Global monopoly of technology

"Mr. Luo, our office in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan sent a few samples of Hatsune Miku's audio data. You can decide which one to choose."

He Chao, the person in charge of the virtual idol project, came to Luo Sheng's office and took out a mobile data disk from his body and handed it to the table.

Bluestar Technology confirmed the formal establishment of the virtual idol project, and soon acquired the company’s electronic music production voice synthesis software VOCALOID from Yamaha Corporation. On this basis, Luo Sheng led a team of engineers of the company to make further progress from the bottom. Optimization.

In fact, Luo Sheng can start from scratch completely, because after buying VOCALOID, he almost overturned the redevelopment and gave Yamaha a sum of money for nothing.

But this is not the point. Luo Sheng bought this software to stifle Japan’s development in the field of virtual idols to a certain extent, and also bought a sound production company called Crypton in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and used it as a The foundation established the operation department of Bluestar Technology's virtual idol in Japan.

There is a flaw in China that Luo Sheng has to accept, and that is the environment.

In the 2007s, there is no market for virtual idols in China, unlike foreign countries, especially Japan.

In China, most young people cannot accept the existence of virtual singers, let alone the elderly.

Due to the general environment, Luo Sheng couldn't reverse it. Forced push would only pay a heavy price and high cost.

Of course, Luo Sheng will not be tough, and he has to adapt to local conditions.

Therefore, in the early stage of the company's "virtual idol" launch, the focus was on overseas markets. In this field, we should play a routine of "export first and then sell it domestically".

Let's do it overseas first.

The focus is on the Japanese market, which is the easiest to pick up.

But the domestic market is only going to follow up slowly. People need a process of acceptance. After a few years, they will naturally become invincible.

Luo Sheng took the U disk handed by He Chao and connected it to the port of the work computer, opened the internal file, played a few sampled audio sources and listened to it. After a few minutes, he immediately made a decision: "Let's do this. , Folder number six."

This time, there are 20% of the sampled sound sources sent to the headquarters in Japan. They are all female voice actors there. It has to be said that the voice actors of the small book are monsters. The "monster" here is not derogatory, but expresses amazement. the meaning of.

The sampled sound source of file No. 6 is a female singer and voice actress from Japan, whose real name is Sakiko Fujita.

Luo Sheng unplugged the U disk and gave it to He Chao again, and asked, "By the way, what progress has Anye Xiuming made in the promotional video? It's not messed up, you can do it if it messed up, Anye will go back to Japan. I'm not joking to get through some ruthless people in the area to buy his hands and feet."

He Chao: "..."

This is what he cares more about. The budget is 450 million U.S. dollars, which is 3.4 billion at the real-time exchange rate. If Anye dares to mess up this film, Luo Sheng will definitely buy his hands and feet.

It is a trivial matter to spend money on water, and the time cost is beyond Luo Sheng's tolerance. If something goes wrong here, the entire project will be delayed and even affect WRPO.

The major sectors have strong linkage properties, which also means that the whole body is moved by one move, one step is fast, one step is slow, and one step is slow.

He Chao was sweating violently when he heard Luo Sheng's words. The boss said it was calm and gentle. If An Ye was here, he might be stupefied by the rhythm of the whole person.

Too ruthless!

Immediately he replied: “It’s not smashed, it’s okay. The director Anno Hideaki is really good. The project has reached 70% and the sample has been completed, but the post-production editing and dubbing are still in progress. The next two months can be Everything is done in the later stage, and everything is proceeding according to plan."

Hearing that, Luo Sheng nodded in satisfaction, and said casually: "That's good, Anye's hands and feet are saved. I will go to see how the samples are in the afternoon."

"Okay!" He Chao immediately replied, secretly relieved for Anye, he now finally understands why Anye Hideaki works so hard, often staying up until early in the morning, thinking that he is for fame, now it seems that he is not only for fame, Also to keep your hands and feet.

The boss definitely threatened him, and he was frightened. Since taking the project, Anno Hideaki's riffraction has been insignificant.

For Anno, he took over the guide of this promotional film, which is definitely the most difficult project in his career. It is extremely difficult to produce. To some extent, he is also the first time to make a pure CG movie, which is similar to 2D animation big difference.

However, in the end, the talented director, coupled with the threat of being bought, almost released his talent to the extreme this time, all of which were squeezed out without reservation.

There is not a drop left.

Just kidding, you can try to hear that you are being bought?

...

In the afternoon, Luo Sheng, who had nothing to do, came to the production department to wander around. At this moment, the setting of the studio was full of green cloth, which was carried out in an indoor venue, and the filming team was working intensely and orderly.

There is a slender girl actor on the set, but she is not an actor in front of the scene. She is wearing a tight-fitting suit, and her facial features are covered with various dense dots. She is also wearing some special electronic equipment.

This special effects team is a top-level motion capture team invited by Anye from Hollywood. The "Guru" of the "Lord of the Rings" series is the work of this team.

What is going on at this moment is the shooting of several unsatisfactory shots requested by Anno Hideaki to reshoot. It is a real pursuit of excellence. Anyway, the funds are sufficient, and the budget is not enough.

Not long after Luo Sheng came here, the motion capture shot for this supplementary shot was completed and finally reached Anno's expectations.After a while, he also noticed Luo Sheng. After a while, he quickly greeted him and said, "Your Excellency President (Chairman), why didn't you notify me when you came in advance?"

"I'll come over and see how the project is going?" Luo Sheng said with a smile. As long as he doesn't talk about buying things, he is still a harmless, sunny, handsome and easy-going EVA fan.

Listening to Luo’s question, Anye Xiuming was excited and even showed off Luo Sheng to another office hall, where there are more than 100 animators distributed in the grid, all busy with their work. Some of them are from Japan, some are from Hollywood, and some are from Blizzard's CG department.

In short, this is a luxury lineup with a budget of 450 million dollars.

"Look, Mr. President. The animators of the team have continuously raised Hatsune's hair animation to a whole new level. I can guarantee that this is the world's top level. There is no one, and it will shock the entire industry. "Anno Hideaki said vowedly, and then motioned to Luo Sheng to watch the animation on the screen.

Anno gushed again: "The animator has fulfilled my requirements and must make 470,000 hairs for Hatsune. This requires a brand-new animation program.'Tonic' is what we call this animation program. Just one The screen is rendered in 30 total hours based on the time spent by each team. The longest design took 132 hours of work."

"You know, in an animated film, one second can be several weeks of work. Of course, because of your strong support, our budget is sufficient, and the team can be expanded to an exaggerated level to exchange money for time. You It took a total of 132 hours of work to see this lens."

"In order to provide more background, the entire scene is 218 frames, so 1128 frames require 132 hours. This is incredible, including Hatsune's 470,000 strands of hair, her actions and the reaction of the surrounding environment, etc..."

Although it is really scary to be threatened to buy hands and feet, Anno Hideaki, who took over this task, is so excited now that he has devoted himself to this project.

Because he realized that there may be only one chance in this life, and this work will be recorded in the history of film forever, and his name will be included in the history of film like this work.

In terms of visual effects, the industry’s leading Industrial Light & Magic provides technical support. The entire promotional film was produced by nearly 20,000 computers in a total of 300 million hours.

In the film, a short shot of Hatsune Miku eating snacks has produced more than 1,500 versions, and the heat emitted by 20,000 computers is also quite exaggerated.

It is no exaggeration to say that the behind-the-scenes production of this promotional film can use a thick manual to introduce how Hatsune Miku was born in modern digital technology.

Some data is the most intuitive.

This film uses motion capture, performance capture and CGI technology, using a fusion camera system, facial motion capture equipment, and collaborative working cameras to shoot.

The entire production team is as high as an exaggerated 5,700 people, which is seven or eight times higher than all Hollywood blockbusters so far. Of course, it is mainly in a hurry. Luo Sheng, who does not treat money as money, uses money to buy time.

There are a lot of close-ups of Hatsune's eyes in the film. One iris uses 5 million pixels to make, while the entire "Lord of the Rings" uses only 150,000 pixels. The details of the eyes alone are unmatched; Hatsune's head has 470,000 hairs, 1,500 eyebrows, and 335 eyelashes.

In terms of character modeling, Hatsune produced 42 types of hair styling including eyebrows and eyelashes. There are nearly 600,000 "peachy fluffs" on the face and ears. The engineers realized a new pore growth technology. Placing individual hairs in each pore makes Hatsune's skin more delicate and firm, even in close-up shots, it looks amazing.

In addition, the production team also designed 77 digital special effects costumes for Hatsune, using a total of 139 different ways of wearing them.

The production cycle of this promotional film is only half a year, but the total working time of the entire team is equivalent to five years of production time for a large Hollywood A-level production team.

This US$450 million was all spent on promotional films. Unlike traditional commercial film budgets, a Hollywood A-level production usually has a budget of about US$100 million, but the actual budget for filming is about 60%, because there are still Pay the actors.

Because the positioning of this promotional film is not to make money, it is just an advertising film, but because of Luo Sheng’s godly operation, he insisted on making a big movie as an advertisement. Anyway, every team still can’t figure it out, and Anye can’t figure it out. , The cooperation of Industrial Light and Magic can not figure it out.

"Not bad, good work."

Luo Sheng watched a few sample shots and praised again and again. The complete story needs to be completed after editing and other work. This will only be known later. However, Luo Sheng is already very satisfied with the technical images he has seen so far. Up.

In terms of the visual effects of the film, even after fifteen years, there are not a few steps that Hollywood animated films can surpass. Luo Sheng did not interfere much with the filming problem, but he still intervened partly, that is the embedding of advertising elements. , Is to highlight Bluestar's technology and the future, after all, this is a theatrical version of a commercial film covered in film.

There are also many inscrutable easter eggs, which are predictions for the future, such as full-screen mobile phones, the prosperity of virtual e-sports, virtual reality VR technology and other technological elements.

Luo Sheng's request is actually very simple, that is, to embed these elements into the film, whether it flashes by, or the background board, how to show it specifically to the director Anno Hideaki has great freedom to play.

Luo Sheng has only one requirement, let these elements appear in the film.

...