Chapter 497: People's Hearts Are Unsettled (1000 words added, please read again)
Fang Yu, who was surrounded, answered everyone's questions one by one.
"What did Mr. Ni ask just now? The development tool chain, right? Currently, there are no third-party tools, and no third-party API calls are open, so the engine only has its own development tools."
"As for materials, the system has a built-in basic resource library and also supports importing external material files. Mirage supports all formats. Yes, there's no 'almost', it means all."
"Whether it's fbx, png, wav, anim, or shader, so far, I haven't found any material format that Mirage can't support."
Fang Yu took a pad, opened the Mirage tool chain, and demonstrated it to the people present.
"To make it easier for developers to find materials, all third-party material libraries are integrated into the development tools. When you encounter the materials you need, you can directly click to apply for purchase, and the system will automatically distribute orders to these third-party material libraries."
"As for the materials on the Unity Asset Store and Unreal Marketplace, Youguo Games is a legitimate company and will not actively violate the law. The licensing agreements limit their use to the respective engine environments, so we do not support their import."
"But if you're interested in a resource there, we also provide a solution."
"The development tool has a built-in 'one-click authorization application' function that automatically initiates a contact request with the original author."
"If the author agrees and authorizes, we will automatically generate a legal license along with the material the author sends, and the entire process does not require manual processing."
"You're asking about that? Oh, this is the 'magic pen' feature in the toolchain. It can convert the original painting into a 3D model of different quality and style according to your requirements."
"...Yes, this is also the kind of human-computer interaction environment we want to create, just like colleagues communicating with each other by pointing at the screen, except that this colleague might be an AI..."
…
While listening to Fang Yu's answers to his questions, Zhu Yifei frowned and looked at the pad in his hand with a look of half disbelief and half reluctance.
On the Pad was the Mirage Engine Work Chain Platform, to which they had just been granted temporary permissions.
Is this the engine platform developed by Da Zhou’s game company?
Whether in terms of effects or speed, even the development tools have surpassed the Unreal Engine platform?
Even though he had just experienced the shock of "Taihuang Mountain and Sea Realm" and was holding a pad with the Mirage Engine toolchain client in his hand, he couldn't believe it.
To be exact, I don't want to believe it.
There is a chain of contempt in every industry, and the gaming industry is no exception.
In terms of the global gaming industry, web games are generally at the bottom. A little higher up are web games that say "come and kill me if you're a brother," followed by mobile games, and then PC client online games. As for independent games, their quality is uneven. High-quality ones have a stronger sense of superiority than broken glass, while low-quality ones are even worse than mobile games.
At the top of the contempt chain are the 3A masterpieces that are regarded as the pinnacle of "technology + art + industrialization" and represent "real gaming art."
Of course, in the Great Zhou Dynasty, the situation of the contempt chain was slightly different.
Due to various reasons, the stand-alone industry in the Great Zhou Dynasty disappeared almost overnight ten years ago, leaving only pay-to-win online games and mobile games.
Almost all senior talents in the industry have shifted to these two directions.
Therefore, based on the ability to make money, the Da Zhou gaming industry has formed a special contempt chain of PC client - mobile games - Tanwan web games - independent games.
Oh, by the way, web games are basically not considered part of the gaming industry. Neither the development team nor the channels have anything to do with games.
Most game companies are content-driven, and professionals such as planners, artists, and programmers have a strong say. However, this is not the case with web games. Web games are based on pure channels, and technical personnel are essentially workers. In such a company, no matter how strong the technology is, it is equivalent to a workshop director.
Of course, there are few people with strong technical skills in such a company. The boss's office is like a tea room. Many of the people who come and go are energetic young men and women from his hometown, and all the aunts and uncles are in the company.
In essence, they belong to the private capital of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, and they just do whatever makes money.
However, there are also some of them who took this opportunity to transform themselves into game investors, participated in the investment of many games, and really squeezed into the game circle. This is another topic.
However, there is a very important link missing in Da Zhou's contempt chain - 3A.
Because there really isn't.
A few years ago, some people in places like NGA were still fantasizing about when a true 3A game would be born in Da Zhou, and they still had some aspirations for 3A.
But in recent years, with the popularity of pay-to-win games, almost all players feel that it is impossible for Da Zhou to produce a 3A game.
Because no capital would be willing to do such a high-investment, long-cycle, and high-risk thing.
As a result, a theory that 3A is useless has emerged. Many people laugh at the fact that a 3A work takes 5 years to develop, but the revenue is not as high as that of a pay-to-win mobile game with a development cycle of three months.
Every time he heard this kind of argument, Zhu Yifei would snort and curse in his heart with disdain:
——You don’t understand shit. Do you know what 3A is?
That is the crown jewel of the gaming industry!
It's a typical case of people complaining about sour grapes. Take one for an example. Do you know how 3A is developed?
I have been following the full process of 3A development since I entered the industry more than ten years ago!
He has always believed that, in terms of qualifications and abilities, he is the most knowledgeable and powerful game producer in the Da Zhou gaming industry, and has never really looked down on those pay-to-win mobile and online game teams.
Because his first job was an internship at Youbi, after working there for a while, he went to a Miami studio that specializes in outsourcing for EA.
3A manufacturers are also divided into different levels.
Rockstar, which has its own self-developed engine and created the most profitable product in the history of global entertainment, sits at the top of the pantheon. Game developers who have worked for Rockstar will basically receive top-level treatment if they go to any other company.
As for Youbi and EA, where he had worked, they were at most blue-collar factories in the 3A industry chain.
What’s wrong with blue-collar factories? Even if they are blue-collar factories, they are blue-collar factories that apply Salvagnini’s precision molding, Yaskawa’s efficient collaboration, and Fanuc’s full-process control!
Do those small domestic workshops understand PLC? Even if you were given a Yaskawa Fanuc, would you use it?
Daewoo, once the benchmark of the gaming industry in the Great Zhou Dynasty and known as the Blizzard of the Great Zhou Dynasty, failed to master the Unreal Engine when developing The Legend of Sword and Fairy 6 more than ten years later and was almost criticized.
In the era when people were still playing Red Alert in Internet cafes, he was already using the Unreal 2 editor to design levels for Splinter Cell 2.
Moreover, as a foreign company that was favored by the government at that time, although their income was not as high as that of their foreign colleagues sent to Da Zhou, it was still much higher than that of other domestic companies, and the work pressure was incomparable.
When other companies complain that their employees are not worked enough, they are at most busy for the first three months of the game's release, and may need to work overtime until midnight.
The rest of the time is spent slacking off. The effective working hours are less than two hours a day. I can never take all the annual leave. Every year, HR has to send emails to force employees to take all the annual leave for the previous year before the end of the year. Not taking it is not allowed.
The close contact with the most advanced technology in the industry and the treatment far exceeding the average level of the Zhou Dynasty made him feel extremely superior for quite a long time.
That sense of superiority is like walking into a brick factory wearing a suit. Everyone else looks dirty except him, who is still wearing a tie.
It wasn't until a few years after I left the outsourcing company and started my own business that this sense of superiority began to become somewhat distorted.
Yes, it is distorted, not disappearing.
Because we make a lot of money by making pay-to-win web games and mobile games in Da Zhou!
He just couldn't understand how a low-quality pay-to-win mobile game that didn't even use Unity, had a development cycle of one or two months, could make tens of millions or even hundreds of millions in a month?
His once-proud stable high income, now compared to the upstarts of mobile gaming who have become rich overnight and are receiving year-end bonuses of even 108, is like Kong Yiji in a long gown, envious and jealous, saying to Mr. Zhao, "We used to be much richer than you."
But the difference between him and Kong Yiji and Ah Q is that he has money.
Although they are not as rich as those pay-to-win mobile game teams that became rich overnight, they have earned millions over the years and can be considered to have achieved a low level of financial freedom.
Moreover, he really loves games. He knows all about them, whether it is the Famicom games from thirty years ago or the newly released Dark Souls 3. He dreams of making a real 3A game himself.
Under the awkwardness, the sense of superiority turned into a sour sense of superiority, and it raised its head more and more proudly in front of pay-to-win online games and pay-to-win mobile games.
He was unwilling to turn to the mobile game direction, and he disdained to deal with his peers in Da Zhou. He focused on the international market and hoped that he could make Da Zhou's first world-renowned 3A game.
How to put it, the main point is a twist.
But no matter how twisted you are, you still have to eat.
He previously said he was financially free, but that was because he didn't start a business.
What can he and his friends do with the millions they invested?
He originally thought that since he and his team all came from large foreign companies and had impressive resumes, it would be very easy to find investment.
But who would have thought that in recent years, the venture capital circle has basically become disenchanted with people coming from foreign companies, believing that people from foreign companies are overambitious and out of touch with reality. If you want to do venture capital in Dazhou, you still have to invest in local people.
So, he could only rely on himself and a few partners to pool money to keep going.
Three years ago, we finally found an angel investor who invested two or three million, but it was not enough to see results.
Last year, after they signed a development agreement with Suo Dafa, an investment institution decided to invest some money and the agreement was signed. However, before the second payment was made in June this year, the institution suddenly said that due to changes in the group, the subsequent payment would be delayed.
He inquired and found out that it was caused by the incident in Xinhao. They said that the payment was delayed, but how long it would be delayed and whether it could be paid was completely unknown.
But the problem is that this makes it difficult to find other investments.
After all, the agreement had been signed and part of the money had been paid, but it was not paid later. There were too many equity disputes involved.
This was also the reason Yu Dan gave when he did not vote for him before.
Of course, the main reason is that although Yu Dan recognized the team's technology, he was not optimistic about his market and did not like his personality, but he just didn't tell him.
So this time, as soon as he received Yu Dan's call, he ran over immediately to see if he could get a new opportunity.
Even after arriving in Haixi and knowing that it was Youzi Technology that wanted to make games, he was still somewhat skeptical.
Especially when he heard Fang Yu say that the performance of Youguo Game's "Mirage Engine" far exceeded that of Unreal Engine 4, he sneered even more.
He doesn't think he is a Western worshiper.
However, over the years, every few years there are a few companies from outside the industry that rush into the gaming industry, waving money and claiming to change the industry.
They said that game companies represented by Ren Tianguo were outdated and they wanted to overthrow Ren Tianguo.
The result? Not to mention destroying Ren Tianguo, to this day, no company that has ever shouted such a slogan has truly gained a foothold in the gaming industry.
He and Sui Yi have somewhat similar views on this matter.
Now his expression is very similar to Sui Yi's.
The difference is that he was four parts shocked, three parts unwilling, and three parts confused.
Sui Yi was three parts shocked, three parts disappointed, but four parts excited.
Is this really an engine developed by an outsider like Yuzu Technology?
How could an outsider company, and a Da Zhou company at that, possibly produce such a powerful engine?
Is it possible to create a game with effects that surpass Unreal Engine 4 using only the computing power of mobile chips?
And even the development ecosystem is already there?
That's Unreal Engine 4.
Even though he knew that Youzi Technology was a leader in the global AI industry and had already revolutionized the search and short video sectors, this disruption did not happen in his industry, and he hadn't even paid much attention to these two industries, so of course his understanding of it wasn't that deep.
But when this change occurs in the field he is familiar with and cares about most, and ruthlessly tramples on the company that he believes is invincible in the industry in terms of technology, the feeling is completely different.
The most important thing is that the principle of this engine is different from any previous engine, and it is a completely different technical route.
No wonder Yuzu Technology didn’t ask for confidentiality at all.
A glimmer of understanding flashed in Zhu Yifei's eyes.
Because they don't need to keep it secret!
They are not afraid even if the entire game plan is leaked.
All the game companies in the world now don’t even have the ability to copy them!
It was just like a melee among several countries in ancient times. They were originally competing to see whose weapons were harder and more tough, but suddenly a disruptor equipped with AK47 showed up.
Even if we throw a few guns and bullets over and ask others to copy, how can they copy?
For a moment, Zhu Yifei seemed to hear the sound of his own faith being shattered.
"Boss Tiger, since you're so familiar with the Pocket Monsters, I'll leave the optimization of the chibi-version images of the monsters in the demo to your team, okay?"
In a trance, Zhu Yifei heard Yu Dan's voice in his ears.
"I?"
Zhu Yifei felt a little confused and nodded subconsciously. Then he reacted and was about to ask a question or two, but he saw Yu Dan started to communicate with other groups about work allocation. He swallowed back the words he was about to say.
"David, optimizing the demo's plot shouldn't be difficult. Three days should be enough, right? We need to leave time for storyboard production and testing later."
"Okay, that's settled then. Four days at most. Thanks for your hard work, brothers."
"Yocar, the reality modeling part..."
——
"Ma Liang, the material of these two wings should be similar to DSA51076. The material you generated now looks too much like a bat. Moreover, these wings are closer to the head, so the material should be more delicate. Please modify it again."
Sui Yi pointed to two texture renderings on the screen that needed to be modified.
"I see. Do you mean to mix some of the animal's hair among the feathers?"
A magnetic young man's voice came from the earphones hanging on Sui Yi's ears.
Ma Liang is not a member of their team, but the voice wake-up name of the "magic pen" function in the mirage engine.
"That's right!" Sui Yi snapped his fingers. "Your description is very apt. Note that the closer to the wing root, the finer and softer the hair is, and the larger the proportion is. But the closer to the wing tip, the smoother, thicker and longer the hair is, the smaller the proportion is, and the more feathers there are."
"Okay, I understand. I'll only edit this part for you to look at. It'll take about half a minute. Don't leave."
After saying that, the translucent ball on the monitor representing the "Magic Pen Assistant" began to rotate. Not long after, a high-poly preview image with baked textures that could be used for map generation appeared on Sui Yi's screen.
This high-poly preview is more detailed than any game image.
"Mirage" is indeed better than "Unreal", but the level of detail of this high-poly model compared to ordinary games is not proof that "Mirage" is better than "Unreal".
All game characters have a "high poly model", which may be composed of millions of triangles and is much more refined than the character modeling in the game screen.
High-poly models are not used for real-time rendering, but for texturing. By baking normals, they can improve the visual realism of 3D models in games.
High-poly models are usually made up of millions of triangles and are much more detailed than the models rendered in real time in game screens.
It will not enter the game engine directly, but will be used to bake normal maps and other maps, so that low-poly models can also show fine details such as pores and wrinkles, improve realism and reduce the amount of calculation.
To put it more clearly, it is equivalent to two statues. The first statue not only has ears and nose, but also pores.
The artist then took photos of the skin of various parts of the statue, printed out the skin photos, and pasted them on the statue that only had the facial features carved.
At first glance, it looks like the statue has pores, but when you look closer, you can see that it is actually a photo.
A character with three million polygons may only have thirty thousand polygons even with the special effects turned to the maximum in the game.
"Fuck! This magic pen is so fucking awesome! From sketch to original, and from original to high-resolution model, it took at least three weeks of work, and it was done in just a few seconds... A-choo! Whew~~~"
Sui Yi sneezed, took out a tissue from the tissue box next to him, and blew his nose.
After a night of autumn rain, the daytime temperature in Haixi dropped from nearly 30 degrees to more than 10 degrees, and only 7 or 8 degrees at night.
"Even if they use AI, they still have to calculate polygons. Do they use supercomputers for modeling? Otherwise, how can it be so fast?"
"Old Wei, the three views of Fei Yi have been annotated. I've generated a high-poly version. Take a look. If there are any problems, I'll adjust them."
Sui Yi turned around and said something to Wei Ao, who was sitting back to back with him. His nose was rumbling, and it was obvious that he had a cold.
"good."
Wei Ao responded casually and clicked the synchronization button on the workbench. The changes in Sui Yi's project status were displayed on the screen.
What they used was not TeamPulse, the internal management platform used by Youzi Technology and its subsidiaries, but the development chain that came with "Mirage".
These independent game companies were divided into five groups, and Wei Ao's group was mainly responsible for "realistic style" modeling.
"You drew quickly enough. Didn't you want to stop using that 'magic pen' feature? Why did you use it again?"
Wei Ao carefully examined the three views of "Fei Yi" painted by Sui Yi, which were densely marked with descriptions of various materials.
"In three days, we have to model twenty exotic beast characters. We have to use them even if we don't want to." Sui Yi took out another piece of paper and blew it, saying unhappily.
"By the way, don't forget to ask Danniu if this 'Mirage Engine' is going to be open for licensing?"
"If it were open, I think we could start the Journey to the West game we've wanted to make for a long time now. We wouldn't need an AR module, so it should be much easier to make."
After hearing what Sui Yi said, Wei Ao let go of the mouse, thought for a moment, turned around and patted Sui Yi on the shoulder.
"Old Sui, what do you think about us just integrating that Journey to the West game into this 'Tainhuang: Mountain and Sea Realm'?"
Hearing this, Sui Yi twisted his body and almost hit Wei Ao in the face with his elbow.
"What did you say?"
Wei Ao pondered, "Don't you find it strange? This game, besides a large world view, only has some basic exotic beast settings, nothing else. Even the world view can be expanded infinitely."
"Taihuang Fragments, what kind of fragments they are, isn't it up to Youguo Games to decide? They can fuse mountains and seas, and they can also fuse Journey to the West. I doubt they'll even want to fuse sci-fi, fairy tales, superheroes, and the like."
"Platform! What they want to do is a platform! This is a gaming platform disguised as a game!"
Wei Ao's eyes were filled with excitement.
Sui Yi was silent for a long time: "I don't deny this possibility, but I have two questions."
"First, how does this game make money? With so many things integrated into it, how do we set up a charging mechanism?"
"Secondly, why do they want us?"
"If you ask me, I think we should wait and see. After their demo is released, we can contact Danniu to learn more about it. What do you think?"
Sui Yi turned around and glanced through the window of the studio on the first floor, only to see a graceful figure in a long skirt turning the corner.
She has a thin waist and a big body, and she has a great figure.
I didn't see what he looked like clearly, but he seemed familiar?
Sui Yi was about to look away when he saw another tall woman with picturesque features walking past the window.
The woman was wearing a baseball cap and jeans, with a small backpack slung over her left shoulder. She lowered her head and walked quickly.
Her profile was flawless, with two lightly drawn eyebrows that flew into her temples, a high nose bridge, and eyes as black as ink. She was so beautiful that she didn't seem like a human being.
A plum branch, a little wet from the rain, lay across the window, and its leaves had become a little sparse.
Liu Feifei?
Sui Yi couldn't help but look out the window, but the other party had already turned the corner and saw nothing.
Forget it, forget it, it must be that they just look alike, how could Liu Feifei appear here?
Sui Yi glanced at the time. Damn, there were only ten hours left before the deadline, and he still had to model two more exotic beasts.
Sui Yi shrugged, looked away, picked up the 2048-level pressure-sensitive digital pen, and started writing and drawing on the Wacom Cintiq 27QHD that came with Youguo Games.
(End of this chapter)
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