Dhruv Govil
@dhruvgovil.bsky.social
Software engineer and concert photographer
I’m happy to share that OpenUSD now supports accessibility annotations, opening the way for more people to enjoy 3D experiences. It will take a while for assistive technologies to support this but I think it’ll be great for the future. aousd.org/blog/announc...
Announcing OpenUSD v25.05: Key Features and Improvements
OpenUSD v25.05 is now available on GitHub, and its core non-imaging libraries can be installed via PyPI with the command line. pip install usd-core This release expands support in many...
aousd.org
Saddened to hear that Disney is moving to a low risk model of content www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus... When movies like Flow are winning awards, the big animation studios really need to figure out how to get back to making content that inspires rather than capitulates to the mainstream
‘Tiana’ Disney+ Series Shelved as Walt Disney Animation Abandons Longform Streaming Content (Exclusive)
First announced in 2020, the Disney+ show was envisioned as a musical featuring Anika Noni Rose reprising her role as Tiana, Disney's first Black princess, from 'The Princess and the Frog.'
hollywoodreporter.com
Congratulations to #Flow for winning Best Animated Feature at the #oscars. What an achievement for independent animation to beat out an incredibly strong year from the powerhouses of animation. For a fraction of the budget , with open source software. Also to @blender.org
#WinOrLose is such a weird show. It’s well made, but it feels like a #Pixar take on Euphoria. Each episode is so bleak. So far it’s been debilitating anxiety, extreme loneliness, childhood poverty and struggling single mom. I’m really not sure who the target audience is…
Severance Season 2 opens with one of the best pieces of camera choreography that I’ve seen. I legitimately went back to watch it multiple times to try and break it down, because there’s a lot of impossible shots in there.
I’m glad we’re putting our values first in this case when so many others are bending their knee instead 9to5mac.com/2025/01/10/a...
Apple opposes investor calls to end its DEI efforts: 'We strive to create a culture of belonging' - 9to5Mac
Apple filed its annual proxy report for shareholders today ahead of its annual shareholders meeting next month. The report reveals...
9to5mac.com
I’m glad Meta’s employees are pushing back on their leadership. Mark is bereft of any sense of morality and the latest change to their allowed content is a heinous green light for bigotry. www.404media.co/its-total-ch...
‘It’s Total Chaos Internally at Meta Right Now’: Employees Protest Zuckerberg’s Anti LGBTQ Changes
Meta's decision to specifically allow users to call LGBTQ+ people "mentally ill" has sparked widespread backlash at the company.
404media.co
Mufasa is some of the worst camera work I’ve seen. No static shots, every camera is always moving. It’s not the worst part of the film, but cameras are performances too and need texture and contrast.
I’ve long said that while Meta has fantastic engineers, the company has no vision for a better future. That starts with Mark himself who has for years taken the route of throwing stuff at the wall to see what might help amass an empire.
Karen Attiah@karenattiah.bsky.social · 2y agoI asked Liv, the Meta-Ai created “queer momma” why her creators didn’t actually draw from black queer people. Not sure if Liv has media training, but here we are.
#Wicked is probably my favourite film this year, and I love this quote from Jon Chu about #VisionPro. “Steve jobs said computers were a bicycle for the mind, and this felt like a rocket ship for my imagination” youtu.be/QIrgcD0IWcI?...
Wicked Director Jon M. Chu Makes Movie Magic with Apple Vision Pro | Apple TV
YouTube video by Apple TV
youtu.be
www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
Ex-Pixar Staffers Decry ‘Win or Lose’ Trans Storyline Being Scrapped: “Can’t Tell You How Much I Cried”
One consultant on the episode says the company is "asking someone to play someone they're not" by changing a character voiced by trans actress Chanel Stewart to cisgender.
hollywoodreporter.com
It’s depressing that creatives can’t talk about identity without walking on eggshells. Disney proving yet again that they’re a fair weather ally and ready to throw anything under the bus to be as safe as possible. www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/d...
Disney Pulls Transgender Storyline from Pixar’s ‘Win or Lose’ Streaming Series (Exclusive)
The original animated show about a co-ed high school team debuts on Disney+ in February.
hollywoodreporter.com
That slide is so bizarre. She knows what’s wrong with the implication but still dove headfirst into it. I imagine someone who reviewed it must have mentioned the optics given how tacked on it feels.
Congratulations, Team Asobi, on a well deserved GOTY win. Astro Bot was one of the most intensely delightful games I’ve played. Even without the excellent nostalgia, it’s just such a tight and well designed platformer. In a sea of serious, adult focused games it stands out as a bundle of joy.
Also really excited for visionOS 2.2 today with the new Ultrawide virtual display. This has been so useful for me when traveling. My Vision Pro plus a 14” laptop makes for a really portable workstation. If only I had a portable Glove 80 keyboard to boot.
Very excited for the spatial media and WebXR support in today’s Safari release. I’m curious to see if our concert media website will allow me to host converted spatial photos without converting them. webkit.org/blog/16301/w...
WebKit Features in Safari 18.2
Today marks the arrival of Safari 18.2.
webkit.org
Love to see such a great director call out the film industry for virtue signaling about not using VFX At the end of the day, it’s about artistry one way or another. Civil war was a masterpiece and shows how great artists come together. youtu.be/_MYzGaKlaLE?...
Alex Garland at the BFI - The VFX in Civil War | Framestore
YouTube video by Framestore
youtu.be
Here's a recording of my Tiny Glade presentation from the Graphics Programming Conference 2024: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jusW... It's an any% speedrun of our GPU-driven rendering, shadows, global illumination, water, and DoF, involving a few weird tricks.
Rendering Tiny Glades With Entirely Too Much Ray Marching
YouTube video by Graphics Programming Conference
youtube.com
If anything, #SecretLevel is highlighting how exceedingly generic a lot of games are. You could replace the skins and slap a new title on them, and I don’t think most people would notice. Though maybe it’s by design? A lot of the writing feels like what “teenage gamer boy” would be into.
I think fans of the respective games will get a little nostalgic buzz for each #SecretLevel episode, but if you’re not well versed in each world, they’re all kind of generic? It doesn’t feel as interesting as Love, Death and Robots did.
Not a huge fan of #SecretLevel so far. A lot of it feels like the kind of cinematic trailers you’d get at E3 or TGS for well established franchises. Not really trying to do anything really interesting with the world beyond fan service. Visually it’s about that level too. It’s good but not great.
I finally received my GPU Zen 3 book. My first order was stolen from my porch and I imagine there’s some vagrant who’s either really unhappy with their thievery or…they’re starting a fulfilling career in graphics programming, and will be unhappy later when debugging cryptic GPU behaviour.
GPU Zen 3 is out! I want to draw attention to the 96(!) page article I was a small part of detailing all the work from tooth-to-tail we put into making ray tracing a reality in Cyberpunk 2077. It is exhaustive and should be a reference for anyone looking to make RTX a reality in their own engines.
I also had a great time shooting #Lawrence on their Family Business tour. A really fun group. You can hear their stuff at music.apple.com/ca/album/fam...
Beyond software engineering, I also shoot #concerts, and folks keep telling me to share more so here goes. Here’s a shot from #Plini a couple weeks ago when he was opening for #AnimalsAsLeaders
After a few minutes on Blue Sky I think it has figured out the success metrics that Twitter had which Threads and Mastodon don’t quite do. Being snappy, and allowing people to follow broad subjects, while still allowing for very specific searches when desired. Maybe this one will resonate more.