title: And the Band Played On (film)

text: Most reviewers agreed that the filmmakers had a daunting task in adapting Shilts's massive, fact-filled text into a dramatically coherent film. Many critics praised the results. Film review website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 100% "Fresh" rating based on eight reviews.


title: And the Band Played On (film)

text: Tony Scott of "Variety" stated that "if there are lapses, director Spottiswoode's engrossing, powerful work still accomplishes its mission: Shilts's book, with all its shock, sorrow and anger, has been transferred decisively to the screen."


title: And the Band Played On (film)

text: John O'Connor of "The New York Times" agreed that the adaptation "adds up to tough and uncommonly courageous television. Excessive tinkering has left the pacing of the film sluggish in spots, but the story is never less than compelling."


title: And the Band Played On (film)

text: Ken Tucker of "Entertainment Weekly" graded the film B+ and called it an "intriguing, sometimes awkward, always earnest combination of docudrama, medical melodrama, and mystery story. The stars lend warmth to a movie necessarily preoccupied with cold research and politics, and they lend prestige: The movie must be important, since actors of this stature agreed to appear. The result of the stars' generosity, however, works against the movie by halting the flow of the drama every time a familiar face pops up on screen. The emotions and agony involved in this subject give "Band" an irresistible power, yet the movie's rhythm is choppy and the dialogue frequently stiff and clichéd. The best compliment one can pay this TV movie is to say that unlike so many fact-based films, it does not exploit or diminish the tragedy of its subject."


title: And the Band Played On (film)

text: In a review from "Time Out New York", the writing team thought "so keen were the makers of this adaptation of Randy Shilts's best-seller to bombard us with the facts and figures of the history of AIDS that they forgot to offer a properly dramatic human framework to make us care fully about the characters." The review also says that the multiple issues the film attempts to cover "make for a disjointed, clichéd narrative."


title: And the Band Played On (film)

text: Richard Zoglin of "Time" magazine wrote "Shilts's prodigiously researched 600-page book has been boiled down to a fact-filled, dramatically coherent, occasionally moving 2 hours and 20 minutes. At a time when most made-for-TV movies have gone tabloid crazy, here is a rare one that tackles a big subject, raises the right issues, fights the good fight."


title: And the Band Played On (film)

text: The team from Channel 4 believed the film "is stifled by good intentions and a distractingly generous cast of stars in leads and cameos."


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: The Bangladesh Navy () is the naval warfare branch of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, responsible for Bangladesh's of maritime territorial area, and the defence of important harbours, military bases and economic zones. The primary role of the Bangladesh Navy is to protect the country's economic and military interests at home and abroad. The Bangladesh navy is also a front line disaster management force in Bangladesh, and participates in humanitarian missions abroad. It is a key regional player in counter terrorism efforts, and engages in global peacekeeping with the United Nations.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: The Bangladesh Navy was created as part of Bangladesh Forces during Bangladesh's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan. Its official creation date is July 1971 during the Bangladesh Sector Commanders Conference 1971. In 1971, with West Pakistan imposing a brutal military crackdown in East Pakistan, the Bangladesh Liberation War was already underway. Many Bengali sailors and officers in the Pakistan Navy defected to form the nascent Bangladesh Navy. Initially, there were two ships, "PADMA" and "PALASH", and 45 navy personnel. On 9 November 1971, the first naval fleet, consisting of six small patrol vessels, was inaugurated. These ships tried to carry out raids on the Pakistani fleet, but were mistakenly hit and sunk by the Indian Air Force on 10 December 1971. The next major attack was launched on Mongla seaport. According to official figures from the Bangladesh Navy, a total of 334 sailors were involved with the newly created navy, with 22 being killed in action.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: The navy carried out around 45 operations during the war: traditional naval operations and unconventional commando operations including guerrilla warfare. In the first leg of the war, defecting Bengali sailors joined the guerrilla forces. It was the eight sailors who defected from the Pakistan Navy submarine "PNS Mangro", under construction in France, that pioneered the formation of the naval element during the Liberation War. Later many other naval personnel participated. During the Liberation War, East Pakistan was divided into 11 sectors. Each sector had a Commander and a demarcated area of responsibility except sector 10. Sector 10 was nominally responsible for the coastal belt but actually operated over the entire country.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: In 1971, it was imperative for the occupation force to keep ports and harbours operative and the sea lines of communication open. The Bangladesh Navy fought to block the sea lines of communication, and to make the sea and river ports inoperative. They attacked all the seaports including many river ports. Operation Jackpot is one of the best known and most successful operations. They carried out mining in the Pasur River Channel by patrol craft. With other fighters they also carried out attacks against the Pakistan Army. As a result, Bangladesh became an independent state within the shortest possible time.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: After independence, especially in the 1970s, additional naval infrastructure was required. Two ex-Royal Navy frigates joined the Bangladesh Navy as and in 1976 and 1978 respectively. In 1982 a third ex-Royal Navy frigate joined the BN as . The acquisition of these three frigates is considered the principal foundation of the Bangladesh Navy.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: In 2011, the Bangladesh Navy's rescue and medical team, along with the Bangladesh Army, was deployed to Japan after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The Bangladesh Navy has been an active disaster recovery force abroad. In 2013, the navy deployed carrying humanitarian assistance worth $1 million. The Bangladesh Navy's medical team was also deployed to the Philippines.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: The Bangladesh Navy joined in the search operation for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with , BNS "Umar Faruq" and a Dornier 228NG MPA in March 2014. The aircraft was a Boeing 777-200ER which had gone missing with 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 nations during the flight from Malaysia to China. Later, BNS "Umar Farooq" was replaced by BNS "Somudra Joy". The search was renewed in May 2014 when an Australian exploration company claimed to have traced aircraft debris in the Bay of Bengal. In 2014, during the Water Crisis in Maldives, the Bangladesh Navy was the first to launch humanitarian aid relief by deploying BNS "Somudra Joy" with 100 tonnes of bottled water.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: In 2009, the Bangladesh government adopted a long-term modernisation plan for its armed forces called Forces Goal 2030. As of 2013, about a third of the military hardware procured under the plan has been for the navy. It procured two refurbished Type 053H2 (Jianghu III) frigates from China in 2014. Two United States Coast Guard High Endurance Cutters joined the BN in 2013 and 2015 which are being used as patrol frigates. Navy also bought an ex-Royal Navy "Roebuck"-class survey vessel and two ex-Royal Navy offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) which were converted to guided missile corvettes in 2011. Two Type 056 corvettes joined the BN in 2016 while two more were ordered in July 2015 and they are awaiting commissioning. Two large patrol craft (LPCs) were built in China and joined the BN in 2013. Two more ships of the same class with dedicated ASW capabilities were commissioned in 2017. Five Padma-class patrol vessels have been commissioned into the navy in 2013. Besides, multiple indigenous built LCUs and LCTs have been added to the navy.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: The Bangladesh Navy opened its aviation wing on 14 July 2011 with the induction of two AgustaWestland AW109 helicopters. Later on, two Dornier 228NG MPA were introduced in 2013. To attain underwater operational capabilities, the Bangladesh Navy inducted two off-the-shelf Type 035G (Ming class) submarines from China on 12 March 2017.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: A new base for the Bangladesh Navy, named "BNS Sher-e-Bangla", is being constructed at Rabanabad in Patuakhali. It will be the largest naval base of the Bangladesh Navy with submarine berthing and aviation facilities. Meanwhile, a separate submarine base, named BNS Sheikh Hasina, is under construction at Pekua in Cox's Bazar. A full-fledged naval base, named BNS Sheikh Mujib, has been commissioned in Khilkhet, Dhaka. This is the only operational base in Dhaka naval region.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: In 1993 the Bangladesh Navy joined United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. Its first UN mission came in 2005, when a Bangladesh Navy contingent was sent to Sudan as Force Riverine Unit (FRU). The Bangladesh Navy is currently serving in United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in Lebanon since 2010, when two ships, and , were deployed there in May of that year. The BN is the third Asian and only subcontinental navy to serve in the volatile region. The BN maintained the two ships thousands of miles from Bangladesh in the Mediterranean Sea for four years until June 2014, when the ships were replaced by and .


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: BN ships regularly participate in exercises with other navies, gaining valuable experience and improving their fighting capabilities. CARAT is a yearly exercise conducted with the United States Navy in the Bay of Bengal since 2011. The BN has sent an OPV to every MILAN multinational naval exercise held near the Andaman Islands since 2010. "AMAN", another multinational exercise held every two years in the Arabian Sea, organised by the Pakistan Navy, has also seen participation by BN frigates since 2009. BNS "Bangabandhu" participated in "Exercise Ferocious Falcon", a Multinational Crisis Management Exercise, held at Doha, Qatar in November 2012, while BNS "Somudra Joy" participated the same exercise in 2015. took part in "14th Western Pacific Naval Symposium" and "International Fleet Review-2014" in Qingdao, Shandong Province of China in April 2014. She also participated in Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA)-2015 held at Malaysia.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: In January 2000, the first batch of 16 female cadets joined Bangladesh Naval Academy for cadet training. In 2016, 44 female sailors were added to the force for the first time.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: Somudro Ghurni (English: Sea Vortex) is the codename of a series of major naval exercises conducted by the Bangladesh Navy to simulate naval warfare and the protection of the country from external maritime threats, protection of the country's maritime resources, and prevention of smuggling.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: The exercise took place in the Bay of Bengal. It started on 16 November 2015 and lasted 15 days. During the exercise, the navy deployed most of its fleet, including frigates, corvettes, and maritime patrol aircraft. The exercise included search and rescue, logistical, maritime patrol, landing, and warfare exercises. During the exercise, the Navy successfully test launched missiles.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: Bangladesh Navy (BN) has its headquarters at Banani, Dhaka. According to the Constitution of Bangladesh, the President of Bangladesh is the commander-in chief of Bangladesh Armed Forces. The Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), a four-star Admiral, is the highest admiral, directs the non-combat and combatant operations from the Naval Headquarters (NHQ) in Dhaka. The headquarters has four branches: Operations (O), Personnel (P), Material (M) and Logistics (Log). Each branch is headed by officers who are titled as Principal Staff Officer (PSO) and known as Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (ACNS), e.g., ACNS (O). Under each PSO there are various directorates headed by directors with the rank of Commodore or Captain. Under each director there are deputy directors (DD) and staff officers (SO).


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: The Bangladesh Navy has ten major combatant command, each command is commanded by a Rear admiral or Commodore, who directly reports to Chief of Naval Staff.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: The Bangladesh Naval Academy is the home of naval cadets to be the future officers of Bangladesh Navy. The academy provides education, athletic and military training to the naval cadets. The academy also offers training programs to the officers of allied navies including navy personnel from Qatar, Sri Lanka, Maldivian and Palestinian Navy.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: As of November 2020, the Bangladeshi Navy has five Guided Missile Frigates, two patrol frigates, six Corvettes, thirty-eight minor surface combatants of various types (including patrol vessels, missile boats, and mine hunters), and thirty auxiliaries as surface assets. Submarine branch is equipped with two diesel-electric attack submarines. The naval aviation wing operates both fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft. The navy also maintain a special force named SWADS.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: Bangladesh Navy became the three-dimensional force with the commissioning of two refurbished Type 035G (Ming class) submarines on 12 March 2017.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: Bangladesh has made a long term modernisation plan for its Armed Forces named Forces Goal 2030. The plan includes the modernization and expansion of all equipment and infrastructures and providing enhanced training. Bangladesh Navy is setting up a new base at Rabanabad in Patuakhali named BNS Sher-e-Bangla, which will be the largest naval base of the country. The base will have submarine berthing and aviation facilities. A separate submarine base named BNS Sheikh Hasina, is under construction at Pekua in Cox's Bazar. The construction works of a fleet headquarters at the Sandwip channel of Chittagong with ship berthing facilities is already going on.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: Khulna Shipyard is currently building five padma-class patrol vessels for the navy. The same shipyard launched two hydrographic research ships and two coastal survey boats for the Bangladesh Navy. The ships are in trial phase now.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: BN has issued two tenders for the procurement of four helicopters with anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface vessel warfare (ASuW), over-the-horizon targeting (OTHT), maritime search and rescue (MSAR), medical evacuation (MEDEVAC), casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) and special mission capabilities. Contract has been signed for two maritime patrol aircraft on 27 March 2017.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: Bangladesh Navy issued a tender for the supply of Technical Data Link (TDL) system. The system will connect 16 platforms as 2 frigates, 4 corvettes, 1 LPC, 3 shore stations, 2 helicopters, 2 MPAs and two submarines. In April 2018, Bangladesh Navy issued tender for two X-band navigational radars with helicopter landing control facility for two of its ships. At the same time, another tender was issued for replacing two 40 mm Fast Forty guns on-board BNS Bangabandhu with new 40 mm twin-barrel gun system.


title: Bangladesh Navy

text: In December 2019, the prime minister discussed about the past, present and future development programs for the Bangladesh Navy at the winter passing out parade of the Bangladesh Naval Academy. She told that the process is going on for procuring more corvettes, minesweepers, oceanographic research ship and sail training ship. Process of constructing six frigates at Chittagong Dry Dock in collaboration with foreign shipbuilders is also going on. Government has taken initiative for making missiles and Identification friend or foe system in Bangladesh. She added that, there is a plan to induct more maritime patrol aircraft, anti-submarine warfare helicopters and long range MPA in the near future.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce Byers is a fictional character and one of the protagonists of the American science fiction horror streaming television series "Stranger Things." She is portrayed by Winona Ryder. Within the series' narrative, Joyce is the single mother of series protagonists Will and Jonathan Byers. In Season 4, she becomes Eleven's guardian.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce Byers' character and Ryder's performance has been well-received by critics, and earned Ryder numerous awards and nominations.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Ryder joined the cast of "Stranger Things" as Joyce in June 2015, along with David Harbour. Joyce was fashioned after Richard Dreyfuss's character Roy Neary in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", as she appears "absolutely bonkers" to everyone else as she tries to find her son, Will. In December 2017, Ryder was revealed to be reprising her main role for the third season. Ryder also received a pay raise in the third season.


title: Joyce Byers

text: In Season 1, Joyce Byers is depicted as a kind, caring, and sometimes frazzled single mother working at a general store in downtown Hawkins, who lives with her sons Jonathan and Will. It is implied she has a history of psychological issues.


title: Joyce Byers

text: When her son Will goes missing, Joyce immediately alerts Hawkins Chief of Police Jim Hopper. At first, Hopper dismisses her concerns, suggesting Will might be with his father Lonnie. Hopper later becomes convinced Will is missing after finding the boy's bicycle abandoned in a wooded area the children call Mirkwood.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce begins to sense Will's presence in the Byers' home, but is unable to see him. She begins to receive mysterious phone calls, becoming convinced she can hear Will's breathing on the phone, but the calls always end with the family's home phone exploding.


title: Joyce Byers

text: She is dismissed as crazy when she begins to see faded visions of Will through the wall and thinks that he is communicating with her by manipulating lights around the house, but she remains steadfast in her faith. Despite her concerns, Joyce continues to comfort her elder son Jonathan. When Joyce tells Jonathan of her findings, he too dismisses them as products of an overactive mind, but then begins to realize that what she sees is real when he visits the with Nancy Wheeler. Joyce takes time off from work and asks for advances in her pay while searching for Will, which greatly annoys her boss.


title: Joyce Byers

text: When Will's body is found in a lake, Joyce becomes doubtful that even her own theories are true, but becomes certain that what they found drowned in a lake was not Will’s body, but either the corpse of another person or something entirely fake. Lonnie comes to visit and calm her, but when he sees what she has discovered, he tells her to give it up due to his belief that Will is truly gone. Both Joyce and Jonathan blow up at him and tell him to leave, and start working together to uncover more of the mystery. Meanwhile, Hopper discovers that his house has been bugged, and goes to check on Joyce.


title: Joyce Byers

text: They share what they have learned with each other, and find that both sides of the story match up. They then use Hopper's information about Hawkins Lab to sneak into the facility. After being apprehended and interrogated, Joyce and Hopper are permitted under Brenner’s orders to venture into the Upside Down with protective suits. There, Joyce discovers Will's body, and, after learning that he is still alive, takes him back to the real world. Will is brought home alive, and reunites with his friends whilst recuperating at Hawkins General Hospital. Joyce and Jonathan are relieved at his recovery; unbeknownst to either of them, however, Will coughs up a small slug-like creature, not unlike ones she and Hopper found lurking in the Upside Down.


title: Joyce Byers

text: In Season 2 of "Stranger Things", set almost a year after the events of the first season, Joyce is shown happily dating newly introduced character Bob Newby, one of her high school classmates. Bob is depicted as a lovable nerd who enjoys solving puzzles and hates horror movies. Still traumatized from the events of Season 1, Joyce is shown to be overprotective of her son Will, no longer letting him bike around town by himself. With Hopper, Joyce regularly takes Will to Hawkins Lab, where the lab's doctors monitor his health and state of mind. Given her past experience with the lab, Joyce does not trust the lab's new director, Dr. Sam Owens, who has replaced Dr. Brenner following the latter’s disappearance.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce grows increasingly worried about Will, who begins having frequent “episodes” where he experiences realistic visions of the Upside Down. Dr. Owens tells her that Will is likely experiencing the "anniversary effect" of last year's . Joyce remains unconvinced, even as Hopper, a Vietnam veteran, also suggests that Will might simply be suffering from PTSD.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Hopper arrives at the house and asks if Will can remember anything from his most recent episode. After Joyce promises Will that she will not take him to the suspicious Dr. Owens, Will says that he does not remember anything beside the shadowy figure he had been drawing previously, which the children call the Mind Flayer. Due to Will’s inability to adequately describe the monster, Joyce asks if he can draw it. He agrees, but when Joyce and Hopper take a careful look at his pictures, they only see scribbles and lines. Joyce notes that some of the lines connect; this leads her and Hopper to figure out that the drawings form a map of interconnecting tunnels under Hawkins.


title: Joyce Byers

text: During an investigation, Hopper gets trapped in the underground tunnel complex, but Joyce, Bob, Mike, and Will are able to navigate the tunnels and rescue him. At this point, however, Will begins convulsing in pain, so they take him to Hawkins Lab for treatment. There, creatures dubbed “Demodogs” assault the facility, and Bob offers to reactivate the on-site power in order to facilitate an evacuation. He makes it back to the group in time, but is soon devoured by a Demodog just a few feet shy of the door. Joyce, shocked and depressed, returns home with Jonathan, Nancy, and Will. Angered by Bob’s death and desperate for an end to Will’s ordeal, Joyce burns the shadow monster out of Will while Mike lures the Demodogs away from the gate so Eleven can close it.


title: Joyce Byers

text: In Season 3 of "Stranger Things," Joyce is noticing the magnets on her fridge are failing to magnetize. She finds this peculiar but goes to work where she sees Jim Hopper and give him advice on Eleven's relation ship with Mike. Hopper asks Joyce on a date and she agrees, but stands him up while going to ask science teacher Scott Clarke about the failing magnets. He tells her about a theoretical machine that affects the magnetic filed. Joyce goes to Hopper, sharing her suspicions that this is related to Hawkins Lab and the Upside Down.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce and Hopper go to the old Hawkins Lab and are ambushed by Russian assassin Grigori. They escape and head to the mayor where Hopper learns that the mayor is doing shady real-estate deals with the Russians. Joyce suspects that the machine is at one of the properties.


title: Joyce Byers

text: They go to one the real-estate properties and are attacked by Grigori again but escape and kidnap Russian Scientist Alexei. Joyce tries to interrogate Alexei, but he only speaks Russian. Joyce and Hopper go to see conspiracy theorist Murray Bauman so he can translate. They learn that the Russians opened the portal to the Upside Down using the machine, and Joyce and Hopper decide to call the CIA.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce and Hopper go to the Hawkins fair to find their kids. While looking for the kids they overhear Russians talking about kids at the mall and head there. Joyce and Hopper are reunited with the kids and are tasked with closing the Upside Down portal underground.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce and Hopper open up to each other and Joyce agrees to go on a date with him. They are attacked by Grigori and Hopper fights him but gets stuck in the room with the machine and portal. Joyce turns the key and destroys the machine which appears to disintegrate everyone in the room. Joyce believes Hopper is dead and adopts Eleven. Joyce decides to move her family out of Hawkins, taking Eleven with her.


title: Joyce Byers

text: In Season 4, Joyce and her kids (now including Eleven) have started a new life in Lenora, California. Joyce works from home as a telemarketer of encyclopedias. She receives a mysterious package with postage from the Soviet Union. Inside, she finds a Russian doll. She calls Murray, who suggests the doll might have been sent to her by the KGB, who want to capture her for her role in destroying the Soviets' secret operations under Starcourt Mall in Season 3. She realizes the doll is broken and finds a note inside it, which tells her Hopper is still alive and provides a phone number.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Murray comes to California and helps Joyce call the phone number in the note. They soon realize Hopper is imprisoned in the Soviet Union, and that the person who sent them the note is one of his prison guards, code named "Enzo" after the Italian restaurant where Joyce and Hopper had planned to go on a date. Enzo tells them to bring $40,000 to Alaska, where his contact Yuri is going to fly them to Kamchatka.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Not wanting to get Eleven's hopes up, Joyce decides not to tell her children about the possibility that Hopper is alive. Telling the kids she is going on a work trip, Joyce and Murray fly to Alaska and find Yuri. Yuri double-crosses them and Enzo. He drugs Joyce and Murray, binds them and takes them on his plane to turn them over to the Soviets. While they are aboard the plane, Joyce convinces Murray to subdue Yuri, but he accidentally knocks Yuri out, leaving no one to fly the plane. They crash-land but manage to arrive in Kamchatka, near the gulag where Hopper is imprisoned.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce and Murray come up with a scenario to enter the prison where Hopper is held. They get inside but are horrified to see Hopper and his fellow prisoners pitted against a vicious Demogorgon. After narrowly helping Hopper and Enzo escape, Joyce reunites with Hopper.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Looking for a way out, Joyce, Hopper, Murray, Enzo and Yuri find Demodogs held captive around the prison, seemingly as subjects in scientific experiments. They also see a storm of black particles, which remind them of the Mind Flayer substance that possessed Will in Season 2.


title: Joyce Byers

text: They escape to the nearby town, where Joyce and Hopper share their first kiss. They find out that their children are in mortal danger and fighting against the Upside Down once more. Recalling the Upside Down creatures' hive mind, Joyce deduces that they can help their kids by killing the Demogorgon and the Demodogs they saw, so they decide to re-enter the prison.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Back at the prison, Hopper gets attacked by Demodogs, triggering a flashback for Joyce to her boyfriend Bob Newby's death at Hawkins Lab. In a cathartic moment, Joyce kills the Demodogs attacking Hopper, rescuing him. Murray uses a flamethrower to kill the rest of the Demodogs, while Hopper uses a sword to behead the adult Demogorgon. These victories happen in time to allow Nancy, Robin and Steve to attack Vecna's body in the Upside Down.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Joyce and Hopper reunite with their children in Hawkins, where the Upside Down has begun to invade the town.


title: Joyce Byers

text: Ryder won the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards in the category of Best TV Supporting Actress, as well as being nominated for the Gold Derby TV Awards for Drama Supporting Actress, and the Golden Globe Awards in the Best Actress – Television Series Drama category. Ryder was also nominated for the Satellite Awards in the category for Best Actress – Television Series Drama, the Saturn Awards in the category for Best Actress on a Television Series, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards in the category for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series along with Millie Bobby Brown, who appears in "Stranger Things" as Eleven.


title: BLU-82

text: The BLU-82B/C-130 weapon system, known under program "Commando Vault" and nicknamed "Daisy Cutter" in Vietnam for its ability to flatten a section of forest into a helicopter landing zone, is an American conventional bomb, delivered from either a C-130 or MC-130 transport aircraft or a CH-54 heavy-lift "Skycrane" helicopter from the 1st Air Cavalry. A total of 225 were constructed. It was successfully used during military operations in Vietnam, the Gulf War and Afghanistan. The BLU-82 was retired in 2008 and replaced with the more powerful GBU-43/B MOAB.


title: BLU-82

text: The designation "BLU" stands for Bomb Live Unit, as opposed to "BDU" (Bomb Dummy Units) used for practice. Originally designed to create an instant clearing in the jungles of Vietnam, the BLU-82B/C-130 was test-dropped there from a CH-54 Tarhe "Flying crane" helicopter. Later it was used in Afghanistan as an anti-personnel weapon and as an intimidation weapon because of its very large blast radius (variously reported as 300 to 900 feet/100 to 300 meters) combined with a visible flash and audible sound at long distances. It is one of the largest conventional weapons ever used, outweighed only by a few earthquake bombs, thermobaric bombs, and demolition (bunker buster) bombs. Some of these include the Grand Slam and T12 earthquake bombs of late World War II, and more currently, the Russian Air Force FOAB and USAF GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, and the Massive Ordnance Penetrator.


title: BLU-82

text: The "Daisy Cutter" has sometimes been incorrectly reported as a fuel-air explosive device (FAE). FAE devices consist of a flammable liquid, gas, or powder and a dispersing mechanism, and take their oxidizers from the oxygen in the air. FAEs generally run between 500 and 2,000 pounds (225 and 900 kg). Making an FAE the size of a Daisy Cutter would be difficult because the correct uniform mixture of the flammable agent with the ambient air would be difficult to maintain if the agent were so widely dispersed. A conventional explosive is much more reliable in that regard, particularly if there is significant wind or thermal gradient.


title: BLU-82

text: The BLU-82 produces an overpressure of near ground zero, tapering off as distance increases. It is detonated just above ground by a fuze extender. This results in a maximum destruction at ground level without digging a crater.


title: BLU-82

text: This system depends upon the accurate positioning of the aircraft by either a fixed ground radar or on-board navigation equipment. The ground radar controller, or aircrew navigator if applicable, is responsible for positioning the aircraft prior to final countdown and release. Primary aircrew considerations include accurate ballistic and wind computations provided by the navigator, and precision instrument flying with strict adherence to controller instructions. Due to its extremely powerful blast effects, the minimum safe altitude for releasing this weapon is above ground level (AGL).


title: BLU-82

text: The BLU-82 was originally designed to clear helicopter landing zones and artillery emplacements in Vietnam. The first use of a BLU-82 occurred on 22 March 1970, when one was dropped north of Long Tieng, Laos during Campaign 139.


title: BLU-82

text: During Operation Lam Son 719 in 1971 25 BLU-82 bombs were dropped on NVA and Pathet Lao forces in Laos. They were dropped by U.S. C-130 aircraft not only to clear landing zones, but also to strike against specific targets such as warehouses, vehicle parks, and enemy troop concentrations.


title: BLU-82

text: South Vietnamese VNAF aircraft dropped BLU-82 bombs on NVA positions in desperation to support ARVN troops in the Battle of Xuân Lộc in the last days of the Vietnam War. During the "Mayaguez" incident, a Lockheed MC-130 dropped one BLU-82 to assist U.S. Marine forces attempting to extract themselves from Koh Tang island.


title: BLU-82

text: Eleven BLU-82Bs were palletized and dropped in five night missions during the 1991 Gulf War, all from Special Operations MC-130 Combat Talons. The initial drop tested the ability of the bomb to clear or breach mine fields; however, no reliable assessments of mine clearing effectiveness are publicly available. Later, bombs were dropped as much for their psychological effect as for their anti-personnel effects. Due to the size of the conventional blast, a British SAS unit that witnessed the explosion mistakenly assumed the U.S. had used a nuclear weapon and radioed back to their headquarters exclaiming, "Sir, the blokes have just nuked Kuwait!".


title: BLU-82

text: The U.S. Air Force dropped several BLU-82s during the campaign to destroy Taliban and al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan to attack and demoralize personnel and to destroy cave complexes. American forces began using the bomb in November 2001 and again a month later during the Battle of Tora Bora. On 15 July 2008, airmen from the Duke Field 711th Special Operations Squadron, 919th Special Operations Wing dropped the last operational BLU-82 at the Utah Test and Training Range.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: Priyanka Deshpande (born 28 April 1992) is an Indian television presenter, host and actress. She predominantly works in Tamil television and film industry especially in Tamil entertainment, Priyanka is also one of the highest paid South Indian television presenters in the industry. She is very well known for hosting numerous television shows such as "Super Singer Junior", "Super Singer (Tamil reality show)", "The Wall (Tamil game show)", "Start music", "OlliBelly", "Suriya Vanakkam", "Isai Unplugged", "Azhagiya Penne", "Glimpse", "Jodi Number One" and "Kings of Comedy Juniors". She has also appeared in a few short films such as "Raani Aattam" (2015) and "Unnodu Vaazhnthaal Varamallava" (2016). Priyanka has also worked as a television host in various different Indian television networks like Zee Tamil, Sun TV, Chutti TV, Sun Music and Star Vijay. She is often referred to as "Superstar of Television".


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: Her appearance as an television anchor in the singing reality show "Super Singer (Tamil reality show)" earned her to bag the "Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards" for the "Best Female Anchor" in 2016. She later also won the "Best Female Anchor" award in the "Vijay Television Awards" annual function in 2017. Priyanka also yet again won "Best Lady Anchor" for the third time in a row in the "Galatta Nakshathra TV-Film Awards" in 2018, winning the same nomination category for three years in a row. She also received the award "Best Entertaining Star" award by "Blacksheep Digital Awards" in 2021 after her success of her YouTube channel. In 2021, She joined the reality TV show Bigg Boss Tamil 5 hosted by Kamal Haasan as a contestant and finished as the first runner up.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: Her estimated total earnings exceed US$1.16 million. While some sources consider her net worth to be around as high as US$1.62 million as of late 2020.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: Priyanka Deshpande was born on 28 April 1990 in Karnataka. Her parents moved from Maharashtra to Karnataka before she was born. She also has a younger brother called Rohit Deshpande. After Priyanka migrated to Chennai she did her secondary schooling at St. Anthony School and later graduated from Ethiraj College for Women with a college degree. Priyanka married her long-term boyfriend Praveen Kumar in 2016.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: In 2022 reports alleged Priyanka and her husband Praveen Kumar had divorced. Priyanka later dismissed it as a baseless rumour.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: Priyanka started her career in 2009 with the channel Zee Tamil hosting the shows "This Chirpy girl", "Azhagiya Penne" and "Isai Unplugged". She later went on the join Sun TV and hosted several of shows for four years straight. Priyanka was later approached by the creators of Star Vijay in 2015 and hosted the show "Cinema Karam Coffee", alongside co-anchor Ma Ka Pa Anand; her sense of humour poured her with fame and success in the show, cementing her career therein. Priyanka went on to host many more successful shows on Star Vijay especially "Super Singer (Tamil reality show)". Priyanka also went on to make her debut as a judge in the program "Kalakka Povathu Yaaru" along with other veteran comedians Vaiyapuri and Aarthi.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: In 2019, Priyanka started her own show on Star Vijay called "Start Music" which only featured her as the solo host for the show after eight years. Priyanka also debuted as an actress in various different short films like "Raani Aattam" Directed by J. Dharmendra and "Unnodu Vaazhnthaal Varamallava", both films were paired up with film actor Vignesh Karthick. She also went on to appear in various different television commercials for Amazon Prime and Aachi Masala. Priyanka also appeared in the music video "So Soku" with Pugazh which was also trending on social media.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: Priyanka also hosted the international reality show "The Wall (Tamil game show)" along with Ma Ka Pa Anand. Lyricist Yugabharathi approached Priyanka and convinced her to make her debut as a playback singer in the film "Devarattam " for the song "Madura Palapalakkudhu", she later approved the offer and sang the song with co singers Nivas K. Prasanna, Vijay Sethupathi and Niranjana Ramanan. Since 2014, Priyanka has been hosting the annual function and award ceremony of "Vijay Television Awards". Priyanka also received the award "Best Entertaining Star" award by Blacksheep Digital Awards in 2021 after her success of her YouTube channel. She was also nominated for "Best Actress" by "Femina Super Daughter Award".


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: In 2021, Priyanka joined the reality show "Bigg Boss (Tamil season 5)" as a contestant which is hosted by actor Kamal Haasan and finished as the first runner up.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: As of 2021, Priyanka is one of the highest paid South Indian television anchors, with her net worth and total estimated earnings exceeding US$1.16 million dollars. While some sources consider her net worth to be around as high as US$1.62 million dollars, this claim makes her one of the most richest television personalities in India. Apart from hosting TV shows, Priyanka also has a YouTube channel where she entertains people in virtual coverage, with her channel currently boasting 1.38M subscribers.


title: Priyanka Deshpande

text: After her participation on "Bigg Boss" and eventually emerging as the runner-up as well. Priyanka announced on the Instagram feed that she received more then 10 offers from various different television networks to host different shows on different television channels. She also participated as a guest on her formerly hosted show "Start Music" which was hosted by Ma Ka Pa Anand due to the absence of Priyanka during her time in "Bigg Boss". She also later made a appearance on the celebration and success show of "Bigg Boss" called "Bigg Boss 5 Kondattam" appearing as a guest.


title: Tiltrotor

text: A tiltrotor is an aircraft which generates lift and propulsion by way of one or more powered rotors (sometimes called "proprotors") mounted on rotating shafts or nacelles usually at the ends of a fixed wing. Almost all tiltrotors use a transverse rotor design, with a few exceptions that use other multirotor layouts.


title: Tiltrotor

text: Tiltrotor design combines the VTOL capability of a helicopter with the speed and range of a conventional fixed-wing aircraft. For vertical flight, the rotors are angled so the plane of rotation is horizontal, generating lift the way a normal helicopter rotor does. As the aircraft gains speed, the rotors are progressively tilted forward, with the plane of rotation eventually becoming vertical. In this mode the rotors provide thrust as a propeller, and the airfoil of the fixed wings takes over providing the lift via the forward motion of the entire aircraft. Since the rotors can be configured to be more efficient for propulsion (e.g. with root-tip twist) and it avoids a helicopter's issues of retreating blade stall, the tiltrotor can achieve higher cruise speeds and takeoff weights than helicopters.


title: Tiltrotor

text: A tiltrotor aircraft differs from a tiltwing in that only the rotor pivots rather than the entire wing. This method trades off efficiency in vertical flight for efficiency in STOL/STOVL operations.


title: Tiltrotor

text: The first work in the direction of a tilt-rotor (French "Convertible") seems to have originated ca. 1902 by the French-Swiss brothers Henri and Armand Dufaux, for which they got a patent in February 1904, and made their work public in April 1905.


title: Tiltrotor

text: Concrete ideas of constructing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft using helicopter-like rotors were pushed further in the 1930s. The first design resembling modern tiltrotors was patented by George Lehberger in May 1930, but he did not further develop the concept. In World War II, Weserflug in Germany came up with the concept of their P.1003/1 around 1938, which was tilting to the top with part of the wings but not the full wings, so it may be in between tilt-rotor and tilt-planes. Shortly after a German prototype, the Focke-Achgelis Fa 269, was developed starting in 1942, which was tilting to the ground, but never flew. Platt and LePage patented the PL-16, the first American tiltrotor aircraft. However, the company shut down in August 1946 due to lack of capital.


title: Tiltrotor

text: Two prototypes which made it to flight were the one-seat Transcendental Model 1-G and two seat Transcendental Model 2, each powered by a single reciprocating engine. Development started on the Model 1-G in 1947, though it did not fly until 1954. The Model 1-G flew for about a year until a crash in Chesapeake Bay on July 20, 1955, destroying the prototype aircraft but not seriously injuring the pilot. The Model 2 was developed and flew shortly afterwards, but the US Air Force withdrew funding in favor of the Bell XV-3 and it did not fly much beyond hover tests. The Transcendental 1-G is the first tiltrotor aircraft to have flown and accomplished most of a helicopter to aircraft transition in flight (to within 10 degrees of true horizontal aircraft flight).


title: Tiltrotor

text: Built in 1953, the experimental Bell XV-3 flew until 1966, proving the fundamental soundness of the tiltrotor concept and gathering data about technical improvements needed for future designs.


title: Tiltrotor

text: A related technology development is the tiltwing. Although two designs, the Canadair CL-84 Dynavert and the LTV XC-142, were technical successes, neither entered production due to other issues. Tiltrotors generally have better hover efficiency than tiltwings, but less than helicopters.


title: Tiltrotor

text: In 1968, Westland Aircraft displayed their own designs—a small experimental craft (We 01C) and a 68-seater transport We 028—at the SBAC Farnborough Airshow.


title: Tiltrotor

text: In 1972, with funding from NASA and the U.S. Army, Bell Helicopter Textron started development of the XV-15, a twin-engine tiltrotor research aircraft. Two aircraft were built to prove the tiltrotor design and explore the operational flight envelope for military and civil applications.


title: Tiltrotor

text: In 1981, using experience gained from the XV-3 and XV-15, Bell and Boeing Helicopters began developing the V-22 Osprey, a twin-turboshaft military tiltrotor aircraft for the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marine Corps.


title: Tiltrotor

text: Bell teamed with Boeing in developing a commercial tiltrotor, but Boeing went out in 1998 and Agusta came in for the Bell/Agusta BA609. This aircraft was redesignated as the AW609 following the transfer of full ownership to AgustaWestland in 2011. Bell has also developed a tiltrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the TR918 Eagle Eye.


title: Tiltrotor

text: Russia has had a few tiltrotor projects, mostly unmanned such as the Mil Mi-30, and has started another in 2015.


title: Tiltrotor

text: Around 2005–2010, Bell and Boeing teamed up again to perform a conceptual study of a larger Quad TiltRotor (QTR) for the US Army's Joint Heavy Lift (JHL) program. The QTR is a larger, four rotor version of the V-22 with two tandem wings sets of fixed wings and four tilting rotors.


title: Tiltrotor

text: In January 2013, the FAA defined US tiltrotor noise rules to comply with ICAO rules. A noise certification will cost $588,000, same as for a large helicopter.


title: Tiltrotor

text: AgustaWestland says they have free-flown a manned electric tiltrotor in 2013 called Project Zero, with its rotors inside the wingspan.


title: Tiltrotor

text: In 2013, Bell Helicopter CEO John Garrison responded to Boeing's taking a different airframe partner for the US Army's future lift requirements by indicating that Bell would take the lead itself in developing the Bell V-280 Valor, with Lockheed Martin.


title: Tiltrotor

text: In 2014, the Clean Sky 2 program (by the European Union and industry) awarded AgustaWestland and its partners $328 million to develop a "next-generation civil tiltrotor" design for the offshore market, with Critical Design Review near the end of 2016. The goals are tilting wing sections, 11 metric tons Maximum takeoff weight, seating for 19 to 22 passengers, first flight in 2021, a cruise speed of 300 knots, a top speed of 330 knots, a ceiling of 25,000 feet, and a range of 500 nautical miles.


title: Tiltrotor

text: In vertical flight, the tiltrotor uses controls very similar to a twin or tandem-rotor helicopter. Yaw is controlled by tilting its rotors in opposite directions. Roll is provided through differential power or thrust. Pitch is provided through rotor blades cyclic-, or nacelle, tilt. Vertical motion is controlled with conventional rotor blade pitch and either a conventional helicopter collective control lever (as in the Bell/Agusta BA609) or a unique control similar to a fixed-wing engine control called a thrust control lever (TCL) (as in the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey).


title: Tiltrotor

text: The tiltrotor's advantage is significantly greater speed than a helicopter. In a helicopter the maximum forward speed is defined by the turn speed of the rotor; at some point the helicopter will be moving forward at the same speed as the spinning of the backwards-moving side of the rotor, so that side of the rotor sees zero or negative airspeed, and begins to stall. This limits modern helicopters to cruise speeds of about 150 knots / 277 km/h. However, with the tiltrotor this problem is avoided, because the proprotors are perpendicular to the motion in the high-speed portions of the flight regime (and thus not subject to this reverse flow condition), so the tiltrotor has relatively high maximum speed—over 300 knots / 560 km/h has been demonstrated in the two types of tiltrotors flown so far, and cruise speeds of 250 knots / 460 km/h are achieved.


title: Tiltrotor

text: This speed is achieved somewhat at the expense of payload. As a result of this reduced payload, some estimate that a tiltrotor does not exceed the transport efficiency (speed times payload) of a helicopter, while others conclude the opposite. Additionally, the tiltrotor propulsion system is more complex than a conventional helicopter due to the large, articulated nacelles and the added wing; however, the improved cruise efficiency and speed improvement over helicopters is significant in certain uses. Speed and, more importantly, the benefit to overall response time is the principal virtue sought by the military forces that are using the tiltrotor. Tiltrotors are inherently less noisy in forward flight (airplane mode) than helicopters. This, combined with their increased speed, is expected to improve their utility in populated areas for commercial uses and reduce the threat of detection for military uses. Tiltrotors, however, are typically as loud as equally sized helicopters in hovering flight. Noise simulations for a 90-passenger tiltrotor indicate lower cruise noise inside the cabin than a Bombardier Dash 8 airplane, although low-frequency vibrations may be higher.


title: Tiltrotor

text: Tiltrotors also provide substantially greater cruise altitude capability than helicopters. Tiltrotors can easily reach 6,000 m / 20,000 ft or more whereas helicopters typically do not exceed 3,000 m / 10,000 ft altitude. This feature will mean that some uses that have been commonly considered only for fixed-wing aircraft can now be supported with tiltrotors without need of a runway. A drawback however is that a tiltrotor suffers considerably reduced payload when taking off from high altitude.


title: Tiltrotor

text: A mono tiltrotor aircraft uses a tiltable rotating propeller, or "coaxial proprotor", for lift and propulsion. For vertical flight the proprotor is angled to direct its thrust downwards, providing lift. In this mode of operation the craft is essentially identical to a helicopter. As the craft gains speed, the coaxial proprotor is slowly tilted forward, with the blades eventually becoming perpendicular to the ground. In this mode the wing provides the lift, and the wing's greater efficiency helps the tiltrotor achieve its high speed. In this mode, the craft is essentially a turboprop aircraft.


title: Tiltrotor

text: A mono tiltrotor aircraft is different from a conventional tiltrotor in which the proprotors are mounted to the wing tips, in that the "coaxial proprotor" is mounted to the aircraft's fuselage. As a result of this structural efficiency, a mono tiltrotor exceeds the transport efficiency (speed times payload) of both a helicopter and a conventional tiltrotor. One design study concluded that if the mono tiltrotor could be technically realized, it would be half the size, one-third the weight, and nearly twice as fast as a helicopter.


title: Tiltrotor

text: In vertical flight, the mono tiltrotor uses controls very similar to a coaxial helicopter, such as the Kamov Ka-50. Yaw is controlled for instance by increasing the lift on the upper proprotor while decreasing the lift on the lower proprotor. Roll and pitch are provided through rotor cyclic. Vertical motion is controlled with conventional rotor blade blade pitch.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is a first-person action video game developed and published by Fatshark. It is the sequel to 2015's "". "Vermintide 2" was released for Windows on 8 March 2018. It was released for Xbox One on 11 July 2018, free for members of the Xbox Game Pass. It was released for the PlayStation 4 on 18 December 2018. It also released for Xbox Series X/S on 3 December 2020.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: "Warhammer: Vermintide 2" is a co-op-focused action game experienced from a first-person perspective. Set in the Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe, players battle cooperatively against the Chaos army and a race of rat-men known as the Skaven. The game features five different characters to play as. These characters are divided into 15 (19 with DLC, with one more planned) different careers, each with a unique set of skills and abilities. After players complete missions, they receive rewards through a randomized loot system.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: The game is set in the "Warhammer Fantasy" universe during the early days of the End Times. The game follows the Heroes of Ubersreik from the first game against the Skaven hordes of Clan Fester and their new allies, the Rotbloods (a Chaos Warband dedicated to Nurgle, the Chaos God of Disease and Decay). The expansion, "Winds of Magic", also introduced the Beastmen, a herd of Chaos mutated humanoids, in search of an object known as the 'Herdstone'.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: Following the events of the first game, Grey Seer Rasknitt (antagonist of the first game who was presumed dead and leader of Clan Fester) has successfully captured the five Heroes of Ubersreik. Without the interference of the heroes, the city of Ubersreik fell to the forces of Clan Fester. Rasknitt has since ordered the construction of a massive portal known as the Skittergate, A portal which will allow the Chaos Champion Bödvarr Ribspreader and his Rotblood army easy access to the border-city of Helmgart. However, the Skittergate intermittently fails, preventing Bödvarr from summoning his entire army. When the Skittergate disastrously fails to activate again, the resulting destruction frees one of the heroes, Markus Kruber, from captivity. He fights his way through the Skaven lair and reunites with the rest of the heroes: Victor Saltzpyre the witch hunter, Bardin Goreksson the dwarf ranger , Sienna Fuegonasus the fire witch, and Kerillian the wood elf.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: They escape the lair and are transported to a ruined keep where they meet up with the rest of their allies: Franz Lohner (a former innkeeper who directs the heroes' missions) and Olesya Pimenova (a witch who creates the bridge of shadows, the heroes' main method of transportation). Reunited, the heroes and their allies work together to stop the combined forces of Skaven and Chaos. They first slay the sorcerer lord Burblespue Halescourge, who attempted to enact a ritual to unleash a massive plague upon Helmgart. Next, they defeat The Skaven warlord ,Skarrik Spinemanglr, who had set up a base in a fallen dwarf hold. Enraged by the heroes' continuous interference, Bödvarr sends the majority of his forces to discover the heroes' keep and eliminate them. However, this leaves his war camp lightly defended. The heroes attack Bödvarr's war camp and slay him in an arena.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: With Rasknitt's allies dead and his forces depleted and falling into infighting, Lohner states that the time is now to destroy the Skittergate and Rasknitt once and for all. He informs them that they need to activate the Helmgart Skittergate and travel through it to Norsca, the frozen tundra that separates the Old World from the Chaos Wastes. Once there, the heroes proceed to destroy the Norscan Skittergate and return to Helmgart. Rasknitt appears and summons his Stormfiend, Deathrattler, and combats the heroes. After a vicious fight, Rasknitt is at last slain. The lair and the Skittergate collapse, whilst the heroes escape back to the keep.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: "Vermintide 2" was developed by Swedish video game studio Fatshark. "Vermintide 2" was announced in August 2017. The game's worldwide reveal occurred on 17 October 2017. The game was released for Windows on 8 March 2018. The game was released for the Xbox One on 11 July 2018 and is available at no cost to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. The game was released on the PlayStation 4 on 18 December 2018.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: The game has significantly increased in size since release due to a stream of both free and paid downloadable content. Soon after the game's successful release, Fatshark expressed the desire to continue to develop the game at least into 2023.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: Two new missions were made available through purchase of the "Shadows over Bögenhafen" DLC in August 2018. A second DLC titled "Back To Ubersreik" adds an additional four missions and five weapons, and was released December 2018. An extra mission, "A Quiet Drink", was released for free in celebration of the game's one-year anniversary in March 2019. The mission is set during a night off for the heroes, where their social gathering at a nearby pub is interrupted by an ambush of Skaven. The Ubersreik Five fight them off while joking with each other and attempting to find more ale. It features a unique mechanic where each hero has to balance their alcoholic content; not drinking enough will cause a debuff, but drinking too much will cause the hero to pass out and have to be revived by a teammate.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: A third DLC, the game's first proper expansion titled "The Winds of Magic" released in August 2019 for PC; though was delayed for consoles. The expansion brought with it the introduction of six new enemy types in a separate faction, the Beastmen, who are in search of an artifact known as the "Herdstone". The new expansion also introduced five more weapons, a challenge mode known as Weaves (which remixes the base game's levels with new features and hazards), a new difficulty by the name of Cataclysm, a new non-Weave map, and raised the level cap. The expansion received mixed reviews due to lackluster reception to the new Weaves mode, technical issues with the Beastmen enemies (later patched), balancing changes, and its price (released at $20, it was twice as expensive as the previous DLCs and five times as expensive as any of the career DLCs). The second season of the expansion, originally planned for December 2019, was pushed back to 2020 in order to assure quality testing. This second season introduces 'Lohner's Emporium of Wonders', which is a cosmetic shop that allows players to purchase cosmetics using a new in-game currency known as Shillings which is earned from doing content in the game. The second season also introduces a quick play mode for Weaves as well as balance changes to the mode, and three new missions revisiting the Drachenfels (with a unique boss in the third mission) release sequentially from January to March 2020, bringing the total of new missions in the expansion to four (these three missions, titled "The Curse of Drachenfels", were free for all owners of the game).


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: The fourth major DLC, the game's second expansion, was titled "The Chaos Wastes" and released for PC in April 2021. The expansion added five weapons, sixteen maps (collectively exceeding the size of the base game's maps), and a new roguelike game mode with randomized level composition and variable buffs and challenges enacted on both the players and the enemies. Weapon progression is separate from the main game mode, as equipment must be upgraded with tokens found within the Chaos Wastes. The story concerns the Ubersreik Five making an expedition into the main base of Chaos, the titular Wastes, in an attempt to use the power of the Citadel of Eternity to beseech more benevolent deities to aid them in their battle. Most of the content is free for owners of the game, with only the weapons being paid content in a separate bundle called "Forgotten Relics."


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: Each of the five heroes will receive a new career via DLC. Each career comes with two new weapons, a new ability, and a skill tree. The first was Markus Kruber's melee-focused "Grail Knight" class, released June 2020. The second was Bardin's crank-gun toting "Outcast Engineer", released November 2020. The third was Kerillian's magic-wielding "Sister of the Thorn" class, released June 2021. The fourth was Saltzpyre's hammer-swinging and divinely-protected "Warrior Priest" class, released December 2021.


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: The game received generally positive reviews from critics according to review aggregator Metacritic. Tom Marks, writing from "IGN", wrote positively about the game, comically praising it on the creative forms of dismemberment that the players can participate in against the "ratmen", one of the primary antagonists of the game, and lack of microtransactions, which he compares favorably against "Star Wars: Battlefront II". "PC Gamer" declared the title the best cooperative game of 2018. "Destructoid" called it "an improvement over its predecessor" and praised the "beautifully designed sprawling levels, more varied enemy types, an addictive loot system, and a whole lot of character skills to try out"


title: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

text: The game sold over 500,000 copies in four days after the initial PC release. Within 11 days of the PC release, it had exceeded the lifetime revenue of the first "Vermintide". It had sold over 1,000,000 copies four weeks after the PC release. By the end of 2019, it had sold 2 million copies.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: The 2011 Campeonato Sudamericano Copa América, better known as the 2011 Copa América or the Copa América 2011 Argentina, was the 43rd edition of the Copa América, the main international football tournament for national teams in South America. The competition was organized by CONMEBOL, South America's football governing body, and was held in Argentina from 1 to 24 July. The draw for the tournament was held in La Plata on 11 November 2010.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: Uruguay won the tournament after defeating Paraguay 3–0 in the final, giving them a record 15th Copa América title and their first since 1995. Paraguay, as the tournament runner-up, earned the Copa Bolivia; Paraguay's performance was noteworthy, as they were able to reach the finals without winning a single game in the tournament; their success in the final stages was achieved by the way of penalty shoot-outs. Brazil were the defending champions but were eliminated by Paraguay in the quarter-finals after failing to convert any of the penalties. As the tournament champion, Uruguay earned the right to represent CONMEBOL in the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, held in Brazil. Peru finished third after defeating Venezuela 4–1 in the third-place match.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: Both Japan and Mexico were invited to join the CONMEBOL nations in the tournament. Following a proposal by UEFA regarding national teams competing in tournaments organised by confederations different from their own, it was reported on 23 November 2009 that the two countries might not be able to take part in the 2011 Copa América. However, on 31 March 2010, CONCACAF confirmed that Mexico would be allowed to send their 2012 U-23 Olympic Team, supplemented with five over-age players. In addition to Mexico sending a weaker team than those teams sent in previous participations, eight of the Mexican players originally called to play the Copa America 2011 were suspended because of indiscipline one week before the competition started.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: Japan's participation was in doubt after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, but the Japan Football Association confirmed on 16 March 2011 that they would participate. However, the Japanese FA later withdrew from the tournament on 4 April 2011 citing scheduling conflict with rescheduled J. League matches. Following a meeting with the leadership of the Argentine Football Association, the Japanese FA decided to hold off on their final decision until 15 April. The Japanese FA later announced on 14 April that they would compete in the competition using mainly European based players. The Japanese FA withdrew their team again on 16 May citing difficulties with European clubs in releasing Japanese players. On the next day, CONMEBOL sent a formal invitation letter to the Costa Rican Football Federation inviting Costa Rica as replacement. Costa Rica accepted the invitation later that day.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: A total of eight cities hosted the tournament. The opening game was played at Estadio Ciudad de La Plata, and the final was played at Estadio Monumental Antonio Vespucio Liberti.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: The draw for the competition took place on 11 November 2010 at 17:00 () in the Teatro Argentino de La Plata in La Plata, and was broadcast in Argentina by Canal Siete. On 18 October 2010, CONMEBOL's The executive committee decided to place the teams in pots for the draw.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: Each association presented a list of twenty-three players to compete in the tournament five days before their first match. On 14 June 2011, CONMEBOL allowed for the inscription of twenty-three players for the tournament, up one player from the previous allowed twenty-two. Of those twenty-three players, three must be goalkeepers.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: The list of twenty-four referees and two extra referees selected for the tournament were announced on 6 June 2011 by CONMEBOL's Referee Commission. Two referees were chosen from each participating association:


title: 2011 Copa América

text: The first round, or group stage, saw the twelve teams divided into three groups of four teams. Each group was a round-robin of three games, where each team played one match against each of the other teams in the same group. Teams were awarded three points for a win, one point for a draw and none for a defeat. The teams finishing first and second in each group, and the two best-placed third teams, qualified for the quarter-finals.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: At the end of the first stage, a comparison was made between the third-placed teams of each group. The two best third-placed teams advanced to the quarter-finals.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: Different from previous tournaments, in the knockout stage, 30 minutes of extra time were played if any match finished tied after regulation (previously the match would go straight to a penalty shoot-out). This was the first time in the history of the tournament where the knockout stage did not include any invited teams, as both Mexico and Costa Rica were eliminated during the group stage. Paraguay reached the final despite not having won a single match in the competition.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: With five goals, Paolo Guerrero of Peru was the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 54 goals were scored by 39 different players, with only one of them credited as an own goal.


title: 2011 Copa América

text: "Creo en América" by Argentine singer Diego Torres was the official theme song for the tournament. Torres performed the song during the opening ceremonies.


title: The Gabba

text: The Brisbane Cricket Ground, commonly known as the Gabba, is a major sports stadium in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. The nickname Gabba derives from the suburb of Woolloongabba, in which it is located. Over the years, the Gabba has hosted athletics, Australian rules football, baseball, concerts, cricket, cycling, rugby league, rugby union, Association football and pony and greyhound racing. At present, it serves as the home ground for the Queensland Bulls in domestic cricket, the Brisbane Heat of the Big Bash League and Women's Big Bash League, and the Brisbane Lions of the Australian Football League. The Gabba will be the centrepiece of the 2032 Summer Olympics and will be upgraded for the games.


title: The Gabba

text: Between 1993 and 2005, the Gabba was redeveloped in six stages at a cost of A$128,000,000. The dimensions of the playing field are now (east-west) by (north-south), to accommodate the playing of Australian rules football at elite level. The seating capacity of the ground was 42,000 in 2010, which has been reduced in recent times due to new electronic scoreboards and corporate facilities. For international cricket matches, the capacity is reduced to 36,000 due to new scoreboards and the addition of a pool deck, as well as wider sight screens. For AFL matches the capacity is slightly larger at 37,478. The capacity will increase to 50,000 for the 2032 Olympics.


title: The Gabba

text: The land on which the ground sits was set aside for use as a cricket ground in 1895 and the first match was held on the site on 19 December 1896, between Parliament and The Press. Prior to this, cricket was played at a ground in the area then known as Green Hills (beside Countess Street Petrie Terrace opposite the Victoria Barracks – now occupied by the Northern Busway), since at least the early 1860s.


title: The Gabba

text: The Gabba shared first-class cricket matches with the Exhibition Ground until 1931. The first Sheffield Shield match at the Gabba was scheduled to be played between 31 January 1931 and 4 February 1931, but it was washed out without a ball being bowled. The first Test match at the Gabba was played between Australia and South Africa between 27 November and 3 December 1931.


title: The Gabba

text: In 1972, a greyhound track was installed at The Gabba with night meetings held weekly at the ground for 21 years.


title: The Gabba

text: From February 1993, work commenced on turning The Gabba into an all-seater stadium. The last greyhound meeting was held at The Gabba on 5 February 1993, with work commencing shortly after to remove the greyhound track around the ground to accommodate the relocation of the Brisbane Bears from Carrara (on the Gold Coast) to The Gabba, renovating the Sir Gordon Chalk Building to house the Bears Social Club and change rooms, refurbishing the Clem Jones stand, the construction of a new Western grandstand, and extending the playing surface to cater for Australian rules football.


title: The Gabba

text: The work was largely completed by 11 April when the Bears hosted their first AFL game at the renovated venue against Melbourne in front of 12,821 spectators. Subsequent further renovations at the ground saw the current two tier stands constructed in stages with the last stage completed in 2005 when the Brisbane Lions Social Club (formerly the Brisbane Bears Social Club) was demolished and replaced with a 24 bay grandstand spread over 3 levels of seating with the entire redevelopment costing $AU128 million. In mid-2020 the Gabba received a $35 million refurbishment of the stadium's media and corporate facilities, as well as entrances and spectator amenities. The work was completed in October that year, shortly before the venue hosted the 2020 AFL Grand Final.


title: The Gabba

text: After Brisbane was awarded the rights to host the 2032 Summer Olympics by the International Olympic Committee, the Queensland Government announced the Gabba would be the central venue used for the Games. The government has proposed demolishing the stadium's foundations and rebuilding the Gabba with new grandstands in its place, which would seat approximately 50,000 spectators. The cost of the proposal is $1 billion. The venue will be used for Athletics along with the Opening and Closing ceremonies.


title: The Gabba

text: The First Test between Australia and England is played nowadays at Brisbane. Nobody seems to know why, and all sorts of arguments are ventilated for and against more cricket Tests on the Woolloongabba ground. I am all in favour of robbing Queensland of its greatest cricketing occasion, for the ground depresses. It is not a cricket ground at all. It is a concentration camp! Wire fences abound. Spectators are herded and sorted out into lots as though for all the world this was a slave market and not a game of cricket. The stands are of wood and filthy to sit on. The dining rooms are barns, without a touch of colour or a picture on the wall. Everywhere there is dust and dirt...Forgive me if I am bitter about the Woolloongabba ground...the city has many good points, and the people who live there are generous and hospitable to the highest degree, but once one goes to the cricket ground the advantages are overwhelmingly lost in the mass of rules and regulations... – John Kay, 1950–51 Ashes series


title: The Gabba

text: The Gabba is used from October to March for cricket and is home to the Queensland Cricket Association, the Queensland Cricketers Club and the Queensland Bulls cricket team. The venue usually hosts the first Test match of the season each November in addition to a number of international one-day matches usually held in January. The pitch is usually fast and bouncy.


title: The Gabba

text: The Gabba's amenities were greatly improved in the 1980s from a very basic standard, especially in comparison with the other Australian cricket grounds. Test cricket was first played at the ground in November 1931, the first Test of the series between Australia and South Africa. In December 1960, Test cricket's first-ever Tied Test took place at the ground when Richie Benaud's Australian team tied with Frank Worrell's West Indian side. Queensland clinched its first-ever Sheffield Shield title with victory over South Australia in the final at the ground in March 1995.


title: The Gabba

text: In November 1968 Colin Milburn scored 243, including 181 in the two-hour afternoon session, in a Sheffield Shield match for Western Australia vs. Queensland.


title: The Gabba

text: For the first day of the first Test of the 2010–11 Ashes series between Australia and England, the Gabba was almost sold out.


title: The Gabba

text: Australia's Michael Clarke holds the record for number of runs scored in one Test innings at the Gabba with 259 not out, breaking the previous record set by Alastair Cook.


title: The Gabba

text: Australia has a formidable test match record at the ground. In the 55 matches played at the ground, Australia has won 33, drawn 13, tied 1 and lost 9. The last loss came on 19 January 2021 against India in the 4th and final test of 2020-21 Border-Gavaskar trophy. India became the first Asian team to win a Test match at the Gabba. This was Australia's first loss at the Gabba in 29 matches, and 32 years.


title: The Gabba

text: England have a notoriously poor record at The Gabba, and have only won two test matches at the ground since the end of the Second World War. Many of their defeats have been heavy and only seven England players have scored centuries at the ground.


title: The Gabba

text: On 15 December 2016, Australia hosted Pakistan for the first day-night Test at the Gabba, and the first Australian day-night Test hosted outside the Adelaide Oval.


title: The Gabba

text: The first VFL/AFL game at The Gabba was held on June 28, 1981 with hosting in front of 20,351 spectators. Six years later, the Brisbane Bears were admitted into the VFL but would initially play their home games at Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast. The Brisbane Bears experimented with playing four matches at the Gabba in Brisbane in 1991, before moving all home matches to the venue ahead of the 1993 season. The Gabba was then the official home ground for the Brisbane Bears from 1993 to 1996 and since 1997 has been the home of the Brisbane Lions after the Bears merged with Fitzroy. The record crowd for an Australian rules football match is 37,473 between the Brisbane Lions and Richmond in the 2019 second qualifying final.


title: The Gabba

text: Australian football has a long association with the ground. The Queensland Football League, a precursor to AFL Queensland played matches at the Gabba from 1905 to 1914, 1959 to 1971, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s. AFLQ matches resumed in 1993 as curtain-raiser events to AFL games, along with occasional AFLQ Grand Finals.


title: The Gabba

text: Interstate games, including the 1961 national carnival have also been played there, as was a demonstration game during the 1982 Commonwealth Games. In 1991 the Gabba was host to Queensland's only victory over a Victorian side.


title: The Gabba

text: The Gold Coast Suns have hosted games at the Gabba in 2011 and in 2018 due to the unavailability of their home ground Carrara Stadium because of redevelopment and the 2018 Commonwealth Games respectively.


title: The Gabba

text: During the 2020 AFL season, the Gabba hosted a greater number of home and away matches than usual, due to the temporary relocation of Victorian and other clubs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The venue was also selected to host the 2020 AFL Grand Final, with the Melbourne Cricket Ground not capable of hosting any spectators at the match. The Gabba thus became the first stadium outside the state of Victoria to host a VFL/AFL Grand Final, which Richmond won against Geelong by 12.9 (81) to 7.8 (50) in front of 29,707 people – just under the venue's temporary maximum capacity due to the pandemic. Since the MCG began hosting VFL/AFL Grand Finals (VFL until 1989, AFL afterwards), only four other venues had done so: Princes Park (1942, 1943 and 1945), the St Kilda Cricket Ground (1944), Waverley Park (1991), and Optus Stadium (2021).


title: The Gabba

text: In the early 1900s, the Gabba hosted numerous matches between Australia and various touring nations. During the 1950s and 1960s the Gabba hosted soccer matches for English first division and Scottish clubs including Blackpool FC, Everton FC, Manchester United and Heart of Midlothian F.C. The Chinese and South African national teams also played at the ground. During the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Gabba hosted association football group games.


title: The Gabba

text: On 8 May 1909, the first match of rugby league was played in Brisbane at the Gabba. Norths played against Souths before a handful of spectators at the ground.


title: The Gabba

text: The Gabba hosted its first rugby league Test match on 26 June 1909, when Australia defeated New Zealand Māori 16–13. The Kangaroos continued to play Tests at this venue until 1956, and a ground record crowd of 47,800 people saw Australia play Great Britain in 1954. From 1932 to 1959 the Gabba was also used to host interstate matches and International Rugby League Finals from 1909 – 2003.


title: The Gabba

text: In 2023, The Gabba will play host to three Brisbane Broncos matches while their regular home ground Suncorp Stadium is unavailable due to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.


title: The Gabba

text: The Gabba hosted seven games of the 2000 Olympic Games Men's Football tournament including a Quarter final match.


title: The Gabba

text: Greyhound racing was also conducted at the Gabba prior to the redevelopment. Meetings were held during 1928 and again from 1972 until 1993.


title: The Gabba

text: In 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, the Gabba was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as a "structure and engineering feat".


title: The Gabba

text: Note: best innings figures limited to 10; there have actually been 27 six-wicket innings hauls at the Gabba.


The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet.


title: United States Department of Transportation

text: The department's mission is "to develop and coordinate policies that will provide an efficient and economical national transportation system, with due regard for need, the environment, and the national defense."


text: Prior to the creation of the Department of Transportation, its functions were administered by the under secretary of commerce for transportation. In 1965, Najeeb Halaby, administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency (predecessor to the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA), suggested to President Lyndon B. Johnson that transportation be elevated to a cabinet-level post, and that the FAA be folded into the DOT.


text: It was established by Congress in the Department of Transportation Act on October 15, 1966. The department began operation on April 1, 1967.


text: The idea of having a federal department of transportation was first proposed by former President Woodrow Wilson in 1921–22.


text: In 2012, the DOT awarded $742.5 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to 11 transit projects. The awardees include light rail projects. Other projects include both a commuter rail extension and a subway project in New York City, and a bus rapid transit system in Springfield, Oregon. The funds subsidize a heavy rail project in northern Virginia, completing the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's Metro Silver Line to connect Washington, D.C., and the Washington Dulles International Airport. (DOT had previously agreed to subsidize the Silver Line construction to Reston, Virginia.)


text: President Barack Obama's budget request for 2010 also included $1.83 billion in funding for major transit projects. More than $600 million went towards ten new or expanding transit projects. The budget provided additional funding for all of the projects currently receiving Recovery Act funding, except for the bus rapid transit project. It also continued funding for another 18 transit projects that are either currently under construction or soon will be. Following the same, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 delegated $600 million for Infrastructure Investments, referred to as Discretionary Grants.


text: The Department of Transportation was authorized a budget for Fiscal Year 2016 of $75.1 billion. The budget authorization is broken down as follows:


text: In 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The $1.2 trillion act included over $250 billion in funding for transportation-related infrastructure projects.


text: In the latest Center for Effective Government analysis of 15 federal agencies which receive the most Freedom of Information Act FOIA requests, published in 2015 (using 2012 and 2013 data, the most recent years available), the Department of Transportation earned a D by scoring 65 out of a possible 100 points, i.e., did not earn a satisfactory overall grade.


title: 2.5D

text: 2.5D (two-and-a-half dimensional, alternatively pseudo-3D or three-quarter) perspective refers to one of two things:


title: 2.5D

text: Common in video games, 2.5D projections have also been useful in geographic visualization (GVIS) to help understand visual-cognitive spatial representations or 3D visualization.


title: 2.5D

text: The terms "three-quarter perspective" and "three-quarter view" trace their origins to the three-quarter profile in portraiture and facial recognition, which depicts a person's face that is partway between a frontal view and a side view.


title: 2.5D

text: In axonometric projection and oblique projection, two forms of parallel projection, the viewpoint is rotated slightly to reveal other facets of the environment than what are visible in a top-down perspective or side view, thereby producing a three-dimensional effect. An object is "considered to be in an inclined position resulting in foreshortening of all three axes", and the image is a "representation on a single plane (as a drawing surface) of a three-dimensional object placed at an angle to the plane of projection." Lines perpendicular to the plane become points, lines parallel to the plane have true length, and lines inclined to the plane are foreshortened.


title: 2.5D

text: They are popular camera perspectives among 2D video games, most commonly those released for 16-bit or earlier and handheld consoles, as well as in later strategy and role-playing video games. The advantage of these perspectives is that they combine the visibility and mobility of a top-down game with the character recognizability of a side-scrolling game. Thus the player can be presented an overview of the game world in the ability to see it from above, more or less, and with additional details in artwork made possible by using an angle: Instead of showing a humanoid in top-down perspective, as a head and shoulders seen from above, the entire body can be drawn when using a slanted angle; Turning a character around would reveal how it looks from the sides, the front and the back, while the top-down perspective will display the same head and shoulders regardless.


title: 2.5D

text: There are three main divisions of axonometric projection: "isometric" (equal measure), "dimetric" (symmetrical and unsymmetrical), and "trimetric" (single-view or only two sides). The most common of these drawing types in engineering drawing is isometric projection. This projection is tilted so that all three axes create equal angles at intervals of 120 degrees. The result is that all three axes are equally foreshortened. In video games, a form of dimetric projection with a 2:1 pixel ratio is more common due to the problems of anti-aliasing and square pixels found on most computer monitors.


title: 2.5D

text: In oblique projection typically all three axes are shown without foreshortening. All lines parallel to the axes are drawn to scale, and diagonals and curved lines are distorted. One tell-tale sign of oblique projection is that the face pointed toward the camera retains its right angles with respect to the image plane.


title: 2.5D

text: Two examples of oblique projection are "" and "Paperboy". Examples of axonometric projection include "SimCity 2000", and the role-playing games "Diablo" and "Baldur's Gate".


title: 2.5D

text: In three-dimensional scenes, the term billboarding is applied to a technique in which objects are sometimes represented by two-dimensional images applied to a single polygon which is typically kept perpendicular to the line of sight. The name refers to the fact that objects are seen as if drawn on a billboard. This technique was commonly used in early 1990s video games when consoles did not have the hardware power to render fully 3D objects. This is also known as a backdrop. This can be used to good effect for a significant performance boost when the geometry is sufficiently distant that it can be seamlessly replaced with a 2D sprite. In games, this technique is most frequently applied to objects such as particles (smoke, sparks, rain) and low-detail vegetation. It has since become mainstream, and is found in many games such as "", where it is exploited to simultaneously display thousands of individual soldiers on a battlefield. Early examples include early first-person shooters like "Marathon Trilogy", "Wolfenstein 3D", "Doom", "" and "Duke Nukem 3D" as well as racing games like "Carmageddon" and "Super Mario Kart" and platformers like "Super Mario 64".


title: 2.5D

text: Skyboxes and skydomes are methods used to easily create a background to make a game level look bigger than it really is. If the level is enclosed in a cube, the sky, distant mountains, distant buildings, and other unreachable objects are rendered onto the cube's faces using a technique called cube mapping, thus creating the illusion of distant three-dimensional surroundings. A "skydome" employs the same concept but uses a sphere or hemisphere instead of a cube.


title: 2.5D

text: As a viewer moves through a 3D scene, it is common for the skybox or skydome to remain stationary with respect to the viewer. This technique gives the skybox the illusion of being very far away since other objects in the scene appear to move, while the skybox does not. This imitates real life, where distant objects such as clouds, stars and even mountains appear to be stationary when the viewpoint is displaced by relatively small distances. Effectively, everything in a skybox will always appear to be infinitely distant from the viewer. This consequence of skyboxes dictates that designers should be careful not to carelessly include images of discrete objects in the textures of a skybox since the viewer may be able to perceive the inconsistencies of those objects' sizes as the scene is traversed.


title: 2.5D

text: In some games, sprites are scaled larger or smaller depending on its distance to the player, producing the illusion of motion along the Z (forward) axis. Sega's 1986 video game "Out Run", which runs on the Sega OutRun arcade system board, is a good example of this technique.


title: 2.5D

text: In "Out Run", the player drives a Ferrari into depth of the game window. The palms on the left and right side of the street are the same bitmap, but have been scaled to different sizes, creating the illusion that some are closer than others. The angles of movement are "left and right" and "into the depth" (while still capable of doing so technically, this game did not allow making a U-turn or going into reverse, therefore moving "out of the depth", as this did not make sense to the high-speed game play and tense time limit). Notice the view is comparable to that which a driver would have in reality when driving a car. The position and size of any billboard is generated by a (complete 3D) perspective transformation as are the vertices of the poly-line representing the center of the street. Often the center of the street is stored as a spline and sampled in a way that on straight streets every sampling point corresponds to one scan-line on the screen. Hills and curves lead to multiple points on one line and one has to be chosen. Or one line is without any point and has to be interpolated lineary from the adjacent lines. Very memory intensive billboards are used in "Out Run" to draw corn-fields and water waves which are wider than the screen even at the largest viewing distance and also in "Test Drive" to draw trees and cliffs.


title: 2.5D

text: "Drakkhen" was notable for being among the first role-playing video games to feature a three-dimensional playing field. However, it did not employ a conventional 3D game engine, instead emulating one using character-scaling algorithms. The player's party travels overland on a flat terrain made up of vectors, on which 2D objects are zoomed. "Drakkhen" features an animated day-night cycle, and the ability to wander freely about the game world, both rarities for a game of its era. This type of engine was later used in the game "Eternam".


title: 2.5D

text: Some mobile games that were released on the Java ME platform, such as the mobile version of Asphalt: Urban GT and , used this method for rendering the scenery. While the technique is similar to some of Sega's arcade games, such as Thunder Blade and Cool Riders and the 32-bit version of Road Rash, it uses polygons instead of sprite scaling for buildings and certain objects though it looks flat shaded. Later mobile games (mainly from Gameloft), such as and the mobile version of Iron Man 2, uses a mix of sprite scaling and texture mapping for some buildings and objects.


title: 2.5D

text: Parallaxing refers to when a collection of 2D sprites or layers of sprites are made to move independently of each other and/or the background to create a sense of added depth. This depth cue is created by relative motion of layers. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera technique used in traditional animation since the 1940s. This type of graphical effect was first used in the 1982 arcade game "Moon Patrol".


title: 2.5D

text: Examples include the skies in "Rise of the Triad", the arcade version of "Rygar", "Sonic the Hedgehog", "Street Fighter II", "Shadow of the Beast" and "", as well as "Super Mario World".


title: 2.5D

text: Mode 7, a display system effect that included rotation and scaling, allowed for a 3D effect while moving in any direction without any actual 3D models, and was used to simulate 3D graphics on the SNES.


title: 2.5D

text: Ray casting is a first person pseudo-3D technique in which a ray for every vertical slice of the screen is sent from the position of the camera. These rays shoot out until they hit an object or wall, and that part of the wall is rendered in that vertical screen slice. Due to the limited camera movement and internally 2D playing field, this is often considered 2.5D.


title: 2.5D

text: Bump mapping, normal mapping and parallax mapping are techniques applied to textures in 3D rendering applications such as video games to simulate bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object without using more polygons. To the end user, this means that textures such as stone walls will have more apparent depth and thus greater realism with less of an influence on the performance of the simulation.


title: 2.5D

text: Bump mapping is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of an object and using a grayscale image and the perturbed normal during illumination calculations. The result is an apparently bumpy surface rather than a perfectly smooth surface although the surface of the underlying object is not actually changed. Bump mapping was introduced by Blinn in 1978.


title: 2.5D

text: In normal mapping, the unit vector from the shading point to the light source is dotted with the unit vector normal to that surface, and the dot product is the intensity of the light on that surface. Imagine a polygonal model of a sphere—you can only approximate the shape of the surface. By using a 3-channel bitmapped image textured across the model, more detailed normal vector information can be encoded. Each channel in the bitmap corresponds to a spatial dimension ("x", "y" and "z"). These spatial dimensions are relative to a constant coordinate system for object-space normal maps, or to a smoothly varying coordinate system (based on the derivatives of position with respect to texture coordinates) in the case of tangent-space normal maps. This adds much more detail to the surface of a model, especially in conjunction with advanced lighting techniques.


title: 2.5D

text: Parallax mapping (also called offset mapping or virtual displacement mapping) is an enhancement of the bump mapping and normal mapping techniques implemented by displacing the texture coordinates at a point on the rendered polygon by a function of the view angle in tangent space (the angle relative to the surface normal) and the value of the height map at that point. At steeper view-angles, the texture coordinates are displaced more, giving the illusion of depth due to parallax effects as the view changes.


title: 2.5D

text: The term is also used to describe an animation effect commonly used in music videos and, more frequently, title sequences. Brought to wide attention by the motion picture "The Kid Stays in the Picture", an adaptation of film producer Robert Evans's memoir, it involves the layering and animating of two-dimensional pictures in three-dimensional space. Earlier examples of this technique include Liz Phair's music video "Down" (directed by Rodney Ascher) and "A Special Tree" (directed by musician Giorgio Moroder).


title: 2.5D

text: On a larger scale, the 2018 movie "In Saturn's Rings" used over 7.5 million separate two-dimensional images, captured in space or by telescopes, which were composited and moved using multi-plane animation techniques.


title: 2.5D

text: The term also refers to an often-used effect in the design of icons and graphical user interfaces (GUIs), where a slight 3D illusion is created by the presence of a virtual light source to the left (or in some cases right) side, and above a person's computer monitor. The light source itself is always invisible, but its effects are seen in the lighter colors for the top and left side, simulating reflection, and the darker colours to the right and below of such objects, simulating shadow.


title: 2.5D

text: An advanced version of this technique can be found in some specialised graphic design software, such as Pixologic's ZBrush. The idea is that the program's canvas represents a normal 2D painting surface, but that the data structure that holds the pixel information is also able to store information with respect to a z-index, as well material settings, specularity, etc. Again, with this data it is thus possible to simulate lighting, shadows, and so forth.


title: 2.5D

text: The first video games that used pseudo-3D were primarily arcade games, the earliest known examples dating back to the mid-1970s, when they began using microprocessors. In 1975, Taito released "Interceptor", an early first-person shooter and combat flight simulator that involved piloting a jet fighter, using an eight-way joystick to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft that move in formations of two and increase/decrease in size depending on their distance to the player. In 1976, Sega released "Moto-Cross", an early black-and-white motorbike racing video game, based on the motocross competition, that was most notable for introducing an early three-dimensional third-person perspective. Later that year, Sega-Gremlin re-branded the game as "Fonz", as a tie-in for the popular sitcom "Happy Days". Both versions of the game displayed a constantly changing forward-scrolling road and the player's bike in a third-person perspective where objects nearer to the player are larger than those nearer to the horizon, and the aim was to steer the vehicle across the road, racing against the clock, while avoiding any on-coming motorcycles or driving off the road. That same year also saw the release of two arcade games that extended the car driving subgenre into three dimensions with a first-person perspective: Sega's "Road Race", which displayed a constantly changing forward-scrolling S-shaped road with two obstacle race cars moving along the road that the player must avoid crashing while racing against the clock, and Atari's "Night Driver", which presented a series of posts by the edge of the road though there was no view of the road or the player's car. Games using vector graphics had an advantage in creating pseudo-3D effects. 1979's "Speed Freak" recreated the perspective of "Night Driver" in greater detail.


title: 2.5D

text: In 1979, Nintendo debuted "Radar Scope", a shoot 'em up that introduced a three-dimensional third-person perspective to the genre, imitated years later by shooters such as Konami's "Juno First" and Activision's "Beamrider". In 1980, Atari's "Battlezone" was a breakthrough for pseudo-3D gaming, recreating a 3D perspective with unprecedented realism, though the gameplay was still planar. It was followed up that same year by "Red Baron", which used scaling vector images to create a forward scrolling rail shooter.


title: 2.5D

text: Sega's arcade shooter "Space Tactics", released in 1980, allowed players to take aim using crosshairs and shoot lasers into the screen at enemies coming towards them, creating an early 3D effect. It was followed by other arcade shooters with a first-person perspective during the early 1980s, including Taito's 1981 release "Space Seeker", and Sega's "Star Trek" in 1982. Sega's "SubRoc-3D" in 1982 also featured a first-person perspective and introduced the use of stereoscopic 3-D through a special eyepiece. Sega's "Astron Belt" in 1983 was the first laserdisc video game, using full-motion video to display the graphics from a first-person perspective. Third-person rail shooters were also released in arcades at the time, including Sega's "Tac/Scan" in 1982, Nippon's "Ambush" in 1983, Nichibutsu's "Tube Panic" in 1983, and Sega's 1982 release "", notable for its fast pseudo-3D scaling and detailed sprites.