When Tom and Lia Higgins (Barbara Corcoran's son and daughter-in-law) acquired their prewar apartment on New York City’s Upper East Side, they wanted to maximize every inch of the 1,900-square-foot interior. So the high school sweethearts, who have young kids and love to entertain, called upon Hee Designs to fully gut renovate the unit, requesting a balance between “child-friendliness and a sense of sophistication,” says the firm’s founder, Kellyann Hee.Hee, along with the firm's design director Julia Berner-Tobin, reworked the original three-bedroom, three-bathroom footprint, moving walls and ripping out flooring to fit everything from a large kitchen with a pantry and dining area for eight to a private bedroom wing so that the family could host guests without disturbing sleeping children. From there, they completely reimagined the home's furnishings, turning to durable-yet-timeless pieces that could grow alongside the family. The result is an elevated yet practical retreat that balances versatility with a timeless, tailored feel—an extra impressive feat, considering the quick nine-month timeline and the fact that the project was the hospitality-focused firm’s first foray into residential design.Fast FactsDesigner: Kellyann Hee and Julia Berner-Tobin of Hee DesignsLocation: New York City's Upper East SideThe Space: Three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath across 1,900 square feetENTRYWAYGreen velvet wall art sets the tone for a muddy yet dimensional palette.Andrew BuiTable: Interior Icons. Ottomans: Lulu & Georgia. Rug: Design Within Reach. Ceiling lights: custom, by Studio Luddite. Wall art: Leonard Meoni. Wall paint: Soft Chamois, Benjamin Moore. Ceiling paint: All White, Farrow & Ball. Door paint: White Dove, Benjamin Moore.Throughout the home, the design team thoughtfully selected furniture with rounded rather than sharp edges and opted for soft materials, like wood over stone, “to create a safer environment for rambunctious kiddos,” Hee says. “We framed wall art behind glass or plexi to protect it, and used cordless window treatments.”As far as the color palette goes, the couple wanted to mix it up from their historically white-on-white style, so the team introduced warm neutrals and layered textures. In the entry, the velvet Leonard Meoni wall art, one of the only items the clients brought with them to the apartment, inspired further green accents throughout the space. “The entry opens into the kitchen and dining area on one side, where we have a dark green mohair banquette, and on the other side it opens to the living room with green accents in the art, book spines in the bookshelves, and mirror.”The finished design totally surprised us, in the best way.LIVING ROOMA plethora of seating caters to activities, day to night.Andrew BuiBuilt-ins: custom, by Rockaway Custom Cabinets & Restoration Shop Inc. Hardware: Lo & Co. Table: McGee & Co. Ottoman: Maiden Home.Andrew BuiSofa: Restoration Hardware. Mirror and lamp: Anthropologie. Throw pillow: Rejuvenation. Side table: Maiden Home. Sconce: Lumfardo. Ceiling light: Long Made Co. Wall paint: Soft Chamois, Benjamin Moore. Wall art: Eberhard Ross.Multiple seating arrangements ensure plenty of opportunity to work or unwind in the often naturally lit space. Custom-built-ins are encased in glass to keep everything out of reach of the kids but still allow the mix of books and decorative objects, like jewel-toned vessels, to be on display. “Our clients really love low lighting in the evenings,” Hee says. “So we backlit these shelves and included a few small lamps. At night, the bookcases become a warm and cozy element in the space.” KITCHENClever storage solutions keep the cookspace neat.Andrew BuiRange: Aga Elise Range. Cabinet hardware: MyKnobs.Andrew BuiCabinets: custom, by Rockaway Custom Cabinets & Restoration Shop Inc.Hee and Berner-Tobin relocated the kitchen from the floor plan’s center to a former bedroom location to bring in natural light, make the cookspace larger, and open it up to a formal dining room. “The combo of an open-concept kitchen and dining room is really popular in the city—and perfect for dinner parties,” Hee says.When customizing the kitchen, the duo prioritized storage with wide, pull-out drawers to hide appliances, pots, and pans, as well as narrow cabinets for stowing baking pans and cutting boards. The Caesarstone counters ensure the homeowners need not stress about stains, while the marble slab backsplash from ABC Stone adds a dramatic touch. “The fluted wall paneling softens a huge column that could not be relocated in the space, and similarly, a concealed pantry door opposite the kitchen sink,” Hee says.DINING NOOKThe customized spot mimics the feel of a luxe NYC eatery.Andrew BuiChairs: Restoration Hardware. Art lights: Pooky. Wall art (right): 1stDibs. Wall art (left): TRNK NYC.To fulfill the couple’s request for a dining area that seats eight, Hee and Berner-Tobin designed a custom banquette in green mohair fabric and a white oak dining table. Since the nook is open to the kitchen, it allows for easy cooking, serving, and dining for daily life with kids and evenings spent entertaining. “There’s a hidden table in the space behind the curve of the banquette that we had made custom to match the fluted wall, so the edges line up perfectly and no food or dust collects back there,” Hee says. “Also, it’s a nice place for a tiny vase for dinner party nights.”Overhead, simple flat crown molding “really adds that little extra layer of polish,” Hee says. The minimal, easy-to-execute detail is carried throughout other parts of the home, as is the parquet wood flooring. The team invested in permanent elements, like the flooring, over high-end, irreplaceable vintage furnishings that may not stand up to wear and tear.POWDER ROOMMetallic wallpaper maximizes light while creating an enchanting look.Andrew BuiWallpaper: Holly Hunt. Mirror: Rejuvenation. Faucet: Kohler. Sconce: Rich Brilliant Willing.Located off the kitchen in a small wing with a hidden pocket door is the glamorous powder room. “The [Holly Hunt] wallpaper here is a real stunner,” Hee says. “It has a raised foil pattern reminiscent of antique lace and acts as the perfect backdrop to a beautiful velvet photo collage commissioned for the room by Brooklyn-based artist Roxana Kadyrova.” PRIMARY BEDROOMA serene space reminiscent of a luxury hotel room.Andrew BuiTable: CB2. Chair: Residence Supply. Bench cushions: Custom, in Holly Hunt fabric. Throw pillows: Restoration Hardware. Rug: Enkay. Wall art: Brian Merriam, from Tappan Collective. Sconce: 1stDibs.Natural elements and rich textures drive the calming atmosphere in the primary bedroom. His-and-hers closets allow the main bedroom to remain minimal and uncluttered. Behind the door—which is modeled after the apartment’s original entry door to expand on the existing pre-war architecture—is the primary bathroom. Opposite the bed is a projector for movie nights.PRIMARY BATHROOMA calming backdrop for self-care rituals.Andrew BuiMirror: Wayfair. Sconces: Etsy, Smile Lamp Works. Fixtures: Brizo. Wall tile: NY Stone. Floor tile: Tilebar and NY Stone. Vanity hardware: Lo & Co. Wall art: Simeoni Art Studio.Travertine tiles maintain a serene, spa-like feel in the bathroom, which boasts a full built-in tub and separate shower.SON'S ROOMThe animal theme adds whimsy and wonder.Andrew BuiTable and bedding: Pottery Barn Kids. Doorknob: Baldwin Hardware.Andrew BuiSconce: Pooky. Rug: Crate & Barrel. Bear pillow: Fair Trade Winds.“We chose a subtle bear theme for the couple’s son’s room, with bear throw pillows on both beds and a soft bear-shaped chair in the corner opposite [from the side table,]” Hee says, noting they also customized the wallpaper into a printed mural to work better for the room’s specific layout. The couple requested a bunk bed for sleepovers, “and a bed low to the ground as he transitioned from his crib to the twin bed,” Hee says. An arched bunk bed from West Elm adds softness to the space. About the DesignersBased in New York's Hudson Valley and Portland, Maine, Hee Designs is primarily a hospitality design firm. But now, the team has also fallen in love with residential projects. Founder Kellyann Hee's approach aims to respect history while pushing forward to a sustainable future. With design director Julia Berner-Tobin, she creates deeply personal, intentional spaces that transcend time through a mix of vintage pieces, existing elements, thoughtful new additions, and custom creations. “We believe, when a home is designed with care, honesty, and a real understanding of both the people who live there and the place they live in, you can feel it,” Hee says.SHOP THE SPACEMulberry Ottoman$1,000 at maidenhome.comArches Bunk BedNow 20% Off$2,799 $2,239 at West ElmNodu Rug$548 at enkay.comGrey Marble Bistro Table$1,699 at CB2

This is the third blog in our Games Focus series, which highlights key product development initiatives for the year ahead and beyond. Here, we cover the status, upcoming release plans, and future vision for profiling and performance at Unity.My name is Marika. I’ve worked in the video game industry for nearly a decade, and I’m currently the senior technical product manager for profiling tools and performance optimization at Unity.When we think about performance at Unity, there are three main areas where we believe we can help:Insight: Empowering you to dig into your game’s performance, identify bottlenecks, and pinpoint areas that would benefit from optimization strategiesExperience: Ensuring that creating your projects feels seamless by raising the performance of the Unity Editor and runtimeInnovation: Guiding you in new programming techniques and paradigms that have performance in mind from the ground upToday’s post focuses on the first two areas, covering recent updates to our suite of profiling tools and how customer feedback is shaping our roadmap for 2023 and beyond. It ends with a recap on best practices for optimizing projects.We’ll dive into the third area, performance-focused programming techniques and workflows with a focus on DOTS-based projects, in an upcoming post.We like to think of the profiling features in Unity as detective tools that help you unravel the mysteries of why performance in your application is slow or glitchy, or why code is allocating excess memory. They help you understand what’s going on under the hood of the Unity game engine.Our goal is to raise the performance of Unity tools and runtime through profiling and optimization, helping you to deliver smooth performance for your players across a broad range of platforms and devices.Memory Profiler is designed to make it easier to keep track of memory usage and composition. I’m happy to share that the Memory Profiler 1.0.0 is now a verified package for the Unity 2022.2 beta release and above (find instructions for download here). Thank you to everyone who shared their invaluable feedback on how to create a better workflow for this important feature.Many of you contend with the challenge of working within the memory restrictions of each of your target platforms. The Memory Profiler helps solve this challenge by providing you with a clear overview of the memory impact of assets and objects in one view. It also shows you detailed contextual information on which objects and systems the memory relates to.You can dig deeper into the capture through breakdown views and compare memory snapshots to identify potential leaks and unnecessary allocations that negatively impact memory usage.Refining the existing profiling toolsetIn 2022.1, we added the Frame Timing Manager, which enables you to capture and access frame timing data across multiple frames. If performance is lagging, use this feature to assess frames and analyze why your application isn’t meeting performance targets. Learn more about this in our documentation.If you’re looking to monitor low-level GPU metrics in the Unity Profiler, you can use the new System Metrics Mali package, which we released in 2022.1 through a partnership with Arm. This package allows you to access low-level system or hardware metrics on mobile devices. If you’re curious to learn more about how to ensure your content runs smoothly on mobile devices powered by Arm CPUs and Mali GPUs, this 2021 blog can guide you.Performance optimizationThe profiling tools highlighted so far are a great start to helping you identify areas where performance can be improved. On my team, however, “performance optimization” applies not only to your games’ runtime performance on their target devices, but also to how your team works – your productivity. We’re aiming to provide you with faster iteration times, fewer interruptions, and greater efficiency in the Editor.In Unity 2021 LTS, importing your assets is three to four times faster, and opening imported projects up to 8.7% faster compared to Unity 2020 LTS.I’m excited to share some of the improvements that are available in the 2022 releases as well:Improved material reimport for the Universal Render Pipeline and High Definition Render PipelineEditor workflow improvements, including: Faster save time for large scenesReduced stall time in scene pickingImproved performance in the Scene view when there are many LOD GroupsAn optimized animation rigging packageBetter Hierarchy scrollingImproved save workflow for large PrefabsImproved iteration time when working inside the Editor thru optimizations on domain reloadsPlay mode improvements, including: Improved static batching performanceOptimized process for how Addressables finds resource directoriesPrewarming particle systemsAgain, your feedback has played a vital role in many of these improvements. Please continue sharing your feedback on our future roadmap here, or contact the team on the forums. We’re particularly interested in performance-related issues, which we’re capturing here.For over a decade, we’ve stayed focused on ensuring that you can achieve the best performance possible using our profiling tools, and we will continue refining the toolset. This development has taken many forms, including all of the functionality we’ve already mentioned here.Another area where we’ve worked to provide significant performance gains is the Data-Oriented Technology Stack, or DOTS. Two of the core features integral to the successful delivery of DOTS are the Burst compiler and C# Job System. These were leveraged in our own internal engine performance to great results, and they’re available for all today. Coming soon, we’ll deliver on the third critical feature, Entities, which will turbo boost project performance in areas like networking, physics, and more. This is such an important aspect to our commitment to game development that we will dedicate a standalone Games Focus article to DOTS in this series, coming soon.For now, let’s take a look at a few improvements planned for upcoming releases.We’re working to cut time spent starting the Editor, to improve start-up time and help you stay in flow. Today, when you connect a target device to the Editor, you might experience instability such as disconnection or an inability to recover. We’re working on making Editor connections to mobile platforms more reliable and performant in the 2023.1 release.Additionally, we want to make it more efficient for you to identify bottlenecks with the Profiler and to know what to do next once you’ve spotted them. Our goal is to quickly direct you to the areas of optimization that will yield the greatest performance gains.We’re also looking to add memory insights based on the device you’re building for, so you can get platform-specific performance gains. This is in the early stages, and we’re actively looking for your feedback on this new feature, which you can provide on our roadmap page.Expertise with Unity’s suite of profiling tools is one of the most useful skills you can add to your game development toolbox. That’s why we’re working on creating more advanced content about best practices to help you get the most out of our tools.Several of my teammates recently put together our most extensive guide to date about profiling in Unity, in partnership with expert engineers from the Unity Integrated Success team and experts.I also suggest you download these additional advanced e-books that offer extensive platform-specific optimization best practices:Optimize your mobile game performanceOptimize your console and PC game performanceAnother handy reference is this flowchart, which provides a recommended approach to identifying bottlenecks in your project.Finally, this Profiling and optimization reading list, created by our content and marketing teams, includes key blog posts that will help you understand profiling concepts and methods, from basic to advanced.My team is working hard to bring you the solutions you need for your most ambitious projects, and we’re always eager to understand how we can help you better.Stay tuned to updates in our public roadmap page. This is also the best place for you to share feedback directly with the product team.Watch the blog for our next Games Focus update, which will focus on what Unity is doing to help you target more platforms and form factors with your game content. And, as always, share your feedback with us on the forums.

A brief teaser for Fallout Season 2 has hit the internet, showing a new look at New Vegas.The clip, shown during the Amazon Upfront livestream overnight, was captured and uploaded on reddit. It shows Lucy (Ella Purnell) and The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) 50 miles out from what was Las Vegas. We hear the famous Geiger Counter sound, signifying radiation is in the air. The Ghoul and Lucy look at each other before heading towards New Vegas, and we get a good look at the post-apocalyptic city skyline.New Vegas is of course the setting for the Obsidian-developed Fallout: New Vegas, and the setting for Season 2 of the Fallout adaptation.So, what can we learn about the show's take on New Vegas from this teaser? Well, it’s more detailed than the brief look we got at New Vegas at the end of Season 1, which stands to reason. It will look familiar to anyone who's played New Vegas, although it appears more densely packed with buildings (the video game New Vegas was a relatively sparse location).The standout is of course the Lucky 38 Resort and Casino, which is on the New Vegas Strip. In the New Vegas video game, the Lucky 38 is the pre-War casino from which Mr. House runs the city. Fans also believe they can make out the Ultra-Luxe, but in truth it’s hard to discern individual video game locations from the shot here.PlayWarning! Potential spoilers for the Fallout TV show follow.The show is confirmed to be heading to New Vegas for Season 2, and it's not just about the location itself. Mr. House is set to be a part of the new season, though how involved he'll be is unclear. We've already seen the tease of some familiar sights thanks to previous set leaks, including this video that shows part of New Vegas and the iconic Lucky 38 resort and casino, all bright and lit up. It's certainly far from the rusty place you might expect.It’s worth remembering where we are in the Fallout timeline: the TV show is set in the year 2296, after all the Fallout video games. Fallout 4 takes place in the year 2287, while Fallout: New Vegas is set in the year 2281, a full 15 years prior to the events of the show.So, what happened in the 15 years since we last saw New Vegas? Co-showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet have said the setting has changed, and explained why that is important for fans to note.“All we really want the audience to know is that things have happened, so that there isn't an expectation that we pick the show up in Season 2, following one of the myriad canon endings that depend on your choices when you play [Fallout: New Vegas],” Wagner said last year.“With that post-credits stuff, we really wanted to imply, guys, the world has progressed, and the idea that the wasteland stays as it is decade-to-decade is preposterous to us. It’s just a place [of] constant tragedy, events, horrors — there's a constant churn of trauma. We're definitely implying more has occurred.”But what will happen when the Power Armor-clad Overseer Hank, played by Kyle MacLachlan, turns up (potentially after a dustup with a Deathclaw)? Some speculate Mr. House, the enigmatic ruler of New Vegas in the video game and dastardly boss of RobCo Industries in the TV show’s flashbacks to before the bombs fell, may enlist the help of Hank to restore New Vegas to its former glory. Perhaps, if that’s the way the story goes, the forces of Mr. House and New Vegas will end up taking on the Brotherhood of Steel in yet another Fallout faction battle, with Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul caught in the middle.Overnight, Amazon announced a December 2025 release window for Season 2, and confirmed Season 3. Last week, Aaron Moten, who plays Brotherhood of Steel hopeful Maximus, said the “endpoint” of the Fallout TV show has it running until Season 5 or Season 6.We had a great time with Season 1, writing in IGN's Fallout The Series review that the show is "a bright and funny apocalypse filled with dark punchlines and bursts of ultra-violence [and is] among the best video game adaptations ever made," slapping it with a well-earned 9/10.To help tide you over until Season 2, here's our interview with Todd Howard and Jonathan Nolan covering all our burning questions after the end of Season 1.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.