This week at Bungie, we look to the sky.

Ever since this Season began, the Almighty has been hurtling through space on its collision course with Earth. The Cabal are not known for their graceful defeats. Every day we spend preparing our long lost Seraph to mount a response, that derelict destroyer rockets ever closer to our home, spelling certain doom for the City.

Rasputin is at full power. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. Now, eclipsing our own sun is a stark reminder that a great threat approaches. Eyes up!

What’s Next?

Diving Deep

In recent editions of “This Week At Bungie,” we’ve taken the cue directly from the community on what we should talk about. Our attention has been focused on your feedback. Our words have pointed toward what we plan to do to bring the game into alignment with what you’ve been talking about. With a summary of what we’ve promised and some updates on our progress, here is Production Director Justin Truman.

Justin: Hey everybody.

Five weeks ago, we promised a series of deep dives on the state of Destiny, and how we plan to change it in Season 11 and Year 4.   

We enlisted seven members of the Destiny Team to provide as much detail as we could, and I’d encourage you to go back and read any of the topics you may have missed:

We covered a lot of ground, and while we are going to continue to provide updates each week to topics you care about, we want to shift our focus in the coming weeks. 

We’ve said a lot about changes coming in Year 4, but we haven’t talked about how Year 4 begins. Very soon, we’ll do just that.

I kicked off this series of deep dives with some promises, but I want to end the series on a more personal note. Being unable to go to the office, trying to figure out how to keep building this game we love from our laptops and our couches has had me thinking a lot about commitment.

Videogame development is messy. Evolving Destiny 2 in an open, transparent way involves showing (and shipping) plenty of missteps along with the improvements. But it continues to be worth it, every step of the way, because I can honestly say this is the most welcoming, most passionate community of players I have encountered, in any game.

We’re committed to this game, to staying transparent about our plans, and to this relationship we have with our community. The reasons we started on this journey 10 years ago haven’t changed. We’re committed to building a world anyone can be a part of, where everyone can feel powerful, and where you might reconnect with old friends or make some new ones.

So we look forward to continuing this conversation, and continuing to evolve Destiny together. And in 12 days, we can’t wait to show you more of what we’ve been working on.

Stay safe out there, Guardians.

---

Ready for Prime Time

Triumphant

From one Season to the next, from one expansion to another, one constant is that that Player Support Team will be there to monitor your reports from the wild frontier. The #help forum is their base of operations. Their mission is to keep you out there fighting the darkness.

This is their report.

SEAL THE DEAL

• Almighty
• Flawless
• Conqueror

Players must earn these Seals and equip the associated Titles by the weekly reset on June 9, 2020, in order to be eligible for the Bungie Reward. Reward codes must then be claimed from the Bungie Rewards page by June 12, 2020, 9:59 AM PDT.

SEASONAL TRIUMPHS

As we approach the end of Season of the Worthy, certain Triumphs will no longer be available to earn in-game. Triumphs leaving at the weekly reset on June 9, 2020, include:

• Full-stack Warmind Security
• Object-Oriented
• Season 10: Nightfall
• Season 10: Vanguard
• Season 10: Glory
• Season 10: Power Bonus
• Multi-Threaded Spelunker
• And more.

THE LIE

Last week, Hotfix 2.8.1.3 was released to resolve an issue preventing players from progressing “The Lie” quest. Players will now have until the end of the Season of the Worthy to complete this quest and claim the associated reward before it become unavailable.

Players who continue to observe issues with the quest “The Lie” should report them on the #Help Forum.

KNOWN ISSUES

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

• The Bonus Clan Bounty is not gaining progress from Nightfall: The Ordeal completions at Grandmaster difficulty.
• Zavala’s Authority ship shows the left engine thruster before the ship appears in orbit.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

Trending Now

You know that old question about the tree that falls in the forest when there is no one around to hear it? The Movie of the Week is our answer. If a Guardian fires their favorite Exotic weapon, and it didn’t make it into a montage, did it make a sound? Here are some of the finest existential moments we discovered during our online wanderings this week.

Movie of the Week: Bunker Rave

Honorable Mention

The filmmakers have received the most storied emblem as evidence that Bungie is their number one fan. If you want your work to reach our eyes, your best venue is our Creations page.

Don’t call it a TWAB. I’ve been here for years.

Sure, @A_dmg04 and @Cozmo23 own this beat, but I wanted to take a shift. I’d love to be dusting off my travel luggage right about now. I’ll miss seeing your faces and making new connections out there in the world. That will happen again. For now, the traditions that shape what makes a Guardian a Guardian, year after year, must be obeyed. We’ll be firing all our cannons very soon.

We hope you’ll be around to enjoy the fireworks.

DeeJ, out.

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.

• New Nether biomes, blocks and structures no longer generate in worlds with a fixed version defined MCPE-66357
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from joining Dedicated Servers

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue that could cause tile entities in a chunk to lose their data when the chunk is loaded MCPE-78279

Mobs

• Cured zombie villagers can breed again MCPE-48533
• Mobs that are path finding will be able to get to the end of their path
• Rabbits will hop properly again when moving MCPE-74537

Graphical

• Textures now load correctly when descending from high altitude MCPE-77490

Add-Ons and Scripting

• Content using the player in the base pack will now swim correctly
• Functions no longer give content log errors when using fake players with scoreboard
• Playsounds with numbers in their names now play correctly
• Fixed issue where ‘minecraft:knockback_roar’ would not apply vertical knockback force

The Last of Us Part II is due out later this month, and ahead of that release Naughty Dog is offering an early look at the vastly different ways players can tweak its settings so the game meets their own specific needs.

In this case, Naughty Dog says it built on what it did in the past for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and expanded those offerings with specific areas in mind.

While players still have the ability to toggle and tweak settings as needed (and can even fully customize button assignments this time around), Naughty Dog has set up presets to quickly adapt the game for players with low or no vision, impaired hearing, or motor disabilities.

Those presets in particular are a welcome addition that takes some of the usual labor out of combing through multiple menus in order to correctly set up options that may be vital for play. There’s an in-depth rundown on what each of the vision, hearing, and motor presets changes, and players are able to customize their options further even after picking a preset.

“One challenge in creating a large number of configurable options is making you aware of which options might be relevant for your needs,” explains Naughty Dog. “In addition, many features were created to work well in concert with one another. “

All in all, the team says The Last of Us Part II includes more than 60 accessibility settings, including new features Naughty Dog says it built to benefit low-vision and blind players specifically. The full run down can be found here. 

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Espoo Finland

Remedy Entertainment, the creator of Control®, Quantum Break®, Max Payne®, Alan Wake® and Death Rally®, and one of the leading independent game studios in the world, is now looking for a (Senior) Dialogue Designer for a key role working on Remedy’s projects.

As a (Senior) Dialogue Designer you would be participating in the creation of world-class narrative gaming experiences with compelling dialogue performances. You would be working with the Narrative and Audio Teams to drive the VO production pipeline across all Remedy projects.

Responsibilities

• Engineer in-house recording sessions (Mo-Cap, VO and Face Capture), attend external dialogue and motion-capture sessions as required.
• Ensure all required materials are prepared as needed for recording sessions.
• Editing and mixing of all dialogue assets, ensuring the highest quality dialogue assets are delivered and implemented in the game.
• Develop and implement any audio processing where dialogue requires effects; both for real-time playback in-engine and offline processing.
• Collaborate with the Audio, Tech, Narrative and Game Design Teams to build systems, tools and pipelines to facilitate the entire VO production and integration process.
• Work with the Production, Cinematic and Narrative Teams in creating and managing dialogue and performance capture schedules, actors and studio bookings.
• Evaluate and improve the dialogue experience across the game, collaborate with all departments involved to integrate dialogue into the game.
• Communicate with and support localization partners.

Requirements and qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in game development. Previous experience working as a Dialogue Designer (or similar role) on at least one shipped AAA game.
• Detailed knowledge of standard professional audio software (Pro Tools, Reaper, iZotope RX etc.).
• Experience working with Wwise (or other audio middleware) and game engines (Unity, Unreal etc. or other proprietary engines).
• Deep understanding of microphone techniques, studio hardware and audio production.
• Self-motivated and proactive, with a dedication to improving your craft and making the best games possible.
• Strong time management skills, and a meticulous attention to detail.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (in English).

Ideal candidate would also have

• Knowledge and experience working with scripting/programming languages (Python, C#, Lua etc.).
• Previous experience working with outsource vendors.
• Formal education in a relevant field e.g. audio engineering, game design etc.
• Film or TV Post-Production experience is a plus.

What is in it for you?

• Yes, you get to move to Finland where the quality of life is exceptional and cost of living is affordable
• Moving to a new country can be intimidating, but our relocation service is there every step of the way to take care of you. You can concentrate on work, while we’ll take care of everything else
• You will be offered competitive compensation with a bonus system
• We work hard, but at Remedy we believe in a great work life balance. Happy people work better. In Finland you get up to 5 weeks of paid vacation every year. This is on top of public holidays and other special occasions
• Above all, you get to work on awesome, unique video games that the global audience is interested in at a studio where your input is valued. We try our hardest to keep our team sizes and the work load sensible, so your contributions feel valuable

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.

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Problem: Given two lists [1, 2, 2, 4] and [2, 5, 5, 5, 6]. How do you combine those lists to the new list [1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6] by removing the duplicates in the second list?

Note: You want to remove all duplicates in the second list and the elements in the second list that are already in the first list.

Solution: Use the following three steps to combine two lists and remove the duplicates in the second list:

• Convert the first and second lists to a set using the set(...) constructor.
• Use the set minus operation to get all elements that are in the second list but not in the first list.
• Create a new list by concatenating those elements to the first list.

Here’s the code:

# Create the two lists

l1 = [1, 2, 2, 4]

l2 = [2, 5, 5, 5, 6] # Find elements that are in second but not in first

new = set(l2) - set(l1) # Create the new list using list concatenation

l = l1 + list(new)

print(l)

# [1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6]

Try it yourself in our interactive Python shell:

Exercise: Can you rewrite this in a single line of Python code (Python One-Liner)?

Let’s dive into the more concise one-liner to accomplish the same thing:

l = l1 + list(set(l2) - set(l1))

If you want to learn about the most Pythonic way to remove ALL duplicates from a Python list, read on:

How to Remove Duplicates From a Python List?

Naive Method: Go over each element and check whether this element already exists in the list. If so, remove it. However, this takes a few lines of code.

Efficient Method: A shorter and more concise way is to create a dictionary out of the elements in the list to remove all duplicates and convert the dictionary back to a list. This preserves the order of the original list elements.

lst = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Bob', 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3]

print(list(dict.fromkeys(lst)))

# ['Alice', 'Bob', 1, 2, 3]

1. Convert the list to a dictionary with dict.fromkeys(lst).
2. Convert the dictionary into a list with list(dict).

Each list element becomes a new key to the dictionary. For example, the list [1, 2, 3] becomes the dictionary {1:None, 2:None, 3:None}. All elements that occur multiple times will be assigned to the same key. Thus, the dictionary contains only unique keys—there cannot be multiple equal keys.

As dictionary values, you take dummy values (per default).

Then, you convert the dictionary back to a list, throwing away the dummy values.

Here’s the code:

>>> lst = [1, 1, 1, 3, 2, 5, 5, 2]

>>> dic = dict.fromkeys(lst)

>>> dic

{1: None, 3: None, 2: None, 5: None}

>>> duplicate_free = list(dic)

>>> duplicate_free

[1, 3, 2, 5]

Related blog articles:

• Python Remove Duplicates From List of Lists
• Python List Remove
• The Ultimate Guide to Python Dictionaries!

Where to Go From Here?

Enough theory, let’s get some practice!

To become successful in coding, you need to get out there and solve real problems for real people. That’s how you can become a six-figure earner easily. And that’s how you polish the skills you really need in practice. After all, what’s the use of learning theory that nobody ever needs?

Practice projects is how you sharpen your saw in coding!

Do you want to become a code master by focusing on practical code projects that actually earn you money and solve problems for people?

Then become a Python freelance developer! It’s the best way of approaching the task of improving your Python skills—even if you are a complete beginner.

Join my free webinar “How to Build Your High-Income Skill Python” and watch how I grew my coding business online and how you can, too—from the comfort of your own home.

Join the free webinar now!

Pixologic have just released a new free version of their ZBrush sculpting application, ZBrushCore Mini.  Details of the software from the homepage:

ZBrushCoreMini is all about sculpting. Start with a simple sphere or a stone block, then use a select group of the most popular digital sculpting brushes from ZBrush to add or remove material and simply… create! ZBrushCoreMini frees you to explore your imagination.

Once you are happy with your creation, it also provides an exciting new way to share your work with others, through the iMage3D format. On any website, this will simply appear as a regular 2D image. But other users of ZBrushCoreMini can open the file in full 3D!

And with 3D printers increasingly coming into their own, ZBrushCoreMini includes the ability to export your model for real-world printing.

Interestingly however, nowhere do they mention the major limitation of the Mini version, not even on the version comparison page.  From the EULA:

       2.5 ZBrushCoreMini 

ZBrushCoreMini is intended for educational purposes. It may not be used for commercial, professional and other for-profit purposes. 

This non-commercial license will greatly limit what you can use ZBrushCore Mini for and is something you should be made aware of immediately.  You can learn more about ZBrushCore Mini and see it in action in the video below.

Art GameDev News Applications

Sourabh

.NET 5 Preview 5 is now available and is ready for evaluation! .NET 5 will be a current release.

Get started

To get started with ASP.NET Core in .NET 5.0 Preview5 install the .NET 5.0 SDK.

If you’re on Windows using Visual Studio, we recommend installing the latest preview of Visual Studio 2019 16.7.

If you’re on macOS, we recommend installing the latest preview of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac 8.7.

Upgrade an existing project

To upgrade an existing ASP.NET Core 5.0 preview4 app to ASP.NET Core 5.0 preview5:

• Update all Microsoft.AspNetCore.* package references to 5.0.0-preview.5.*.
• Update all Microsoft.Extensions.* package references to 5.0.0-preview.5.*.

See the full list of breaking changes in ASP.NET Core 5.0.

That’s it! You should now be all set to use .NET 5 Preview 5.

What’s new?

Reloadable endpoints via configuration for Kestrel

Kestrel now has the ability to observe changes to configuration passed to KestrelServerOptions.Configure and unbind from existing endpoints and bind to new endpoints without requiring you to restart your application.

See the release notes for additional details and known issues.

Give feedback

We hope you enjoy this release of ASP.NET Core in .NET 5! We are eager to hear about your experiences with this latest .NET 5 release. Let us know what you think by filing issues on GitHub.

Thanks for trying out ASP.NET Core!

Details continue to emerge from the iOS 13.6 beta released this week, with a report on Wednesday noting the upcoming operating system automatically saves reading progress in Apple News articles.