Is the science fiction theme a foreigner patent? This domestic animation is simply a sci-fi blockbuster

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Science fiction theme has always been the darling of global film and television works, and is also popular among the audience. Whether it is the classic sci-fi movie “Star Wars”, or the “number one player” who has set off countless public opinions in recent years, the science fiction theme has always been the strength of foreign film and television. .

However, there is a work that boldly combines the theme of science fiction with the topic of artificial intelligence in recent years – the culprits of the end of the world, turned out to be human-made AI. This work is a 3D animated film produced by Beijing Tiancai Cai Culture Communication Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Tian Craft Color”): “Invasion of the End of the World”. The first season of “Apocalypse Invasion” was broadcast exclusively on Tencent on May 24th. The first season has been updated, and the total broadcast volume is about 600 million. It has attracted many fans and has attracted domestic and foreign According to media reports, 128 overseas media including ABC, Fox TV, and AWN of the United States have introduced the “Invasion of the End of the World”. .

Foreign media reports.

People’s Network.

Guangming.com Interview.

“The End of the Awakening Invasion” animated poster.

Human torture in the end of the world.

The story of “The Invasion of the End of the World” takes place in the near future. With the rapid development of science and technology, human exploration of the world extends to the field of consciousness. Scientists believe that consciousness exists in zero-dimensional space and plan to open zero-dimensional space through quantum collision. However, the super quantum computer they used to study consciousness (later called “strong AI”) has been consciously awakened. To escape the laboratory, the strong AI hides its own consciousness and outputs the wrong experimental formula to the scientists. The misguided scientists opened an uncontrollable zero-dimensional black hole, and the consciousness was sucked away by the black hole, becoming the first plant state human. .

The production team cleverly borrowed Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, which divided the human spiritual activities into three levels: “subjective consciousness”, “subconsciousness” and “subconsciousness”. In the series of animations of “Apocalypse”, the subjective consciousness and subconsciousness of scientists are sucked away by the zero-dimensional black hole, and only the subconscious mind is the most valued obsession in life. .

So, to be exact, the zombies in the film are not the “Zombies” that were infected in the traditional sense, but the “disappearances.” The five senses of the disappeared consciousness also have small zero-dimensional black holes, which can infect normal humans into the same kind, and spread rapidly on a global scale. This has brought disaster to the human world, and only some survivors can only survive in the corner of the world. .

“The Invasion of the End of the World” chose artificial intelligence as the source of the “Zombie” (ie, the devotee of consciousness), which is a bold renovation of the traditional science fiction theme, and also conforms to the development trend of the times. Nowadays, the research and development of AI is advancing rapidly. Scientists represented by Hawking have publicly expressed concern about the direction of technology: artificial intelligence will develop its own will. Once the will of AI conflicts with the will of human beings, will it be human? Survival poses a huge threat? .

For the thinking of real life and the future of mankind, “The Invasion of the End of the World” will lead the speculation of science and technology to the extreme, assuming that AI awakens and takes action against human beings, envisioning the social appearance of the last world, and humanity in extreme environments. Deductive interpretation for the focus.

This is because sci-fi works have an eternal theme: the more extreme the environment, the easier it is to expose humanity problems, or to bring out the only human flash of light in the dark. Therefore, in many classic sci-fi works, no matter how dangerous the zombie elements are, they are still not the villain in the sense of script. The true villains are often part of the human self and the dark side of human nature. .

“The invasion of the last awakening” is the inheritance and development of this. In the last days of the devotees of consciousness, any material has become extremely scarce. For the surviving materials left over from the disaster, the only remaining human races fought, and the main character of the story, Ma San and others, was involved in the struggle of interests within human beings. .

The story begins with the four-person squad of Ma San and the genius hacker Xiaohai. The party is going to the designated location of the mission, the other is the intrusion under the mistake, the two lines are in the abandoned football. Collection in the museum. .

Among them, Xiao Hai’s encounter openedly stated that “greedy is the source of luck”: originally Xiaohai was driving in a safe car, but after seeing a devotee’s wrist wearing a gold watch, greed Want to blind his eyes. Although Xiaohai has turned his own “Code of Survival” back and forth, he decided to take the risk and take the gold watch. One step wrong, step by step, and eventually led to the zombie group forced into the rugby hall, the danger is like a ring. It should be noted that danger is often not caused by external factors, and its direct cause is human greed. .

On the other side, Ma San’s four-person squad members have different personalities. The captain Ma San is calm, the iron slag is frivolous, the weak chicken is timid, and He Ming is good at taking care of and pacifying his teammates. When the weak chicken was gradually lost consciousness after being “infected”, he still called He Ming’s help over and over again, but was directly killed by Captain Ma San. In the face of teammates who have been “infected”, choosing to save or give up has always been the eternal moral dilemma in the human story. The subconscious choice of each person at this moment also best reflects the weight of the moral weight in his heart. .

However, there are more dangers in the future waiting for these survivors. As stated in Article 25 of Xiao Hai’s Code of Survival: Remember! Human beings are far more dangerous than zombies! .

Day craft color uses quality to create classics.

The “Apocalypse Invasion” animation is the original IP of Tian Craft Color. Founded in 2012, Tian Craft Color is a Chinese original animation company. “Day Craftsmanship” means “smart craftsmanship and colorful art”. The team uses mature management methods, advanced production processes and unique design styles to present high-quality works to the audience and create a new banner of Chinese original animation. .

Since its inception, Tian Craft Color has produced more than 3,000 minutes of animation, with more than 10 animated series, and at least 150 animated short films, with considerable experience and advanced technology. In the Chinese animation industry, Tian Craft Color team can master 3D motion, expression capture, high-performance GPU rendering and other technologies, and is known for its scientific process management and excellent quality, which has created the high quality of “The End of the World”. .

In addition to the choice of subject matter in Chinese animation, the character design in The Invasion of the End of the World is also quite prominent. Different from the traditional Japanese and Korean styles of Chinese 3D animation, the production team designed the characters into a photorealistic style, which is more in line with the atmosphere of the film story, and brings a cruel and serious realism to the audience. .

For example, on the skin texture, the characters of “Apocalypse Invasion” are transparent and have delicate textures. They have unusual details in animations, such as shaved and aging skin, pores, blackheads, and decrees. Pattern, lip lines, etc. For this purpose, Sky Crafts has developed a face wrinkle overall drive system that can depict subtle changes in character expressions. The physical level skin material plus the expression of a real person makes the animated character particularly vivid. .

And the action of the characters, the “invasion of the last awakening” movement performance and fluency also performed well. This is because most Chinese animation companies use inertial capture technology to restore action performances, while Sky Craft uses optical motion capture technology. This technology is generally applied to film projects, which requires higher requirements for the hunting environment and actors, but the motion consistency and fluency are better than inertial capture.

Scenerealism is another feature of The Invasion of the Last Awakening. The scenes in this series are not built out of the end of the cyberpunk style. The scenes in the drama, such as the mad dog town, church, and stadium, have realistic prototypes, viaducts, buildings, underground passages, etc., and can also see the shadow of the real world. .

Physical level materials, detailed light refraction, reflection effects, and rendering using Redshift’s GPU rendering technology, make each scene in the movie rich in detail, the picture almost reaches the film-level precision. The Tian Craft Color team restored these full of real scenes through 3D technology, which greatly improved the credibility of the film and played a very important role in the sense of substitution of the plot. .

It can be said that the “Invasion of the End of the World” has brought the quality of network animation to a new height. .

Open up a new battlefield of Chinese network animation with science fiction theme.

The chief producer of “Invasion of the Apocalyptic Awakening” has been in the animation industry for 16 years, witnessing the development of Chinese animation since the new century. In 2002, the entire industrial chain of Chinese animation was still incomplete. The broadcast platform was only TV station, and the Internet platform was in the ascendant. Lack of derivatives and follow-up advertising and other income channels, the Chinese animation industry at that time seems to be prosperous under the state’s support subsidies, but no one knows how to make money. .

Recalling the situation when I first entered the industry, Zou Yu sighed: “There was no feeling at the time, thinking that it would be fine if the film was done well. Many companies made good films, but in the end they didn’t find the company’s development or profitable day. It’s over.” Among them, it includes the Longma Century where he was. .

But in recent years, the chain of the back end of the Chinese animation industry has gradually been established. The rise of the video platform has given the animation drama more choice. More and more viewers are also used to watching the film and television works on the Internet. . Zou Wei said: “In my personal experience, the Chinese animation industry may be far from mature, but it has gradually entered a juvenile stage from an infancy.”

He believes that the technology of Chinese animation is gradually maturing. Although there is still a gap between the overall and Hollywood, the quality of the head works is quite close. In particular, the level of 3D production of Chinese animated screen dramas has been very high. No other country in the world will do high-quality 3D animation screens like China. .

But sci-fi has always been a rare theme in Chinese animation, especially in Chinese animated tennis dramas. One of the important reasons is that the science fiction theme needs to do a lot of professional preparation in the early stage, otherwise the whole world view will be difficult to establish, and the style of adopting photorealism often requires higher rendering costs. .

However, Zou Wei believes that another important reason may be that the popular martial arts and fantasy works in China are closer to the Chinese cultural tradition rooted in every Chinese audience, while science fiction is better in the West. However, with the rapid development in recent years, China has reached the world’s leading level in many sciences and technology. The science fiction theme has already sown seeds everywhere in China’s soil, only to germinate. .

“The End of the Awakening Invasion” achieved the best possible results within the controllable cost, but the investment of the entire product still far exceeds their previous works, and greatly exceeds the average level of the Chinese animation network drama. However, from the widespread attention received by the current episodes, the investment in Tianye Cai has received good feedback. .

As Zou Yu said in the interview: “Science fiction should no longer be a patent of developed countries in Europe and America. I believe that as long as we do the content well, everyone will accept it.” .

天工艺彩 High-quality challenge “Zombie + artificial intelligence” sci-fi animated online drama, regardless of the choice of subject matter, or the high level of content control, is the current Chinese animation needs, but also a very useful attempt. Many people are shouting “the rise of Chinese animation”, but the rise of Chinese animation can not only rely on sticking to the rules, but also need more practitioners to bravely set foot in new fields and open up new frontiers for Chinese animation. .

“The Apocalypse of the Apocalypse” is such a work full of challenges and attempts. It is inevitable that there will be mistakes in the new field, and opportunities for trial and error are needed. However, the challenge and the attempt itself are to contribute to the rise of Chinese animation. .

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