Ștefan-Gabriel Muscalu

We're excited to share some interesting news: we've partnered with Endava – a next-gen technology services provider – to bolster the Houdini community's capabilities in Synthetic Data for AI and ML applications within the field of Computer Vision. Through this partnership, artists and developers will benefit from the ability to generate highly varied and realistic data sets in Houdini with pixel-perfect ground-truth annotations that mimic complex real-world environments. This is particularly crucial for fields like manufacturing line inspection, autonomous vehicle training and other advanced simulations, where precision and realism are key to innovation. Visual Synthetic Data – including images, videos, and 3D model data – is useful for scenarios where it’s impractical, complex or simply impossible for humans to accurately and efficiently label or annotate real world images. Synthetic Data is at the intersection of visual effects and data science, combining technical artistry with machine learning expertise to unlock AI-driven capabilities for understanding visual information. The partnership combines Endava's ability to generate high-quality Synthetic Data, and expertise in building production-ready machine learning models, with SideFX's renowned VFX software suite for simulation and procedural content creation. Originally developed by the AI Vision team at Endava, SideFX Labs is now publishing a suite of tools designed to generate dataset variations and annotations suitable for training Computer Vision scenarios. The toolset is available to Houdini customers via SideFX Labs as of today. You can download an example file from SideFX's Content Library to explore a working example.

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The tech stack for modern #GameLocalization is evolving fast, and it’s not always easy to distinguish proven workflows from premature hype. While many promising AI tools and integrations are being discussed at conferences like LocWorld, not all of them are ready for games today.   🌎🔎 In our latest Lab article, we explore what currently works and what doesn't for AI translation in games, covering:     🔹 Agentic workflows 🔹 NMT vs. LLMs: where each excels 🔹 Quality estimation (QE) 🔹 Why human expertise remains essential   Read our full breakdown here: 🔗 https://bit.ly/475S1u0   #Translation #AI #L10N 

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🥬 𝗟𝗲𝘁𝘁𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗗𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁 Goes Multilingual! We're excited to launch our 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻-𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 for RAG pipelines in 𝟲+ 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀: German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Chinese. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝘁? We 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘈𝘎𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘵 into these languages—preserving span-level hallucination tags—so you can train & evaluate multilingual models for hallucination detection. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿? - Most production data isn’t just English. - Until now, only LLMs could do multilingual hallucination detection—𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 simply weren’t available! 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘄? 🏷️ Token-level hallucination detection—now 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗹! 🚀 Fine-tuned on 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗕𝗘𝗥𝗧 (210M & 610M), supporting long context (up to 4K tokens). 📊 Outperforms 𝗚𝗣𝗧-𝟰.𝟭-𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 by up to 17 F1 in non-English settings. 🟢 Datasets, code, and models are all 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 (MIT license)—easy to use in Python. Links: - 𝗚𝗶𝘁𝗛𝘂𝗯: https://lnkd.in/d5WuTA9e - 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀: https://lnkd.in/dQytAi97 - 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘀: https://lnkd.in/d-zGM77U - 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼: https://lnkd.in/dbFVe7S6 - 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗴: https://lnkd.in/d-tN-RZr Many thanks to Nadia Verdha for the contributions! If you find it useful, give us a ⭐ on GitHub or share your feedback!

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Have you noticed how many of the world's top games publishers are making solitaire games? In this latest feature, we take a deep dive into the world of mobile solitaire games, exploring innovators like Playtika's Solitaire Grand Harvest, install-drivers like Zynga's Solitaire and newcomers like SuperPlay's Disney Solitaire. We also speak with game design consultant Jakub Remiar about the two key types of solitaire titles, their monetisation models, and those standing out with carefully crafted levels - "not actually real solitaire games". And, we consider, is there still room for newcomers to the genre in 2025, or has Playtika already won? Link in the comments 👀

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AI isn’t on the horizon for UA: it’s already changing everything ⚡ The fifth report on our Mastering UA series is live: this time, we explore how AI is transforming user acquisition for game publishers in 2025 and beyond. With insights from Kseniia Maiboroda and Melanya Laz from Elevatix, Thomas Kriebernegg from SplitMetrics Agency, Renata Ravilova from UGC Ninja and Sven Jürgens from Sven Jürgens Consulting – you can’t miss it! 💥

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Real-time AI video only works if you rewrite the rules of latency. So we did. Kfir Aberman, Decart founding member, walks through the engineering behind it: how we designed a causal, autoregressive video architecture that can run indefinitely without error buildup; how we collapsed dozens of GPU kernels into a single optimized execution path to cut latency dramatically; and how pruning, distillation, and model-level constraints keep the system stable at interactive speeds. Learn what has to change in model design and infrastructure, to make sub-40 ms video generation possible, and why most existing video systems can’t get close. Link in the comments.

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Mobile game developers are leaving millions on the table by ignoring a growing market. A recent opinion piece by Pavel Polovinka, Head of Publishing at Playgama, delves into the often-overlooked opportunity of porting mobile games to web browsers. He argues that despite the web game market being smaller than mobile, it's a rapidly growing sector that offers a low-effort path to a fresh revenue stream. The article highlights that while mobile gaming revenue dwarfs the web market ($106.5 billion vs. $16.77 billion in 2024), the web market is significantly more accessible for user acquisition and marketing, making it a valuable "Plan B". Playgama's case study with StoreRider demonstrated this potential, helping two mobile games achieve over one million play sessions and a number 1 spot on MSN within three months by optimizing them for web and distributing them across multiple platforms. With the HTML5 games market projected to hit $31.9 billion by 2030, the time to enter this niche, even for mobile-focused studios, has never been easier. Link to the article: https://lnkd.in/gSdr__t2 #MobileGaming #WebGames #GameDev #HTML5 #RevenueStreams

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I recorded a short video to show what working as a developer with AI agents actually looks like. Link in comments 👇 This is not a flashy proof-of-concept. This is not “hello world with an LLM”. It’s the kind of work most teams are really doing: - understanding existing code - evolving a legacy application - making changes safely - improving it bit-by-bit What’s changing isn’t just speed. It’s how developers think, explore, and make decisions when agents are part of the workflow. One thing that’s already clear to me: AI doesn’t inherently lead to bad quality. In practice, good quality has become MUCH cheaper And quality is still important, LLMs and agents thrive when things are simple verifications are automated — much like humans do. This video is meant for: - CTOs / CEOs who want a concrete view of how development is evolving today - Developers not yet using AI or who want to share what this changes in daily work Feel free to leave suggestions, comments and critique in the comments.

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Superbox looked to scale their portfolio with high-quality users with a reliable and scalable rewarded channel.  They turned to the Tapjoy from Unity offerwall. Since leveraging the Unity offerwall, it has become Superbox’s top-performing rewarded UA channel, consistently delivering 130% of their D30 ROAS*. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/g2qcyvGT

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Good code doesn’t just work. It adapts, evolves, and lasts. That’s why Design Patterns became a cornerstone in game development, tested solutions that help teams tackle complexity without reinventing the wheel. In our latest article, André Pasquali, Game Developer at Kokku, shares how 7 key patterns shape AAA productions and enable smarter, more efficient development. If you’re a developer aiming to level up your architecture skills, this is a must-read! Full article here: https://lnkd.in/duQQdkEf

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Threads now automatically shows the total posts and your position within a thread, no more manual “1/3” numbering required. Threads has rolled out an in-stream counter for multi-post threads, first spotted during testing by app researcher Radu Oncescu. The feature dynamically updates when users edit threaded posts and adds a “View more” label under the first two posts on profiles to enhance user clarity Read the full story with the link in Comments #PlatformUpdate

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The agentic web is moving from concept to reality, and it is redefining how people interact with the internet. In a recent conversation with Krystian Zubel at Opera, we explored how agentic AI shifts browsers from search tools to intelligent assistants that act on users’ behalf. To support this evolution, Opera invested in its own supercomputer, hosted at our ICE02 data center in Iceland. Powered by renewable energy and designed for high-density AI workloads, the platform enables sustainable performance at scale while keeping privacy and GDPR compliance at the core. Read the full blog to learn how infrastructure, sustainability, and trust come together to support the next generation of the web. https://lnkd.in/dU-ADv4V #AgenticWeb #AIReady #SustainableInfrastructure #DataCenters

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As Rust rises, so do its frameworks. But how do you choose the one that fits your project like a glove? Actix Web, Rocket, Axum, Poem, Loco, Tide — Mykhailo Maidan, CTO at Yalantis, explored them all. From performance to use cases, the article breaks it down so you don’t have to. 🖇️ Read full: https://lnkd.in/dwh39fsB

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