtual overlay on the real world DreamPark mixes the virtual and real worlds. DreamPark transforms physical locations into immersive mixed-reality environments through its network of access points: physical markers, like QR codes, that, when scanned with a Meta Quest 3 headset or mobile device, unlock digital overlays on real-world spaces. The company has already established successful installations at Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade and The LA County Fair, with planned expansions in Seattle, Orange County and several expos and corporate events. It’s pretty cheap to create new locations. All they really have to do is scan an area, overlay a digital game filled with simple games, and then drop a mat with a QR code on the property so people can scan it and start playing the game. For property owners, this means they can draw people back to their location, getting them to re-engage with the place because people want to play a digital game at the physical place. It’s a way to enhance the value of a physical property, using virtual entertainment. Bushnell pitched the idea for DreamPark on CNBC’s Shark Tank television show. The sharks didn’t go for it, but the publicity from the show helped surface investors, Bushnell said. (The Bushnell family is going to appear at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California, in June). “As a longtime investor, I have seen countless pitches promising to merge the digital and physical worlds, and DreamPark is the first that truly delivers on the real-world metaverse,” said Cyan Banister, cofounder and general partner at Long Journey Ventures, in a statement. “Aidan is a visionary builder of immersive systems, and Brent is a pioneer in playful public spaces, making them the perfect team to make emerging tech feel human, accessible, and unforgettable. They’ve cracked the code on location-based AR, delivering a 10x experience that’s as magical as it’s scalable. This isn’t just immersive entertainment; it’s a whole new category.” The funding comes when retail landlords and event venues seek innovative solutions to drive foot traffic and increase engagement. While typical VR venues cost over $1 million to build, DreamPark delivers a fully immersive, multiplayer experience that pays for itself in its first month of revenue. DreamPark in Santa Monica. “Our capital expense is like one of a hundredth of our competitors, which is amazing. And then this lets us move astronomically faster than everyone else. I kind of believe in a Nintendo philosophy, which is, they take antiquated technology, but they use it in a new way that makes it valuable. We’re using access points,” Wolf said. There’s no construction or permanent infrastructure required. It’s a radically more affordable way to turn underused spaces into high-impact destinations. “We’re not just creating engaging content, we’re building a platform that revitalizes communities by giving people a reason to gather, play, and connect in physical spaces in real life,” said Wolf. “DreamPark bridges the digital and physical worlds, creating a new category of play where the magic of virtual worlds enhances real-life connections. We’re reimagining what’s possible when the spaces around us become canvases for shared adventure and imagination.” The seed funding will support DreamPark’s aggressive expansion plans, including deploying access points across new locations, launching partnerships with major IP holders to create branded theme park experiences, and expanding the company’s fleet of rental Meta Quest 3 headsets units nationwide. DreamPark is growing the development team to accelerate content creation and platform capabilities. DreamPark’s leadership team brings deep experience from companies including Two-Bit Circus, Smiley Cap, and SNAP, Inc., positioning them to execute their ambitious vision of creating the infrastructure for worldwide mixed-reality entertainment. Where it’s going What alien technology is this? Bushnell said the team has been working for around two years. But the founders have been involved with AR for more than a decade. They showed up at Two-Bit Circus and started making mixed-reality games, which take into account physical reality as a game space. There are about 10 contractors in the company working on content. They found that players are happy to wear the headsets for 30 minutes at a time, particularly when they are playing with friends. “We see ourselves more as a tech company than like a location based entertainment company. We hope to stay small as a core team while still reaching millions or billions of people,” Wolf said.The games are in a private alpha testing phase now. “I would say that the headset we currently have in our hands is the exact headset we need to bring this to the masses. So the nice part about the company we’re building is we aren’t waiting for some like watershed moment,” Wolf said. “We’re not waiting for anything now. We’re just getting it into lots of places where people already congregate.”DreamPark is coming out with an app that will let users scan their local park and then start using that space as a level, Wolf said. But DreamPark itself will create partnerships with some of the best places itself and get permission to do the game on the properties. At Two-Bit Circus, for instance, DreamPark could extend the entertainment into the outdoor parking lot, giving more square footage for entertainment. Bushnell had a great moment when he was playing an AR game with drift racing on a racetrack in the Two-Bit Circus parking lot. He noted that mixed reality doesn’t have the Achilles Heel of VR, which is that it makes half the people nauseous. “That was really the moment that broke my brain for mixed reality,” he said. “We were on actual drift bikes, pedaling around collecting coins. And I went twice around that thing, chasing after somebody else on a drift bike. And, you know, my heart rate was at 150. And I was just absolutely going bananas. And I took the headset off, and all that world that had motivated me to pedal my ass off was gone. It just really felt like this is not just going to change entertainment. This is going to change therapy and fitness and learning.” Bushnell said so many other kinds of entertainment are based on deploying huge amounts of capital. But this kind of theme park could be up and running in a matter of minutes. Bushnell believes people will be happy to buy tickets to get a chance to play. He said his four-year-old kid loves it, as does his 82-year-old father. DreamPark is adding virtual entertainment to real venues. To me, it felt a bit like the beginning of the world of Cyberpunk 2077, while Bushnell said it reminded him of the Korean drama, The Memories of Alhambra, where people wear contact lenss displays and have an adventure overlaid on real streets. “These are beautiful places naturally. Let’s augment them with a little more cool storytelling, and you’re off and running,” Bushnell said. “The world is lonely and isolated, We think of this a path to being social again, getting people out in public. And we want to invite landlords of all stripes to host DreamParks.” GB Daily Stay in the know! Get the latest news in your inbox daily Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

The Multifunctional Art Center of Lhozhag County Middle School / Shenzhen Huahui DesignSave this picture!© Right Angle ImageVisual Arts Center•Shannan, China Architects: Shenzhen Huahui Design Area Area of this architecture project Area:  6009 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:Right Angle Image Lead Architects: XIAO Cheng More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. The site of our multifunctional art center project is located within Lhozhag Middle School, the county's junior high campus. Funded and built by COFCO Group, the project aims to create a composite art education space that serves as a cross-cultural exchange venue for school staff and students, local residents, international tourists, and artists visiting Tibet.Save this picture!Save this picture!The Weaving and Reconstruction of the Landscape. The site of Lhozhag County Middle School is situated with the mountains to the south and a road to the north. Beyond the road lies a martyrs' memorial square, and further north are National Highway 219 and the Lhozhag Gorge. The campus has undergone construction in different periods, resulting in a fragmented layout dominated by dispersed linear buildings. This has prevented the formation of a cohesive spatial order. Therefore, one of our key objectives is to take this opportunity to reorganize and construct a more organic relationship between the elements of the site. Additionally, the site has a noticeable elevation difference, which, if utilized properly, offers the potential to create more dynamic and engaging spaces.Save this picture!Save this picture!Given the limited area of the site, the design adopts an "embedded" strategy. The first step involves demolishing the existing staff activity room directly facing the school entrance and incorporating it into the new building volume. This move creates a continuous central axis through the campus. The new building is arranged in a compact L-shaped mass at the southern end of this axis, forming a spatial sequence that connects the main entrance of the campus, the front yard, and the small plaza at the entrance to the multifunctional art center. When viewed on a larger scale, the multifunctional center to the south, facing the mountains, and the memorial square to the north, facing the water, create an urban spatial axis within the limited depth of the southern part of Lhozhag County.Save this picture!Save this picture!Massing Configuration and Spatial Morphology. Situated at the northern foothills of a south-facing mountain slope, the project site is constrained by limited space towards the south, making optimal natural daylighting from this direction difficult to achieve. In response, the design incorporates various forms of skylights to maximize solar utilization. The main structure of the Multi-Functional Center is composed of two primary volumes—one linear and one cubic. The elongated volume is organized in a "sandwich-like" spatial configuration, consisting of two solid masses and a narrow central atrium. Flanking the double-height skylit atrium—serving as a hub for circulation, exhibitions, and gatherings—are small-scale spaces housing art classrooms and studios. The square volume contains a 700-seat auditorium, with a skylit side hall designed along its lateral facade.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!These two volumes are arranged in a near-perpendicular relationship, a deliberate response to both the site's spatial axis and the surrounding buildings. Considering the site's topography, a subtle elevation difference is established between the two forms. The roof of the auditorium becomes a highly accessible outdoor activity platform. On this rooftop, several small, south-facing structures with windows are designed to offer engaging and playful spaces for students' extracurricular activities. Between the main building's southern edge and the northward-sloping mountain base lies a narrow wedge-shaped courtyard, functioning as a "miniature gorge" between architecture and terrain—an extension of both outdoor exhibition areas and indoor activity spaces.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Low-Tech Construction and Contextual Integration. Our intention was to express the project's sense of place through a distilled contemporary architectural language—one that remains restrained and respectful in its articulation. The surrounding context—both its unrefined natural landscape and the neighboring built forms—exudes a raw, elemental force that speaks to the site's primal character. Each day, the children's recitations echo through the arms of the mountains, mingling with the distant sound of the Lhozhag Valley stream. I envisioned the new building as a stone emerging from the mountain itself—something that sparks curiosity while also evoking a quiet familiarity. It is curious in the way it appears as a white "magic box" filled with intriguing spatial experiences; yet familiar in its subtle dialogue with the surrounding built environment, sharing a common architectural language. This "stone" is firmly grounded in the land—solid, steady, and reassuring.Save this picture!Save this picture!At the main entrance façade, we designed what could be described as a "Mondrian frame" for Lhozhag. Through a composition of solids and voids, light and reflection, the façade glass is broken down into mirrored panels of varying sizes and hues. These reflections—of the sky, the snow-capped peaks, the building, and the children themselves—create a sense of "familiar strangeness", subtly provoking curiosity and encouraging exploration in their daily routines.Construction methods employ conventional, locally executable techniques, prioritizing recyclable regional materials. Skylight configurations enhance natural daylighting and thermal mass performance, significantly reducing heating energy use in winter.Save this picture!Save this picture!The Canyon of Light. The "Light Canyon Atrium" serves as the spiritual and spatial core of the entire building. It is both an abstract interpretation of Lhozhag's dramatic natural terrain and a contemporary reimagining of the essential qualities of traditional Tibetan architecture. (Diagram: Spatial Archetype) Inspired by the idea that "sunlight breathes life into the canyon, where daily routines unfold", the design celebrates this raw, vibrant energy through spatial scale, light quality, and chromatic composition.Save this picture!Save this picture!Upon entering from the foyer, one ascends a multipurpose stepped platform to the second floor and then turns—only to be met with a breathtaking atrium measuring 60 meters in length, 7 meters in width, and 14 meters in height. This vertical void captures abundant daylight from above, extending across the building to link diverse functional zones. It gathers the distant landscape into its frame, forging a dialogue between interior and exterior, architecture and nature. The experience is ever-changing—one may pass through, pause, encounter, gaze into or out of it—each movement revealing new spatial surprises. Witnessing children in colorful attire moving through the longitudinally unfolding space, where the indoor sky seamlessly merges with the real one beyond, and distant mountains appear to embrace the end of the axis, the envisioned scenarios have materialized as intended.Save this picture!Save this picture!Here, light is "combed" through a kaleidoscopic filter—a gesture that feels uniquely appropriate to Tibet's vivid natural palette. White walls act as canvases for sunlight's seasonal performances, while solid-colored interior corridors peek through varying-sized apertures, adding layers of visual liveliness. Ultimately, the "Canyon of Light" became the guiding concept of the entire project. Through a dialogue between architecture and environment, and a fusion of tradition and modernity, the project creates a space that is both functional and poetic—an iconic centerpiece for Lhozhag County Middle School and a cultural threshold for exchange between campus and community. Yet above all, we hope the true owners of the space are the students themselves. On holidays, when children in traditional Tibetan dress gather here to play and laugh, the scene feels so naturally harmonious that it evokes a beautiful illusion: as if this building has always been here， growing with the children, quietly witnessing the passage of time.Save this picture!The "Roots" and "Wings" of Culture. The 2017 Pritzker Prize-winning Spanish firm RCR Arquitectes articulated a profound view on locality: "We believe that harmony with nature means that architecture must deeply understand its surrounding environment. While we embrace globalization, we hope our architecture remains firmly rooted in its place. We often say that architecture needs both 'roots' and 'wings.' The three of us each have our own origin, something intrinsic that resides within us. Even as we move from one place to another, this origin remains unchanged—it is the product of a place, a climate, and a culture. The world is becoming increasingly interconnected, but we believe that understanding and respecting these origins is essential. They enrich the shared creative force that expresses who we are, and that is deeply important."Save this picture!In Lhozhag, the younger generation navigates a cultural tug-of-war: between their deep Tibetan heritage and the currents of modernity. Like the mirrored facades that reflect distant snow-capped mountains, village rooftops, ancient monasteries, and colorful prayer flags by day—with the children's own figures merging into these scenes—the architecture becomes a metaphor for cultural identity. "Who are you?" "Where do your roots lie?" When they see themselves in these reflections, they encounter both their homeland and the coexistence of their culture with the wider world. Through architectural language, the project aims to show that they need not choose between tradition and modernity but can balance both—rooted in their cultural soil while courageously reaching outward. May the light of the canyon forever illuminate the path in these children's hearts.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less Project locationAddress:Shannan, ChinaLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this office MaterialsGlassConcreteMaterials and TagsGlass

Author I recently got intrigued by how certain online tools render terrain using dynamic color gradients to show depth or elevation changes, especially when visualizing geographical data or landscape layers on a 2D canvas. What caught my attention was how a color transition, say from green to brown to white, can subtly convey a mountain’s progression — and how much this alone can shape how we perceive space, depth, and realism without using any lighting or shadows. I’d love to dive deeper into the logic and techniques behind this and how it’s approached from a GPU programming perspective.One thing I started questioning is how effective and precise color-based elevation rendering is, especially when it comes to shader implementation. For instance, I observed that some tools use a simple gradient approach linked to altitude values, which works fine visually but might not reflect real-world depth unless tuned carefully. I tried assigning color ramps in fragment shaders, interpolated from DEM (digital elevation model) values, but it wasn’t quite as expressive as I expected — especially when transitioning over large terrain with small elevation variance.To simulate some form of perceptual realism, I began blending color ramps using noise functions to introduce a more organic transition, but I’m not confident this is the best way to approach it. I also played around with multi-step gradients, assigning different hue families per range (e.g., green under 500m, brown 500–1500m, grey and white above that), but it raises the question of universality — is there a standard or accepted practice for terrain color logic in shader design? Or should we just lean into stylized rendering if it communicates the structure effectively?Elevation itself refers to the height of a specific point on the Earth's surface relative to sea level. It’s a key component in any terrain rendering logic and often forms the foundation for visual differentiation of the landscape. When using an online elevation tool, the elevation values are typically mapped to colors or heightmaps to produce a more tangible view of the land’s shape. This numerical-to-visual translation plays a central role in how users interpret spatial data. I inspired from this idea positively because it proves that even raw altitude numbers can create an intuitive and informative visual experience.What I couldn’t figure out clearly is how people deal with the in-between areas — those subtle transitions where terrain rises or drops slowly — without making the result look blocky or washed out. I’ve attempted linear color interpolation based on normalized height values directly inside the fragment shader, and I’ve also experimented with stepping through fixed color zones. Both methods gave me somewhat predictable results, but neither satisfied the realism I was aiming for when zooming closer to the terrain.I also wonder about the performance side of this. If I rely on fragment shader-based rendering with multiple condition checks and interpolations, will that scale well on larger canvases or with more detailed elevation data? Or would pushing color values per-vertex and interpolating across fragments give a better balance of performance and detail? It’s not immediately clear to me which path is more commonly used or recommended.Another question I’ve been mulling over is whether a lookup table (LUT) would make more sense for GPU-side elevation rendering. If I store predefined biome and elevation color data in a LUT, is it practical to access and apply that in real-time shader logic? And if so, what’s the cleanest way to structure and query this LUT in a WebGL or GLSL environment?I’m looking to understand how others have approached this type of rendering, specifically when color is used to express terrain form based solely on elevation values. I’m especially curious about shader structure, transition smoothing methods, and how to avoid that “posterized” look when mapping heights to colors over wide areas. If you want to apply colors in the shader based on elevation, the standard approach would be to use a 1D texture as a lookup table. You then map elevation to texture coordinate in [0,1] and use that to sample the texture (which should use linear interpolation). You can do this per-vertex if you vertices are dense enough. This allows you to use arbitrarily complex gradients.However elevation-based coloring is not very flexible. It works for some situations but otherwise is not ideal. For more complicated and realistic colors there are two other options:Add Layers - e.g. you can have another texture for your terrain which alters color based on other properties like water depth or temperature, etc. This can be combined with the elevation-based coloring. This can be done in the shader but more layers result in slower rendering.Vertex colors - compute a color per-vertex on the CPU. This can use any approach to assign the colors. You pay a bit more memory but have a faster rendering. You may need more vertices to have fine details or if the terrain is steep.To make colors more diverse you can use other terrain attributes to affect the color:ElevationSlope (gradient magnitude) evaluated a certain scale.water depthclimate / biomefractal noiseI would have a 1D texture or gradient for each attribute and then blend them in some way. Use fractal noise to “dither” the results and break up banding artifacts.You also can combine colored terrain with texture variation. In my terrain system each vertex has a texture index from a texture array. I manually interpolate the textures from the 3 vertices of a triangle in the shader. Per-vertex texturing gives great flexibility, as I can have as many textures as slots in the texture array. To fully use such a system you need a way to assign textures based on material type (rock, dirt, grass, etc.). Slope-based texturing (e.g. slope 0-0.2 is grass, 0.2-0.4 is dirt, >0.4 is rock) is common but I use a much more complicated material system based on rock layers and erosion. I had a blog here but all the images got deleted:https://gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2284060-rock-layers-for-real-time-erosion-simulation/

Colorful Grid Painting by Piet Mondrian Fetches $47.6 Million at Auction While it went for well below the auction house’s estimate, “Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue” is now the Dutch artist’s third highest-selling work Lillian Ali - Staff Contributor May 16, 2025 2:23 p.m. Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, Piet Mondrian, 1922 Christie's A 1922 painting by Piet Mondrian fetched $47.6 million at auction, becoming the Dutch artist’s third highest-selling work. Titled Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, the artwork features Mondrian’s signature grid-like patterns and bright colors, including a large red square. Experts at Christie’s had expected it to sell for around $50 million. “Red always helps, simple as it is, because it’s a color people like,” Alex Rotter, Christie’s president, tells the Wall Street Journal’s Kelly Crow. If it had sparked a bidding war, it could have broken the artist’s auction record of $51 million, set by Composition No. II Composition No. II, Piet Mondrian, 1930 Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images However, the May 12 auction attracted only one bidder, who purchased the piece for $41 million (or $47.6 million with fees). “It’s a fantastic picture,” Hugo Nathan of the art advisory Beaumont Nathan tells Artnet’s Katya Kazakina. “But the market at those very high levels is quite tricky.” Born in the Netherlands in 1872, Mondrian began his artistic career by painting landscapes and Cubist works. However, he’s famous for the style he developed in the 1920s, when he was in his 40s and 50s. His best-known pieces feature clean lines, eye-popping colors and abstract canvases filled with geometric shapes. “While prevailing artistic trends in post-war Europe favored a return to figuration and classical ideals, Mondrian pursued his own unique form of pure abstraction—a groundbreaking and thoroughly modern approach to painting in service of the creation of a universal visual language,” Vanessa Fusco, head of Impressionist and modern art at Christie’s, says in a statement. Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue had belonged to Louise Riggio, the wife of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio. Christie’s secured the collection by offering the Riggio estate an undisclosed guarantee, promising a minimum price regardless of the auction’s success. To offset its own risk, Christie’s arranged for outside buyers to place pre-sale bids on certain lots. For that reason, many lots didn’t have “a bounce,” or more bidding following a first bid, Rotter tells Artnet. “We had to manage our risk portfolio,” Rotter says. “This is the art market in the real world.” One of those one-bid lots was the Mondrian composition, which appears to have been purchased by its guarantor. In total, the Riggio collection made $272 million, including fees. Without fees, though, the sale fell short of Christie’s $252 million estimate, according to the New York Times’ Zachary Small and Tim F. Schneider. Many of the guarantees placed lots below their estimated values. For example, Pablo Picasso’s Mère et Enfant (1922) sold for $6 million, though it was expected to fetch at least $9 million. Speaking to Artnet, art adviser Ralph DeLuca describes these “low-margin” third-party guarantees as “blood sport.” However, some experts think the Mondrian’s price tag was inflated to begin with. “Overpricing at the start was a deterrent with many collectors, despite the quality and rarity of the work,” art dealer Brett Gorvy tells the Times. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Nails by Kumi. Image © Kumi Chantrill Fresh Sets: Tembe Denton-Hurst Celebrates 35 Boundary-Pushing Nail Artists May 16, 2025 BooksDesign Jackie Andres From the birth of the first modern nail parlor in 19th-century Paris to the rise of the Vietnamese nail industry in America after the fall of Saigon, nail beautification has always been connected to the world it adorns. Author Tembe Denton-Hurst reminds us of this in her new book, Fresh Sets: Contemporary Nail Art from Around the World. Setting the scene with her own experience of falling in love with manicures as a child in Brooklyn and a brief survey of the transformative history of nail embellishment throughout time, the book showcases 35 standout artists thriving today. Nails by Kumi. Image © Kiel Wode. All photos courtesy of Prestel Publishing, shared with permission While basic sets remain timeless, there’s no doubt that in the 21st century, contemporary aesthetics have flourished in a subversive, powerful way. From birthday candle pedicures and maximalist jeweled acrylics to moss-covered fingertips and sculpted claws channeling cyber sigilism, Fresh Sets features 300 vibrant images highlighting ongoing innovations in the medium. The democratization of nail art has allowed the creative form to flourish across time and space. Extravagant designs once only seen sauntering down the catwalk, for instance, are now within reach for daily wear. The rise of nail artists has uniquely blurred this line between luxury and everyday accessory, forging paths and connecting worlds. One such artist featured in Fresh Sets is Lauren Michelle Pires. With a methodical precision, she approaches her practice as a designer, collecting extensive archives of color combinations and references images. Once a fashion student, Pires now works with designer brands such as Loewe, Diesel, Miu Miu, and more. “I view being a nail artist as a very intricate and pristine job, and I definitely try to capture beauty in my work,” she explains. “But, over time, I’ve really learned how to experiment more and to lean into the awkwardness of beauty.” Nails by Kumi. Image © Kiel Wode As the realm of nail design continues to evolve in tremendous fashion, transforming one’s own fingernails as if they were ten tiny canvases—each a site for creating an extension of self, asserting identity, and even signifying resistance—has and always will be a deeply resonant gesture for many. As Denton-Hurst shares in the introduction, “long nails have become part of me, as identifiable as the brown of my skin or my loud laugh.” You can find your own copy of Fresh Sets on Bookshop. See more from Tembe Denton-Hurst on Instagram. Nails by Iksoxo. Image © Alona Sobolevska Nails by Dxpper Acrylics. Image © Black Archives Nails and image © Tomoya Nakagawa Nails and image © Naomi Yasuda Nails by Juan. Image © Juan Alvear Nails by Yeswhat Nails. Image © Violetta Kurilenko Nails and image © Tomoya Nakagawa Nails and image © Nikki Panic Next article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's French-inspired setting was originally steampunk London Early trailer brought to light. Image credit: Sandfall Interactive News by Ed Nightingale Deputy News Editor Published on May 13, 2025 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a distinctive French style from its Montpellier-based developer Sandfall Interactive, but originally it was very different. Fans have uncovered a trailer from an early version of the game posted on reddit by director Guillaume Broche in a bid to find voice actors. The post, from five years ago, describes the project as an "ambitious AA game" and "3D modern take on the JRPG genre with western style characters". It had a planned release on PC and "possibly" PS4 and Xbox One. The post includes a link to a draft trailer that's since been shared elsewhere. The game was originally called We Lost, and shows a steampunk town, fantastical boss battles, and even a sci-fi section. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review: Outstanding Artwork And Glorious CombatWatch on YouTube It's likely much of the trailer is using placeholder assets, but it at least gives a glimpse into the development process. What's more, turn-based battles seem to have always been part of the project, as do the names of characters Lune and Maelle. Further, lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen has detailed how the game's setting was completely different in its early phases. "The gameplay would have been similar," she told The Gamer, "but the story was completely different. It was set in a steampunk Victorian England with zombies, aliens, and various things." A call with potential investors inspired Broche to "think bigger", Svedberg-Yen added, which prompted a complete re-think of the narrative. It was ultimately inspired by a painting Broche admired and a short story Svedberg-Yen was working on, which revolved around an artist entering her own canvases. Early draft trailer for the game byu/Palmoleum inexpedition33 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 certainly succeeds in part due to its French authenticity - from its fashion sense, to its jokey references to baguettes and mimes. Even French President Macron has taken note, calling the game a "shining example of French audacity". "Outside the core plot, there's a wonderful silliness - and self-deprecation - to Clair Obscur that, together with its outstanding art direction and unique battle mechanics, ensure the game is distinct," I wrote in Eurogamer's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review.