Chapter 399: A Heart as Compassionate as a Bodhisattva's

Just as the two sides were negotiating, Fang Hong was accompanying Liu Tianxian on an inspection of the film and television base.

That is, the Virtual Reality Studio—the shed had already been set up and the equipment had been debugged; they had come to take a look and run some tests.

In the HR District's new city, a commercial bus pulled up in front of the film and television base's main gate. There had been no road here before, but one had been built for the construction of the base—after all, building materials needed to be transported in.

The ones getting off the bus were several people: Fang Hong, Liu Tianxian, Chen Zhixi, as well as cinematographer Liu Yin, Best Special Effects' Yao Qi, and some other accompanying staff.

The moment the few of them stepped off the bus, a gust of cold wind blew through, making them shiver involuntarily and tighten their down jackets.

"It's really cold today, brr." Chen Zhixi cupped her hands and blew on them, stamped her feet, looking thoroughly chilled.

There was snow on the ground, not thick—just a light snowfall that had just come down!

"Sister Chen, be careful, there's ice on the ground." Liu Tianxian was afraid she might slip.

She was wearing a black hat and a black scarf wrapped around her neck, dressed in a black high-end down jacket, looking all puffy, but with her tall, slender figure, she had presence no matter what.

It was just that she was all in black from head to toe, which looked pretty cool.

"I'm fine, I'm a northerner, I'm used to it!" Chen Zhixi said it as if it were nothing.

However, just as she finished speaking, someone beside Liu Tianxian let out a "WTF" as his feet slipped and he fell backward uncontrollably.

Liu Tianxian was quick-eyed and quick-handed, hurriedly stretching out both hands to steady him and pulling him into her embrace: "Honestly, talking about others, and you slipped."

"I'm a southerner, after all." Fang Hong steadied himself, saying he hadn't gotten used to it yet.

"Always joking around."

Liu Tianxian saw his face had turned red from the cold, so she unwound the scarf from her neck and said: "Are you cold? Let me put this scarf on you."

"No need!" Fang Hong refused.

"Look, your face is all red from the cold, put it on." Liu Tianxian was about to wrap the scarf around his neck.

"I'm a grown man, why would I wear you women's scarves—how embarrassing is that!" Fang Hong said.

"Why are you so particular about these things." Liu Tianxian was determined to put it on him.

"People are watching." Fang Hong suddenly said in a low voice.

"So what if they're watching?"

Liu Tianxian was like a mother, deeply afraid Fang Hong would freeze, but Fang Hong had his dignity and firmly refused to use women's items.

The two went back and forth, like feeding the single dogs, and the onlookers couldn't stand it any longer, laughing and shaking their heads as they walked on ahead.

Looking around, the place was still quite desolate, but a large wall had already been built, and inside the wall were factory-like buildings.

Some of the factory buildings had been set up, some were still being built. On the steel frames under construction, workers in work clothes and safety helmets were laboring in the cold wind.

In such cold weather, it was still quite tough. Whenever the wind blew, they felt a bone-piercing chill, as if the wind were knives cutting their faces.

Not to mention the workers standing up high—the higher up, the colder it got, and they still had to grip rebar and cement.

As for those buildings, they were the studios, the Prop Warehouse, set workshops, and the like; the office building hadn't been built yet.

You couldn't tell what buildings were being constructed now, but in any case, the Virtual Reality Studio had been set up and the equipment had been debugged.

After all, they needed to shoot, so this had been done first.

The group walked toward the main gate, where an old man in a thick padded coat was guarding the door.

"In the dead of winter, how can they let an old man guard the door?" Liu Tianxian was kind-hearted and couldn't stand the sight.

Her scarf was still on her—Fang Hong firmly refused to wear it, too feminine, he had to save face.

"He's probably a temp worker." Chen Zhixi said.

Liu Tianxian glanced at Fang Hong. Fang Hong said: "Provide every worker's room here with a heater, and make sure there's plenty of hot water, blankets, and everything—this winter still has a few months to go."

"Okay." Chen Zhixi didn't say anything, knowing this was Liu Tianxian's compassionate heart kicking in.

As for the old man guarding the door, what could be done? It wouldn't do to send him home to rest and enjoy his twilight years, would it? If he had money, a stable income, social security and the like, he would certainly be at home enjoying his twilight years.

The problem was he had no money, no such security, so he came here to guard the door—just for a bite to eat.

Liu Tianxian didn't say anything, knowing this kind of thing was very common, beyond any individual's power to fix; they could only help those they saw.

Besides, this had nothing to do with Jade Rabbit—it was outsourced to begin with.

Fang Hong saw Liu Tianxian wasn't speaking, and said comfortingly: "Don't take it to heart, we can only do this much."

"I know, it's fine. I just feel that I'm already better off than most people—at least I don't lack material things." Liu Tianxian said.

"Mm, as long as you know." Fang Hong nodded.

The group chatted as they walked into the Virtual Reality Studio. It was quite warm inside, with a very large space and very high ceiling beams, and there were various steel frames above—those were for hanging wires and equipment.

Also, the place was very open and spacious—so much so that even shouting wouldn't produce an echo.

The group walked to a spot where a technician was adjusting a high-end camera, and Liu Yin was communicating with the technician.

Directly in front of the camera was an oval-shaped virtual reality world—a city street, with tall buildings on both sides, and it was very three-dimensional, like 3D, very realistic.

Liu Tianxian asked: "Is this real or fake?"

"Fake, we call it Digital Space—it's scenery created through an engine." Fang Hong explained, meaning this Digital Space was controlled by the engine. He turned and asked: "What engine are we using?"

"Unreal Engine." Yao Qi said from the side.

Their own self-developed engine wasn't mature yet—after all, it was their first time shooting a film like this, and using an immature one wouldn't be good.

Fang Hong walked over to the camera and said to Liu Yin: "Give us an introduction."

"This is an Action Capture Camera. Don't think it looks like an ordinary camera—the difference between this one and other cameras is that it can connect directly to Unreal Engine, allowing it to shoot live-action footage in a digitally tracked environment." Liu Yin said.

"This metal bracket is the Infrared Marker. It can calculate the lens distance in Unreal Engine—the marker's position is the position of the virtual camera." Yao Qi pointed at a small device and added.

This small device was like a little satellite,

Fang Hong could roughly understand—it was real people plus virtuality. He just hadn't played with such high-tech stuff before, nor had he shot a sci-fi film like this, so he needed to understand.

Not to mention him—even Xu Laoguai, when shooting the 3D "Dragon Gate Flying Knife," had to find people to learn from for a long time, shoot a short film to practice, before taking on that movie.

Those people had a learning environment and the capital to practice—ordinary people didn't have such conditions.

Liu Tianxian understood even less, completely lost, as if listening to a book from heaven.

"Tianxian, you go in and try filming it." Fang Hong gestured for Liu Tianxian to enter the Digital Space and experience it.

Liu Yin held the camera and pointed: "Sister Tianxian, stand on that little blue triangle."

"Okay." Liu Tianxian took off her down jacket and scarf, handed them to Fang Hong to hold, revealing the sweatshirt underneath, along with black pants.

The pants were quite tight-fitting, making her legs look long and straight.

She followed the instructions and entered the Digital Space. The moment she went in, it was like entering a different world, and the world seemed to keep changing, as if she were constantly shuttling through it.

Visually it looked like this — only her background and the ground beneath her feet kept shifting: sometimes a city, sometimes an oasis, sometimes a beach and the sea.

Just like in Lucy, where the female lead was in Times Square and changed the space with a wave of her hand.

This made Liu Tianxian very curious, and right in front of her was the real world, with a bunch of crew members watching her.

The background switched to a canyon cave, surrounded by rocky cliffs. Liu Yin said: "Sister Tianxian, just pretend you're exploring."

Liu Tianxian turned her back and started walking forward — she didn't really walk, just marched in place. As she moved, the scenery ahead of her pulled closer, as if she were truly exploring the place. It was amazing.

Of course, there were no physical effects here; physical effects required additional processing, and a real camera too.

But just looking at the footage, you couldn't tell real from fake.

"All of this data gets sent to the control station behind us and gets recorded in Unreal Engine. We can then do real-time live-action compositing and digital compositing, and then send the footage to post-production for processing, keeping everything in sync with the same shot." Yao Qi explained the principle beside Fang Hong.

"What if I mess up a shot — say, this scene, I forgot to put a dinosaur in front of me?" Fang Hong pointed at the spot in the canyon in front of Liu Tianxian.

"Easy." Yao Qi snapped his fingers, and a dinosaur suddenly appeared in front of Liu Tianxian, lunging to bite her.

"Ah!" This startled Liu Tianxian, and she involuntarily stepped back.

But the dinosaur vanished in an instant, and the environment returned to what it had been.

The dinosaur was very fake — no vibration, no flying debris, the lighting didn't match the environment either. It just appeared out of thin air; that's what it looks like without processing.

Liu Tianxian turned her head and shot an unfriendly look at the people outside the Digital Space, trying to figure out who was playing a trick on her.

Yao Qi looked slightly awkward and turned his gaze to Fang Hong; Liu Yin also turned his gaze to Fang Hong; everyone else turned their gaze to Fang Hong. The meaning was obvious.

"Just you wait." Liu Tianxian pointed at Fang Hong with her finger, telling him to be careful.

Scaring her like that.

"What does it have to do with me? I was standing here minding my own business." Fang Hong defended himself.

Liu Tianxian glared at him; Fang Hong shut up.

Everyone else laughed — they hadn't expected the Principal to be so afraid of his wife.

"If an actor forgets to bring something — a ring, a tie — or there's a continuity error, you can reshoot it this way. The lighting can also be edited to match, so you don't have to haul a big crew out on location." Yao Qi explained the function.

This was pretty good. Develop it a bit more, and who knows, it might end up just like the real world.

Actually, there's still a difference between this kind of virtual setup and a real one.

"Unreal Engine will calculate the terminal so that the monitors here can always see the correct perspective."

Yao Qi gestured for a crew member to bring over something that looked like a flashlight, with a small block on it. He pointed at the block and said: "This is a Passive Four-Point Marker. The camera picks up infrared signals through it, and the effect is exactly the same as lighting with a real flashlight."

Having said that, he turned on the flashlight. The beam of light shone on the Digital Space, giving the visual of illuminating the virtual scenery of the Digital Space.

Liu Tianxian saw it and turned her head curiously: "Let me try."

Yao Qi handed the flashlight to Liu Tianxian. Liu Tianxian shone it on the cliff face in front of her, lighting up the environment. When she moved closer, the light would converge too, just like shining a real flashlight — it was incredible.

"This is actually Unreal Engine setting up a spotlight effect." Yao Qi explained the principle.

Hearing his explanation, Fang Hong roughly understood what the principle of virtual reality was: whatever scene you want, it can be created for you.

Want to be in space, you're in space; want to be in the ocean, you're in the ocean. A person can merge into such a scene as one with it.

Of course, this is only a test. To actually shoot something like Gravity would be far more complicated.

(End of chapter)