Started as an independent producer in 1988

Chapter 323: An animation brings up trouble!
Peking University Digital Special Effects Laboratory.

Chen Shiping felt his head buzzing as he watched the 3D animated short film produced by Peking University.

The animation is very smooth, and the character's movements and expressions are pretty good, but the modeling is really rough.

From modeling to texturing, nothing is good, not to mention color and aesthetics.

The overall effect looks like Chen Shiping thought about it and suddenly came up with an animation.

Fighting in Heaven was once broadcast on CCTV Channel 6!
The animation effect produced by the laboratory is now almost the same as Fan Dou Tian Ting!
It looks good at first glance, but it really has no aesthetic appeal
Master Yang was also in the laboratory, and he couldn't help but turn his head away.

How can this be called animation? There is no beauty, no art!

The special effects engineer was quite proud at first, but he felt disappointed when he saw the reactions of Chen Shiping and Master Yang.

Chen Shiping couldn't help laughing. It was already very good that they could make this kind of thing now.

Although the things I tinkered with are not as good as Toy Story, they are also very impressive.

After all, the time and energy invested are not at the same level.

If Chen Shiping also took out a few hundred million now, maybe they could also make a Toy Story.

Or something like Night at the Museum.

"Well done. This technology is considered first-class internationally. Some flaws are normal."

Chen Shiping took the initiative to comfort them and continued to encourage them: "The future will definitely be yours!"

After encouraging the special effects engineer, Chen Shiping asked directly: "If I ask you to make a dead object come alive, can you do it well?"

The special effects artist was stunned for a moment and asked, "Resurrection from the dead?"

"No, no, let me put it this way. When a person walks out of a painting, the person in the painting comes alive. Do you understand what I mean?"

The special effects artist then nodded and said, "Yes, it's not as difficult as making 3D animation."

Chen Shiping laughed and said, "Research it later and make a finished product for me to see."

"No problem!" the special effects artist agreed.

There is a special studio in the laboratory for them to shoot materials and conduct experiments, so Chen Shiping does not need to go out of his way to shoot materials for them.

After chatting for a few sentences, Chen Shiping and Master Yang began to discuss how to make Frozen.

Technology is developing, and it is impossible for them to produce a feature-length animation by purely hand-drawing.

The Monkey King’s rampage in Heaven was done entirely by hand because the conditions were not available back then, but now that we have the technology, we must rely on computer technology.

We must keep pace with the times!

Using computers to create animations is the mainstream and inevitable development trend, and they cannot go against it.

It's just that I don't do 3D animation.

But now the world's animated films are developing rapidly, and motion capture technology is relatively mature.

The threshold has not yet been touched in China.

Chen Shiping and Master Yang came here this time to learn about the situation in the laboratory.

Chen Shiping plans to go to the UK and hire a motion capture system company for assistance at a high price.

Otherwise, we can only use the old method, letting the actors act it out bit by bit, and the painters transcribe it bit by bit.

This is a huge workload. It is impossible to make a feature-length animated film by relying on the artist to shut himself up in the studio and draw.

The quality of an animated film is not the same as the quality of a cartoon.

Animated films are made frame by frame, while cartoons are made only with key frames, and the results are completely different.

The difference between pure manual and semi-mechanical processing.

The latter is definitely simpler, but it lacks ingenuity, inspiration, and naturalness.

The dynamics of animated films must be realistic and natural enough.

If the artist relies on designing each frame by himself, the final movement will inevitably be distorted, unnatural and unreal.

Therefore, motion capture is a must, and we must fully develop this technology!
This technology is not only used in the animation field, but also in special effects movies and game production.
It has been developed for decades abroad, but it has not even started yet in China.

Not getting started means spending a lot of money, which is a very important aspect of the future of domestic films.

This time I came here with Master Yang to discuss this issue.

If you want to save money, you can just do keyframes. Even motion capture is just a simple auxiliary and does not require too much time and effort.

However, Chen Shiping still wanted to create high-quality works and make frame-by-frame animations.

Frame-by-frame animation is expensive, because it means that the audience will see a perfect original painting at any time when they pause.

The concept is that every frame can be used as wallpaper.

It’s just that there is no motion capture technology in China at present, but the rotoscoping technology has developed quite well.

Uncharted used a lot of rotoscoping technology to create special effects.

For example, the princess has a glowing sword, a glowing mask, and glowing eyes.

In live-action movies, rotoscoping technology can be understood as manually cutting out green from each frame.

During filming, the sword in the princess's hand was just an ordinary sword, but after filming, the special effects artist drew the sword frame by frame and added lighting effects.

Many Hollywood blockbusters also use this technology, such as the lightsaber clashes and laser biubiubiu in Star Wars.

It's just that Hollywood has begun to abandon rotoscoping technology. After turning to 3D technology, rotoscoping is too primitive for Hollywood.

The big ship used motion capture technology, and the final result was very good. It was the development of motion capture technology that enabled Cameron to shoot Avatar.

Many awesome technologies have actually been invented a long time ago. 3D photography, motion capture, etc. have been invented for many years.

It’s just that these things are not mature yet, and they are useless when taken alone.

But when they are combined together, a different energy will burst out!

Hollywood is heading towards high technology and there is no turning back, so technologies like rotoscoping will naturally become obsolete.

However, rotoscoping technology is very well developed in Japan! Japanese animations are basically made using rotoscoping technology.

Japan and Hollywood took two different routes, but both were very successful.

Later Chinese films did not use either method well, as the rotoscoping workload was too large and the motion capture cost was high.
I just got lazy.

As for Chen Shiping, neither of them wanted to give up, as not all of his films used motion capture.

Moreover, there is no motion capture technology in China at present, so rotoscoping must not be abandoned.

What technology to use for Frozen also needs to be discussed.

Should I spend a lot of money to find someone in the UK to do motion capture, or should I use rotoscoping first?

Master Yang and Chen Shiping were discussing with the people from the special effects studio which technology would be better.

The head of the Peking University research room said excitedly: "I think it would be better for both of us to do motion capture in the UK, and our people can also go there to learn."

Chen Shiping shook his head and said, "You can't learn it. Without a motion capture camera, it's useless even if you watch it a hundred times."

"Then buy it, and we'll study it after we get it back!"

"They have the patent, just buy the equipment."

The head of the research room was helpless and couldn't help complaining about what the domestic film equipment manufacturers were doing. The development of domestic cameras in the first ten years was actually quite good, so why did they fall behind later?

"Mr. Chen, why don't you invest some money? Has the basic patent for this technology expired? Let's study it based on theirs."

Chen Shiping: “.” Are you kidding!
He just wanted to spend money to buy equipment. If he were to research this thing himself, the money he would spend would be enormous!
The person in charge of the research room said, "Mr. Chen, you don't want to keep spending money to use other people's things, and you can't even use the most professional and latest technology. It's better to do your own research. Doesn't China Film have a film equipment factory? Don't waste it!"

Chen Shiping twitched his lips. They couldn’t even handle it with an ordinary camera, let alone a motion capture camera?

"The technology gap is too big, and the film industry involves too many things to do everything by ourselves."

"The key technology must be mastered!"

"."

Chen Shiping was helpless. This sentence really hit the nail on the head.

Most of the best cameras in the world are not for sale, and even if they are rented, there are various conditions.

"You're right. Let me think about it. If we really do it, it will cost hundreds of millions to get results. It's a huge expense!"

Chen Shiping looked up to the sky and sighed, a few hundred million is an ideal state, if it is not ideal, it may cost more than one billion.

The technical reserves are too weak and it is difficult to develop from scratch.

Master Yang did not participate in the discussion of these topics. He waited until they finished speaking before speaking:

"Let's talk about movies first. I think it's better to use rotoscoping. We're using motion capture right now, but it doesn't help much. It's better to do rotoscoping."

Chen Shiping thought for a moment and said, "Let's do this for now. I need to think about the motion capture issue and go back to the meeting to discuss it."

After that, he paused and looked at the director of the laboratory and said, "Director Liu, you have to attend the meeting later."

"No problem, just tell me in advance."

Let’s leave the technical issues alone for now, and preparations for the film are about to begin.

Master Yang has participated in animation production and has some experience. Song Heng has not returned yet, so now they can only rely on him and Chen Shiping to figure out the preparations.

It's not that simple, but it's not that difficult either.

Let’s start with the most basic work first.

Didn’t you find more than 200 students and assign them tasks?

Divide into two groups, one group to do character design and the other group to do scene design.

It can be considered as a call for submissions, and the creative team will refer to them after they are submitted.

Anyway, we are all moving forward by trial and error, there is no need to follow the formal method.

Training the team is the key.

Even if we take over the mature process system of Shangmei Factory, many problems will arise. It is better to explore it slowly on our own.

Chen Shiping and Master Yang both had very simple ideas, it didn't matter even if the early battle line was prolonged.

Once you have trained yourself, everything else will be much easier.

Chen Shiping and Master Yang chatted in the laboratory for a while and then left.

After graduating from Peking University, Master Yang couldn't help but say: "There is no shortage of talent in China, but many technologies cannot be developed because of a lack of attention and vision."

"Mr. Chen, if you have the ability, it is best to develop your own technology. If you don't take it seriously, I don't know who else will."

Chen Shiping was stunned for a moment, then nodded solemnly and said, "Okay!"

Master Yang patted Chen Shiping on the shoulder with satisfaction and said, "That's right, this is what the first person to reform Chinese films looks like!"

Chen Shiping laughed and left the Peking University campus with Master Yang.

However, if you want to develop technology, you must be able to retain talent.

Peking University and Tsinghua University have not done well in this regard. Their rate of going abroad is very high, but their rate of retention after going abroad is also very high.

This is the case with most of the top universities in the country.

If Chen Shiping wants to develop technology, he must find a way to retain talent.

We can’t just say we support domestic films but actually do nothing.

Chen Shiping cannot learn from Han Laosan, who invested in movies, put his name on them and then did nothing else, blindly trusting big directors.

Of course, it’s because he is not afraid of losing money, as long as he makes a move.

Anyway, most of the investment in movies comes from the film development fund, so there’s nothing to be afraid of!

However, the release of those few blockbusters did not help the Chinese film market much. Instead, it made the audience lose confidence in domestic blockbusters, and it took many years for the market to recover.

At that time, the box office of several blockbusters exceeded 100 million, which stimulated the market, but in fact it was a case of draining the pond to catch fish!

It also hurt the audience's feelings. After those blockbusters were released, domestic audiences began to craze about Hollywood blockbusters.

When it comes to blockbuster movies in China, there is a rush of doubts. Audiences no longer trust domestic blockbusters.

When Chen Shiping thought about this, he realized that he must engage in technology!
Although motion capture can be purchased and there will be no problems, without technological development, half of the meaning of this movie will be lost.

In the past, we only focused on special effects technology and ignored these issues.

The entire film industry is pieced together by a series of technologies. A truly awesome blockbuster cannot be produced by just one awesome special effects studio.

How can a 16mm camera be the same as a 70mm one!

MAX cameras are different from ordinary 70mm cameras, not to mention that there are many other cameras with different functions.

If you want to make truly awesome blockbusters in the future, the camera is absolutely of paramount importance!
Motion capture technology and motion capture cameras are also of paramount importance!
After Chen Shiping returned to China Film Corporation, he asked his secretary Xiao Li to get the information from the Film Equipment Factory.

Before developing technology, we must first understand the level of domestic technology!
The film equipment factory is mainly responsible for supply coordination, and production only accounts for a small part.

Chen Shiping has always known this, but after reading the detailed production data today, he couldn't help but feel a headache.

Give birth to your grandma's legs!

What they produce are some small gadgets such as films and projection equipment, and they use other people's production lines and technologies.

Most of them are produced in printing and film processing plants, film machinery factories, and optical instrument factories.

The Film Equipment Factory has neither production nor R&D departments.

Chen Shiping had a headache and looked up the list of domestic film machinery factories and optical instrument factories.

I felt helpless after reading it. There are very few optical instrument factories in China that specialize in making cameras.

Most of them rely on imports from film equipment factories!
We really need to develop from scratch.

The amount of money to be invested now is not just a few hundred million, it may be tens of billions or even billions!

But this really needs to be done. Even if we don’t set up a photography equipment factory, we still need to study the technology of digital projection terminals.

It would be best to develop key technologies quickly, otherwise we will have no chance to get a seat at the table when foreign experts are setting the rules.

At that time, you can only use other people's rules and technologies.

Chen Shiping originally planned to carry out reforms in the equipment factory and the printing factory next year, but now it seems that he has to put it on the agenda soon!

Otherwise, you will be slow at every step!
(There is still one chapter to be written later. I am not in a good state today, and I still need to look up information. Animation photography equipment is in my blind spot, so I have to look it up and write it now.)

(End of this chapter)