Although the studio has undergone earth-shaking changes over the past year, the way Pixar employees work has not changed in any way, and it is still as casual as Eric saw a year ago.
Except that when passing by the office area, a young female employee recognized Eric and called out a bunch of sisters to jump out and ask for a few autographs. Eric's arrival did not cause any major reactions.
In a screening room, Eric, together with John Lasseter and several other heads of Pixar, watched the completed film of "Toy Story". Although there is no sound, the completed clips are still very interesting , at least Joanna, who was sitting next to Eric, watched with gusto from beginning to end.
Compared with the original version in memory, this version of "Toy Story" has indeed greatly improved in detail, the picture is more delicate and real, and the movements of the toy are more agile.
After watching the finished film, Eric chatted with John Lasseter for a while, and after affirming the finished product, John Lasseter finally asked: "Eric, I miss you today Come here, not just to see our production succeed, right?"
Eric smiled slightly, and pointed to Pixar's chief technology officer sitting next to John Lasseter: "Of course, actually, I'm here to find Ed ≮, Mr. Kamol."
Ed Kamal hadn't been very interested at first. If it wasn't for Eric's status as the big boss, Ed Kamal would have already entered his office to research technology. Compared with socializing, he still prefers work.
Seeing Eric suddenly pointing at himself, Ed Kamal recovered from a certain technical problem: "Looking for me?"
"Yes, let's go to the conference room to talk." Eric stood up and said.
The group moved into the conference room. Eric sat down at the top. Allen took out a stack of documents from his briefcase and distributed them to Ed Kamal and John Lasseter.
"Originally, Mr. Stan Winston should also come here, but he was entangled in some things and couldn't get away, so I, an amateur, came here to talk. Although I have read some materials before, but if there is something unrealistic You can bring it up at any time."
Hearing Eric's solemn words, both Ed Carmel and John Lasseter nodded solemnly.
Eric quickly said again: "This is a plan I made with Stan's help during the filming of "Ghostly Love". Regarding the software engineering solution for film and television special effects technology, you can first Take a look, we'll talk later."
Ed Kamal and John Lasseter just opened the document that Allen had just distributed to them in front of them. After reading the document, John Lasseter was better, but Ed Kamal revealed He has a shocked expression. He is a doctor of computer technology. Therefore, if you imagine the huge scale of the plan proposed by Eric, you will have a deeper understanding.
In the document, Eric proposed a plan that seemed unrealistic to Ed Kamal. He hopes to create a top technical team to carry out software engineering of the computer special effects technology used in future movies.
usually. In a movie that uses computer special effects, the film director encounters a problem. For example, he wants a living person in the lens to melt like a heated candle. Then, the engineers in the computer special effects department will specialize in solving the problem. This problem, and develop the corresponding program code. In general, after solving this problem, these codes will become useless data.
In Eric's vision, he really hopes to further process these useless data into a set of fixed software. If he encounters the same type of special effect problem again, he can use it directly.
Although many movies have begun to use computers to produce special effects, in general, computer special effects are still in the era of model special effects.
Therefore, the plan proposed by Eric is very impractical and extremely wasteful in the eyes of expert Ed Kamal. After all, it is quite time-consuming and labor-intensive to develop corresponding code programs to solve special effects problems. If these are reprocessed into software, it will be a waste of time and money. Moreover, whether the processed software can be used in the future is also a very big problem.
The two read Eric's plan in detail, and then raised their heads.
Eric shrugged: "Well, if you have any questions, just ask them directly, John, you speak first."
"Eric, I think it's completely unnecessary, it's too wasteful." John Lasseter expressed his opinion very bluntly.
"Ed, what about you?"
"I share John's opinion that this is a very wasteful thing." Ed Kamal said: "Take "Toy Story" as an example. In order to solve the facial expressions of Cowboy Woody to make the facial expressions more realistic, we It took a month for the team to write the corresponding program codes to solve this problem. But if you want to make this set of codes into software, the time consumed must exceed the time of writing codes. Moreover, after making software, It is also necessary to upgrade and maintain the software with the upgrading of computer hardware, which is another waste. It is difficult to say whether this software can be used again in the future. Even if there is a sequel to "Toy Story", it can be used for at most three months. Four times, or four or five times."
Eric nodded: "I understand what you mean, but for this, I have given a solution in the plan. We will set up a very professional evaluation team to evaluate the usability of special effects programs, and assign technicians to Classify the code programs developed to solve special effects problems, and then select the programs that are most likely to be used in the future for software engineering.”
John Lasseter still asked: "Eric, I want to know, why do you want to do this? There are very few movies that use computer special effects, and compared to computer special effects, model special effects are much cheaper, and many times Much more realistic, and I can’t think of a studio that would forego cheap, realistic CGI for expensive, not-so-great CGI.”
Eric said: "Because I have a hunch that computer special effects will become the mainstream of film and television special effects in the future. Now I can't prove my statement, but it won't be long. As long as James Cameron's "Terminator 2" and I The "Jurassic Park" project has been completed, and you can definitely experience this." (To be continued..)