Mordor

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced [ˈmɔrdɔr]; from Sindarin Black Land and Quenya Land of Shadow) was the region occupied and controlled by Sauron, in the southeast of northwestern Middle-earth to the East of Anduin, the great river. Orodruin, a volcano in Mordor, was the destination of the Fellowship of the Ring (and later Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee) in the quest to destroy the One Ring.

Mordor has three enormous mountain ranges surrounding it, from the north, from the west and from the south. The mountains both protected the land from an unexpected invasion by any of the people living in those directions and kept those living in Mordor from escaping. Tolkien was reported to have identified Mordor with the volcano of Stromboli off Sicily.

Geography

Three sides of Mordor were bounded by mountain ranges, arranged in a rough rectangle: Ered Lithui, translated as 'Ash Mountains' in the north, and the Ephel Dúath ("Fence of Shadow") in the west and the south. In the northwest the pass of Cirith Gorgor led into the enclosed plain of Udûn. Sauron built the Black Gate of Mordor (the Morannon) across the pass, joining the Towers of the Teeth, two earlier guard towers built by Gondor to keep a watch on this entrance. The passage through the inner side of Udûn into the interior of Mordor was guarded by another gate, the Isenmouthe. Outside the Morannon lay the Dagorlad or Battle Plain.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is an open world action-adventure video game set within Tolkien's legendarium, developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Officially announced in November 2013, it was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in September 2014 and released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November 2014.

The story of the game takes place between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The players control Talion, a ranger who was killed by the Black Hand of Sauron. Talion's spirit merged with the wraith of the Elf Lord Celebrimbor, and together they try to avenge the death of their loved ones. Players can engage in melee combat, and utilize some of the wraith abilities to fight against enemies. The game uses the Nemesis System, which allows the artificial intelligence of non-playable characters to remember the death of the game's protagonist and react accordingly.

The game's development began in 2011. In order to create an accurate environment and be consistent with the books written by Tolkien, the developer consulted several people from Warner Bros., and Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series. In addition, the team received assistance from Weta Workshop, who gave advice to the team in creating special effects. Monolith focused on the development of the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, while the development of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions was outsourced to Behaviour Interactive, and the port to OS X and Linux was done by Feral Interactive.

Shadow

A shadow is a space where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, or reverse projection of the object blocking the light.

Point and non-point light sources

A point source of light casts only a simple shadow, called an "umbra". For a non-point or "extended" source of light, the shadow is divided into the umbra, penumbra and antumbra. The wider the light source, the more blurred the shadow becomes. If two penumbras overlap, the shadows appear to attract and merge. This is known as the Shadow Blister Effect.

The outlines of the shadow zones can be found by tracing the rays of light emitted by the outermost regions of the extended light source. The umbra region does not receive any direct light from any part of the light source, and is the darkest. A viewer located in the umbra region cannot directly see any part of the light source.

PlayStation 4

The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 during a press conference on February 20, 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013 in North America, and November 29, 2013 in Europe, South America and Australia. It competes with Nintendo's Wii U and Microsoft's Xbox One, as part of the eighth generation of video game consoles.

Moving away from the more complex Cell microarchitecture of its predecessor, the console features an AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) built around the x86-64 architecture; with a theoretical peak performance of 1.84 teraflops, AMD stated that the processor was the "most powerful" APU they had developed to date. The PlayStation 4 places an increased emphasis on social interaction and integration with other devices and services, including the ability to play games off the console on PlayStation Vita and supported Sony Xperia mobile devices ("Remote Play"), the ability to stream gameplay online, or to friends with the ability for them to control gameplay remotely ("Share Play"). The console's controller was also refined over that of the PlayStation 3, with improved buttons, analog sticks and an integrated touchpad among other changes.

October 10

October 10 is the 283rd day of the year (284th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 82 days remaining until the end of the year.

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