The technicians that Su Yang had poached from other companies were actually quite capable. Otherwise, he would not have been able to produce that many special effects for “Wolf Warriors”.
However, their capability could only be considered to be average. Even with Su Yang’s help, they were at most second-tier, not even first-tier. This was because Su Yang would have to personally handle the key tasks.
Therefore, In front of Su Yang, who had the [Ultimate Film & Television Post-Production Ability], they would not be sufficient in the least.
Coupled with the fact that Su Yang had the [Fully Autonomous Special Effects Production Server] that was of the same standard as him, his employees became even less useful.
However, Su Yang did not kick them to the curb after they had outlived their usefulness. Instead, he asked them to change their job scopes from being in charge of all the special effects to focusing on the special effects design.
This is actually the equivalent of Su Yang halving their workload, which was supposed to be a good thing for them, but… It’s in a human’s nature to be competitive.
Even though Su Yang did not say it explicitly, by telling them to only work on the early stages of the special effects design, while the rest of the special effects rendering was handed over to another team, Su Yang was obviously belittling their standards. Hence, the special effects staff in his company felt uncomfortable.
In their opinion, they thought that their skills were pretty good, plus they were consistently improving. So, they could definitely take on the special effects of “Wandering Planet” and reach Su Yang’s standard and hoped that Su Yang would give them a chance.
Therefore, because Su Yang could not persuade his stubborn staff, he had no choice but to agree with their request.
Therefore, both parties decided to have a competition.
The film company’s special effects team and “Su Yang’s other special effects team” would each make a special effects clip of “Wandering Planet”. Then, they would compete on whose special effects were better, whereby Su Yang and Guo Fan would be the judges to have the final say on who won.
Therefore, because of this agreement, the technical geeks at the film and television company were all trying their best to win.
As for Su Yang’s other team… Well, it was just him after all. Actually, he was not feeling too much pressure from it. As his virtual servers increased, he tried to create more and more special effects demos, allowing Su Yang to have an increasingly better understanding of his own skills.
‘This is actually the first time I’m realizing that… I’m so awesome!
‘Sometimes, even I myself am surprised that “I” could actually create such outstanding special effects.’
Therefore, the clip he chose to work on was a very simple one, but would clearly reflect the outstandingness of his special effects technology. This was what he had planned to represent his “other team” to compete with his own company’s technical geeks.
In fact, Su Yang was already prepared himself about how he would explain to the others which team had done the clip.
He tried his best to get through this perfectly so that the production for “Wandering Planet” could get back on track.
Soon, the day of the competition arrived. On that very same day, all the producers of the film company arrived to work early.
Furthermore, it was a rare sight to see them changing into clean checkered shirts and their hair combed as they waited for Su Yang to arrive.
While they waited, a few of the more active special effects employees chatted softly.
“Do you think we can win?”
“I don’t know…”
“I think it’s going to be just enough for us to get by…”
These special effects employees were technically a type of technician, where technicians would be the ones who did the back end coding, while they would work on the strands of “hair”.
Actually, they were really strands of hair because as a special effects employee, they needed to have each and every strand of hair rendered frame by frame to create a vivid and realistic character or animal.
For example, when a special effects artist designs a wolf, they would have to design the direction of its fur when it was moving and when it was still. These would all have to be rendered by calculating using fluid mechanics and then render it frame by frame.
Finally, all the hairs, limbs and eyes would be combined together to form a wolf, thus creating a shot.
This kind of work was so tedious that it could drive a technician crazy.
Therefore, it would usually be nerds who would end up being special effects artists. This was because they were the kind of people who would be able to stay at home most of the time and are used to being alone in their lives.
On the other hand, these nerds were relatively simple-minded people who were not used to lying. Hence, they would very clearly differentiate each and every matter.
Although they were considered to be quite capable within the country, they were nothing in comparison to Su Yang.
Now that Su Yang had decided to use another team as a special effect, they understood that if Su Yang did not have 100% confidence that the other party was stronger than them, he would not have made such a decision.
Therefore, even though their competitive nature had led them to create this competition, they were actually unconfident about their chances of winning.
“Which team do you think has Mr. Su hired for this job? There shouldn’t be that many people who are better than us within the country, are there? Plus, I’ve never heard of them accepting this job either.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do you not know anything?”
“Why don’t you tell me since you know it then?”
“I don’t know either, but I know we have to be ambitious and not be looked down upon by Mr. Su. Mr. Su has trained us for so long and we’ve received such a huge project. So, if we get abandoned now, we’re going to regret it for the rest of our lives.”
What the special effects employee said was actually what everyone was thinking in their heads. They were not stupid people to begin with, so when they first saw the “Wandering Planet” project, they felt that it was a huge project, so huge that they were not confident of being able to complete it.
However, when Guo Fan brought them pieces of realistic looking props with him, they began to produce the designs for the special effects. In fact, after they completed the first demo, their confidence slowly built up, allowing them to believe the ywould be able to make the project a success.
‘This is a domestic sci-fi masterpiece that’s going to be completely filmed with special effects! Apparently, Mr. Su has invested a whopping 500 million yuan in this project!
‘This is 500 million yuan we’re talking about! Even “Lost In Thailand” only had a box office of 1.2 billion yuan!
‘So, if this project doesn’t exceed their box office, we’re going to be making a loss!
‘How ambitious is Su Yang actually?!
‘This is a movie destined to be engraved in the history of Chinese movies.
‘There isn’t a single one of us who doesn’t want to participate in its special effects.
‘This is why we’re all being so competitive.’
Just as the few of them were discussing, the Vice President of the film company and the original director of the special effects department had also arrived at the company. On top of that, he had arrived together with the current director in charge of the technical team. The two of them walked into the company and were having leisure chat at the same time.
One of the employees who was on good terms with them asked, “Mr. Fang, today is the day our bet with Mr. Su is going to be decided, yet why are you guys so relaxed?”
Just as he finished speaking, Mr. Fang could not help but laugh and say, “It’s precisely because today is the day that I’m happy. I’m telling you, we might just win this today!”
The staff was shocked. “Really?”
Mr. Fang nodded. “Of course, just you all wait and see later.”
As he said that, Mr. Fang and the person-in-charge of the technical team went to the office.
After that, the technicians started to have a discussion again.
“Has Mr. Fang been under too much pressure recently?”
“I think so too. Recently, he lost quite a number of his hairs just to get the last of the materials completed.”
“I left the latest last night. Before I left, I saw him drinking alcohol in his office without any food at all.
“He looked like he hadn’t eaten yet.”
While they were chatting, Su Yang and Guo Fan arrived.
The moment they entered the office, they attracted everyone’s attention. Everyone turned to look at the two of them simultaneously. The few active special effects personnel did not say anything and only stole glances at Su Yang and Guo Fan.
Su Yang and Guo Fan looked at each other and smiled. They knew that today was an important day for the special effects team.
But, Su Yang was thinking about more than just that. ‘I pity these technicians, they have no idea who they’re up against.
‘Plus… I’m both the participant and the judge. So, how do they expect to win?’
Since everyone had arrived, they started packing up and headed to the screening room to watch the video from both teams.
The first to be shown was the video made by the special effects team at Jiadian Pictures.
Before the video started, Mr. Fang, the person-in-charge of the project, came up to explain. He said to the people beneath him, “Mr. Su, Director Guo, the special effects clip that our team made this time is the best special effects clip for “Wandering Planet” in my opinion.
“That is the clip when the male and female protagonists first arrived on Earth and saw the [Thrusters].
“When we designed this special effect, we first made the basic concept settings. We used only 3D models to complete this 13-second clip. Then, together with the prop master and Director Guo, we made the [Thrusters], [Propulsors] and even a miniaturized model of Earth.
“Then, we first filmed the entire special effect scene before adding the layers of particle rendering to form this special effects demo.”
The moment he said that, the few active special effects staff in the company became spirited as they discussed softly.
“The props master actually produced the miniaturized models?”
“No wonder Mr. Fang said we might win! There’s a significant difference in having a model and not having one!”
“Would this be considered to be a defaulted win for us?”
“How’s that possible? Props are just part of the special effects.”
Aside from them, the others in the company were shocked as well. Obviously, Mr. Fang had been hiding this piece of information from everyone, leaving only some employees who had participated in the modeling or the final rendering who knew about it.
The people in charge of these two contents were also enjoying the envious and surprised looks from the other employees as they straightened their backs with pride on their faces.
They were all very proud to have been able to become a trump card at such a crucial time.
After Mr. Fang finished his explanation, he took out the hard disk that contained the 13-second clip and played it.
A moment later, the special effects clip of the [Thrusters] was played on the screen.
As Su Yang watched the screen, he recalled the storyline of the special effects.
The video showed the protagonist’s group leaving the underground base and coming to Earth. Then the female protagonist saw a huge thruster and asked the male protagonist what it was. Then, it would be a clip of the male protagonist explaining the situation.
‘This segment is a segment that tests the quality of the special effects because it has to be filmed in one go, starting from the [Thrusters] on the ground, moving upwards all the way to the [Propulsors]. When it reaches the planet’s atmosphere, the camera has to be raised once again and zoomed in to show the glorious scene of the thousands of thrusters spitting fire at the same time.
‘Normally, the movie would end here.
‘However, Guo Fan has come up with a design to make it one level higher.
‘After he finishes filming the spectacular scene of thousands of thrusters spewing fire, he will zoom out the camera once again and bring out the full view of the planet. Then, he’ll pull out a [Space Station] that’s visually bigger than the planet, portraying a foreshadowing.
‘All in all, the entire special effects design is simply shocking.’
When Su Yang read the special effects script, he was impressed by Guo Fan’s talent. ‘He’s indeed a natural, no wonder he started out as a comic artist, these designs are just superb.’
Now that this special effect clip had appeared before his eyes and he had witnessed this spectacular scene with his own eyes, even the details were perfected. Even if this was the work of his “opponent”, Su Yang had to admit that it was truly wonderful!
Even though the whole special effects scene was a little rough on the edges, it had already surpassed most of the special effects in the country and was able to make one’s heart race.