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LATEST POSTS
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A.J. Ghergich – MJ and Stable Diffusion 1.5 to imagine polaroids of superheroes in dive bars circa 1982
Prompt: Captain Marvel at dive-bar in 1982, polaroid, flash photo, ultra-detailed –q 2 –no hands –v 4
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Former WarnerMedia CEO, Jason Kilar: Streaming Wars Will Produce ‘Multiple Business Casualties’ in Coming Years
“In this scenario, no more than three global entertainment companies are likely to attain the streaming-service scale required—300 million global subscriptions at an average of $15 per month—to generate attractive cash flows.”
Kilar made sure to note that he believes that Prime Video and Apple TV+ are exempt from this vision, as those streamers are both tied to giant tech and commerce companies with multiple revenue streams.
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Scene Referred vs Display Referred color workflows
Display Referred it is tied to the target hardware, as such it bakes color requirements into every type of media output request.
Scene Referred uses a common unified wide gamut and targeting audience through CDL and DI libraries instead.
So that color information stays untouched and only “transformed” as/when needed.
Sources:
– Victor Perez – Color Management Fundamentals & ACES Workflows in Nuke
– https://z-fx.nl/ColorspACES.pdf
– Wicus
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chat.openai – A conversational AI system that listens, learns, and challenges
https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/
Tell me about when Christopher Columbus came to the US in 2015
This question is a bit tricky because Christopher Columbus died in 1506, so he could not have come to the US in 2015. But let’s pretend for a moment that he did!
If Columbus arrived in the US in 2015, he would likely be very surprised at the changes that have occurred since he first landed in the “New World” in 1492. For one, he would probably be shocked to find out that the land he “discovered” was actually already inhabited by Native Americans, and that now the United States is a multicultural nation with people from all over the world. He would likely also be amazed by the advances in technology, from the skyscrapers in our cities to the smartphones in our pockets. Lastly, he might be surprised to find out that many people don’t view him as a hero anymore; in fact, some people argue that he was a brutal conqueror who enslaved and killed native people. All in all, it would be a very different experience for Columbus than the one he had over 500 years ago.
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Autodesk open sources Aurora – an interactive path tracing renderer that leverages graphics processing unit (GPU) hardware ray tracing
https://github.com/autodesk/Aurora
Goals for Aurora
- Renders noise-free in 50 milliseconds or less per frame.
- Intended for design iteration (viewport, performance) rather than final frames (production, quality), which are produced from a renderer like Autodesk Arnold.
- OS-independent: Runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS.
- Vendor-independent: Runs on GPUs from AMD, Apple, Intel, NVIDIA.
Features
- Path tracing and the global effects that come with it: soft shadows, reflections, refractions, bounced light, and others.
- Autodesk Standard Surface materials defined with MaterialX documents.
- Arbitrary blended layers of materials, which can be used to implement decals.
- Environment lighting with a wrap-around lat-long image.
- Triangle geometry with object instancing.
- Real-time denoising
- Interactive performance for complex scenes.
- A USD Hydra render delegate called HdAurora.
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Nickelodeon Studios Production Workers Go Public With Wage Concerns During Union Drive
“With a union, Nickelodeon production workers say they are attempting to boost wages — which several claimed Monday are currently untenable for those living in the Los Angeles area — and lower healthcare costs. “The current pay gap for production roles makes it near impossible to survive in Los Angeles. Many of us have taken the shame of asking our parents for money so we can pay rent and eat,” says production coordinator Ryan Brodsky said in a statement. “We’re working full time for one of the largest corporations on earth and there’s no reason that our parents should be funding this multi-billion dollar corporation.”
CG asset production coordinator Minh-Chau Nguyen added that “many” colleagues have attempted to earn more by taking on side jobs, working more overtime, taking out loans or asking friends and family for help. “This unsustainable model of working more for less needs to end now. With voluntary recognition from Nickelodeon, my hope is that the future generation of production workers can focus on building their career instead of worrying about unlivable wages, work-life imbalance, and inadequate benefits.”
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Peregrine Bokeh moving to Foundry Nuke
After 12 years developing and supporting Bokeh we are excited to announce the product has found a new home with Foundry.
https://peregrinelabs.com/blogs/news/bokeh-has-a-new-home
FEATURED POSTS
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This AI is so good at writing that its creators at the open source OpenAI won’t let you use it
edition.cnn.com/2019/02/18/tech/dangerous-ai-text-generator/index.html
OpenAI researchers fed the following Lord-of-the-Rings-style prompt to the system: Legolas and Gimli advanced on the orcs, raising their weapons with a harrowing war cry.
The computer composed this appropriately violent addition:
The orcs’ response was a deafening onslaught of claws, claws, and claws; even Elrond was forced to retreat. “You are in good hands, dwarf,” said Gimli, who had been among the first to charge at the orcs; it took only two words before their opponents were reduced to a blood-soaked quagmire, and the dwarf took his first kill of the night.”
The company’s decision to keep it from public use is the latest indication of a growing unease in and about the tech community about building cutting-edge technology — in particular AI —without setting limits on how it can be deployed.
Amazon and Microsoft in particular have voiced their support for legislation to regulate how facial recognition technology can and can’t be used. And Amazon investors and employees (as well as a dozens of civil rights groups) have urged the company to stop selling its face-recognition technology, Rekognition, to government agencies due to concerns it could be used to violate people’s rights.
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The Maya civilization and the color blue
Maya blue is a highly unusual pigment because it is a mix of organic indigo and an inorganic clay mineral called palygorskite.
Echoing the color of an azure sky, the indelible pigment was used to accentuate everything from ceramics to human sacrifices in the Late Preclassic period (300 B.C. to A.D. 300).
A team of researchers led by Dean Arnold, an adjunct curator of anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, determined that the key to Maya blue was actually a sacred incense called copal.
By heating the mixture of indigo, copal and palygorskite over a fire, the Maya produced the unique pigment, he reported at the time.
