Unity have just announced a new free student plan for eligible students. You get full access to Unity Professional features including teams, Unity Learn Premium, cloud analytics and yes, even dark mode. To enrol you need to be at least 13 years old, or 16 in the EU, and have been verified as a student on GitHub Education.
That’s why the Unity Student plan provides access to professional resources and tools like cloud-based collaboration which enable students to use the same workflows that teams use on real-world projects:
Cloud-based Collaboration
Work on group projects with up to five teammates, manage versions, share work with teachers, and easily move between home and school computers.
Cloud Build
Speed up build and iteration cycles on complex projects using minimal hardware. See the impact of your changes quickly, and learn more effectively.
Learn Premium
Supplement in-class learning and dive into the topics you care about most with unlimited access to on-demand, industry-specific resources to solve problems on your own, such as this popular Introduction to XR: VR, AR, and MR Foundations course.
Student Asset Pack Prototype and iterate your game projects quickly with free access to the Snaps Prototype pack. Beginners can create 3D worlds with ProBuilder and Snaps, without having to use additional 3D modeling tools. These assets easily snap together with ProGrids.
Dark UI theme
Develop your game or project with an easy‑on‑the‑eyes, dark UI environment for those long hours, late-night cramming sessions, and game jams.
You can learn more about Unity Student here and apply for the GitHub Student Developer program here. If you want to learn more about Unity Learn, check out our video available here and Unity Learn premium here. Finally, watch the video below to learn more about Unity Student.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-07-2020, 06:42 AM - Forum: Windows
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International Women’s Day 2020: creating opportunity for all
Sunday, March 8th will mark a day that’s close to my heart, International Women’s Day.
The day shines a light on the progress we’ve made in recognizing the potential of a diverse and inclusive economy and the power that comes from developing strong, female role models. Yet while we can reflect on that progress, we must also acknowledge the work that still must be done. It is critical for me that we address the challenges that still exist for women in today’s business landscape—there are many women around the world who are locked out of opportunities many take for granted, for a variety of reasons.
I’m proud of the work we’ve done at Microsoft so far to increase access and opportunities for women through our workplace culture, policies and technologies. I believe we have a responsibility to highlight other organizations that have also prioritized diversity and inclusion and encourage others to do the same.
Building opportunity and access for all through technology
Technology helps organizations empower their employees, optimize their operations, connect with their customers and transform their products. It’s also a key factor in building an inclusive economy; an economy that harnesses the power of diversity to create opportunities and positive business outcomes for all. At Microsoft, we understand that a diverse work force inspires diverse solutions, which ultimately helps drive innovations that benefit everyone.
That’s why I am excited to share that Microsoft is supporting the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals through our #BuildFor2030 campaign. Through October, we will be highlighting Microsoft partners with solutions that align to the UN’s goals. And in celebration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day on March 8th, we will be focusing on solutions by women-led organizations within our Microsoft partner community. I encourage you to read more about these incredible innovations here.
These solutions
showcase the entrepreneurial spirit of women in technology—a community that is
grossly underrepresented in the marketplace today. Recent studies suggest, if
women and men participated equally as entrepreneurs, global GDP could rise by approximately
3% to 6%, boosting the global economy by as much as $5 trillion. If we work together, we can start that
shift, and create more opportunities for everyone.
Did you know?
According to the McKinsey Global Institute:
Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 21 percent more profitable than companies in the bottom quartile
Companies in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity are 33 percent more likely to outperform companies in the bottom quartile
Closing the gender gap in the workforce could add $28 trillion to the global GDP
Closing the gender gap in the workforce could add $28 trillion to the global GDP
Women in Cloud
In January, Microsoft hosted the Women in Cloud Summit in Redmond, and I had the privilege of discussing how we can all work to create more opportunities for women in technology. Women in Cloud is a community-led organization that brings together female entrepreneurs, global leaders, corporations, and policy makers to support economic development for women in tech. They have vowed to help create $1 billion in economic access and opportunity by 2030.
As an executive sponsor of this initiative, I have sat down with many
female business owners and have heard their struggles, triumphs and
breakthroughs. Everyone I’ve met has emphasized the importance of access to
technology, customers, partners, and investments. My team and I are focused on
creating access for their growth through co-marketing and co-selling opportunities
as we strive to create an inclusive marketplace for all partners to deploy
cloud solutions and services.
Building for the future
While we are
focused on creating equal access and opportunity for women business owners
today, we must also prepare the next generation of entrepreneurs and female
tech leaders. To participate in the global economy and businesses of the future,
understanding and innovating with technology will be a core skill of any job. Young
women need to embrace technology and develop skills and passions that will be key
success factors in a world where technology is part of every business in every
industry.
I’d like to invite all Microsoft partners to join other impact-oriented technology solution leaders in the #BuildFor2030 campaign to highlight their innovative solutions. And in honor of International Women’s Day, I encourage you to take action and drive momentum towards creating a gender-equal society by supporting this campaign.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-07-2020, 06:42 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Amnesia: Rebirth Is The Original Developer's Terrifying Return To The Series
Amnesia: The Dark Descent became a quick hit with the YouTube Let's Play community for its terrifying atmosphere and tone. Developer Frictional Games didn't develop its follow-up Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, but the studio is back for the third game, Amnesia: Rebirth, and it's due to arrive later this year.
Amnesia: Rebirth will feature a new protagonist, setting, and story, but it's being made in the spirit of the original game. That means a focus on scaring you above gameplay or systems innovation, and Frictional is focusing on delivering new types of horror in place of mere jump-scares.
"Set in the desolate landscape of the Algerian desert, the game will focus on new character Tasi Trianon as she sets out on a harrowing journey through devastation and despair, personal terror and pain, while exploring the limits of human resilience," Frictional Games said in the announcement.
Today's theme: Video Games Redux[www.indiegala.com] Are you passionate about videogames? Do you have some general knowledge about them? Of course you are and you have, elsewhere you wouldn't have seen this post. How much passion & knowledge thou...we'll find out during today's GalaQuiz! (starting in a few minutes)
Create an account or log in an already existing one and permanently add the games on your account. Alternatively you can redeem them from the Epic Launcher on the games' giveaway page.
Random: The Wii U Is Getting Two New Physical Releases This Year
Even though first-party support for the Wii U came to a halt a number of years ago, that hasn’t stopped third-party developers and publishers from pumping out new releases for Nintendo’s previous generation of console hardware. PixelHeart – a publisher and distributor of retro and next-generation games – has just put up pre-orders for two new Wii U physical releases.
The first is a hard-copy of the SHMUP Collection (containing Satazius Next and Armed 7 DX, and due out on 15th May 2020) and the other one is Finding Teddy II: Definitive Edition (arriving 17th April 2020). As noted by DualShocker, both of these releases are the European versions, so you’ll need to have access to a system from this region in order to play them.
Both games cost €29,90 and are limited to 3,000 units each. If you’re not interested in owning these titles on Wii U, there’s always the option to purchase them on the Switch as well for the same price. Could these be the very last physical Wii U games ever released? Tell us what you think below and if you would be interested in adding either or both of these titles to your physical collection.
Final Trailer For Scoob! Gives A Closer Look At Mark Wahlberg's Blue Falcon
The final trailer for Scoob! is out, and it splits the gang up. Shaggy and Scooby-Doo are captured by an alien spaceship that they later find out is manned by Blue Falcon. The superhero is a Hanna-Barbera character from the 1976 show Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, and will be voiced by Mark Wahlberg. The other members of the investigation squad, Velma, Fred, and Daphne, try to figure out what happened to Shaggy and Scooby-Doo and are determined to get them back.
The trailer also rehashes scenes of Shaggy and Scooby-Doo's origin story from other previews. Young Shaggy had a picnic on a beach once upon a time, and a sandwich lured Scooby-Doo to him, thus marking the beginning of a wonderful friendship. When a cop attempts to take Scooby-Doo to the pound for being a stray, Shaggy intercedes and claims that Scooby-Doo is his dog. He impromptu comes up with a name for the dog by looking at a box of crackers named Scooby-Doo.
Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried, Gina Rodriguez, and Will Forte will voice Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy respectively. Frank Welker, who has voiced Scooby Doo since 2002's A Scooby-Doo! Christmas, will take on the iconic canine role again. Ken Jeong will voice Dynomutt, Dog Wonder.
We’re just five short sleeps from Season of the Worthy. Last week, you completed the Empyrean Foundation event, lighting a beacon for Guardians to follow back to the Lighthouse and Trials of Osiris. On Tuesday, we unveiled Season of the Worthy all up. If you haven’t seen the trailer, there is a new threat for you to confront.
Before we get started with the rest of the TWAB, I wanted to take a quick moment to highlight another blog post that went live earlier today. In response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, our teams have been working hard to build out an infrastructure that would enable Bungie employees to support Destiny 2, and the impending Season 10 release, safely from remote locations. Season of the Worthy is still planned to release on March 10, followed by the return of Trials of Osiris on March 13. While there is a possibility that this change could affect our patching cadence in the short term, we will be sure to keep players informed about those schedules as much as possible. Stay tuned to @Bungie and @BungieHelp for any future updates.
Now, we have some housekeeping to do before we arm an ancient Warmind. Let’s get to it.
#TrialsReturns
Moments after the announcement that Trials of Osiris would return with Season of the Worthy, we witnessed numerous Guardians sharing their favorite memories from this beloved corner of the PvP endgame. Moments of spectacle, joy, heartbreak, insanity, and everything in between. Trials of Osiris was the source of some awesome community highlights—a thing that some of our newer Guardians may have yet to experience. We’d love to see more of your stories and bring them into the scene.
Using the hashtag #TrialsReturns, share your favorite clips from Destiny 1’s Trials of Osiris. You can post them to Twitter, upload them to YouTube, and even post them to our Community Creations page. We’ll round up our favorites to be featured in next week’s TWAB.
If your video is selected, you and your fireteam will take home a Movie of the Week emblem. Make sure to include links to the Bungie.net profiles of every team member.
Power Gains
With each new Season, you’re faced with new challenges that require a bit of Power acquisition to take on. In Season of Worthy, you’ll be challenged in not only Trials of Osiris, but in Legendary Lost Sectors and Grandmaster Nightfalls. Here’s a quick update from the Dev team on what’s changing on day-one, and what our plans are for a mid-season update:
Dev team: We’re raising the ‘cap’ for gear drops 40 points—powerful gear will now drop up to 1000, with pinnacle drops going up to 1010. The soft cap has also been effectively raised 50 points. Gear drops from nearly all sources will continue to be upgrades until 950 Power, and powerful reward sources will not be required to progress to 950. We’re looking to present an element of gear progression available each Season, as well as prepare underlying systems for future updates like the forthcoming one for Legendary weapons mentioned by Luke Smith in the Director’s Cut ‘Weapons Forever’ section.
We’re also looking to make some quality of life updates in the pinnacle band. Starting in 2.8.1. (coming mid-Season), we’ll be upgrading some existing powerful rewards to pinnacle rewards. These are the weekly Crucible, Strike, and Gambit challenges, as well as the weekly clan engram. With this change, we want to increase the total number of pinnacle power sources in the game, broaden pinnacle drop access, as well as increase the pools of items that can drop in the pinnacle band.
Slot imbalances can also affect pinnacle progression. When we say slot imbalance, this could be explained as those times you have a chest piece drop from pinnacle sources a few times in a row. We’ve been looking at player feedback for some time, and are investigating a few approaches to the problem space. We’re looking to have an update on that at a later date. Until then, we hope the additional sources will help you on your climb.
While we have the Dev team here, they also wanted to give an update on Artifact Power for Trials of Osiris.
Dev team: With Trials just around the corner, we wanted to address the “Artifact Power problem” as quickly as we could. As Luke said last week, our short-term fix is to disable the Artifact’s Power bonus while in Trials and Iron Banner. Unfortunately, Season of the Worthy has already been released for certification, so we won’t be able to disable the Artifact’s Power for the first Trials weekend. We have the fix in-house to disable it and are testing it this week, and hope to deploy it on Tuesday, March 17. We really wish we could have gotten it in for the launch weekend, but we also expect the first Trials weekend to be the one impacted by the Artifact the least. Players will have much less time to increase their Artifact Power, so the majority will be close to each other outside of Pinnacle drops.
Our long-term plan is to enable a Power cap for Trials and Iron Banner and we’re investigating the work required for this. This will roll out no earlier than midway through Season of the Worthy, but we don’t have a firm date yet—we’ll make sure to communicate it when we do! We also plan to look at the damage curves for Power-enabled PvP modes to determine what, if any, adjustments should be made. Assuming we discover it’s necessary, the timeline for a change is still TBD. With both changes, we plan to provide more detailed write-ups before they go live, explaining the details of the change and the design philosophy behind why we are making those decisions.
Just for clarity, I’ll echo Luke’s statement from last week: we’re going to disable the Artifact Power bonus in Trials and Iron Banner until we can implement a new Power cap system for those playlists. I hope you all enjoy Season of the Worthy, and may your run to the Lighthouse be swift and merciless.
Season of the Worthy: Eververse Update
With the turn of each Season, we hope to keep players up to date on how the Eververse Store is evolving. This Season, we have a few changes concerning Bright Engrams, and a new path to directly purchasing some previously featured Eververse items.
Bright Engrams
In Season of the Worthy, Bright Engrams will no longer be available for purchase from the Eververse Store. As said in the February 2020 Director’s Cut:
“We want players to know what something costs before they buy it. Bright Engrams don’t live up to that principle so we will no longer be selling them on the Eververse Store, though they will still appear on the Free Track of the Season Pass.”
This Season, we are continuing to focusing our efforts on direct purchasing through the Eververse Store.
Daily Rotation of Returning Items
In the place of Bright Engrams, a new module will become available on the Eververse Store starting in Season of the Worthy. This daily-rotating module will feature one item from a small selection of ships, Sparrows, Ghosts, and finishers that were offered in previous Seasons. These items will be available to purchase directly for Silver at a discount from the original price.
Aside from these changes, there aren’t any other major shifts coming for Eververse. We’ll be monitoring the conversation through launch and beyond, and will be sure to update you before any large changes come. Here’s a quick preview of some upcoming items coming with Season of the Worthy:
Hunter Finisher
Titan Finisher
Warlock Finisher
The Final Preview (of Patch Notes)
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been giving some previews how your sandbox will be evolving in Season of the Worthy. Not just weapon tuning, but the ability to change the Elemental Affinity on your armor pieces. This week, we’ll be taking a wider look at Destiny 2 Update 2.8.0. Exotic armor tuning for PvE and PvP, UI updates, bug fixes, and more…
Exotic Armor
Hunter
Assassin’s Cowl
The invisibility and healing effect now triggers on powered melee (both against combatants and Guardians) and finishers.
The duration of the invisibility granted by this Exotic increases based on the tier of the enemy defeated.
Arc Staff kills no longer activate this perk.
FROST-EE5
Changed the ability regeneration so that it no longer stacks multiplicatively with other class ability energy-generating perks.
Khepri’s Sting
All smoke bombs deal 150% damage while wearing this Exotic.
Orpheus Rig
The maximum amount of Super you can regain from this Exotic with a single use of Shadowshot is 50%.
Young Ahamkara’s Spine
Increases the explosion radius for Tripmines by 14%.
Titan
Ashen Wake
Killing an enemy with a Fusion Grenade while wearing this Exotic now refunds grenade energy. The amount of grenade energy refunded scales based on the tier of enemy killed.
Anteus Wards
The shield created during a slide no longer allows chip damage through.
Doomfang Pauldrons
Fixed a bug where Doomfang Pauldrons would sometimes grant Super energy from melee kills while in your Super.
Dunemarchers
Increase the radius of the static charge to 20 meters, up from 12.
Mk. 44 Stand Asides
Reduced the delay from the start of sprinting until the overshield comes in to 0.5 seconds, down from 1.25.
One-Eyed Mask
The target marking from this Exotic has been replaced with target highlighting, eliminating the ability to detect targets through walls.
No longer provides a damage bonus when defeating your marked target.
Restored the previous overshield granted by defeating your marked target, which now has a duration of 6 seconds, down from 8.
Severance Enclosure
The explosion now triggers on powered melee (both against combatants and Guardians) and finishers.
The radius and damage of the explosion created by this Exotic increases based on the tier of the enemy defeated.
Warlock
Apotheosis Veil
This Exotic is now guaranteed to drop with a minimum +16 to Intellect.
Contraverse Hold
Reduced the damage reduction granted by this Exotic to 20%, down from 40%.
Sanguine Alchemy
Sanguine Alchemy has received a complete redesign. Its new perk, Blood Magic, allows the wearer to pause the countdown timer of any Rift they are standing in by getting weapon kills, extending the Rift’s duration.
Ophidian Aspects
Now increases the lunge range of all Warlock melee attacks, even if the ability is on cooldown.
Verity’s Brow
The buff provided by this Exotic now increases your grenade damage by 10% per stack.
The buff to allies’ grenade recharge rates now kicks in when you cast your grenade.
This Exotic now provides a buff text notification indicating how many allies are currently benefiting from your increased grenade recharge.
Investment
Legendary Engrams
Increased the number of armor sets available from world drops to 11 sets, up from 3.
This will include Faction Rally armor. Players who own previous Faction Rally Ornaments may apply them to these sets.
Several sets that were previously unavailable or extremely difficult to acquire are now available as world drops.
Armor Stats
Prime Engrams will now more reliably drop armor with higher overall stat rolls and spikier distributions.
Exotic armor will now more reliably drop with higher overall stat rolls.
Legendary armor now has an improved chance of receiving higher overall stat rolls, though low rolls will still be present.
User Interface
The Settings screen UI layout on consoles has changed to match the experience on PC, allowing for future updates.
Added the ability to change the color of the reticle on consoles.
Players can choose from seven different colors, matching PC.
Added hint text during loading screens.
Added comma separators to the Glimmer count in the loot stream.
No longer keeps me awake at night.
Added categories to the Quests screen.
Quest items will now be automatically filtered to any of the seven categories:
New Light
Note: This category will hide if there are no active New Light quests in the character’s inventory.
All Quests
Shadowkeep
Seasonal
Playlists
Exotics
The Past
Performance
Fixed UI stuttering and framerate drops when loading or applying mods.
Improved framerate in Gambit and Gambit Prime.
Fixed framerate issues during the Sanctified Mind encounter of the Garden of Salvation raid.
Fixed framerate issues in the Pit of Heresy dungeon, specifically in tunnel encounters.
Fixed stutter at high framerate on PC.
General improvements to performance on PC when a lot of debris is on the ground.
While this list is pretty lengthy, we’ll have more patch notes to share with you next Tuesday around 9 AM PDT, an hour before Season of the Worthy begins.
Some of you may be asking, “Wait, 10 AM? Don’t patches usually ship at 9 AM?” Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday, March 8. If your region takes part in jumping forward, your weekly reset time will be an hour later than you’re used to. More information from the Player Support team below.
Systems Check
Before we dive headfirst into Season of the Worthy, we have a patch to ship. Destiny Player Support has your itinerary in hand, and a quick list of some resolved issues.
A NEW SEASON
Next week, Season of Dawn ends and Season of the Worthy kicks off with the release of Destiny 2 Update 2.8.0. Please see below for the rollout timeline.
8 AM PDT (1500 UTC): Destiny service maintenance begins.
8:45 AM PDT (1545 UTC): Destiny 2 is taken offline on all platforms.
9 AM PDT (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 2.8.0 begins rolling out across all platforms and regions. Players will be able to log back into Destiny 2 at 10:01 AM PDT.
10:01 AM PDT (1701 UTC): Destiny 2 is back online on all platforms; Season of The Worthy begins.
12 PM PDT (1900 UTC): Destiny service maintenance concludes.
UPCOMING RESOLVED ISSUES, PT. 2
Below is a continuation of a list of issues that will be resolved when Season of the Worthy and Update 2.8.0 become available on March 10:
Hunter’s Tempest Strike melee ability can now be performed when using PC controls where Sprint is set to “Hold.”
Character subclasses with ranged melee abilities will now count towards Melee Kill bounties and Triumphs. These include Titan Hammer Throw, Hunter Throwing Knives and Corrosive Smoke Bomb, and Warlock Celestial Fire and Ball Lightning.
The Fastidious Miser Triumph will now correctly progress and complete for players who’ve found all 30 Ascendant Chests across the three Curse Weeks in the Dreaming City, and have claimed those corresponding Triumphs.
Weekly Strike bounties for Hive and Vex boss kills will now award progress to players for killing Savathûn’s Song, Xol, and Dendron the Root Mind.
While Update 2.8.0 is released to the world, Destiny Player Support will be on standby in the #Help forum, ready to assist anyone who is experiencing issues.
Dawn Comes to an End
Season of Dawn has been a fun ride. We saved a Legend, stopped the Psions from changing time itself, and had the opportunity to watch a lot of Community Creations along the way.
Movie of the Week: Creatures of Destiny: A Nature Documentary
Honorable Mention: This player should be banned for such an unsatisfying montage
Cheers to everyone who submitted a video, art piece, or anything to the Creations page during Season of Dawn. We’re excited to see what you cook up over the next few months.
It’s crazy to think that next week a new Season begins. It feels like just yesterday we were watching you all explore the Corridors of Time. It’s no secret that I’m pretty excited for Trials to return, and I’m also looking forward to see you share your memories with the #TrialsReturns hashtag.
See you next week. Maybe we’ll bump into each other on our way to the Lighthouse. No hard feelings when you lose, okay?
BETA: BEDROCK 1.15.0.55 (XBOX ONE / WINDOWS 10 / ANDROID)
Today Mojang brings another round of fixes for Beta players on Bedrock.
Remember that only those on Xbox One / Windows 10 / and Android may participate in the Beta builds. You will not be able to join Realms or non-beta players worlds and you will not be able to open worlds opened in the Beta in earlier/current stable builds of Bedrock.
Crashes/Performance
Fixed several crashes that could occur during gameplay
Fixed a crash that could occur when trying to enchant fishing rods
General
Marketplace ratings now appear correctly when scrolling (MCPE-60287)
Gameplay
Parity: Blocks will now lose their waterlogged state when pushed by a piston
Kelp will now keep growing after being partially broken by a piston, and the piece below will have a maximum random age of 24 (MCPE-57330)
Blue Wither Skulls will once again break Obsidian (MCPE-63223)
Ender Dragon Fireball attacks no longer cause excessive damage (MCPE-40344)
Hopper mine carts will now drop hoppers and mine carts when broken with a ranged weapon (MCPE-55859)
Fixed several crafting recipe issues:
Multiple Honey Blocks can be crafted in the 2×2 crafting grid (MCPE-63081)
Crafting Multiple Honey Blocks returns the correct amount of items to the player (MCPE-63461, MCPE-58579)
Mobs
Parity: Cured Zombie Villagers can now offer discounted trades (MCPE-47040)
Hostile mobs will now correctly seek out and jump on turtle eggs (MCPE-36244)
Cured Zombie Villagers no longer inherit XP unexpectedly, which would prevent them from acquiring a new profession (MCPE-48712)
Villagers will no longer become preoccupied with sharing carrots (MCPE-32627)
Vindicators that spawn in Woodland Mansions will now use the spawned event and become hostile before being attacked (MCPE-43208)
Villagers now have a chance to offer Trident Enchantment books as trades (MCPE-35406)
Creepers in boats now deal damage to players nearby
Wolves will once again heal when fed meat (MCPE-63205)
Today's theme: GTA Protagonists Redux
