Hasta La Motion!

BAFTA and multi-award-winning VFX and animation studio, Jellyfish Pictures, has announced the expansion of its senior creative team by bringing on board, Kevin Hoppe and Nicolas Hernandez.

Both these senior hires are to bring invaluable experience and knowledge to the company and will be integral in Jellyfish Pictures’ continued growth.

With a career spanning nearly 20 years, award-winning VFX supervisor Hernandez joins Jellyfish Pictures after six years at multi-award-winning London based VFX studio, Milk Visual Effects, of which he was also a co-founder. 

Nicolas Hernandez

Hernandez’s VFX and CG Supervisor credits include feature films 4 Kids And It, Annihilation, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, VFX Oscar winning; Ex-Machina, High-Rise and 47 Ronin; and for television; Altered Carbon, 24: Live Another Day, and BBC One’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which earned Hernandez and his team a BAFTA Television Craft Award for Visual Effects and Graphic Design in 2016.

 Before co-founding Milk, Hernandez enjoyed an eight-year stint at London VFX powerhouse, The Mill. During this time at The Mill, he led his team on many high-profile television dramas earning him five VES nominations.

 In his new role,  Hernandez will bring his deep understanding of the entire VFX workflow to every project and encourage the very best out of his team. Said he of joining the company, “I am very excited to have joined Jellyfish Pictures. It is a refreshing prospect to be working in an impressive new studio on diverse and unique projects with an abundance of genuine and collaborative talented artists. I am looking forward to mixing my experience with the company’s exciting future.”

Hoppe joins Jellyfish Pictures from US VFX outfit, Crafty Apes VFX, where he worked as CG Supervisor on season three of Netflix’s award-winning Stranger Things. Before his time at Crafty Apes, Hoppe held senior positions at DNEG and DreamWorks Animation, racking up an impressive list of credits including, Home, Turbo, How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda 2.

Kevin Hoppe

“The creative and positive energy of Jellyfish Pictures is a rare find. The people are so friendly, the work is brilliant, and the projects are challenging and engaging. I knew right away that Jellyfish was going to be my new home. I take great joy in managing teams and finding the best solution to any challenge, be it creative or in a team, and look forward to integrating these skills into the great talent at Jellyfish,” added Hoppe.

Hoppe will utilise his skills of managing and developing teams, oversee the evolution of Jellyfish Pictures’ feature animation pipeline, ensuring artists can be as efficient and empowered as possible to deliver the highest quality of work.

Commenting on the appointments, Jellyfish Pictures CEO Phil Dobree said, “The past year has seen immense growth for Jellyfish Pictures. The investment in our new facilities and tech has greatly opened opportunities of the types of work we can take on, requiring the very best talent to take the helm. Both Hernandez and Hoppe hold an incredibly high level of experience, bringing inspiration to their teams and the very best expertise to every project they touch. Our talent and the care we take when handling our clients’ work has always been at the heart of Jellyfish Pictures. Both of them embody these values and I am extremely proud for them to join the Jellyfish Pictures family.”

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Nvidia has announced that all Activision Blizzard games available on its GeForce Now streaming service will soon be removed from streaming play at the publisher’s request. The move affects a number of GeForce streamable games on Blizzard’s Battle launcher, including Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and the Call of Duty series (Destiny 2 is still streamable since Bungie split with Activision just over a year ago).

“[We’re] continually adding new games, and on occasion, having to remove games – similar to other digital service providers. While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to re-enable these games and more in the future,”  Nvidia said in a statement.

One of the major advantages of Nvidia’s cloud gaming service is how you can play games you already own. GeForce Now does this by offering you access to an Nvidia server, which until today could be used to install games on your Blizzard account.

Why Activision Blizzard suddenly decided to bail from the service is unclear. But today’s forum post from Nvidia suggests the two companies still need to hammer out a business arrangement regarding GeForce Now.

Activision Blizzard is yet to release a statement regarding their decision to remove their games from Nvidia’s cloud gaming service.

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A portrait in any form including painting, photograph, sculpture or other artistic format is a representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person.

Los Angeles-based animation house, Studio Moshon has redefined the art of portraits by giving it a twist and creating it in AR format. The studio has created AR portraits for Women in Entertainment to connect visitors with previous event speakers including Ava DuVernay, Meredith Walker, Geena Davis, and more. The Women in Entertainment Summit is widely renowned for its collaboration of influential female figures in the entertainment space. 

Each portrait can transform the flat portrait into a living AR experience via Instagram. Powered by artificial intelligence, Studio Moshon’s offering marries cutting edge technology with traditional fine art, creating oil painted portraits celebrating inspirational women in entertainment and sharing their stories through AI and AR technology.

The studio started out making test AR filters, combining the new techniques and technology and were quickly drawn to the concept of interacting with art on display, putting a spin on the traditional art gallery or museum exhibit experience. They had the idea to combine important narratives with the AR technology, leading to the ‘Women in Motion’ exhibit.

Each one of these accomplished women in the portraits has an important message and cause to convey. The portraits highlight issues such as diversity, representation, empowerment and personal discovery and the drive to support your passion. The studio thought that their experiences and outlook will allow viewers to understand issues within the industry and also translate the positive messages into their own lives and help them think about solutions creatively.

Studio Moshon founder Sara Riding said, “The mixture between a traditional medium and interactive technology draws interest from all audiences. The interactive elements are more appealing to younger crowds that grew up with a smartphone in their hand, and the traditional physical artwork draws interest from all who appreciate creativity and traditional mediums.”

The exhibit has received positive responses, with visitors taking home printed versions of the portraits. The innovation and technical aspects are appreciated at technology led festivals and there is ease to focus on the message and the importance of what the speakers are doing at the Women In Entertainment Summit.

The studio will be exhibiting the portraits in SXSW on 14 March 2020 as a finalist in the Interactive Innovation Awards. “We are continuing to share the ‘Women in Motion’ exhibit to conferences and festivals with the mission to empower women in entertainment. We would love to show the activation in India in the future if there’s interest from a festival or gallery space,” added Riding.

Studio Moshon plans to combine traditional animation and illustration with augmented reality in the coming future. One can expect to see some innovative approaches to communicating good causes and messages with the freedom of animation and illustration, along with technology which makes experiencing it novel and sharable.

“Telling stories and developing narratives through animation for socially good projects drives our team, and we will continue to push creativity through these lenses,” Riding concluded.

With this innovative take on the traditional art, Studio Moshon has given a different angle to creating art, combining technology.

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Last year Microsoft discontinued its service for Windows phone, posthumously after the announcement Microsoft has been seeking other operating platforms to expand their flagship project XCloud game streaming.

Before getting into details of how Microsoft is exploring avenues with iOS and android, here’s what one needs to know about XCloud game streaming:

Project xCloud is Microsoft’s video game streaming service, which allows players to instantly stream on console and PC games to their device of choice using an internet connection. Similar to the system used by Google Stadia, where the player is not required to download the games you play in Project xCloud. With Project xCloud (Preview) players can play Xbox games on their mobile phone or tablet directly from the cloud, including favourites such as Devil May Cry 5, Tekken 7, Gears 5, Forza Horizon 4, and many more.

Earlier Windows phone users had the in-built option to avail Xbox games through the Xbox live account. But after Microsoft withdrew their services, the availability of the software and chance to play Xbox live games has become questionable.

Users have received notifications that their devices are no longer eligible to receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free assisted support options or online technical content updates from Microsoft for free. Not only that, Microsoft has also shared that in their official FAQ section that apps which are governed by the Modern Lifecycle policy and are independent of the OS Lifecycle policy. App developers (including Microsoft) may end support for an app at any time. On 12 January 2021, Office apps (Universal Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) will reach the end of support on phones using Windows 10 Mobile and the rest may follow.

Microsoft revealed in an official blog post that, “If you already have the apps installed before the end of support date, the apps will continue to work. However, because of the lack of security updates, we strongly recommend that if you wish to use Office on a phone you transition to the latest Microsoft Office apps on an iOS or Android phones.”

As mobile gaming continues giant strides and cloud gaming is aiming to disrupt the gaming scene Microsoft is also seeking to partner with other operating systems to secure its place as somehow they earlier made a negative impact as soon as they announced the discontinuation of their services from Windows phone. Therefore flagship project XCloud game streaming will be the comeback for Microsoft in the mobile gaming ecosystem.

Where will the audience avail XCloud game streaming?
Microsoft might have seized its own services from the Windows phone, but is exploring other operating systems-Android and iOS as mobile gaming is at its peak.

In May 2019, Microsoft and Sony unveiled a surprising partnership where the companies collaborate to develop future cloud solutions for the game and content-streaming services. While both companies have spent more than 15 years battling it out over PlayStation and Xbox sales, Sony is now looking to Microsoft’s vast cloud experience to help power its existing and future streaming services, and Microsoft is teaming with a rival to fend off far larger gaming competition.

Recently Samsung and Microsoft teamed up on a cloud-based game streaming service, and it’s likely to involve appear on Samsung devices in the near future. The partnership deal was announced during the recent launch of new Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Z Flip smartphones, as Samsung revealed that it aims to broaden its Microsoft partnership.

While unveiling Microsoft’s Forza Street game for Galaxy devices Samsung head of US marketing, David S. Park, expressed, “This is just the beginning of our gaming partnership with Xbox. Both Samsung and Xbox share a vision for bringing great gaming experiences to mobile players around the world. With our 5G-enabled portfolios and Microsoft’s rich history in gaming, we are working closely together to create a premium cloud-based game streaming experience. You’ll hear more about it later this year.”

In addition to that, Microsoft is also aiming to bring the Project xCloud preview to iOS devices by way of Apple’s TestFlight programme. According to reports, Microsoft has been testing xCloud on iOS internally but has not opened it to the public yet. Unfortunately, the iOS test will be limited, as its standard with Apple’s TestFlight platform, the new build will be limited to only 10,000 testers.

Not only is Microsoft officially an Android phone maker as they took the wraps off a new foldable Surface Duo smartphone running Android. In October 2019 Microsoft Product chief Panos Panay gave a glimpse of the Surface Duo Android phone that will go on sale in a year.

Since Microsoft is planning to create standalone game streaming, it’s notable that the tech giant has chosen to be platform agnostic which means they are going to launch services across iOS and Andriod. It would be interesting to see how things unfold in the future as they are planning to launch their own android devices as well.

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