As Christmas approaches, the Bay Area weather pattern seemed set to deliver a “gift” of extreme conditions to the region — everything from hail to thunder to hurricane-level winds to sheets of rain.

A sprite sheet is a large image containing many smaller images arranged in a grid. The main idea is to speed up load time and compute resources as computers are well optimized for working with images.

Predicting who will get nominated in the three short-film categories at the Oscars is a challenge, even for the most seasoned pundits. But fear not, dear reader! Below are all 15 short films that made ...