#this is my first project based on an existing IP

[the-other-puppet]

Just for the record, all the servers and dev stuff is all fanmade, all unofficial, if anything, this and the twitter account (and dime 4chan posts) are the only official source for now, that's all!!

have this little edit for this little fella

thanks for listening and see ya around! 💛

#deltarune #deltarune au #the other puppet #hope I didn't sound too rude #but a lot of people have already asked me #tbh I feel a little confused on what to feel when stuff like this happens #this is my first project based on an existing IP #I've heard about what happened with underfell or storyshift so #just to clear out

[felassan]

Some DA facts collected together, from recent tweets -

GhilDirthalen: "the frostbite engine didn’t do ending slides, so the slides you see in DAI are actually paintings that quickly spawn in your bed room. You can zoom out during the end with fly cam" John Epler: "i remember when we were trying to do these and we're like 'hey can we display still images' and the answer was 'uhh it's a lot more complicated than you think' so this was the solution. i set up all the cameras, and I THINK level design handled all the scripting logic" JE: "anyways videogames are basically held together by magic and hope and it's a legitimate miracle anytime one gets finished"

JE: "When you 'sprint' on a horse in DAI it doesn't really do much because frostbite couldn't stream in levels fast enough, so we just added speed lines and changed the camera so it felt faster. JE: "i've carried the guilt of this for years. guilt is an ocean, and i'm tired of drowning." "feels like I just murdered Santa Claus in front of many of you" [source], "feels like i just declassified Area 51" [source]. "i'm just glad the truth is finally out there" [source] Seb Hanlon: "ME1 did it first" JE: "just to be SUPER clear, riding a horse is faster than being on-foot, but the difference between normal horse run and horse 'sprint' is non-existent except for making it look faster". "the base horse speed is faster than unhorsed run speed, but horse sprint doesn’t move you faster than normal horse speed" [source] JE: "there were three days on that project where my entire job was ‘try to make horse sprint feel faster’" User: "I swear to god John I knew it, I fucking knew it, none of the mounts have different speeds, either?" JE: "i actually don't know the answer to that one, i just set up the gameplay cameras and did what what i was told." Seb: "but they have different sounds /screams in Red Hart" JE: "no one believed that's what a Red Hart really sounds like but they are fucked up animals."

Seb: "The save system in DAI loads with all doors in the area closed. This is a problem if there’s a door between you and a party member when the save happens, because they can’t open doors. If they can’t path to you, they get teleported to join you before the fade-up from black." Seb: "This “system” was rigged entirely in Frostbite Schematic logic quite late in development once we realized it was a problem." JE: "i vaguely remember that the first time we really saw this problem was when we were putting together the Redcliffe demo for... whatever event we showed Redcliffe at." Seb: "Yeah I think that was the map I tested the teleport-fallback in. Dorian was there in those saves for sure?" JE: "yeah 100%. it was when you first end up in the future and you're fighting your way to the locked-up followers. i think we were playing it in Hanged Man or Neverwinter and we discovered 'oh shit our followers can't get to you'"

Seb: "Zither’s first-pass ability icons originally echoed a broad swath of iconic album art. The UI art team made me so happy. Why didn’t it ship? Ain’t nobody chasing down those IP clearances for an April Fools DLC."

JE: "in DA2 Mark of the Assassin, if you let Baron Arlange live after the first encounter with him, he shows up very deep in the background of several scenes, creeping on Hawke and the party around stalagmites and around corners." "no one asked for this but i put it in as a little treat because i thought it was very funny. i still do. oh the scene where you get captured in the vault by Prosper and his guards, that's the same 5 (6?) guards just cycled through multiple times." [source, two]

JE: "i've told this story before but the reason Iron Bull's romance scene takes place in a separate tower is because the mocap for everyone walking in on you assumed that there was a doorway, and the player's bedroom ended up having stairs. so we moved the scene to the Sex Tower"

Seb: "DAI: To enable party followers’ AI to use their defensive abilities (dodge/block/parries), enemies spawn a “telegraph volume” as part of their ability wind-ups. This tells the party AI what kind of reaction it can use to counter (if it’s not on cooldown and it can branch in time)." "“Parry” telegraphs are the ‘weakest’ (can activate block, dodge, or parry abilities); “dodge” telegraphs are the ‘strongest’ (dodge or get fucked). There’s an all-abilities AI cooldown on these responses; before this was added, I saw Cass perfect block for minutes at a time." [source]

Seb: "the Qunari Ashaad in Trespasser is the only combat creature I personally implemented; and the only one intentionally plays both ranged and melee. and it was great fun watching play-testers climb a ladder to close and shut down his range attack—and get kicked off by the sweep"

Seb: "I’m still personally pleased that the Red Templar faction in DAI has such a strong overarching principle: “power corrupts”. The more elite the creature, the less human they are."

Seb: "Both the Children in DAO Awakening and the Harvester in DAO hide their extra body parts *inside* their torso mesh before they appear."

Seb: "Varric in DA2 is the most specialest snowflake; he’s not like any other dwarf because his rig includes all the Bianca animation bones."

Seb: "DAI’s Emerald Graves was the map where we hammered out the conceptual balance of using abilities based on the enemy composition and position."

Seb: "There’s an animation-driven movement mode in DAI that’s only used by a handful of large creatures; the dragon and the Red Templar Behemoth are the ones I remember."

Seb: "“making two combat creatures at melee range face, and not slide past, each other when they’re playing attack animations” took a surprising amount of problem solving on DAI; most of the basic-attack animations have both moving and standing variations for this reason."

Seb: "30 seconds of good combat gameplay takes more-or-less the same development effort as 10 minutes of good combat gameplay. Which is more than you’d think. IYKYK."

Seb: "The original concept for the Grand Fear Demon at the end of DAI’s Fade was a “level boss” - instead of a single big combat creature (like a dragon), the idea was it was so big it would attack out of the darkness with “limbs” (creatures) that shared a health pool. Cut for scope."

Seb: "The core combat ability animation/effects/branching system in DAI is called “CSM”, for “combat state machine”. It’s the third generation spiritual successor to the first system called CSM that I worked on, built for a project called Revolver…"

Seb: "The “impassable” purple fire zones in Trespasser were a tremendous pain in the ass, because both: - making them do enough damage fast enough to be a lock-and-key for invincibility powers as intended - keeping party members from following you in and getting bug-zappered" User: "I hate to tell you this but my first time through, I was determined to get through and I did not know that invincibility powers were literally down the stairs so I spent 10 minutes and eventually managed to get through with some mage shenanigans" Seb: "by the time we got to trespasser there were so many abilities you MIGHT have that MIGHT JUST get you through that we gave it our best shot and said “good enough”" User: "I died at that thing SO MANY TIMES until I realized there was an invincibility boost, lol" Seb: "clearly signaling “THIS IS A THING YOU WILL DO LATER” without saying it, especially if it’s a mechanical systems thing, can be surprisingly difficult"

Seb: "during development on DAI someone made a staff that, when used (hit the ground with the butt animation) spawned a bunch of nugs that ran off in all directions. for checking pathmesh bounds, obvs"

#dragon age #bioware #video games #mass effect #long post #longpost

[karniss-bg3]

Salute, Larian Studios

Heya folks! It’s been a while, I hope everyone is doing well. I’m breaking my hiatus to discuss the recent announcement made by Larian Studios on their steam development blog. I will add the link here for those who wish to read the blog in its entirety but be warned, there are patch seven spoilers within. I wish to focus on a particular section in the final three paragraphs of the document, which reads as follows:

“Being given the chance to develop a game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe has been a dream come true for all of us. But as Swen recently confirmed, we won't be introducing any major new narrative content to the story of Baldur's Gate 3 or its origin characters and companions, nor will we be making expansions or Baldur’s Gate 4. As an independent studio since 1996, we value the freedom to follow our creativity wherever it leads. In this case, after six years in the Forgotten Realms and much discussion and rumination, we’ve decided to seize this opportunity to develop our own IPs. We’re currently working on two new projects and we couldn’t be more excited about what the future has in store. It’s still early days - we’ll tell you more about those later down the line. But know that even as our focus turns to these new games, the sensibilities that brought you Baldur’s Gate 3 are alive and well here at the Larian castle. We’re fueled by the very same fire in our bellies, one that drives us to create immersive experiences shaped by your choices, and we can’t wait for you to join us on this next adventure.”

I will admit, when I first read this I felt a tinge of disappointment. As someone who had a lot of hope in seeing some stories continued, Kar’niss especially, this feels like the once open door is now sealed shut permanently. To be entirely fair, I always looked at an expanded Kar’niss story with skeptical optimism; hope for the best but expect the worst. After all, Kar’niss was designed as a throw away plot device that had no real bearing on the over-all narrative. Most of what has been derived of the character is entirely fan driven and not based on anything confirmed by Larian as a whole. Furthermore, there were many fan favorites that had a larger base than our dear drider and chances are even if Larian did decide to do an expansion, Kar’niss still wouldn’t make the cut.

With that said, I respect Larian in their choice. To expand on other characters would cost a lot of money and time. To juggle that alongside making new games would be unrealistic, and I understand their point of view completely. We also don’t know what is going on behind the scenes which could’ve influenced their choices all the more. Over all this situation mirrors the old saying, “Don’t cry because it’s over, be happy that it happened.” I am happy, and grateful. Without Baldur’s Gate 3 this blog wouldn’t exist. All of the amazing interactions I’ve had over several months would’ve never occurred, nor would I have found the courage to publicly publish stories to the internet. While I don’t consider myself an awful writer, I never believed my work was good enough for those outside of my personal circle. To say that my confidence has blossomed over the last few months is an understatement, and I owe that to the fantastic support of those in the fandom as well as those close to me. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

With Larian closing up the BG3 shop after the next few patches the question becomes, what’s next? For me, I don’t know. Sadly I’ve been swamped lately and it’s not destined to slow down until the middle of May. By then I hope to have a sufficient breather so I can return to projects I’ve left on the back burner in the interim. The Kar’niss blog will remain in place along with all of the archived stories, theories, and miscellaneous posts that are present. I still have a few writing requests that have waited a lot longer than I anticipated, so forgive me for the delay. I may also make a new blog that is dedicated solely to writing and other fandoms of interest. When the time comes I’ll post it here and folks can follow it if they wish but I’ll understand if not. Regardless of what the future holds, I am very stoked with the experiences I’ve had within the Baldur’s Gate 3 fandom. I’m a painfully shy individual and I am not a spotlight seeker by any stretch of the imagination. This section of the internet allowed me to expand my horizons a bit proving that you can indeed teach an old writer new tricks.

I look forward to seeing what is in store for Larian Studios. So long as they stick to their passion for making good games and treating their customers like people instead of money cows to be milked, then I will support every game release that comes in the future. While I’m sad that the many questions I had about Kar’niss will go unanswered, at least the drider will live on through the stories, art and other creative works made by his fans. In that way he is eternal, as are all of the other characters we’ve grown to love over this journey.

I hope to return on a more regular basis soon. Until then drider army, take care of yourselves and thank you for your continued support.

#baldur's gate 3 #kar'niss #bg3 #karniss #drider #baldurs gate 3 #larian studios #steam #essay #writing #I've missed posting here #the chaos on my end should be over soon #I hope

[selkra-souza]

The Moodsters Rabbit Hole

So I was bored one day and in my vain attempt to search the internet to find a knock off Inside Out movie to ironically enjoy, I find out that one does not exist. Vídeo Brinquedo, the studio behind the critically memed Ratatoing, has truly forsaken me, and alas, I can only dream. Instead of finding a rip off Inside Out movie, I ended up finding something that accused Inside Out of ripping off it, I'm talking suing. Turned out to be just as interesting.

The Moodsters is a multimedia edutainment brand and children's foundation centered around a cast of six monstrous critter "feelings detectives" called Moodsters. There's Coz, the yellow Moodster representing happiness, Snorf the blue Moodster representing sadness, Razzy representing anger, Quiggly representing fear, Lolly who represents love and Tully representing ... being calm I think? The Moodsters is an IP created by Denise Daniels and owned by JellyJam Entertainment (formally known as the Moodsters Company) who claim on their website (themoodsterschildrensfoundation.org, formally themoodsters.com) that they're "providing accessible science-based content on emotions for children, their parents, and teachers for more than 35 years". That science is based in collaboration with Marc Brackett PhD and Robin Stern PhD, to develop the RULER™ model for dealing with emotions. Besides their mission statement and credentials, their site currently has downloadable workbooks for kids to print and journal their thoughts and feelings on, along with guide booklets for their caretakers. Their children's foundation initiatives includes an "International Partnership for Children Displaced by War" and "Grief Relief with the Moodsters".

They've got a twitter account featuring one (1) post from 2016.

Let's dig deeper though. Hopping onto the Wayback Machine and searching for "Moodsters" will show you that they've had an online presence since 2008. Since then, the brand has gone through a few changes, and they've released a few toys and published a few books.

I first want to go over the plushies specifically because look at them.

They're adorable. I want to firmly grasp them in my hand. These goobers were sold in retail in the mid 2010s and nowadays are pretty rare in the second hand market. They look soft and I appreciate everything from their embroidered features to Snorf's lopsided face. From looking at them, I like the quality. My only complaint is that their little detective capes lack edge stitches, which would make them more prone to tears, and I'm not convinced they have an accessible way to replace their batteries (though I could be wrong). Overall as a plushie lover though, I want them in my home so I can invite them to tea parties and have them sit on my bed.

Their website in 2015 teased a mobile app called, The Moodsters: Learn About Feelings, which - as far as I could search - does not exist. This page lists features such as an interactive story book, a Mood Meter that "gives children a basic vocabulary of feelings and helps them express themselves" by using a thermometer-shaped mood meter to take one's "feelings 'temperature'", a Moodster Mirror that "helps them make the connection between feelings on the inside and facial expressions on the outside" with demonstrations of 25 different emotions, and a Feelings Notebook that's an art program. The development of this app is no longer mentioned on the site currently, so it's probably a scrapped project.

At some point there was a Moodster themed memory match browser game and coloring pages (hard to tell if they were browser coloring games or printables).

Some of the features from the what would've been the app actually made it to market as toys. These toys were colorful little detective supplies. One for (almost) each Moodster. The top image of this very long post actually features each Moodster with their chosen detective tool on-hand. Coz wields a Moodster Mirror, Razzy carries a Moodster Meter, Quiggly has an emotional support Feelings Flashlight and Lolly writes in a Feelings Notebook, all (at some point) available at your (once) local Toys R Us. Whatever Snorf is carrying hasn't made it to market it seems, but it's apparently a First Aids Kit for Feelings (mentioned here). I can't find what Tully's item is supposed to be. Perhaps it's emotional identification cards, or positive affirmations? Who knows. My favorite out of these has got to be the notebook, mainly because I'm a sucker for cute stationary. I'd fold and decorate a little cardboard box just to house those crayons just for keepers sake.

And have I even mentioned the yoga mats?

Almost every plushie and detective tool toy appears to come with a picture book. I can't comment on most of the books since I can't buy any that still happen to be available as of now, but luckily there is a read along video I found shown below of one of them. It prominently features a more recent addition to the Moodsters lore, the human children.

These side characters where featured on the site as recent as October 2023 (I neglected to take a snapshot, so here's another from June), but are nowhere to be seen on the website now besides the older downloadable worksheets. There's a chance they've since been retired.

It's exactly as boring as I feared that it would be. Obviously, I'm far from being in the target demographic for this anymore as an adult, nor am I any expert of child psychology beyond one elective course I took in university, but the one credibility that I do have is that I remember my personal tastes from when I was a kid, so I can comment on this from that perspective. I will say if I was handed this as a little kid, I would've liked the little monster dudes, but my attention would've shifted away from this pretty quickly and easily, because the little monster dudes aren’t really doing much. I was one of those kids that was really drawn to creature characters way more than I ever was to human characters (and to be perfectly honest, I still am as an adult, but that's besides the point I'm about to make). The plot of the book is perfectly serviceable with a good message about altruism, so that's not the problem. My grievance is with the fact that the human boy Zach takes center stage as the main character, when one would think that the main characters would be the Moodsters. They kind of take a back seat working on the sidelines for the most part here, and don't directly interact with Zach that much. Would've been hard for kid-me to latch onto this when the cool critter characters don't have as much of an active role as they could have. Not every kid is going to be as drawn to critter characters as I was (and am), but if the critter characters are going to be the face of your preschool IP, they should be presented front and center as much as they can be. Children's picture books are a media format that isn't particularly long nor complex, so their biggest strengths are in the characters and the art. If it were open to changes, I'd make a few: I'd have the Moodsters be just a bit more proactive, such as the suggestion to buy Sam a new bike coming from Coz or maybe Lolly instead of his sister Zoey, have them discover the "feelings emergency" while they're hanging outside with Zach and Sam instead of by spying on them with their cool and fancy desk setup, maybe have a one or two page mini side plot where Razzy's anger at the truck driver is addressed and resolved with breathing exercises or something, and change the art style to 2D illustrations to allow more dynamic poses and expressions since the 3D models and environments used here are pretty okay but nothing that stands out too much (or just instead use more expressive 3D models). No major changes that would fundamentally change the book, just enough to give the Moodsters more spotlight and expressions. Overall, as is, it's an okay children's book, just nothing that really stands out much as unique.

Back in the 2000s, there was an animated pilot for the Moodsters (with art and animation direction by Drew Bloom) featuring different designs of them and an additional cat girl not present in the current iteration named Moodini voiced by Grace Garland. The earliest legible Wayback Machine snapshot for the Moodsters (May 16, 2008) lists their names as Zazz, Rizzi, Scootz, Snorf and Oola". Now, I unfortunately can't find the full pilot, only the intro, which is a massive bummer because it's the most interesting piece of Moodsters media I've encountered. Apparently, according to a few articles and court documents (we'll get to the lawsuit later I promise) it was titled "The Amoodsment Mixup", and said to be officially available in its entirety on Youtube ... only it's not there. It must've gotten unlisted or removed by the company owner, which is really disappointing since it looks like a fun watch. It's gone probably because it's an outdated interpretation of the Moodsters, which makes sense for the company to remove, but it's disheartening that I can't find it archived anywhere on the internet.

To comment on the intro that we can watch: I'm really digging these older designs! They've got that Muppet look to them with the high eye placement but with smaller mouths, and they've got more varied facial structures and come in different heights, along with overall looking more monstrous. The literal emotional roller coaster is a cute touch too! Honestly I wished they kept these looks, they're peak. I can't find an officially stated reason for the design overhaul and reboot of the IP; my only guess as to why was in order to incorporate human children for the Moodsters to interact with, so that the brand would be more relatable for kids and more easily applicable to them as an emotional analysis tool. There's merit to that decision I'm sure, but I personally prefer this older version because the Moodsters here look more critter-ly and kind of seem to just hang out in the woods doing their own thing, instead of having more "marketable" designs and hanging out directly educating human children. I was a kid in the 2000s, if this animation pitch made it to air on PBS, I absolutely would've tuned in to see these goobers. I likely would have enjoyed it as much as Dragon Tails, Cyberchase and Arthur, as long as the education came second to characters and story (as opposed to more overtly educational shows like Super Why). Honestly, I'm really bummed this pilot wasn't picked up for a full show, or heck, I can't even find the full pilot anywhere :(

Speaking of old iterations, I really want to show off these old renders of the Moodster headquarters I found digging through Wayback Machine snapshots from (June 29, 2014). It's the Emote Control Headquarters, which was seen in one page of the book in the read along video linked above, but with more detail in the background surrounding the central desks and not in Zach’s room. It seems these renders were to be how their headquarters looked before the human characters were added to the lore. And lemme tell you I adore the amount of detail put into these! I've mentioned the fancy desk setups from the book, and they're shown here again. It's got to be my favorite design aspect for the Moodsters, because each one has their own personalized setup that's color coded and decked out in decor. Coz has some sports equipment at his desk, Lolly's got art supplies, Quigly's got a telescope, and so on. It's a really good way to visually show off their personalities, since they admittedly don't have that much personality otherwise. My hot take is that it way more creative than the console in Inside Out because of its attention to detail. These colorful set pieces are peak kids show aesthetic appeal to me, especially the third image with the ambient lighting. This holdover is something I'm glad made it to more recent Moodster products like the book mentioned above, even if it doesn't make that much sense for them to have such elaborate setups to monitor on the kid they live in the same house with, but it sure as heck at least looks cool.

Remember when I said that this was something that accused Inside Out of ripping it off? Well we’re finally getting to that. I have no formal education on law keep in mind, so here's my understanding on the situation: in Daniels v. Walt Disney, The Moodster Company filed suit against Disney for breaching an "implied-in-fact contract". The gist of the matter is that the Moodster Company had pitched their IP to several companies, the relevant one here being Disney, during the 2000s (likely the animated pilot mentioned earlier was what was pitched), and accused Disney of using the ideas they pitched to produce the film Inside Out, and failing to compensate The Moodster Company for it. It was an accusation of copyright infringement. Disney filed to have this case dismissed, claiming The Moodster Company "failed to meet the legal standard for copyright in a character", basically that the Inside Out emotion characters are not rip offs of the Moodster characters. Ultimately the court granted Disneys' dismissal, because The Moodsters are "lightly sketched" and "are not protectable by copyright". This was determined by the "Towle test" (based on Mark Towle v. DC Comics), which has three criteria for making a character design eligible for copyright protection:

" (1) has “‘physical as well as conceptual qualities,’” (2) is “‘sufficiently delineated to be recognizable as the same character whenever it appears’ and ‘display[s] consistent, identifiable character traits and attributes,’” and (3) is “especially distinctive’ and ‘contain[s] some unique elements of expression.’” " ~ McDermott Will & Emery

It was determined that The Moodsters met criteria (1) but not the later two, mainly because of the several redesigns and name changes the Moodster characters have gotten over the years, ultimately making them inconsistent and indistinctive. The Moodster characters also didn't pass the “Story Being Told test”, because in what little media they have been in, they don't have a proactive enough role nor go through any character arcs nor at least have any unique personality quirks that would make them distinguished characters, instead their personalities are summed up with a short description in their pitchbook and otherwise only just kind of exist. I'd hate to side with the massive corporation for pretty much any reason, but it's a stretch for The Moodster Company to have claimed that Disney ripped them off with inside Out. If the Moodsters had more consistent designs and personalities that Disney-Pixar copied in the Inside Out emotions, there would've have been a case, but that case isn't here. However, I don't think it was completely unreasonable for The Moodster Company to take the legal action that they did, even if they didn't really have much of a legal leg to stand on, because the creator of the company, Denise Daniels had directly pitched the Moodsters to Disney and a contract was involved. I can imagine pitching your idea about personified emotions to a huge company like Disney only for them to come out with their own personified emotions movie a few years later to feel like a contractual stab to the back. One last tidbit mentioned in the court documents though, the most interesting claim Daniels makes is that she discussed the Moodsters with Inside out director Pete Doctor, though the context for when and why this discussion took place isn't known. If that's true, it's very possible that Inside Out took inspiration from the Moodsters, as in, the general idea of personified emotions. The movie is also known to be inspired by Doctor's own daughter, so if anything, this is a case of taking inspiration at most, not copyright infringement. It just goes to show that even though the Moodsters is, first-and-foremost, an emotional educational tool, it's still worth the effort to make your educational tool have an iconic narrative with distinct characters at the very least. It's also interesting to learn that the history of the Moodsters is more intertwined with Inside Out than I initially guessed. If this law suit has taught me anything, it's that the more you redesign your commercially public OCs, the less they are eligible for copyright protection. Weird to think about, in my opinion. (sources and relevant court documents (1), (2) and (3)).

The last thing I want to talk about extensively are the designs of the Moodsters themselves. Honesty, I like them. I think they're cute! I probably wouldn't have have written all of this text if I didn't. I dig the idea of having little fluffball monsters represent emotions, even if they have that generic preschool edutainment mascot look to them. I prefer their pilot designs, but the current designs have been growing on me. You might have noticed the green one got redesigned into the orange one to make room for another green one. Or maybe you didn't notice because they both look the same. In fact, they all kind of look the same save for the colors and outfits. They admittedly are not the same exact 3D model copy pasted with different colors and clothes (each have different shaped ears, cheek fur, facial features and heights), but they're all so similar to each other overall that they're still hard to distinguish. The only bad thing about their designs are the fact that their silhouettes look near identical, really.

If I gave you only half a second to tell them apart based on this image, you'd probably have a difficult time. I'd imagine the preschoolers they're marketed to would as well. Now, a bad silhouette is a pretty fundamental character design issue, but it's easily fixed by just reshaping them with different body types. For fun, I tried my hand at it shown below. Essentially they're the same but with more exaggerated shapes, along with digitgrade legs and short tails to help sell the monstrous look. I drew Tully (the current green one) a little later after the original five (digitally, while the former five were drawn traditionally). It's a first draft that could be improved upon more, because if these critters need anything apparently, it's yet another redesign. I did have fun with it though!

Since I like the pilot animation, it got me thinking about how I might reboot the Moodsters for a hypothetical animated show. I’d change the lore a bit. The main change I’d make is scrap the fact that they live in Zach’s house. They’re not like his fairly oddparents or anything to my knowledge, so there’s no need for them to hang out exclusively (or even primarily) with him. Instead of only helping Zach out with his emotions, I’d have them help out everyone in the whole town with them. This would allow the Moodsters (and the audience) to experience a diverse cast of human characters with a wider variety of life and emotional problems. The Moodsters could help out other children, parents, teachers, the baker, the librarian, the mayor, basically there’s a lot more possibilities than Zach alone would ever provide. A diverse cast of townspeople characters would make it more likely that the audience will relate to at least one of them. Having them help out adults would teach kid audiences that even adults need help with their emotions (because boy do we ever), along with giving this show an all ages appeal (so parents would actually want to watch it together with their kids, or heck, even teens, and adults who don’t have children). It’d be an episodic show that focuses on introducing characters with emotional problems that the Moodster main characters help solve, with the townspeople being better neighbors to each other for it. I personally would avoid any fourth wall breaking (“talking down to”) teaching moments because I personally hated that in shows when I was a little kid (I’m looking at you Dora) and it would bore older viewers. Again, I'm going for a aimed-at-young-children-but-has-an all-ages-appeal. All you really need to teach young kids via a show (again I'm far from an expert, I'm making assumptions based on my anecdotal experiences as a child) in an engaging way is interesting character interactions going through a well written plot honestly, and their caregiver being there with them to talk about it with them.

Also, why isn't there a disgust Moodster? Disgust is a lot more than just wincing your nose at duck poop on the sidewalk, it's a feeling that can shape your entire worldview - particularly about other people - if you don't take the time to analyze it like you would other emotions. It's probably the emotion that's talked about and understood the least and absolutely should have a place in an educational tool that teaches about how to identify and handle emotions. Waltzing around with unchecked disgust can mold a person into an needlessly judgmental snob, at worst a bigot (something I sadly have witnessed growing up with my own parents). Again, for fun, I designed one shown below. Admittedly, she's inspired a bit (a lot) by Rarity from My Little Pony. The gem emblem on her detective cape represents her meticulous sense of aesthetics, since she's the most artistic of the Moodster group. She’s purple because that’s the only color left.

Listen, the Moodsters new detective hideout could be in a burrow under a tree stump in the park, there could be a hotline the townspeople can call to summon them for their help with emotional problems, the park could have a year round carnival with a whole ride dedicated to the Moodsters because they’re beloved by the townspeople called the Emotional Rollercoaster that’s a callback to the coaster in the animated pilot. The whole town could be called “Moodsville” or something. One of the school mascots can be a cow (because MOOdsters) with rainbow colored spots that represent each Moodster. Townspeople can participate in all sorts of community activities like community gardening and hanging out at rec centers. The Moodsters can emotionally help children acting for the school play or college students picking careers or parents handling a messy divorce, the possibilities are truly endless.

That's everything I can find online about the Moodsters. I pretty much focused more on the Moodster media as apposed to them as a children's foundation mainly because I find the media more interesting, and it was easier to find information on. If you're reading this and happen to know any other other info about it (especially if it's about the pilot animation), definitely tell me about it because my intrigue pertaining to these fuzzy goobers is immense.

I think it's an IP with a lot of potential, and one that's struggled to have much of any footing on the general public these past few decades. Pretty much any rare recent mention of the Moodsters online is in reference to their lawsuit against Disney, and it's disfavorable on the part of the Moodster Company since a quick-glance-view of the situation shows a company that sued for a copyright infringement case that ultimately looked silly.

I do like their mission statement about aiming to help children and their caretakers to better understand and cope with their emotions, because emotions really are ignored, misunderstood and dismissed a lot here in countries like the US, leading to many dysfunctional interactions between family, coworkers, and communities at large. Discovering the Moodsters has certainly inspired me to be more mindfull about my feelings, and I hope this 9 page wall of text has inspired you to do the same.

Fingers crossed that the Moodster Company re-releases those plushies in the future

#long post #essay #selkra squawks #the moodsters #moodsters #inside out #inside out fandom #pixar inside out #disney inside out #Youtube

[ecrivainsolitaire]

Open Art Guild – Testing the boundaries of collective IP ownership

Experimental release: Dr. T’chem’s Office (authorised for personal and commercial use)

I’ll try to keep this brief (you can read the full thesis statement here) but as we all know, intellectual property law is broken. It’s being exploited from every side and art workers are more vulnerable than ever to automation, copyright theft and myriad other unforeseeable forms of theft from the proletariat. We as a collective need to come together and work towards the creation of a better future.

The Open Art Guild is my proposal for the first of many steps towards a far away but necessary goal: the eradication of intellectual property as it pertains to the arts. It’s based on the open source standard and the creative commons, and the goal is for us to start creating a future where we stop thinking of artworks as private property to hoard, and start sharing the responsibilities and the benefits of their creation with the collective. And as I am proposing the idea, I should give the first step.

Which is why I am announcing the release of my short story series, Dr. T’chem’s Office, into the Open Art Guild license. This is an episodic HFY comedy series about the office hours of a sleazy yet well intentioned xenoanthropologist in charge of human integration into the crew of a spaceship, who happens to find them fascinating. You can read the first few instalments here:

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |

The basics of the license go as follows: I’m giving any artist permission to use the assets of my artwork (in this case, settings, characters, plot lines and other unique concepts) both for personal use and for commercial use, provided they commit to crediting the original artist, giving away 30% of any profit back to the hands of the collective in the breakdown the guidelines specify, and giving the same license to any works they create derivative from this series. Any artist can join the Guild by remixing existing artworks in its database or voluntarily submitting their own works. For the time being this prototype model will have to rely on the honour system, but I have outlined the basic guidelines for a platform dedicated to facilitating the Guild’s business and income redistribution.

The purpose of this experiment is to test whether this system is financially viable, what modifications it needs, and how to enforce it. It’s also a way to study what the community thinks of this model. To summarise the implications, here are the pros and cons as I see them.

Pros:

- All fan art, spin-offs, third-party merchandise and other forms of adaptation become automatically authorised and monetisable, provided both the original artist and the remixer are active members of the Guild.

- All adaptations are automatically non-exclusive and must give away the same rights as the original, diminishing the incentive for massive corporations to try and scam an artist out of their intellectual property.

- It effectively unionises freelance artists of all fields to balance out negotiations with non Guild entities.

- It encourages artists to continue their output in order to reap the benefits of the Guild, by using the redistribution system as an incentive, instead of the current status quo where artists are actively fighting market forces all by themselves in order to make enough time and resources to work on their craft.

- It provides a safety net where everyone is invested in the continuous welfare of everyone else, giving a sense of class solidarity and facilitating donations and shared resources.

- It motivates artists to invest in each other, as the growth of one means the growth of the whole Guild.

- Eventually, if the project succeeds and the proposed platform comes to exist, it would effectively create a universal basic income for all Guild members, as well as a self sustained legal fund to protect their assets from IP theft by non Guild entities.

- It will give you complete control over whether your art can be used for AI dataset training, on an opt-in, post-by-post basis, so you don’t have to wonder who might be stealing it. If the platform is created, all works whose creators have not authorised to be used for this will have data scrambling features to make sure thieves can’t use them.

Cons:

- It will require all Guild members to permanently renounce to 30% of their profit, in order to build up the funds and distribution system.

- It will have to be built entirely on trust of the collective, at least until a platform can be established, which may take weeks or may take decades depending on lots of unpredictable factors.

- Leaving the Guild will require all artworks shared with the collective to become Creative Commons; once you renounce your right to monopoly of your IP, it’s permanent, no way to go back. This is necessary in order to prevent asset flippers and other forms of IP scabs to join the Guild, extract other people’s assets and then scram.

- Due to banking regulations entirely out of our hands, some artists will have participating in the redistribution. If the platform ever becomes a reality, one of its main goals will be to remedy this immediately.

This proposal requires a high cost, but it provides an invaluable reward. If the system works, it will empower all artists to profit from their work and protect it as a collective. If it doesn’t, all that will have happened is that you will have created a lot of Creative Commons art, which financially isn’t ideal, but artistically is extremely commendable. Even in the worst case scenario, corporations will not be able to hold your art hostage with exclusivity deals. To me, the benefits vastly outweigh the costs, but I do want to emphasise: there will be costs. This is an effort to subvert the entire way art has been monetised since the 1700s. It will require a lot of work, a lot of people, and a lot of time, to make it work. But I believe it can work. If you believe it too, you are welcome to join the Open Art Guild.

Please do read the guidelines for the Guild and the guidelines for the platform before you start creating, and give me whatever feedback you have. If it’s good, if it’s lacking, if I’m overstepping legal boundaries, if you can find loopholes, anything. I tried to make it airtight but I’m not a legal expert. This is not my project, it is a project for the proletariat. Everyone should have a say on what they’re signing on for. And regardless of what you think, share it with all artists you can. This will only work if as many people as possible participate.

Doctor T’chem’s Office’s license

This work has been released under the Open Art Guild license, and has been approved for reuse and adaptation under the following conditions:

For personal, educational and archival use, provided any derivative works also fall under a publicly open license, to all Guild members and non members.

For commercial use, provided redistribution guidelines of the Guild be followed, to all active Guild members.

For commercial use to non Guild members, provided any derivative works also fall under a publicly open license, with the explicit approval of the artist and proper redistribution of profit following the guidelines of the Guild.

For non commercial dataset training of open source generative art technologies, provided the explicit consent of the artist, proper credit and redistribution of profit in its entirety to the Guild.

Shall this work be appropriated by non Guild members without proper authorisation, credit and redistribution of profit, the non Guild entity waives their right to intellectual property over any derivative works, copyrights, trademarks or patents of any sort and cedes it to the Creative Commons, under the 4.0 license, irrevocably and unconditionally, in perpetuity, throughout time and space in the known multiverse. The Guild reserves the right to withhold trade relations with any known infractors for the duration its members deem appropriate, including the reversal of any currently standing contracts and agreements.

#Open Art Guild #OAG #open source #humans are weird #space australia #humans are space orcs #humanism #Dr. T'chem's office #Trix Zubenel #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #hfy #intellectual property #copyright law #ip law #fair use #creative commons #public domain #worker solidarity #anti capitalist #collective action #redistribution of wealth #class solidarity #late stage capitalism #wga strong #sag strike #anti ai #generative art #artificial intelligence #fan art

[natlacentral]

IAN OUSLEY | YOU WANT FRESH KICKS, HUH? PUT THESE FRESH KICKS IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT

Ian Ousley is an American actor hailing from College Station, Texas. This year he reprised the role of Sokka in the much anticipated live-action adaptation of the Netflix fantasy series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Here we sit down with the actor to discuss his latest project, his process and his style influences.

When you start a creative project like Avatar does it consume you or do you strike a balance? Does your acting and your personal life feel separate or very much attached?

Doing a creative project is a very intimate thing for me. I feel like the relationship between my life and these creative endeavors is that they just end up merging together. When I’m filming a project, it becomes my life. It might just be because I haven’t learned how to do both at the same time but my biggest concern when I sign onto something, especially something like Avatar that means so much to so many people, is to give my everything to the work that I can. It took about 13 months in Canada to film Avatar, and it really became my life.

The people that started out as co-workers like my co-stars Dallas, Kiawentiio, and Gordon have become like siblings to me. I had the opportunity for the last year and a half to live some life away from the project while we were waiting for the release and that felt very separate from the show but I didn’t feel separated from the people I met on set. We all still stayed in touch, especially me and Dallas because he lives in LA as well.

How are you approaching taking on a role in a series that has such a passionate fan base? How is this fan base influencing your work and preparation? Is there a new or familiar angle from the cartoon series of Avatar you want to bring to the role?

I was a part of that passionate fanbase before I was cast and that definitely influenced my prep. I rewatched the first season of the original show and tried to embody the soul of who Sokka is but I did a lot of journaling and asked myself a lot of questions about how to show the humanness of Sokka and match the tone of the show we were making while honoring the original animated series. It was fun to dive into the vulnerability of Sokka while maintaining the comedic elements of who he is. It’s rare to find that balance with a character so it was really exciting for me to get to wrestle with.

What is unique about your acting process for this particular role in Avatar? How did you prepare for the physical aspect of the role? 

Well this was my first time preparing for a role that came with pre-existing IP, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because you have so much to pull from with the show and knowing what the character’s arc is going to be and the comics and getting to really dive into the world that you will be bringing to life. The curse is that everyone who is familiar with the IP has a visual representation of the character in their head and loves it, so the balance really becomes how do I stay truthful to who this character is while getting to add the components of what isn’t there already, which is him being a real human going through real human emotions. The way I prepared physically was really just unlearning some of my martial arts techniques that I have and acting like I’m untrained.

What do you want people to take away from the series?

I want our show to inspire people to embrace family whether that be blood-related or chosen family like the Aang gang.

What emotions are most tied to creativity in your acting process in this show? Which emotions trigger ideas and inspiration and which do not?

For me, intellectualizing emotions while acting doesn’t always mix very well. For Sokka, who is 16 and has a lot riding on his shoulders, I don’t think he always knows why he’s feeling what he’s feeling. He often pushes down his true emotions or covers them up to protect his sister and his tribe. So, I think that is where I pulled my inspiration for a lot of my creative choices for him.

Which of the four elemental powers are you really and why?

I think that I would be a water bender because it correlates the closest to being an artist in my opinion. Being a creative in general is often becoming formless and shapeless in the words of Bruce Lee.

How does fashion influence your life and how does life influence your fashion? Do the two work in conjunction? How has your style changed as your career has progressed? Do you have a staple piece that feels most personal?

Fashion is awesome because people infer a lot about you just from what you’re wearing on the daily. So, my life definitely influences my fashion because I’m often dressing based on what I’m feeling when I wake up that morning. My style has changed drastically in the last 2 years and I’ve gravitated towards a lot of black and white clothing and experimenting with layers.

My style has also evolved into a lot of highs and lows. I love zip-up hoodies and dress shirts and really exaggerated silhouettes right now. The most personal part of my wardrobe is my jewelry and most of the time I have on a cross necklace from Tiffany and Co. that my great aunt gave me, which has been a staple for me since I was 16.

#natla #atla #ian ousley #netflix avatar #netflix atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar netflix #atla netflix #photoshoot #interview #flaunt magazine #Youtube

[melyzard]

The (Near) Future of Internet Privacy

Some news on the internet security/personal privacy front that you may find useful:

FTC Announces Plans to Begin Important Privacy Rulemaking (Source: Commondreams.org, 11Aug, 2022)

On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission opened its long-anticipated rulemaking on measures to stop corporations and other commercial actors from abusing people’s personal data. In June, the agency announced that it was considering this rulemaking to safeguard privacy and create protections against algorithmic decision-making that results in unlawful discrimination. Today it released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“ANPR”) on the topic. This is the first step in building a formal agency record for potential regulations that would be based on public comments about “commercial surveillance and data security practices that harm consumers.”

INVISV Launches PGPP (Pretty Good Phone Privacy) to Provide a New Level of Privacy for Mobile Communications (Source: Associated Press, 8 Aug 2022)

  In a nutshell, when you use Relay to visit a website or use an app, your phone will send an encrypted signal to INVISV, which will then pass that request along to a second relay point which is operated by the Fastly, a content delivery network. This has the effect of separating your IP address from your data traffic, with neither INVISV nor Fastly having all the information required to know which data was sent to which phone. 

[[NOTE: I’m not advocating for this new carrier, I’m just making a note that it exists and will be watching to see how it preforms as it is released]]

Watchdogs Say FTC Must Foster Internet 'Free from Unwanted Surveillance' (Source: Commondreams.org, 12Aug, 2022)

"The need for protections against companies' over-collection and retention of sensitive data has also come into stark relief as state prosecutors subpoena tech companies for private information about people seeking reproductive healthcare information and services.”

The importance of protecting privacy in a post-Roe world (Source: techxplore.com, 12 Aug, 2022)

  "Big Tech has shown again and again that they will choose monetizing user data over protecting individual privacy, and the federal government has been reluctant to offer serious regulation," she says. "So if people want to keep their information private, especially when it comes to reproductive care, the time to learn the basics of online privacy is now. Some of my favorite resources are the Our Data Bodies project, the Tech Learning Collective, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

[[NOTE: Worth looking at the links in that last paragraph, particularly Our Data Bodies project]]

#you need to protect yourself #internet security #personal privacy #online data #data harvesting #surveillance #civil rights #technology #things to look into

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Here we are... Best Animated Feature noms...

My predictions were 4-out-of-5...

THE BOY AND THE HERON, NIMONA, ROBOT DREAMS, and SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE all got in...

The one I got wrong was TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM, which to be fair, I did say in my previous post that that one was the wild card out of my predictions. Despite the high praise and tons of nominations TMNT:MM got elsewhere, in addition to a single win, I guess those who were nominating it for the Oscar just didn't think the oozy gross-out turtle action-superhero movie cut it.

Instead, we have ELEMENTAL, so Disney Pictures gets at least one slot this year. The last time they were shut out entirely was for the features of 2011, the year they released the critical dud CARS 2 and the completely dumped WINNIE THE POOH. I was pretty sure that this year, they also wouldn't make it. ELEMENTAL's critical reception was fine at best, nowhere near the acclaim MUTANT MAYHEM got. WISH was both a critical and commercial dud, so that had no chance, only ELEMENTAL did... Maybe the Academy just didn't feel like pulling a 2018 and nominating two superhero action animated movies. Maybe they decided to have just one IP-based movie in the race, and opted for an original story. (As NIMONA and ROBOT DREAMS are based on pre-existing source material, BOY AND THE HERON references a novel that plays a part in its story.) Maybe something else about it wasn't all to their liking. Maybe Disney is just that powerful that they got themselves a slot.

I still think this is a strong line-up, and again, it speaks to how robust this year was for features both mainstream and independent.

And I will admit, even though I wasn't in love with the movie, ELEMENTAL getting into the race is very nice, I feel. Director Peter Sohn's first Pixar feature, THE GOOD DINOSAUR, was both a box office flop and didn't get a nominated for the Oscar (it shared the year with sister Pixar movie INSIDE OUT). It was also a film that he inherited after its original director got removed from it. ELEMENTAL was his personal project from the ground-up, and after a rough opening and all the press jeering that it was going to be this big flopperooni, it had excellent legs at the box office... and now... It has a Best Animated Feature nom. Talk about staying power! Maybe Pete Docter should think twice about that statement he made back in the summer, about trying to go back to Pixar's "roots" in trying to figure out what audiences supposedly want from this studio.

Anyways, Pixar usually gets a nom every year. For 2022's animated features, TURNING RED was in the running. 2021, LUCA. 2020, SOUL, which won for that year. Last time Pixar didn't get a nom at all was for 2016, their sole feature that year was FINDING DORY. Got good reviews and made beaucoup bucks, but it shared a year with Disney Animation's ZOOTOPIA and MOANA, two heavy hitters which ended up getting the noms. So, outside of FINDING DORY, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, and CARS 2, Pixar usually never misses a nom whenever they release a single movie in a calendar year.

Most of Paramount's Oscar noms in animation were for DreamWorks movies they released circa 2006-2012, which are all now Universal movies since Comcast owns all of DreamWorks Animation outright. Funnily enough, the inaugural Best Animated Feature nominations included Paramount's JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS, which was up against eventual winner SHREK, and MONSTERS, INC. Paramount then began distributing DreamWorks movies in 2006, and scored nominations with KUNG FU PANDA, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, KUNG FU PANDA 2, and PUSS IN BOOTS. For a non-DreamWorks nom, there was RANGO, which won for Best Animated Feature of 2011... Ever since then? Only one movie, ANOMALISA. The films they released from 2015 to now just never made it: SHERLOCK GNOMES, WONDER PARK, SPONGEBOB 3, RUMBLE, etc. MUTANT MAYHEM really had a good shot at getting in... Maybe TRANSFORMERS: ONE surprises later this year, I don't know. Paramount's animation history post-80s is so weird...

Anyways, congrats to everyone. I'm personally rooting for either BOY AND THE HERON, or NIMONA.

[confused-possum]

I saw a deadline article saying Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia all have sequels in the works. It made me think about how I feel sad for Toy Story. I watched the movies a lot as a kid (apparently; I don’t remember — these are my mothers words you have to trust) but I don’t have much love for them. I think they’re objectively very well made. Even the fourth is well made on a storytelling and technical level (in a sort of vacuum, I’ll get there). But every movie after 3 feels sad. Like they’re being announced as proof of ROI to investors, not a good story to make. The third might have also fallen under that end of things as well.

The first two Toy Story movies came out at a time when Cinematic Universes were not common. As far as I know the more common practice was of a shared world/universe or a shared setting of some kind. Things like how maybe all the Pixar movies connect and some have a real Pizza Planet car in them. Very reference based, in the background. Enjoyable to those who notice but not a sticking point (or marketing point). Which, to me, is what makes these new projects feel more hollow. Their original idea goes beyond analysis. The story gets incredibly complex in the overall look because somehow these toys have to say goodbye to a major part of the original movie AGAIN. This is what makes the storytelling fall flat in TS4. While most of the movie is technically, logistically INCREDIBLY well made, the ending falls flat. We watched the toys say goodbye before, it was a big part of the third movie. In fact, outside of the movie the audience related MORE to that goodbye because most assumed there would not be a forth installment in the Toy Story series. Extratextually, this final goodbye is equal to the toys and the audience. It was a very powerful moment…that has become less powerful since it actually wasn’t the final goodbye. The story has been extended beyond its natural end.

Zootopia! This is a different fucking movie by a lot. This movie came out the SAME YEAR as Captain America: Civil War. The MCU has arrived and will not leave. The story of this movie is clear made to serve as a way to display an entire world of animal interaction that had been worked on long before the movie came out. There were initial plans to make more movies/series in the world. There was an idea about an island where all the birds you didn’t see in the movie are floating around. And after watching this movie I was left wanting more. This is a slight dig at the movie and a true feeling of being excited about this world. (Confession: animals are my special interest and I will pay 100x more attention to every aspect of something of the characters are animals) So clearly I’m biased but also the movie was designed with the intention of being a UNIVERSE. It was a selling point as it had been established by the MCU for the people who give movies money. It’s added movies feel way too late, it feels like the movie didn’t return on investment the same way the MCU did and instead of investing in the new IP to create fondness it prioritized what made them money in the short term (because all public companies require constant growth with no limit because capitalism has festered like a horrible disease in this nation).

Frozen is weird. It doesn’t have the built in wider world that Zootopia has but it’s continued existence does feel like it’s pushing past the boundaries of its story like Toy Story does. Frozen, as a basic idea, had been in the minds at Disney for decades and in the works since 2008 (with a small development break until Tangled did well and then they moved the idea to a 3D project). The movie was not expected to be…what it became. The productions since then have felt like scraping the bottom of the barrel because this franchise made Disney so much money they can’t leave it behind. That would scare the investors (they’re skittish). The second movie got rushed to release which meant it’s a lot of set up for no real payoff that makes sense.

Funnily enough, the original frozen idea began from an idea of looking at an act of true love differently than other Disney movies, which is what ultimately happens at the end of that movie. Productions past it, especially undeveloped and rushed productions, have LITERALLY moved past the original idea. It mirrors the transition into cinematic franchises that came around the same time of it’s release. For context, Frozen’s release year also included: Iron Man 3; Man of Steel; Monsters University; THE SECOND OF THREE FUCKING HOBBIT MOVIES; F&F 6; and fucking Oz the Great and Powerful. The movies making money/being funded were with IPs and we’re with shared universes. The development of this movie took long enough that the media landscape changed and it impacted every sequel frozen will ever have.

I don’t know what to do with all of this but like…it’s saddening. Many franchises are extending beyond their natural stopping point (I haven’t said Endgame yet but I’ll say it here) and there are movies made to be franchises being passed up and rarely given the chance to forge fondness for the original world. This is just a constant cycle that “proves” the belief that only IPs make money more. As long as we have our power set the way we have it I don’t see the system changing anytime soon. Just kinda sucks.

#movies #frozen #toy story #zootopia #media analysis #I can’t stand it here sometimes

[iamvoid0]

Super Mario Bros Movie, Need For Speed Unbound, Tencent looks to acquire majority shares, Overwatch 2 backtracks on requirements, and Cyberpunk 2077 developers announce five new games!

What a massive week, The Super Mario Bros. Movie gets shown off, Tencent expands, looking to acquire a majority stake, CDPR announces Five new games, Need for Speed Unbound gets a trailer, and Overwatch 2 gets DDoS'd.

🕹️ The Console War Rages On

Horizon Zero Dawn Remake/Remaster in development - According to a new report, Horizon Zero Dawn - first released in 2017 - is set to receive a remake/remaster for the PS5 and PC. This new version is set to have improved lighting, textures, animations, models, and accessibility options. There is also a new multiplayer component in the form of Co-op. (Source)

Tencent is seeking a majority stake in gaming companies. Over the years, Chinese Technology & Entertainment conglomerate Tencent has been acquiring minority stakes in several large gaming studios and publishers, Activision-Blizzard, FromSoftware, and Epic Games, to name a new. A report published by Reuters indicates that Tencent is preparing to acquire many of the 'chart-topping' game studios and publishers by going from minority stake ownership to majority stake ownership. (Source)

PS5 has been jailbroken - A new exploit from @SpecterDev allows the PS5 to be jailbroken. The exploit is unstable and will only work about 30% of the time, the exploit provides read/write access, but there is no execute access at the moment. The exploit was initially made on v4.03 but has since been ported to v4.5 on the PS5. (Source)

CD Projekt has announced five new games in development - CDPR had a recent presentation where they outlined the next five games they are working on and additional information regarding the company's general goals. There is a new IP in development codenamed Hadar, a new Witcher project under the name Sirius,  the latest Witcher 3 sequel that will kick off a new trilogy named Polaris, a new story-driven Witcher Game using the Canis Majoris name, as well as Orion - a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. They also indicated that in the future, all games would include multiplayer. They have new content, which includes Mobile, TV & Film, in association with external partners. They are also opening a new Studio in North America. (Source)

Overwatch 2 gets DDoS'd - Overwatch 2 multiplayer launch this week saw a barrage of issues hit Blizzard and the Overwatch 2 game. Multiple DDoS attacks rendered players unable to get into the game with queue lengths as large as 80,000. Blizzard has since dropped the phone number requirement for its existing player base coming from Overwatch 1. (Source)

The Super Mario Bros Movie trailer has launched. In a Nintendo Direct, Nintendo showed off the new movie, with interviews from the animation studio behind the project, Illumination, and Nintendo's own Shigeru Miyamoto. (Source)

Need For Speed Unbound gets a trailer and release date - A new trailer dropped for the Unbound featuring A$AP Rocky. The trailer shows off a new cell-shaded look, drawing inspiration from comics and other stylized games. The game will be released on the 2nd of December, 2022. (Source)

Steam Deck Dock pre-orders go live - The Steam Deck Dock pre-orders have gone live. The Dock will feature 3 USB-A 3.1 Gen1 ports, a USB-C for power, DisplayPort, HDML, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. (Source)

✨ Going to Events Spiritually

Xbox Game Pass will receive Chivalry 2, Scorn, A Plague Tale: Requiem, and More. (Source)

🎮 Where's My Controller?

I've been trying to get into Warhammer. One of my friends recommended that I play Total War: Warhammer. I tried it out, but I don't know if it's for me. I like the civilization aspect of the game, but the core battle gameplay feels too sluggish and hard to control. I've been told it gets better once you get accustomed to it.

I've been trying to make my way through more of Terraria. I also realized I made a mistake in not making the world a large world from the get-go. But I will have to do another run to get the Crimson achievements. I don't know if I want to jump into a big world, abandon my medium world, or do a run quickly after completing the medium run.

📝I don't know what a pen looks like.

This week, I was pretty deep in my job, so I haven't touched the other content pools.

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Forward to a friend and let them know where they can subscribe (hint: it's here).

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#news #warhammer #mario bros #mario #movie #nintendo #need for speed #a$ap rocky #unbound #overwatch #overwatch 2 #CDPR #cd projek #witcher #cyberpunk 2077 #tencent #horizon zero dawn

[taki118]

Thoughts on the Chip n Dale movie

So i finally watched and I think i can best summarize my feelings up with “If this wasn’t by Disney I’d like it more.” cause like there is a lot of good commentary here on animation and hollywood but because it’s Disney those things feel kinda wrong. 

- The animation: Sooooo there is 2D animation in this for background characters but its not traditional, its likely flash but anytime these characters have to do anything of substance they are made into a cell shaded CGI. Why? cost saving most likely and because Disney doesnt really have a 2D department anymore. Yeah so like the CGI surgery joke is kinda funny until you remember that Disney basically forced their 2D movies in the 2010s to fail because they wanted to invest more heavily in CGI animation due to Dreamworks success in the medium. After the Princess and the Frog sold poorly in theaters compared to Tangled (mostly due to poor marketing and timing mind you) that gave Disney all they needed to drop the department, with all the projects and employees in it, which also kinda killed the medium in the country at least on a big projects. All the references to Roger Rabbit feel a little gross as that was a marvel of 2D animation and Disney themselves see no actual value in it so blatantly that their “2D” characters arent actually 2D. 

- Ugly Sonic: First off there is the implications the studio didn’t actually get permission since they have to thank their lawyers for him and don’t want to talk much about the acquisition. Which makes you question the other non-Disney cameos. But also you have to wonder if this were another studio would Disney so willingly allow a character like this be used in such a way? Like yes he’s a hero in a sense but does that out weigh how much they make fun of his design?

- The Rescue Rangers: Outside of the base premise the other characters are really just window dressing. While you can see the difference in Chip and Dales stage persona and actual personality the same can’t really be said of the other characters. The only one who feels different is Zipper mostly for a joke. I also just need to throw this out here Chip and Dale were staples of Disney before and after the series. In fact the original premise of Rescue Rangers was an entirely new cast Chip and Dale did not exist in the original pitch. Higher ups suggested using them for marketability. I dunno what my point is here but the Rescue Rangers are such an after thought of the film that they make a joke about Gadget as a person and character are basically the same thing.

- Bootlegging and Reboots: The movie constantly makes jokes about Reboots but never out right condones them cause lets be real out of all the companies utilizing nostalgia and re-using old IPs Disney is the worst. Instead they shift the focus to bootlegs as being worse. It’s depicted as disgusting, criminal practice that destroys the integrity of a work for a cheap buck. Yet you can say the same of reboots. Also its not surprising a company like Disney that clings to their IPs would approve of a script that makes bootlegging this horrible fate for characters. (even though Disney’s actual reuse of characters has done more damage to their IPs than any bootleg) Again were it another studio making fun of bootlegs it’d be funny but with Disney mmmmm yeah not so much.

- Sweet Pete: So this is the big one, I feel like everyone has heard of the Bobby Driscoll parallels to their take on Peter Pan but if not. The child actor for Peter Pan Bobby Driscoll was promised a long career with the company and signed a contract only for then to retract it when he hit puberty,  he then fell into a downward spiral and eventually died of a drug overdoes. So um yeahhhhhhhh. Either it was an accident and someone checking the script wasnt doing their job or they overlooked it. Or they knew but didn’t care. Either way not a good look, a really disgusting look honestly. According to an interview the intent for the villain was commentary on child stars and had considered using Charlie Brown. But um yeahhhhh thats not much better. Cause see there is NO sympathy for the character, no real introspection on the lives of child actors or the practice. And I can only assume thats cause Disney has a LONG and on going history of child actors. So much like the reboot statements you can’t really condone a practice you actively engage in. I mean with all we know about child actors this kind of character would be repulsive no matter what but when you know about the company it came from, and this bit of history its just so much worse. 

Overall any messages the film makes are undermined by the Disney company and their history. I think a lot of people have over looked these things because the film is a competent nostalgia grab, and its sad how low the bar is.

#disney #chip n dale 2022 #chip n dale movie

[popculturebuffet]

So, did you hear the news that the Moana series for Disney Plus is now being reworked into a Moana sequel coming this year? Thoughts seeing how between this, Zootopia 2, and Frozen 3 and 4, Disney's really emphasizing sequels a lot this decade with their currently being no announced original idea movies yet from their in-house animated movie studio?

Okay thoughts on Moana 2 first as i'm very glad someone asked this: I'm not against a Moana sequel, nor retooling the tv show into a movie. After all Toy Story 2 and A Goofy Movie, two of my faviorite disney films, were started as DTV projects.

The issue I have more is the timing: Not only was crunch probably involved but it just comes off desperate: Disney had a disapointing year, and thus wanted to bump up something they had close to ready that would put butts in seats. I'm also disappointed that LIn Manuel Miranda isn't coming back as his music was one of the best parts of the original. I will give the film a fair shake... but I do worry disney rushed a good film and it may suffer for it, and if it didn' then the animators did just to get more money.

As for the Sequelgeddon in general.. i'm not a fan of it. Part of it is that 2024 SEEMS rich in sequels: We have Inside Out 2, Kung Fu Panda 4, Megamind Vs the Council of Doom (Which is more a tv movie pilot for Megamind Rules but i'll still count it. ), Despicable Me 4 and now Moana 2. Last year had almost as many with Across the Spider-Verse, Trolls Band Together, Paw Patrol 2, and even more if you count the adult swim finale movies, but we also got Ruby Gilman, Nimona< Mutant Mayhem and Elemental to even things out. And yes 2 of those are based on existing ip but Nimona is visually stunning and it's own take on the graphic novel (if one by it's creator ND Stevenson), and Mutant Mayhem is an even more visually stunning spin on one of the best franchises around after it BADLY needed a new direction with Rise abandoned. There was a pop and life to most animated films last year i'm just not seeing as much in this crop with only Inside Out 2 really being a huge anicipated thing for me.

I'm also not saying sequels are inherently bad. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, is a sequel to a film I barley paid attention to while I watched it and only saw due to word of mouth, but it's one of the best films of the decade. I"m saying, at least in trailers, most of these films feel uninspired. And I feel that way about frozens 3 and 4: You already blew your chance to expand this world with 2, unless Hans gets a pop number a film now you've lost me.

Zootopia 2... isn't NECESSARY.. but is a sequel i'll gladly watch (Same with Moana)> I really liked the first one, and with Nick and Judy's intense chemistry, the massive world and just how hard it can be to change systemic issues, ther'es tons of potetial for a sequel, especailly after George Floyd. Like I said sequels aren't INHERENTLY bad... but these feel like disney is desperate for a hit again instead of remembering their biggest hits have come from giving an original idea a chance.

I do HOPE these films will be good or at least decent. AT the very least i'm hoping we don't get another Ralph Breaks the Internet level of trainwreck as even Frozen 2 as just.. okay (And at least had two banger songs in it to help). But Disney needs to actually try something new and take a risk, something they struggle to do in the best of times and these are very much not their best.

#moana 2 #disney #frozen 3 #zootopia 2 #animation

[noriiii04]

LEARNING OUTCOMES FOR APPLY

For this module our aim is to create our own original product based on a theme. The theme being "In the Future".

The Brief

My Personal Week by Week Plan

Week 1: think of ideas, try to develop ideas and see if they lead anywhere and if they'll be good in the long run

Make a list of all the existing universes I could use for my character design.

Week 2: create some first sketches using moodboard of chosen universe to help

Week 3: start producing my final outcome and acknowledge any problems I run into

Week 4: final touches and troubleshooting

Week 5: report my final project

Our project is a little different to the brief as this time around we are to choose an existing IP to create something for. This something could be a character, companion, weapon, vehicle et cetera.

As I enjoy 2D most, I have decided to go with a 2D character design for my product.

[pizzaronipasta]

I would like to challenge your claim that AI art programs do not steal works made by other artists.

I read your collective post of your arguments and found that you accurately explained in good detail how a neural network is trained. You then concluded that its process is not considered stealing since it does not store the artwork being used as training data.

I believe the act of using artwork which has been collected without proper permission from its respective owners as training data is theft.

In the AI field, training data is quite valuable and is regularly bought and sold by researchers and commercial projects; data ownership is very important to avoid licensing and privacy lawsuits. Sometimes data is collected directly from internet users who use certain web browsers or websites through their cookies and browser data, legally obtained based on a Terms of Use or Privacy Policy contract agreed upon by the user, or even through user interactions such as with a reCAPTCHA test. Data can also be stolen, as happens in large data breaches of companies of virtually every industry, and then subsequently utilized illegally for any means. Digital artwork is data like any other, and that data is owned with reserved usage rights, typically by its creator unless specifically authorized or sold to a customer through a limited license or otherwise.

As you have stated yourself, several AI art programs use applications which scrape the web looking for art to use as training data. This scraping does not involve any request to the owner for permission to use the artwork collected as training data, it just downloads the images or processes them directly in memory; the owner is usually not even aware such actions are even happening. It is by this reasoning that I strongly believe AI art programs' usage of artwork from other artists as training data without express permission from its owners is theft.

To be certain, while one may argue that the finished products of AI art may be comparable to a human's transformation of art they have seen previously or even a direct collage, my point lies solely with the act of using improperly licensed data to train a neural network.

First of all, thank you for your diligence. I always appreciate carefully considered and well-formulated criticism. Your response actually got me to consider some aspects and perspectives of this topic that I hadn't before, which is a refreshing change of pace.

I must ask, would you consider making a meme out of someone else's work without their express permission to be theft as well? This isn't meant to be some kind of gotcha, I'm just curious where exactly you draw the line.

In any case, I hold that using publicly accessible data is not theft, because the ownership of intellectual property has no ethical basis. When you tell someone about an idea of yours, you put that same idea in their head. Viewing a digital artwork on the internet requires downloading a copy to one's own device. Such copies are not tangible items that exist in their own right; they are merely the state in which a medium exists. That medium is a generally a tangible item that somebody owns, and a person is ethically entitled to reference and modify their property and the state thereof. Things like data breaches are unethical because they involve accessing someone else's property (the medium of the data in question) without proper consent. Claiming ownership of data in any situation is not a matter of property rights, but of controlling the flow of information. This is the basis of IP law: to enforce monopolies over the distribution of ideas in order to incentivize innovation. Things like reserved usage rights and limited licenses are constructs devised for exactly this purpose. Thus, I find that they hold no weight in discussing the ethics of how data is used.

If you can explain why exactly artists ought to be able to control how reproductions of their work are used, I'd be happy to hear it. In the meantime though, for the reasons I have already explained as well as some others I left out for brevity, I don't think people should own their ideas in the first place. That said, I do agree that the usage of data absolutely should be restricted, particularly where it would bring people harm, such as in cases of impersonation, fraud, forgery, and the collection of personal information. However, these fall mostly under already-established legal protections separate from IP law, and there are better ways to give artists financial security than what IP law does. After all, things like copyright and exclusive licensing are being used by media giants at the expense of small artists and art preservation, making those giants less competitive and allowing them to abuse the artists they employ, just to name a few of the problems with such constructs.

Thank you again for challenging my stances in a thought-provoking way. Even though you haven't quite changed my mind, this has definitely been a productive discussion so far.

#intellectual property

[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 505

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @ThisWeekInRust on Twitter or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub and archives can be viewed at this-week-in-rust.org. If you find any errors in this week's issue, please submit a PR.

Updates from Rust Community

Official

crates.io Postmortem: Broken Crate Downloads

July 2023 Leadership Council Update

Foundation

My first three months at the Rust Foundation

Project/Tooling Updates

IntelliJ Rust Changelog #199

Fyrox Game Engine 0.31

Writing a Rest HTTP Service with Axum

Observations/Thoughts

Totality

Why the “Null” Lifetime Does Not Exist

First report: More than 80% of the crates link to their public VCS

[video] Aram Drevekenin – Zellij - A terminal workspace with batteries included

Rust Walkthroughs

Make invalid states unrepresentable

A visual tree iterator in Rust

A gentle introduction to IMAP

ESP32 Standard Library Embedded Rust: UART Communication

Shuttle Launchpad #3: Sudoku, Ownership and Error Handling

[video] Pragmatic Intro to Rust Web Development: Overview

Research

ResourceGauge: Enabling Resource-Aware Software Components (with Rust)

Miscellaneous

How to speed up the Rust compiler: data analysis assistance requested!

Programming language popularity: Rust

Llama2.rs - Inference Llama 2 in one file of pure Rust

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is tower-async, a currently nightly-only async library to build network servers, based on tower.

Thanks to Glen De Cauwsemaecker for the self-suggestion!

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Call for Participation

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but did not know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

Ockam - Investigate if the macOS toggle is possible in system tray app build with Tauri

Ockam - Avoid setting an embedded node as default for ockam project enroll

Ockam - ockam project ticket should return a proper error message

Hyperswitch - Migrate to enum_dispatch to reduce runtime overhead

Hyperswitch - Add Create Merchant and Create Merchant Key Store in a DB transaction

Hyperswitch - Use proxy exclusion instead of a separate proxied client

Hyperswitch - Add scoped error enum for customer error

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here.

Updates from the Rust Project

406 pull requests were merged in the last week

add mips64r6 and mips32r6 as target_arch values

add riscv64gc-unknown-hermit target

add x86_64-unknown-linux-ohos target

enable chkstk/alloca intrinsics on x86_64-unknown-uefi

Support .comment section like GCC/Clang (!llvm.ident)

add Alias to smir

add BITS, from_bits, to_bits to IP addresses

add FnPtr ty to SMIR

add Foreign, Never, FnDef, Closure and Generator tys to SMIR

add #[inline] to core debug assertion helpers

add dynamic for smir

add the no-builtins attribute to functions when no_builtins is applied at the crate level

add ty convs for smir refs and ptrs

allow opaques to be defined by trait queries, again

always const-prop scalars and scalar pairs

avoid tls access while iterating through mpsc thread entries

better diagnostics for dlltool errors

comment stuff in the new solver

don't translate compiler-internal bug messages

encode shorthands for spans in metadata

error/E0691: include alignment in error message

fix #[inline(always)] on closures with target feature 1.1

fix inline_const with interpolated block

fix invalid display of inlined re-export when both local and foreign items are inlined

fix removal span calculation of unused_qualifications suggestion

fix results search alias display

fix rustc-args passing issue in bootstrap

get !nonnull metadata on slice iterators, without assumes

get rid of subst-relate incompleteness in new solver

improve error message when closing bracket interpreted as formatting fill character

inline overlap based CGU merging

lint/ctypes: only try normalize

new solver: add a separate cache for coherence

new solver: don't consider blanket impls multiple times

on nightly, dump ICE backtraces to disk

permit pre-evaluated constants in simd_shuffle

prototype: add unstable -Z reference-niches option

querify unused trait check

refactor vtable encoding and optimize it for the case of multiple marker traits

remove Scope::Elision from bound-vars resolution

rename arg_iter to iter_instantiated

restrict recursive opaque type check

resurrect: rustc_llvm: Add a -Z print-codegen-stats option to expose LLVM statistics

reuse codegen_ssa monomorphization errors in codegen_gcc

reuse the MIR validator for MIR inlining

revert "Prototype: Add unstable -Z reference-niches option"

safe Transmute: Fix ICE (due to UnevaluatedConst)

substitute types before checking inlining compatibility

support --print KIND=PATH command line syntax

support interpolated block for try and async

turn copy into moves during DSE

tweak spans for self arg, fix borrow suggestion for signature mismatch

use SHA256 source file checksums by default when targeting MSVC

use features() over features_untracked() where possible

use erased self type when autoderefing for trait error suggestion

use the correct span for displaying the line following a derive sugge…

miri: make full field retagging the default

remove redundant clones

fix size_hint for EncodeUtf16

allow limited access to OsString bytes

make {Rc,Arc}::allocator associated functions

stabilize chown functions (unix_chown)

remove an allocation in Path::with_extension

remove the unstable core::sync::atomic::ATOMIC_*_INIT constants

remove lifetime bound for A for impl Extend<&'a T> for Vec<T, A>

hashbrown: publicly re-export Equivalent from the crate root

futures: add TryStreamExt::try_ready_chunks as failable version of StreamExt::ready_chunks

codegen_gcc: add instructions on how to generate GIMPLE format

codegen_gcc: add support for "ffi_const" function attribute

cargo: git: respect scp-like URL for nested submodules

cargo: credential provider implementation

cargo: fix "cargo doc --open" crash on WSL2

cargo: fix: encode URL params correctly for SourceId in Cargo.lock

cargo: fix: only skip mtime check on ~/.cargo/{git,registry}

rustdoc: strip impl if not re-exported and is doc(hidden)

rustdoc: fix position of default in method rendering

rustdoc: handle cross-crate RPITITs correctly

clippy: significant_drop_tightening don't lint literal-returning functions

clippy: significant_drop_tightening fix tuple drop recognition

clippy: inherent_to_string: Don't lint unsafe or extern fns

clippy: manual_filter_map: lint on matches and pattern matching

clippy: ptr_arg should ignore extern functions

clippy: redundant_pattern_matching: include guard in suggestion

clippy: unnecessary_literal_unwrap: fix ICE on None.unwrap_or_default()

clippy: unused_async: don't lint if paths reference async fn without immediate call

clippy: unwrap_or_else_default → unwrap_or_default and improve resulting lint

clippy: allow Self::cmp(self, other) as a correct impl

clippy: check for fully qualified paths in unnecessary_cast

clippy: check that the types are equal in SpanlessEq::eq_expr

clippy: fix unwrap_or_else_default false positive

clippy: fix async functions handling for needless_pass_by_ref_mut lint

clippy: fix: false positive for option_env! in ifs_same_cond

clippy: make comparison_to_empty work on if let/let chains

clippy: new lints: absolute_paths, error_impl_error, four_forward_slashes, iter_skip_zero, needless_return_with_try, redundant_guards, string_lit_chars_any, redundant_locals

clippy: refactor some of dereference.rs to util functions

clippy: remove #![allow(unused)] and --crate-name from cargo dev new_lint generated tests

clippy: rewrite tuple_array_conversions

rust-analyzer: editor/code: Use notification command links for debugger installation

rust-analyzer: fix highlighting of byte escape sequences

rust-analyzer: fix: don't follow raw pointer derefs when considering method receiver candidates

rust-analyzer: fix: lookup super traits in is_dyn_method

rust-analyzer: fix: normalize expected ty in call arguments

rust-analyzer: fix: report incorrect-ident-case for inner items

rust-analyzer: limit change_visibility assist to applicable items

rustfmt: prevent ICE when formatting an empty-ish macro arm

rustfmt: support non-lifetime binders

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

A relatively light week with respect to performance changes. The one major regressing PR was reverted (for other reasons), and we saw some very nice gains on compile-times from (1.) changes to our codegen-unit merging logic and from (2.) changes to the stdlib slice iterators encoding its non-null guarantees directly, allowing the removal of a call to the assume intrinsic.

Triage done by @pnkfelix. Revision range: 6b9236ed..0308df23

1 Regressions, 1 Improvements, 4 Mixed; 1 of them in rollups 35 artifact comparisons made in total

Full Report Here

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

No RFCs were approved this week.

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

RFCs

No RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

Tracking Issues & PRs

[disposition: merge] make noop_method_call warn by default

[disposition: merge] Infer type in irrefutable slice patterns with fixed length as array

New and Updated RFCs

[new] Add "crates.io Policy Update" RFC

[new] RFC: Generic member access for dyn Error trait objects

[new] Error Display (std::error::Error::fmt_error)

Call for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization. The following RFCs would benefit from user testing before moving forward:

No RFCs issued a call for testing this week.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2023-07-26 - 2023-08-23 🦀

Virtual

2023-07-26 | Virtual (Cardiff, UK)| Rust and C++ Cardiff

The unreasonable power of combinator APIs

2023-07-27 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2023-07-28 | Virtual (Tunis, TN) | Rust Meetup Tunisia

Rust Meetup Tunisia - Volume I, Number IV

2023-07-31 | Virtual (Linz, AT) | Rust Linz

Rust Meetup Linz - 31st Edition

2023-08-01 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn

2023-08-01 | Virtual (Buffalo, NY, US) | Buffalo Rust Meetup

Buffalo Rust User Group, First Tuesdays

2023-08-02 | Virtual (Indianapolis, IN, US) | Indy Rust

Indy.rs - with Social Distancing

2023-08-02 | Virtual (Stuttgart, DE) | Rust Community Stuttgart

Rust-Meetup

2023-08-08 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Second Tuesday

2023-08-10 | Virtual (Nuremberg, DE) | Rust Nuremberg

Rust Nürnberg online

2023-08-15 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn

2023-08-15 | Virtual (Washington, DC, US) | Rust DC

Mid-month Rustful

2023-08-16 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

Rust Study/Hack/Hang-out

2023-08-22 | Virtual (Dublin, IE) | Rust Dublin

Rust, Serverless and AWS

Asia

2023-07-27 | Seoul, KR | Rust Programming Meetup Seoul

Seoul Rust Meetup

2023-07-27 | Seoul, KR | T-RUST meetup

🦀 7/27(목) T-RUST Meetup 🦀 (+ 현직자 네트워킹 세션)

Europe

2023-07-27 | Copenhagen, DK | Copenhagen Rust Community

Rust metup #38 at Deloitte!

2023-07-27 | Vienna, AT | Rust Vienna

Rust Dojo

2023-08-17 | Reading, UK | Reading Rust Workshop

Reading Rust Meetup at Browns

2023-08-22 | Helsinki, FI | Finland Rust Meetup

Helsink Rustaceans First Gathering

2023-08-24 | Aarhus, DK | Rust Aarhus

Rust Aarhus Hack and Learn at Trifork

North America

2023-07-27 | Mountain View, CA, US | Mountain View Rust Meetup

Rust Meetup at Hacker Dojo

2023-08-01 | Chicago, IL, US | Deep Dish Rust

Rust Happy Hour

2023-08-07 | Minneapolis, MN, US | Minneapolis Rust Meetup

Minneapolis Rust Meetup Happy Hour

2023-08-10 | Mountain View, CA, US | Mountain View Rust Meetup

Rust Meetup at Hacker Dojo

2023-08-10 | Lehi, UT, US | Utah Rust

Building a simplified JVM in Rust

2023-08-15 | San Francisco, CA, US | San Francisco Rust Study Group

Rust Hacking in Person

2023-08-15 | Seattle, WA, US | Seattle Rust User Group Meetup

Seattle Rust User Group - August Meetup

2023-08-17 | Nashville, TN, US | Seattle Rust User Group Meetup

Rust goes where it pleases. Rust on the web and embedded

2023-08-23 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch - Fareground

Oceania

2023-07-27 | Brisbane, QLD, AU | Rust Brisbane

July Meetup

2023-08-08 | Aukland, NZ | Rust AKL

A Peek into GPU Computing + Safer Code with Code Generation

2023-08-09 | Perth, WA, AU | Rust Perth

August Meetup

If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Please remember to add a link to the event too. Email the Rust Community Team for access.

Jobs

Please see the latest Who's Hiring thread on r/rust

Quote of the Week

A rustacean is a programmer that dislikes being told "yes" in situations where they'll regret it later.

– Predrag Gruevski on mastodon

Thanks to Kevin Mehall for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, andrewpollack, U007D, kolharsam, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez.

Email list hosting is sponsored by The Rust Foundation

Discuss on r/rust

#rust-lang #rust #rustlang #twir #long post

[monitornahas]

Plex media server download metadata windows

PLEX MEDIA SERVER DOWNLOAD METADATA WINDOWS UPDATE

(4) The Photo of the Role can be set to be either the Voice actor that voiced the role or the characterįor some roles, a character was voiced by multiple voice actors (for example, at different ages). This will add the Voice actor for a specific language to the metadata (3) The Name of the Voice Actor can be selected based on the Language English or Japanese. (2) The Title used for the Library item can be set to either the main title (default), English or Japanese. Some metadata can be configured through the Metadata Agent Settings: Without an aired date Plex will not consider the episode for "up-next". If it doesn't the Agent will use the current date. (1) The Aired date for an Episode does not necessarily exist. Role: The role that the Voice Actor voiced.ID: the ID of the character on MyAnimeList.Pictures: The additional pictures from MyAnimeList.Aired Date: The date the episode aired (1).Studio: The Studio(s) that created the Anime.Duration: The duration of the Anime (episode or movie).Posters: the Main Poster used on the Website.Aired date: the date on which the Anime aired the first time.Synopsis: The summary of the anime and what it is about.

PLEX MEDIA SERVER DOWNLOAD METADATA WINDOWS UPDATE

language: the language set in the search options (does not have an effect)Īfter a search is being done the best search result (the first search result with the highest score) will be used to update the library item.Match Score: A calculated value between the name of the library item and the title from the search result on a 1-100 scale.Aired Date: The Year at which the Show Aired.ID: The MyAnimeList ID for identification and Update.The Agent will create search results based on the metadata the search will respond with. The requested metadata are as follows: Searching for a title (creating search results) The MyAnimeList Agent will retrieve the Metadata from the Jikan API and add them to the Library Item that should be updated. That means that the server only stores your IP address for a day. The Log files are being rotated daily and those rotations will only contain anonymized IP-Addresses. The accessed Jikan API is running on my own server which will log the access with your IP and the API endpoints for each request, this is necessary for security reasons. The MyAnimeList Metadata Agent interacts with the Jikan API to request the necessary information that will be added to the Library. Add online multimedia content channels.ĭownload Plex Media Server and play multimedia contents from any device on which Plex has been installed.This project is to provide a Metadata Agent for the Plex Media Server (PMS) to add Metadata to an Anime Library retrieved from Features.Possibility to edit the information of each file.Organization of files depending on their contents.Remote access from different sorts of devices.The application is flexible when it comes to organising the files, as it allows us to create groups depending on the contents and to edit their information.Īccess your videos, music or photos with any device and from any place. Thus, it is possible to access the files from any Plex client, whether from a mobile phone or compatible television, and always have your file collection at your disposal. Plex Media Server allows you to have a centralized multimedia library. Its developers decided to continue with the project under the name of Plex, which has been developed for several platforms and with Plex Media Server it is possible to synchronize its contents. XBMC used to be a very popular multimedia centre.

#Plex media server download metadata windows