Nicolas Gaume

🎉 Today is special for me because (i) it's my birthday 🎂, and (ii) we're officially launching Nocturne Games! 🚀 ✨ My friend and co-founder Arnaud Aubry and I embarked on a new chapter a few months ago alongside our fantastic Partners, Bobby Wertheim, and Jason Della Rocca, all driven by our shared passion for gaming and entrepreneurship. And we’ve already had a front-row seat for some seismic shifts reshaping the gaming industry. 🎮 Gaming, a $185B market, outpaces movies, on-demand video, and music combined, engaging nearly half the global population every month. 🎨 Indie gaming, propelled by AI, cheap game engines, digital distribution, and community-led marketing, democratizes success. The potential is immense, with 2023 seeing four indie titles among the top ten earners. ✌️ But there are some big challenges to take on. The studio-publisher relationship often suffers from unbalanced revenue shares, opaque terms, and IP conflicts, stifling creativity. Equity models falter with premium games, lacking clear exits and necessitating tangible publishing support. The gaming landscape needs innovative models that respect the unique dynamics of indie game development. 🎯 At Nocturne, we invest in unique, replayable games through revenue sharing. We provide capital and self-publishing support to indie studios, prioritizing fairness and community-validation strategies. We aim to transform promising concepts into blockbuster hits, offering up to €1.5M per game for a share of the game's revenue. 📝 Since January, we've received around 700 game submissions, in no small part thanks to our amazing Game Scout, Magdalena Buss 🔜 Mad Games Show, reflecting the vibrant creativity in the indie game community. We're in due diligence with 4 of these games and are about to sign our first title. We aim to invest in one new game monthly, quickly bringing fresh titles to gamers worldwide. 💡 In addition to the bright future of indie gaming, I’m also a big believer in building in public, so after this initial quiet period, I’m eager to start showing people what Nocturne is all about. 📘 You can start finding out more in our first article in the comments below (thanks, LinkedIn algorithm!). This piece begins an exciting series where the Nocturne team and I will share our journey, insights, and progress. 🙏 I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Joël Schillio, Caroline Raimbault, and the entire Alasta team for their incredible work on our brand identity and website! A special shoutout to Jean de La Rochebrochard, Nicolas Essayan, and Fabrice Grinda for being early believers, along with over 50 investors, including Yoann Lopez, Paul Guillemin, Alexandre Berriche, Marie Brayer, Pierre Mugnier, Francescu Santoni, Nicolas Steegmann, Virgile Raingeard, and Guillaume Moubeche. And, of course, my deepest gratitude to Francois Masciopinto for his unwavering support, kindness, and dedication since day one. 📸 Team picture by the fabulous Corentin Grange

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VentureBeat / GamesBeat covered my startup Cybever's closed beta of its 3D Unreal environment creation platform! DM me if you want to get an early access invite. Julien Proux, chief content officer at Room 8 Group put it better than I could: “Cybever’s solution is already capable of generating high-quality 3D environments quickly, which could significantly reduce the manual workload for our artists and lower costs for our clients. We are excited about the future enhancements to the tool’s flexibility and efficiency, which we believe will make Cybever’s tools an evolution in 3D creation.” https://lnkd.in/e9sQY-yG

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[The Secret Sauce of Community Engagement and User Acquisition] Honored by being involved by Blockchain Game Alliance Magazine, TBH whenever someone asks us to share insights from our experience with Intraverse and nearly a decade in Web3 for me and Morteza Shahini, I always come back to this: There isn't a right or wrong way to do things. What truly matters is having the right people who can adapt and evolve with the market. So if you want the Secret Sauce: There is No Secret Sauce lol There's no playbook and beware of who's trying to sell you "The Magic Pill" to solve all your Engagement, Retention and Acquisition problems. What's key essential is the people in your team.

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Netflix's new game hire is interesting. Alain understands development, portfolio management, but also cross-over experiences. But it still needs more. I talk about Netflix a lot and where I think they're underutilizing the ability to connect their worlds https://lnkd.in/gwSfYXMu Each Netflix game is a silo unto its own, only unified by a single-sign-on with your Netflix account. Alain comes from traditional games, in which each game is so cordoned off, that requires a lot of effort for publishers to connect them. As the Netflix portfolio grows, not only on mobile but also TV and PC, and the IP itself ends up in non-Netflix owned platforms (like their partnership with Roblox), it will be increasingly vital for Netflix to have a cohesive understanding of its audience, and also commercially beneficial to tie these universes together. Alain also comes from Fortnite, and so he likewise understands the complications of a quickly growing metaverse of games. The issue is that traditional game technology is not easily adaptable to this kind of fragmentation—the kind of fragmentation that Netflix already has and is planning to balloon with its game efforts. Tim Sweeney himself recently said that he feels Fortnite is a full 7 years away from meaningfully connecting its thousands of game worlds. That's pretty bonkers when you consider that web3 games are all connected automatically, out of the box. True, not necessarily with interoperability in the way we'd think of it (this sword shows up identically in all games), but that doesn't mean there aren't many ways to reward players (and developers) with other kinds of interconnected data, benefits, etc. right now. This is where I hope that Alain will bring a keen awareness of the issues facing the games industry overall, and the opportunity that Netflix has to be at the forefront of leveraging new technologies to ensure its users have a seamless and powerfully unified experience. I'll be watching their next steps closely. https://lnkd.in/gfq7P65T

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3.6x DPI | Nearly 5x TVPI | In Just 3.5 Years 🚀 During my time as a fund manager, I had the privilege of raising and managing three funds. Today, I’m thrilled to share some results from our very first fund: • DPI : Over 3.6x the invested capital returned to our investors through realized exits. • TVPI : Nearly 5x the initial investment, combining realized distributions and unrealized portfolio value. But what makes this milestone truly special isn’t just the numbers—it’s the incredible companies we’ve had the privilege to back. 2021 was the height of the VC bubble, and navigating such a competitive period to identify true winners amidst the noise is something we are immensely proud of. Companies like Ishendra Agarwal’s GIVA and Ajinkya Kulkarni’s Wint Wealth exemplify the kind of transformative potential we strive to support. None of this would have been possible without the guidance of my mentors, the dedication of my team (Akash Mundhra, Tanish Vyas), and, most importantly, the unwavering faith of our investors who trusted a first-time fund manager. #venturecapital #earlystage #founderbankcapital #VC #seedinvestments

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I sat down with Emmanuel de Maistre, CEO of Scenario, to talk about gen AI and web3 gaming—with some UGC for good measure—for Sequence XP. TLDR: we talked about the entire future of gaming. https://lnkd.in/dkzhVct2 We covered a lot of territory but especially: - How will gen AI help developers? - How will gen AI reward gamers? - How will gen AI accelerate creators? We talked about how web3 is vital for reigning in and accelerating this future, in a world in which anyone can create anything based on anything, provenience is crucial (web3 is the only trustable way to track that) and sharing upside is crucial (web3 allows for easy royalty sharing and participation). Dive in!

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Most businesses go from Real to Virtual. But reconnecting the virtual world to the real world is definitely not common. But it makes sense. That is why Cross The Ages is innovating in the entertainment space with the concept of ReVerse and real world assets RWA.

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€10,145,881 ➡️ That's what the French gaming community raised for charity this weekend during the #ZEvent2024! 🎮💚 Gamers and content creators have once again shown their power to positively shake up the entertainment industry. Highlights from this incredible event: 🎥 48 hours of non-stop content and entertainment 🌟 130 French streamers (30 gathered on-site and 100 online) 👥 300,000 average viewers and a peak of 537,627 viewers 📺 Notable figures from French traditional media, including television, joined the event, positioning France as a leader in bridging traditional media and online content creation. 🌍 International creators like Ludwig and Saruei participated, making this year’s event more global than ever. The #ZEvent is a powerful case study for video game companies and brands: it shows that marketing can benefit your brand, your target audience, and society as a whole. Don’t hesitate to contribute or even organize such events that bring gamers together for a good cause! 🌍🎮

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Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios Group acquired Monster Closet Games (founded by Ubisoft veterans) in October last year and integrated its developers to launch a new studio in Montreal. Yesterday, this studio was shut down 8 months after launch, along with Avalanche’s New York studio, cutting 50 jobs. In an “exceptionally difficult decision” taken by Avalanche, the shutdown was “necessary to ensure a stable and sustainable future for the company”. Avalanche even expressed regret for losing 9% of its workforce but gave no updates on how it plans to help them after this. For big studios, posting on social media is easier and a one-time thing. But what about the 50 devs who are left with tougher days to come? When AAA giant (Avalanche) entered their lives last year, they promised the devs big game projects. For eight months, they worked hard on a title with Xbox, getting excited about how they would thrill gamers from different corners of the planet. But instead of receiving due credit, they are informed that they are no longer needed on the project and that the company has to lay them off to sustain themselves. If this is sad to learn, consider the sudden mental toll on these developers and the possibility of many falling prey to self-doubt. I also tried finding the impacted folks to give them a shoutout, but I can’t see any #opentowork banners except one or two. If you know of anyone who was impacted, please mention them below, and we will do everything in our power to give them maximum visibility. If you were impacted and saw this, I am listing three resources and various other ways for you to get back into the games industry ASAP. First💎 Layoff Support Kit 2.0 - https://lnkd.in/gCCXW_Wp My team and I have dedicated countless hours to curating hundreds of online game development resources so you don't have to. This comprehensive collection includes top programming boot camps, renowned game dev educators, free game assets to help you build great games, insightful podcasts, and much more. Second💎 A 100% scholarship on our $11,000 Full Stack game dev program - https://lnkd.in/gZKqNBFh If you were impacted by the recent bloodshed of layoffs, here’s a chance to Re-skill and revise your game dev knowledge with our advanced C++, OOPs, Unity, and Data Structure modules. Additionally, you will receive exclusive one-on-one mentorship from top game programmers who will help you strengthen your already solid foundations. Third💎 Our Discord Community of over 10K game devs - https://lnkd.in/gH-wZe2G Here, we listen to everyone’s take on game development, support aspiring game developers in building stronger portfolios, and solve each other's doubts. Also requesting Kelly Bender, Alexander Rehm, Caitlin Cooke, Jordan Mazer, Ruty Rutenberg, Hailey Rojas, Kevin F., Kat Craig, Ali Farha, Matt Barney, and Ash C. to help this reach all the folks who can benefit from this. #layoffsupport

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Exciting news! This week, we introduced AI Generated Dubbing, revolutionizing the way customers repurpose video content in various languages. With over +40M Spanish speakers in the US alone, this innovation enables them to experience content in their native language effortlessly. A standout capability is Speech Synthesis, allowing us to replicate your voice and seamlessly transform content into Japanese, Spanish, French, and more. By enabling the creation of globally adaptable content, we empower customers to enhance the speed and efficiency of their content strategies. For instance, consider the scenario in Canada where content often requires translation into English and French Canadian. Now, with a simple click, obtaining the dubbed version has never been easier. #AI #Dubbing #ContentCreation #Innovation

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🛤️🔗 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐖𝐞𝐛𝟑 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 🔗🛤️ In the Web3 space, projects with ambitious roadmaps are common and generate a lot of excitement among the community and investors 🚀✨ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗮𝗽𝘀: - Attract investors 🚀 - Motivate the community 💪 - Create positive expectations 📈 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗳 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝘁: - Disappointment among investors and community 😞 - Loss of trust in the project 😰 - Negative impact on the project's reputation 📉 It's crucial to find a balance between ambition and realism. Projects should be transparent about challenges and regularly update their progress. What do you think? Do you prefer ambitious roadmaps even with the risk of not meeting them, or more realistic and achievable goals? 💬

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Join me on August 7th, 2024, for the 2nd Gaussian Splatting Online Meetup! We'll discuss the prospects of utilizing Animated Gaussian Splatting for volumetric video and explore the challenges of mass adoption. Exciting developments are happening in this field, so don't miss out on learning more about Gaussian Splatting and its potential use cases!

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𝗶𝗢𝗦 𝗠𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗽 𝗗𝗲𝘃 𝗧𝗶𝗽(𝘀): How I used the #OPM and #MBSE principles to design and produce an idea capturing app for my creative pipeline. I was introduced to the 𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 during the 2023-24 MIT PE TLP - Technology Leadership Program. Our first lecture at #MIT, delivered by Olivier L. de Weck, explored the definiton of technology and a variety of methodologies used to develop them. The moment he showed the first slide of the #OPD it made complete sense to me. 𝚃̲𝚑̲𝚎̲ ̲𝚌̲𝚘̲𝚛̲𝚎̲ ̲𝚙̲𝚛̲𝚒̲𝚗̲𝚌̲𝚒̲𝚙̲𝚕̲𝚎̲𝚜̲ ̲𝚝̲𝚑̲𝚊̲𝚝̲ ̲𝚕̲𝚒̲𝚝̲ ̲𝚞̲𝚙̲ ̲𝚖̲𝚢̲ ̲𝚒̲𝚖̲𝚊̲𝚐̲𝚒̲𝚗̲𝚊̲𝚝̲𝚒̲𝚘̲𝚗̲: - 𝘚𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘺 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴/𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴. - 𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘢 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮/𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘭/𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦s 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺. Immediately after our first week at #MIT, I took Dov Dori's class on edX, 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. Then went to town. I listed all pain-points related to my workflow. Decided that text was the modality to focus on first. Broke down my apps to solve three primary problems: 1. 𝘊𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢. 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦. 2. 𝘋𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵, a 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘈𝘐𝘔𝘓 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦. 3. 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨. Attached to this post is an impression of the iOS app diagram. Txt and design blurred for IP protection. Focus on this: - 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 (𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢, 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘴). - 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧. - *𝘐 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘗𝘔 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴. Taking this approach, I economized all of my instructions for Investors, Engineers and Users into one doc. Just like in an OPD, toggle the layers for the appropriate stakeholder to view. I used simple design functions like opacity and line weight to create a sense of 3D depth in the diagram. I built a junky prototype of the app. Used it as intended to validate my concept. Played around with this beater for 2.5 months. Took notes, rethinking my choices. Arrived a moment when I realized it was ready. It was time to find a developer. We built it in 10 days, part-time. Just checked in to say hello. So many more details to share. Maybe later. Stay well, Saa the Creative Spirit Incorporated, Inc.

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The game company partnered up with Aethir to Revolutioniz Web3 gaming infrastructure ! By partnering with Aethir, we will further enhance our capabilities by leveraging their powerful decentralized GPU network to supplement and scale our existing infrastructure. This not only reinforces the robustness of our platform but also highlights the critical role Aethir's technology will play in elevating the gaming experience for users worldwide. The collaboration is expected to drive the adoption of decentralized gaming and contribute to the growth of the broader Web3 ecosystem. https://lnkd.in/g3XyCaSG

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💡 Just out of a demo call with Gilles Domartini, Damien Organ, PhD and the team. 🚀 Seeing Cleeng launch "ChurnIQ Studio" brings back memories of my lateral project analyzing streaming patterns for a major US sport. I vividly remember spending countless nights (while simultaneously watching the games on 11 platforms) manually building over 70 custom dashboards to uncover viewer behavior and churn signals. Loved that, but... What took weeks of SQL (big)queries and moving log files wizardry can now be done in minutes. QUESTION: Have you been there too? Share your stories. Kate Waters of ITV said it perfectly: "We almost have too much data but we still have an insight gap." This resonates deeply with my experience - the data was always there, but connecting the dots required herculean effort. That's why I'm particularly excited about ChurnIQ Studio's launch. The ability to explore 80+ dimensions and create tailored visualizations for different teams is a game-changer for the streaming industry. No more sacrificing sleep to build custom reports! Congratulations to the Cleeng team on addressing this critical pain point. This is exactly the kind of tool I wish I had back then. #StreamingAnalytics #ProductLaunch #DataVisualization #CustomerRetention #StreamingPlatforms"

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🌌✨"HUMAN CELL ATLAS FIRST AI ART DATA SPATIAL PAINTING IN SPACE" BY Ouchhh presented in the official selection at Festival de Cannes 🛰 ☄Ouchhh Studio has officially become the first studio to exhibit an Artificial Intelligence data painting art piece in space, marking a historic milestone in the history of New Media Art. 💫 This masterpiece embarked on a celestial journey aboard the pioneering Nova-C lander named “Odysseus,” carried by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Center at 1:05 AM ET, February 15th. This mission, executed by Intuitive Machines, aims to mark the first American spacecraft touchdown on the Moon’s surface since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. 🚀💫 Introducing "HUMAN CELL ATLAS" - Artificial Neuro organismic AI Data Spatial Painting of humanity. This isn't just art; it's a poetic tale, an artistic self-portrait of humanity, sketched not with brushes but with lines of code and torrents of data. 🧬✨ DATA JOURNEY of 37.2 TRILLION CELLS THe canvas? The ambitious Human Cell Atlas Project. 🌍🔬 A global alliance of the brightest minds, from biologists to mathematicians, all united with a dream - mapping every cell in the human body to unlock secrets that could redefine our understanding of health and disease. The artistic odyssey harnessed the vastness of The Human Cell Atlas Project, leveraging cutting-edge tools like single-cell genomics, Auto Encoders, PCA analysis, and the tSNE algorithm to manifest a masterpiece that transcends dimensions. https://lnkd.in/d26SUa8d #ouchhhstudio #AI #datapainting More info in the comms below ⏬

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