MARSHFIELD -- Character is evidenced by the work that you do when nobody else is watching. The character of several members of the Marshfield girls track and field program was on full display all spring as they continued working out and getting better long after the spreading Coronavirus pandemic had officially canceled their spring athletic season.
The hard work did not go unrewarded as sophomore Ava LoVuolo, junior Charlotte Henning, seniors Veronica Julian and Amanda MacKinnon as well as Class of 2020 graduate Olivia Valianti all posted times and distances while training on their own that qualified them to compete at the recent NSAF Athletic.net virtual nationals.
Around the world, 1.3 billion women play video games. Yet despite the fact women comprise almost half the global gaming community, new research from Dove shows that 73% of girl gamers believe lack of diversity is an issue in games.
The course includes modules from the Dove Self-Esteem Project, the Centre for Appearance Research and industry experts. The training will be available in November on the Unreal Engine Education platform and be accessible to all gaming creators and developers around the world.
The coalition and accredited training programme are part of several collaborative efforts that hope to galvanise industry innovators who have the power to drive change, giving them the tools and skills they need today, to help build a more inclusive virtual world now and in years to come.
The game, developed in partnership with female-led gaming studio Toya and experts from the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR), is designed to equip girls with the tools to handle negative messages around body image, offering an educational gaming experience that encourages users to be their true selves instead of aspiring to unrealistic gaming ideals.
Leandro explains: A digital version of beauty is starting to exist and when young girls see unrealistic gaming ideals, research has shown this can have a damaging impact on their self-esteem. This is why we are working side by side with partners to take the Dove Self-Esteem Project to the next level, introducing new tools that enable us to reach even more young girls with content that not only educates but also entertains.
It's not often the case that a rookie K-pop group gets a second chance to appear on a major TV music show with its debut song. But Mave:, a virtual girl group with four AI-generated singers, made it happen.
Mave:, short for "Make New Wave," debuted on Jan. 25 with its first single album "Pandora's Box." Jointly launched by game operator Netmarble and IT firm Kakao Entertainment, the group is housed under Netmarble affiliate Metaverse Entertainment.
Mave:'s first appearance on MBC's "Show! Music Core" in January was a sensation. The YouTube video of the performance racked up the highest views on the platform among all artists on the program aired in January, leading to the group's return to the show three weeks later.
The technical brilliance behind Mave: was what had sparked awe among the public, with some even noting that they were on the verge of overcoming the "uncanny valley" -- a term referring to the uncomfortable feeling one gets seeing something almost humanlike but not completely.
Speaking with The Korea Herald during a recent interview, Metaverse Entertainment's technical director, Kang Sung-ku, and art director Ahn Sung-won, found the reason behind Mave:'s success in the balance of technology and strategy.
"Usually, it's the companies with the technology that attempts to create a virtual idol themselves. But this time, we acknowledged the fact that we had to join hands with a firm that has enough experience in successfully launching idols," Kang said.
In 2021, Kakao Entertainment invested 12 billion won ($9 million) into Metaverse Entertainment, gaining a 40 percent share of the Netmarble subsidiary. A multilabel company with seasoned experience in management, Kakao took the helm of shaping Mave: as singers that could survive inside the highly competitive world of K-pop.
According to Kang, the key technology was the real-time rendering, which enabled them to reduce the time used in making the computer graphics. Less time meant less cost, which made it possible for the team to add more details that made the avatars move more naturally like a human.
Mave: follows a world-building narrative. The four members -- Siu, Zeta, Tyra and Marty -- are originally from a city in the future, called Idypia, where emotions no longer exist. The girls then crash-land into the real world where they turn into K-pop singers.
"While other existing idols usually take up different concepts and styles with every album, as Mave: is a virtual group, we felt it was necessary to build a narrative from the start," Ahn explained, adding, "It seemed like a fun idea to unravel the metaverse universe by melding the sci-fi elements of the story."
Speaking to The Korea Herald a month after Mave:'s debut, the two directors said they were more than satisfied with how Mave: turned out. They also expressed their gratitude to fans who supported the work of the engineers and staff behind the quartet.
One comment below Mave:'s music show video that received over 2,000 likes read, "Usually the focus with K-pop groups solely lies on the group and not on the producers, choreographers or the people who even come up with the concepts. With Mave: everyone stands in the limelight. I really like that."
The plan itself is to continue improving along with Mave:. In an introductory video for themselves posted online, Mave: said they aspired to become a group that could last for 100 years. For the gaming company, the intellectual property of the four avatars has opened up the gates of opportunities for them.
"We cannot share much details right now, but we can tell you that we'll be introducing various content that only virtual idols can carry out," Ahn said, adding a virtual concert inside the metaverse platform is one of them.
"We affectionately call Mave: the fifth-generation idol because we believe its strength lies in fields that the existing human idols are not able to venture into," Kang said. "And we believe that it's our role to define what the new possibility is."
"GIRLS RE:VERSE" is the latest K-Pop survival show that has come to an end. The show featured a unique concept where K-Pop girl group members from existing groups took part in the program in order to debut in a final 5-member group. It has earned a lot of attention for its unique concept that uses VR (virtual reality) and virtual characters to create an air of anonymity for its contestants. Each of the girls had their identity hidden under the guise of a fictional character. As the show has come to an end, the final debut group (called FE:VERSE) has had its final debut members announced. This
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