Rebirth in America

"What? The computer special effects I want have been made?"

Alex was very happy when he received a call from the technical director of Illusion Company, because he had already funded the establishment of this computer special effects company a few years ago, with the purpose of quickly bringing the gorgeous computer special effects of future generations to the market. Get it out.

If the computer special effects were powerful, many of the movie scenes in his mind could be shot. When filming "Planet of the Apes", "Red Dawn" and other series of movies, many scenes that could use computer special effects were limited by the technical conditions at the time, so he had to use models or special effects props to shoot.

In order to end this era without computer special effects, Alex spared no expense and cost and established the Illusion Company to research technology in this area.

A few years later, Alex finally saw the results!

If it were anyone else, even if they had the ideas and funds, they might not be able to do something like his, because the most limiting condition for computer special effects is hardware factors. If the computer speed is not fast enough and the performance is not up to par, no matter how much money is invested, Funds are all in vain.

Only Alex has such conditions and funds, coupled with his ideas and determination, have supported the researchers of Fantasy Company to reach this point today. If it were anyone else, they might have given up long ago and never even thought about relying on computers to create special effects.

The reason is very simple. The input cost is too high and the output benefit is too small. The two are really out of proportion.

In order to allow Phantom Company to have sufficient hardware conditions for research, Alex asked CPT Company to build several supercomputers specifically for this company. And it's the fastest one in the world. This investment alone is enough to scare many people away. This is not the end of it. Alex also allows them to use the computing power of other idle supercomputers of cpt company at any time.

It took several years of research and development to achieve a simple result.

"Look," the technical director led Alex into their workplace, and then asked someone to show it: "This is the computer special effects we made!"

Alex looked in the direction directed by the technical director and saw a person appearing on the screen of the monitor. The man took out a metal cylinder from his pocket and made a movement. The cylinder emits a cyan light beam several feet long. Just like a laser knife.

The people on the screen were waving light beams and performing actions such as slashing and blocking stabs. The picture was very clear and smooth, with no flaws visible, just like the real thing.

"This is the lightsaber special effect that we spent several years developing!" The technical director stared at Alex's face. I am afraid that the other party will look dissatisfied. He also knows that the company has invested too much in recent years, and just producing such results is not enough.

Alex didn't pay attention to the director's gaze. Instead, he continued to look at the lightsaber above, making comparisons based on his memory, and finally said with a smile: "Very good, very good!"

The technical director breathed a sigh of relief after hearing such compliments.

"In addition to lightsabers, what other effects can you create?"

Faced with Alex's further inquiry, the technical director felt guilty after hearing this, so he quickly wiped his sweat and said: "Then we have to look at the specific special effects before we can judge whether they can be produced."

Alex nodded. Although he was not proficient in computer special effects, he still knew the limitations of production. If there are no specific needs, these technicians will not know how to say what they can achieve.

"Tell me the production process of this lightsaber special effect, and let me see how your skills are!"

"OK!"

The technical director replied, and he quickly asked his people to demonstrate the production process one by one.

The technology used for this lightsaber special effect is not complicated, but the whole process is a bit boring. When filming in Century, the actors held a prop sword hilt with an aluminum rod inserted into the hilt. The length of the aluminum rod was the "blade" of the lightsaber. The hilt is made of plastic and the aluminum rod is painted red, green or blue. The actors danced these props like real lightsabers.

After the film is shot, it will be sent to the special effects production department, and the film will be produced in the normal way.

In this generic edit, the actors appear to be fighting with colorful broomsticks rather than lightsabers. Now, special effects artists are responsible for turning those broomsticks into "real" lightsabers. The special effects artist would go through each frame in turn, projecting each scene containing the lightsaber onto a clear piece of plastic film.

This plastic film is commonly known as animation celluloid film.

Special effects artists drew the outline of each lightsaber's blade on cel. Then, use bright cartoon colors to color the blades of each frame. Finally, the special effects artist painted a large pile of cels, one for each frame of the film containing the lightsaber. Everywhere on the cel is crystal clear, with the exception of where the lightsaber blade appears in each frame.

And just like that, a new film has been produced.

In the processed film, each animated cel was placed against a black background and shot using a diffuse light on the lens, which created a circle of bright light around the blade. Otherwise, if the film were played on a projector, all one would see would be the lightsaber blade dancing against a black background.

But before lightsabers were made, real footage from the movie was shot on the same film using double exposures. The effect is magical, the lightsaber looks bright and lifelike!

Among so many tasks, the most critical thing is to use computer technology to redraw the colors at special locations in each frame. Of course, we cannot draw very complex images, but we can redraw some simple lights and colors.

It sounds simple, but actually it requires a lot of technology to do it, and it is quite a revolutionary breakthrough. Although the method used is very simple, it requires scanning each frame of image into a computer, then dividing it into countless rectangular blocks, and coloring each block. The final effect is the lightsaber in the film.

It sounds simple, but it's very laborious to do.

And if you want the lightsaber effect to be more detailed, you need to make the divided squares smaller, preferably the same size as pixels, so that no problems can be seen. However, this method has high hardware requirements. If the computer performance is not good enough, it may take a long time to create special effects processing pictures.

Invisibly, the cost of this special effect will become very high.

After watching the staff's demonstration, Alex felt a little unsure: "This level is probably the same as the filming of "Journey to the West". If it wants to be more realistic, both the software and hardware must be improved. "

According to Alex's idea, the effect he wanted to achieve was at least the level of computer special effects in "Starship Troopers". It looks almost like the real thing. Even if the picture is a little rough, it doesn't matter. Movies in this era don't have high-definition pictures anyway. If it has the level of "Starship Troopers", it will basically be enough to satisfy the shooting of most science fiction films. Needed.

But, being able to make a lightsaber is not bad, at least "Star Wars" can be filmed.

Thinking of this, Alex said to the technical director: "Okay! Your current task is to reduce the production cost of this special effect. Start by simplifying the production process. It is best to have special software that can be used by the staff. "

The technical director nodded and said, "Yes, I understand! However, the most important cost is the computer, and labor costs do not account for the majority."

Alex smiled and said: "With the current speed of computer development, the cost in this area will soon be reduced to a very small level. The most important thing is that you have to save labor costs and time costs. Because The reduction of these two costs depends on the improvement of your technical level!"

The director was stunned when he heard this. He had no idea that the cost of computers was not valued by Alex. Instead, he was more focused on labor and time. You know, Phantom Company uses supercomputers to research special effects technology every day. The cost every day is enough to support all the employees of their company for a month. Such huge expenses are always swirling in his mind, fearing that it will take an extra day. .

However, he finally thought that as Alex was the boss of CPT Company, several supercomputers used by Phantom Company were also transferred from CPT Company. If he thought about it from this perspective, the cost would be almost as low as possible. Low.

In other words, only Alex can afford to use such computer special effects. If other film companies want to use it, the production cost will definitely be sky-high!

After leaving Phantom Company, UU read books www. uukaｎshu． net Alex began to seriously consider: "Should we make "Star Wars"?"

From the perspective of computer special effects technology, he is fully capable of shooting this movie. As for some of the special effects in it, such as aliens, Master Yoda, spaceships, etc., these can all be achieved through model props and special effects makeup.

"It's only 1966 now. If "Star Wars" is really filmed, it will be ten years earlier than 1977!"

Alex couldn't help but think about it. He believed that there were no problems with the technical conditions for shooting this movie, and the remaining problems were nothing. He is even confident that he can shoot better than Lucas. As for whether Lucas can become a film master in the end, that is not his problem.

shoot! Why not shoot!

Now that there is an opportunity to remake "Star Wars", Alex will not push it out. Besides, he also had a lot of dissatisfaction with the plot of the movie, which could be used to make changes to make the movie he wanted to see. (To be continued...)