iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Could see this with other genres like hidden object and arguably you kind of get that too with "simulator" games, a kind of "this is what it is, if that's what you want, buy it, if not move along swiftly" calling card?

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I wonder if there's some filtering effect, like maybe there's a risk of people buying the game thinking it's something else and leaving a negative review when they realise it's a tower defense?

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Reposted by Valentine Kozin

Christian Sparks @hippowombat.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Hey there friends! Unfortunately, I was among those impacted by layoffs at Heart Machine last week. If you or someone you know is looking for an experienced Unreal Engine Technical Artist, I'm available for full time, part time, or contract opportunities.

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Reposted by Valentine Kozin

Juan Vaca @juancow.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I am part of this round of layoffs and am seeking new opportunities. If your team needs a narrative director / storyteller, please reach out.

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Reposted by Valentine Kozin

Thew @amazingthew.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

god i love videogames. have you heard about "places"? they are called locations

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

If not for the Weyland Yutani logo on the vehicles I legit don't think I would have clocked these as movie props 😅

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Excited to finally see the game as a backer from way back but sorry the arbitrary censorship has hit the imminent release like this 😤 If you can't get it fixed, lean into it and go full smut, I say 🙏 That'll show 'em!

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Reposted by Valentine Kozin

Daley @daleywow.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

GOOD LORD LMAO hire me

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

What can you expect from a site that rates its own self as 100% vibe coded 😄

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Listen here, I'm just trying to learn some culture you sarcastic little shit.

Google search results for "they won't let me fuck the flag" with the annoying search AI saying "public decency laws, private property rules and general common sense mean you cannot have intimate relations with a national symbol in public. authorities tend to frown upon flag desecration or public indecency, so you will need to find another outlet for your intense patriotism."

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

We saw one in our garden last week as well for the first time - it seems like it's the heat drawing them out!

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

It's nowhere near ready to share 🫠 but prototyping a small drawing game inspired by Meccha Chameleon's Art Gallery where everyone has to paint one part of a classical painting, similar to Exquisite Corpse: fresc.io

fresc.io

Giornata

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

A full graphic novel edition in this style would go hard.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

What why would you send cops with EMTs 🥹

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Playing around with HDR grading and YouTube videos - interested in what folk think of this format! Want to try and get more into the habit of doing YT videos, so easing myself in a bit with this one. Feels a bit cringe and clickbaity, but maybe a chill watch? 🫣 www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJz2...

youtube.com

What is HDR For? | Vienna in 8K HDR

YouTube video by 9of9

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

We're a small but dedicated following! 💖 Couldn't agree more!

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I recall a webcomic artist in the 2000s saying cultures like emos etc. were made by marketers to get demographics to sell to. And "if you're staying out of consumerist trends and spending less and not buying into it, s'okay: they'll find a way to label you too." Few years later, we got hipsters.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Got to snap some very cool film photos at Voidspace live last weekend with @bintymadger.bsky.social! Had an absolute blast with some of these installations, many thanks to @voidspacezine.bsky.social for the fabulous show!

Backrooms-style photo of Overbrewed being played by some stressed out baristas behind frosted glass.

Close-up photo of a small installation art piece that has a tiny CRT screen connected to a small camera and a printer, showing the photographer taking a picture.

Moody photo of Neorcana being played on a CRT display next to a table lamp, the PC screen filled with red message boxes.

Golden glow in this close-up shot of Sent(i)ence being played with cards and chips laid out across the desk, surrounded by books and hosted by a disinterested-looking croupier/data-entry-clerk(?).

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The kind of film I don't want to watch because I really don't want to spoil the inevitable nine hour long video essay for myself when it comes out.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

"Storm's coming, make sure to unplug all the holodecks, Timmy."

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

STO is extra-weird though, IIRC as I think they've added/remodelled a bunch of the series locations to be more screen-accurate and now you get a total mish-mash of big open MMO spaces like on the left and claustrophobic smaller ones like on the right in the same game.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I've never been as aware of this as when trying to play Star Trek Online a long while ago, which recreates the ST universe wonderfully, but with a very uncanny sense of scale because it needs to accommodate a hyper-zoomed out MMO camera.

A starship bridge in Star Trek Online - absurdly tall ceilings, vast amounts of empty space, people and doorways dwarfed by the space.

The Enterprise E bridge - by comparison tight and claustrophobic with low ceilings, feels like an actual space rather than a shopping mall.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Still my absolute fav 💖🥰

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Reposted by Valentine Kozin

Andy Walsh @englishscribe.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Wondering what to do in a British bank holiday? Take the time to apply! OPPORTUNITY - Lead Narrative Designer - EA - Battlefield - Hybrid - UK Absolutely affiliated (a chance to work together!). Shares very welcome! jobs.ea.com/en_US/career...

jobs.ea.com

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I feel like the most shocking part of this is it implies there are systems on the market that don't hallucinate or give incorrect info, which I'm kind of sceptical of here.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Train travel is goated, intentionally only ever live in walking distance of a train station. I drive, but would always prefer to take the train when I can, even with the UK's train situation being far from ideal.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Ah shoot, I like Haidilao but it's also very expensive! 😅 One day will find a good budget alternative!

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

They should make a Tenet graphic novel adaptation where everyone going backwards in time turns into a manga character.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Ooh which hotpot place did you go to? I've been to Haidilao a few times and really enjoyed it, but that looks like a different one!

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Sitting on the duck of the bay, And it goes quack cause of how much I weigh

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Isn't this the From Software storytelling model in a nutshell?

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Congrats, that's awesome! ☺️

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Exciting times! Maybe I should get ahead of the curve and do some YouTube videos on Resolve colour grading for photographers or something? 😅

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

But I'm shocked, SHOCKED that they've actually made this step. Never had any inkling that BlackMagick cared about the non-video side of things, and would actually put resources into competing with Lightroom, given they have a very different niche generally.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

The Resolve Colour tab is so considerably better than Lightroom or any other RAW photo editor, to the point that I've graded all my photos in Resolve for several years now, but lack of dedicated photo support made this painful (e.g. horizontal and vertical photos on the same timeline).

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Holy shit, Davinci Resolve is adding a photo mode! This is legitimately the #1 feature I would have asked for and I never thought BlackMagick would actually do it?!

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Is there a term for the opposite of Redundant Acronym Syndrome (e.g. PIN number etc.) to describe where the word feels redundant but actually isn't? Any time I talk about Unreal's Material Parameter Collections and have to say 'MPC Parameter' it feels wrong in a RAS way, but is technically correct.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Sir, have you considered that you are a pack of macaques in a trenchcoat.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

(Imagine a person in a house on the other side of the planet being the only illumination in the photo: with a long enough exposure/brightness you might eventually see the light scattering through the window into the atmosphere, which indicates there's a chance their photons could hit the camera)

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Personally partial to 2, in which case it mostly depends on how long your exposure is, so it's a photo of most people except those in windowless flats and bunkers.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

1 and 3 seem a bit arbitrary, though I imagine when people say this they mean something like 3 - Alice is on earth, therefore a photo of earth is a photo of Alice.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

People will also be inside buildings and vehicles so the question is if it's about an acceptable depth of penetration through matter, or photons from the person hitting the camera or some transitive relationship (Alice is in the house, therefore a photo of the house is a photo of Alice) 🤔

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Oh I caught this on the radio and didn't realise the person speaking was Gove. The Telegraph is being cheeky here in entirely failing to note that the statements were made as part of a comedy panel show and not, say, a hard-hitting interview. Spectator and Telegraph yanking each other's chains?

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Reposted by Valentine Kozin

Riker Googling @rikergoogling.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

why did obama leave a baseball on the oval office desk

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Not because it is easy but because it is cheesy

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Like what it's doing to environmental materials and light transport on a physics level is neat (for a photoreal-aspiring game), but what it's changing in terms of actual lighting and tonemapping, changing visual direction, isn't. Question is - can one even be decoupled from the other with this tech?

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Apart from faces, I think I'm split. I think there's some nice tactile details that get added, and I like in principle the idea of a filter that tricks my eyes a little bit more into thinking that I'm not looking at CGI. But, it's also pushing it into a very generic Netflix look I really dislike.

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Valentine Kozin @9of9.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

But the big issue is it's being presented as a neutral quality/lighting improvement, which it clearly isn't. Far from from what DLSS usually does. A neutral quality improvement shouldn't change the style and aesthetic *at all*, and this clearly does, which puts it in the realm of gimmicky filter.

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