Videogames
Dwarf Fortress will get an adventure mode.
Lego 2K is Mario Kart meets Forza Horizon and Lego. Praises by Polygon, but I'm sure better sources like it as well.
A hex based defense against heroes game.
Videogames: Business
Nintendo extends the time to use 3DS and WiiU game codes.
Ubisoft won't be at E3. They will have a separate event. The people in charge of PAX, and the term ComicCon are now over E3. It is having a similar response. They're very corporate and the fun disappears.
Square Enix sells NFTs of Final Fantasy 7.
Kotaku is being paid by Microsoft. Bobby Kotick complains about working with Sony during the Microsoft merger very publicly.
Denuvo publishes a book against game emulation.
Videogames: Creation
Comparing Unreal Engine demo reels to games made by the same engine.
Procedural Generation in Unity. Could also be in AI.
Materials made in AI for Blender and other game creating programs.
Here's the website.
Free building builder for Blender.
The website
https://paveloliva.gumroad.com/l/buildify
Procedural content in Unreal Engine.
Videogames: Fan Made and mods
A fan made the entire theme park from Spirited Away in voxel.
Videogames: Classic
A look back at the creation of Command and Conquer.
Former Sims devs said men would lie about how much decorating they would do while playing.
Videogames: Classic Fan Made Excitebike 2 on Super Nintendo.
Doom on Commodore 64.
Dolphin will be released to Steam soon. The Wii and GameCube emulator would mean playing old games in 4K for those that want it. Yoho.
A fan tries to remake the pneumatic controls for the original Street Fighter.
Grove Street from GTA is remade in Unreal Engine Fortnite.
AR VR
Israeli company promotes eye tracking software to ease dizziness and nausea from VR use.
Apple will show off their new XR goggles on June 5th. They're making a big to do about it.
New $1,000 small goggles being showed off.
Themed Parks and Experiences
Disney has been making the news about their firings, but Universal has been slowly getting rid of their top shelf people with forced retirements.
Theme parks and Experiences: LARP
There have been a lot of LARP experiences, but this group seems to be making a living out of it. You pay to get in, play a character for a week and rack up various points in an experience.
They mention this hotel by Disney as competition. It's not doing well for several reasons, but the idea itself isn't bad.
LARP as a themed experience was started by a book by Larry Niven. It's one of my great inspirations.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Dream_Park.html?id=u7aQrw6Uo4oC#v=onepage&q&f=false
TV Film
Seth Rogen phoning in Donkey Kong.
Amy Jo Johnson explains why she wasn't on the big Netflix Power Rangers reunion show. She doesn't want to be 50 years old in spandex. However she then mentions Jason David Frank didn't want to do it either. He's usually up to it. So, the article has a sad twist.
In the mouth of madness is free on YouTube with ads.
Hidari looks awesome.
Comics
A review of a new Comic app. It goes into why Comixology sucks right now as well.
Batman gets a super power for the RWBY meet up. He doesn't like it.
Saitama is heavier than a city.
Books
Dragonlance is going to get a movie.
Cyberpunk is now mostly south east Asians telling stories with troons wanting to join in. Or so says this article.
Brandon Sanderson was called boring by a Wired author. There's even attacks on his religion. This was his response.
TTRPG
Dungeons and Dragons had a direct, and the next D&D will have Vecna.
The direct in question.
D&D coming to Minecraft.
From a different source.
AI Building an endless city with three AI methods. I love LinkedIn for it's techies. The butt kissing insanity is never fun.
Understanding MLOps. I work in multiple fields and each one uses Ops differently. It's annoying.
Hugging Face shows that Intel has an AI processor that can compete with Nvidia.
Using AI to upscale images.
A list of text to video AI you can use now. I tried Runway and felt it lacking.
AI: ChatGPT
An interactive game made by MidJourney and ChatGPT
Chat GPT can now read academic papers for you.
An academic used ChatGPT and other AI to promote a game he made.
ChatGpt in Blender.
Ways to get ChatGPT for free.
AI: Papers and Code
Nerf Fusion, it follows the movements of the camera to predict where things are placed. This creates a 3D image from a video. Said image can be exported to stuff like Blender or Unity.
https://jetd1.github.io/NeRFusion-Web/
Another NeRF paper.
Chat GPT on Unreal Engine with code.
https://github.com/TREE-Ind/UnrealGPT
The same with Blender.
https://github.com/TREE-Ind/Blender-GPT
NVidia uses AI to make full renders with light tracing. It can also be done in reverse.
Anti Cheating software for AI image creation.
Getting better angles in AI Images.
MIT introduces LiGo. The idea is to use smaller models that already know how to do specific things to create a large model.
AI: Propaganda
A letter by hundreds of tech leaders demand that AI be halted for 6 months.
Here is the Verge reporting the same thing.
The same by Wired.
The letter itself
The reason is AI has the potential to destroy the economy as we know it. So says Goldman Sachs.
And more organizations demand a pause in AI. Whoever ignores this, wins.
By coincidence Deep Mind and Google are teaming up to take on OpenAI. Guess who doesn't intend to pause?
Tech
More Internet of Things coming from Amazon. It's called Sidewalk.
Library app to be closed, because the creators made a different app.
Tech: Blender
Blender has just updated to 3.5. It has a new rendering and lighting tree and hair tools.
https://www.blender.org/download/releases/3-5/
Here's an article on it.
And another
Propaganda
Kentucky overrides governors veto and outlaws transgender surgeries for children. The NYT rails at it like it's death itself having a party with friends.
Netanyahu bites back at Biden's comments. Biden complained about the judicial overhaul and Netanyahu said in a tweet that he would not be advised by outsiders even good friends.
Republicans are stopping college students from voting the way we want! It is evil!
Congress has removed war powers given to president during both Iraq wars.
Weapon systems people complain that TimTok is stealing their power.
You're not going to believe this one, but people put money into Swiss banks to not pay tax on them. Yeah, I'm shocked too.
The Pope rejects the papal bulls from the 15th century that said it was ok to take other people's lands.
The TikTok ban is a betrayal of the open internet!
Propaganda: Russia
Russia arrests a reporter for spying.
The Fog of War is basically both sides are losing, and neither knows how much the other is losing. The winner is the one who lost the least. So, propaganda will be about how much the other side is losing.
Propaganda: Florida
Florida passes a bill that gives tax breaks for new buildings and housing while getting rid of rent control laws.
Florida Superintendent quits because she spent $100K on Elon Musk scheme and was caught.
Florida doesn't want kids to be 'Nice' anymore.
Propaganda: Disney
For a brief moment, Secret Invasion had a release date this week. Now it doesn't. All of Marvel has the Coming soon label right now. This would usually be in TV Film, but it fits with the rest.
It seems that Disney snuck in a land development clause that removed the rights of the county board. The newly created board is talking to lawyers now.
The layoffs at Disney have begun. First up, the guy who owned Marvel when it was bought. He wanted cheaper simpler stories that fit more to the comics. There have been a lot of bad articles about him over the years.
Here's another about Perlmutter.
Then we have Jeffrey Epstein who was a VP of communications for the company.
The entire Metaverse team is gone.
Disney has a backup plan that involves going into Asia.
Also the theme parks are looking a lot more family friendly suddenly.
https://archive.ph/PgTcW Propaganda: Donald Trump
Ivana Trump decades long investigation by the government is published. About 190 pages of it.
Chris Christie thinks he can take on Trump. The only thing he could win is an eating contest.
Propaganda: History
Swahili DNA tests show that the oral history of the people is more accurate than the way historians have viewed it. Muslim conquest wasn't as direct as believed. NYT uses Africa as a pet in the whole thing.
Business
Amazon begins flagging frequent item returners. This could be in tech or propaganda.
Cars
A white truck loses a wheel, and makes a Kia Flip. The truck driver tries to get away, but can't.
YouTube video of it happening
Science
Dementia will effect those with better education the same as anyone else. It's just harder to notice because the mind of a smart guy is already higher.
Using VR to study Autism
Then you design a nice square room around him with no doors. Very chic.