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An Oscar-winning visual effects studio aiming for a £600 million stock market flotation has become entangled in an alleged scheme to defraud the taxman.
DNEG, which has worked on films such as No Time to Die and Captain Marvel, could have to pay HM Revenue & Customs more than £10 million in back taxes and penalties.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/visual-effects-studio-reveals-tax-raid-vjb3pj8s3
Real-World Measurements for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
www.activision.com/cdn/research/Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf
Local version
Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf
A light wave that is vibrating in more than one plane is referred to as unpolarized light. … Polarized light waves are light waves in which the vibrations occur in a single plane. The process of transforming unpolarized light into polarized light is known as polarization.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizing_filter_(photography)
Light reflected from a non-metallic surface becomes polarized; this effect is maximum at Brewster’s angle, about 56° from the vertical for common glass.
A polarizer rotated to pass only light polarized in the direction perpendicular to the reflected light will absorb much of it. This absorption allows glare reflected from, for example, a body of water or a road to be reduced. Reflections from shiny surfaces (e.g. vegetation, sweaty skin, water surfaces, glass) are also reduced. This allows the natural color and detail of what is beneath to come through. Reflections from a window into a dark interior can be much reduced, allowing it to be seen through. (The same effects are available for vision by using polarizing sunglasses.)
www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/u12l1e.cfm
Some of the light coming from the sky is polarized (bees use this phenomenon for navigation). The electrons in the air molecules cause a scattering of sunlight in all directions. This explains why the sky is not dark during the day. But when looked at from the sides, the light emitted from a specific electron is totally polarized.[3] Hence, a picture taken in a direction at 90 degrees from the sun can take advantage of this polarization. Use of a polarizing filter, in the correct direction, will filter out the polarized component of skylight, darkening the sky; the landscape below it, and clouds, will be less affected, giving a photograph with a darker and more dramatic sky, and emphasizing the clouds.
There are two types of polarizing filters readily available, linear and “circular”, which have exactly the same effect photographically. But the metering and auto-focus sensors in certain cameras, including virtually all auto-focus SLRs, will not work properly with linear polarizers because the beam splitters used to split off the light for focusing and metering are polarization-dependent.
Polarizing filters reduce the light passed through to the film or sensor by about one to three stops (2–8×) depending on how much of the light is polarized at the filter angle selected. Auto-exposure cameras will adjust for this by widening the aperture, lengthening the time the shutter is open, and/or increasing the ASA/ISO speed of the camera.
www.adorama.com/alc/nd-filter-vs-polarizer-what%25e2%2580%2599s-the-difference
Neutral Density (ND) filters help control image exposure by reducing the light that enters the camera so that you can have more control of your depth of field and shutter speed. Polarizers or polarizing filters work in a similar way, but the difference is that they selectively let light waves of a certain polarization pass through. This effect helps create more vivid colors in an image, as well as manage glare and reflections from water surfaces. Both are regarded as some of the best filters for landscape and travel photography as they reduce the dynamic range in high-contrast images, thus enabling photographers to capture more realistic and dramatic sceneries.
shopfelixgray.com/blog/polarized-vs-non-polarized-sunglasses/
www.eyebuydirect.com/blog/difference-polarized-nonpolarized-sunglasses/
www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191212-is-stress-good-or-bad-its-both
Can stress really help you do better and if so, how much is the right amount?
Ultimately stress is a way for your body and mind to communicate impending needs or events which require attention. Once you have recognized and acknowledged the message, there should not be any need to… stress over it.
“…having some stress helps my decision-making, because it helps to maintain a focus on the situation,”
“…Too much stress causes what we call cognitive overload and then impairs your ability to make decisions because you’ve lost that situational awareness,”
“…stress is really importantly implicated in performance and in health,” “It’s very helpful for legitimate emergencies, and to achieve peak achievement in high-performance events.”
“…in physiological terms, (stress) arousal might take the form of an increased heart rate, redirected blood flow to the brain and large muscle groups, and release of glucose to act as fuel. The body’s resources are reallocated to be most useful for an emergency, from greater mental alertness to higher muscle tension. The brain and body are essentially bracing themselves.”
“While the Yerkes-Dodson principle appears to resonate with many, there has been plenty of criticism of it too. Detractors suggest it is applied too broadly. For instance, some people may be galvanised by pressure because they’re “defensive pessimists” who perform better when they worry a bit. Others find positive reinforcement more motivating. Sleep deprivation might harm speed, but not accuracy (so a sprinter shouldn’t stay out late every night). Noise might hurt accuracy, but not speed (so a reporter should try to find a quiet space).”
“…any stress can cause (extreme) harm when it’s prolonged. To take just one example, a chronically high heart rate is linked to cardiovascular risk.”
“One key factor is to avoid, where possible, the tipping point when stress leads to burnout. Burnout, with its physical and mental harms, is especially likely when stress is chronic. ”
“Another factor is the presence of control. For those who feel powerless over their situation, stress is unlikely to be beneficial.”
“Studies show that acute, uncontrollable stress limits the functions managed by the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for working memory. So the test-takers should try not to deplete their precious working memory by worrying, and the athletes should focus on outcomes (e.g. where the ball should be going) rather than on their bodies.”
“When it comes to stress and how it affects your performance, it’s helpful to recognise the variations in personality, type of stress and task that affect where you sit on the bell curve, as well as understanding tools you can use to control or harness that stress.”
Building a Portable PBR Texture Scanner by Stephane Lb
http://rtgfx.com/pbr-texture-scanner/
How To Split Specular And Diffuse In Real Images, by John Hable
http://filmicworlds.com/blog/how-to-split-specular-and-diffuse-in-real-images/
Capturing albedo using a Spectralon
https://www.activision.com/cdn/research/Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf
Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf
Spectralon is a teflon-based pressed powderthat comes closest to being a pure Lambertian diffuse material that reflects 100% of all light. If we take an HDR photograph of the Spectralon alongside the material to be measured, we can derive thediffuse albedo of that material.
The process to capture diffuse reflectance is very similar to the one outlined by Hable.
1. We put a linear polarizing filter in front of the camera lens and a second linear polarizing filterin front of a modeling light or a flash such that the two filters are oriented perpendicular to eachother, i.e. cross polarized.
2. We place Spectralon close to and parallel with the material we are capturing and take brack-eted shots of the setup7. Typically, we’ll take nine photographs, from -4EV to +4EV in 1EVincrements.
3. We convert the bracketed shots to a linear HDR image. We found that many HDR packagesdo not produce an HDR image in which the pixel values are linear. PTGui is an example of apackage which does generate a linear HDR image. At this point, because of the cross polarization,the image is one of surface diffuse response.
4. We open the file in Photoshop and normalize the image by color picking the Spectralon, filling anew layer with that color and setting that layer to “Divide”. This sets the Spectralon to 1 in theimage. All other color values are relative to this so we can consider them as diffuse albedo.