On March 31, the Tencent Video Film and Television Technology Innovation and Development Forum was unveiled at the 10th China Network Audiovisual Conference. With the theme of "Expanding the New Frontier of Art with Science and Technology", the forum gathered leaders of competent departments, creators, platform representatives, industry experts, etc., to exchange the development trend and future of film and television technology, and took high-quality works such as TV series "Three-Body Problem" and "Douluo Continent" animation as examples to share creative experience, deeply discuss the thickness, connotation and multi-dimensional value of film and television technology, and discuss the diversified ecology of the film and television industry.
At the forum, Ren Daoyuan, Deputy Director of the Online Audiovisual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television, Liu Xiaohui, Director of the Comprehensive Division of the Online Audiovisual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television, Peng Wujun, Director of the TV Drama Management Division of Guangdong Radio and Television Bureau, Li Jing, First-level Researcher of the TV Drama Management Department of Guangdong Radio and Television Bureau, Chi Xiaoling, Deputy Director of the Radio and Television and Online Audiovisual Program Management Division of Shanghai Municipal Radio and Television Bureau, Ma Yankun, Vice President of Tencent Online Video, Zhu Dianjun, General Manager of Tencent's Culture and Content Affairs Department, and the TV series "The Three-Body Problem" Visual and animation director Lu Beike, Chairman of Xuanji Technology Shen Leping, Force Digital Technology CEO and Chairman Zhao Rui, Tencent Online Video Platform Operation Department Combustion Space Studio Group Head Zhou Wang, Poison Eye Editor-in-Chief Wu Yanyu were invited to attend.
Film and television technology innovation promotes the high-quality development of online audio-visual, and the platform is firm and long-term layout
Film and television technology has become an indispensable and important part of the current audiovisual industry, bringing diversified value to film and television art content and a beautiful audiovisual experience to the public. Ren Daoyuan, Deputy Director General of the Online Audiovisual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television, pointed out in his speech that how to use scientific and technological innovation to promote the high-quality development of online audiovisual and how to use science and technology to drive audiovisual art to expand the boundaries is a very important topic, which requires the attention and cultivation of the whole industry. The Network Audiovisual Division will take the promotion of scientific and technological innovation in the industry as an important task, work with everyone to work hard to solve problems, and strive to enhance the new momentum of high-quality development of network audiovisual in the new era and new journey.
(Ren Daoyuan, Deputy Director-General of the Network Audiovisual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television)
Advanced technology brings about two-way improvement in quality and production efficiency, which fully proves the importance of technology in the audiovisual industry. Ma Yankun, vice president of Tencent Online Video, believes that technological progress has always continued to promote the iteration of the industry, and each technological upgrade has also driven the advancement of content production technology, production efficiency and aesthetic style, and also expanded the audiovisual industry and content imagination. Whether it is the TV series "The Three-Body Problem", which set off a wave of science fiction in early 2023, or animation works such as "Devouring the Starry Sky" and "Covering the Sky" that show superb artistic expression, they are inseparable from the practical application of film and television technology. These works present stunning virtual worlds and intoxicating textures and aesthetics through technical means, and the application of technology greatly improves the production efficiency of content production and allows content creators to realize their whimsy more efficiently.
Regarding the proposition of high-tech applications such as AIGC, Ma Yankun said that in any case, Tencent Video's long-term layout will not stop, and the platform will definitely pay close attention to the development and application of these cutting-edge technologies while doing a good job in the research and development of audiovisual basic experience, and also hope to work with more technology and content talents to create beautiful content.
Technology and content industry leaders gathered at the forum to discuss the thickness and breadth of film and television technology
In the roundtable dialogue session of the forum, the participants discussed the practical application, development degree and humanistic temperature of film and television technology, and vividly interpreted the thickness and breadth of film and television technology with profound topics. With the iterative upgrading of science and technology, advanced film and television technology is widely used in film and television content such as dramas and animations. Lu Beike shared his experience in technology application by taking the high-energy famous scene "Operation Guzheng" in the TV series "The Three-Body Problem" as an example. He said that it is very important to clarify the "technical mission objectives" in the early stage, especially for "Guzheng Action", which requires the use of a lot of real shooting and CG special effects comprehensive technical applications, the team clarified the production goals three years in advance, and also avoided modifying the direction in the process to prevent the waste of production technical resources. In addition, in the production process, it is also necessary to pay attention to constantly upgrading technical solutions such as renderers in line with changes in the technological environment to continuously improve the quality of content.
Relying on the strength of science and technology, the industrialization of film and television has also continued to develop and gradually landed, and the industry will usher in a new opportunity to improve quality, increase efficiency and reduce costs, which is also particularly significant in animation production. Shen Leping mentioned that in order to achieve two-way improvement in quality and efficiency, Xuanji Technology applies motion capture technology to long-form animation production. Zhao Rui believes that the core of industrialization is to use technology and methods to make it more convenient and effective for producers and content creators to manage the entire project. He also said that when making the "Covering the Sky" anime, the team also no longer made simplified models like the traditional process, but used UE5 for scene modeling, making it with a large number of high-precision models, more like a production line process, saving a lot of time and effort.
The role of advanced technology in film and television art not only enhances the texture, but also contains the temperature of science and technology. Shen Leping said that technology can not only expand the film and television theme, but also strengthen the overall performance of the story. Especially for the young audience group in the animation industry, the artistic expression brought by film and television technology can also make young people feel the appeal of the sea of stars, and have a positive role in promoting vision and imagination. For the application of artificial intelligence content production technologies such as ChatGPT and AIGC in the film and television industry, Wu Yanyu said that the term "good friend" is very appropriate to describe new technologies, with the change of times, the industry should actively embrace changes, and more new futures and possibilities will continue to appear.
In the face of the steady improvement and leapfrog upgrading and evolution of film and television technology development, Tencent Video will always adhere to long-term principles. Zhou Wang said that Tencent Video hopes to build a "process pipeline" that can be shared and shared by the industry, continue to supply and empower creators who are struggling in the front line of the industry, and continue to pay attention to high-tech applications, whether in the technology development or application stage, always adhere to the concept of "technology for good" to use such technologies, use platform advantages and technical advantages to empower the entire ecosystem, and help the industry develop and progress together.
Film and television technology broadens the boundaries of art, facilitates the multi-dimensional value expression of content, and brings a beautiful audiovisual experience to the audience. In the future, Tencent Video will continue to consciously fulfill its responsibility as an audiovisual platform, adhere to a long-term layout, explore and embrace innovative technologies in the industry, and with the vision of "becoming a leader in video entertainment driven by technology and art", walk with more technology and content talents to create a steady stream of good stories for audiences.
The transcript of the roundtable discussion of the 10th China Network Audiovisual Conference and Tencent Video Film and Television Technology Innovation and Development Forum on March 31 is attached
【Roundtable Guests】
Lu Beike, visual director and animation director of the TV series "Three-Body Problem";
Shen Leping, chairman of Xuanji Technology;
Zhao Rui, CEO and Chairman of Force Digital Technology;
Zhou Wang, head of Tencent's online video platform operation department, Combustion Space Studio Group;
Poison Eye Editor-in-Chief Wu Yanyu (also host)
【Roundtable Discussion Transcript】
Wu Yanyu: In the past two years, everyone has done a lot of technology-related works, in the past few years, what kind of changes has the development of technology brought to everyone in the works and specific industries, and what kind of path has technology taken out?
Lu Beike: The application of technology in film and television is a relatively gradual development process. Since the mid-90s, our country has used a relatively digital method to process a lot of image things.
In the past five or six years, in terms of realistic special effects of film and television, the realism of workflow and related software and the simplification of software have indeed greatly improved, just like the production of the TV series "Three-Body Problem" if it was placed 10 years ago, it is difficult for us to achieve such an effect at the current cost, the development of technology is indeed relatively fast, and China's special effects industry is also steadily improving. My biggest impression during this process is that there are more and more ways to make full CG. Generally speaking, we have a real shot part and a pure CG part, but we can clearly feel that the production volume of full CG will become larger and larger if we have a certain amount of resources. Because film and television increasingly require innovation, and the picture requires more and more originality, some physical shooting methods will not be able to keep up, which is a relatively large experience.
Another experience is that producers, directors, artists and other departments from all walks of life in the entire film and television process are also gaining a deeper understanding of the entire digital workflow. Just like the anime part shown in the previous video, as well as the game animation part of the TV series "The Three-Body Problem", and even the content of the use of technology to drive the performance, this is relatively rare in the past.
Wu Yanyu: Director Bei mentioned some changes in the simplification of the process, the reduction of costs, and even the technology to promote performance, in fact, these may be difficult for us to imagine when we developed the film and television industry in the past, or we don't know which day will come, but today "The Three-Body Problem" has given us this answer.
Next, please ask Zhou Wang to talk about Tencent Video has been focusing on the technology field since "Douluo Continent", what do you think?
Zhou Wang: Just as Tencent Video Sun mentioned long-termism yesterday, in fact, the development and application of technology is also long-termism. From the earliest time when the computing power of the CPU and the rendering power of the GPU were very weak, it took me 6 hours to render a scene while sitting on a computer, and until now, including Mr. Zhao and Director Shen have invested a lot of research and development in the field of animation technology, we can achieve real-time rendering, what you see is what you get. Live-action dramas, variety shows, anime and even live-action documentaries will use CG technology to some extent, which is a process of gradual and rapid development, which is consistent with the long-term philosophy that video has always adhered to.
Wu Yanyu: I heard a very "sexy" word - long-termism, indeed, in the public's vision, the starting point of our impression of Tencent Video-related works is "Douluo Continent", and I will ask Mr. Shen to talk about it.
Shen Leping: The animation industry, especially three-dimensional animation, has been born since technology drives the entire industry, which should be said to be inseparable. Originally, live-action film and animation were two distinct types, but from similar to "Titanic", its CG shots may reach about 30%, to the Marvel, DC and other films we see now, its special effects shots have reached nearly 80%. In fact, now the boundary between live-action film and television and animation has become more and more blurred, and even we can say that there are some blockbusters, including "The Wandering Earth", some of which are already cartoons, and the production of animation has been very focused on the research and development of technology since the beginning of our industry, which is still quite different from the traditional hand-drawn part of everyone's impression. Xuanji is also the first to introduce motion capture technology into the animation production of feature films, bringing the first thing is the improvement of efficiency and quality, basically every application of this new technology is to bring about a two-way improvement in quality and efficiency.
At that time, what we faced the most was that the work would always be urged by the audience to change, and felt that it was too slow, in fact, this also bothered us and Teacher Zhou for a long time. So from "Douluo Continent", we made a new attempt, that is, to introduce the real-time rendering process into the production of animated feature films.
Until then, this was a big technical hurdle. When we first used this technology, we were also questioned a lot, and even some ridicule. Sometimes we feel that technology is a tool, used to meet our creative and imaginative performance, but sometimes we are also subject to some stereotypes, such as UE4, including some UNIT, UE5 everyone will think of it as a game engine in the traditional concept, but we look at as long as you can help us present with higher efficiency and higher quality, to meet our creative needs, including what we can see from the level of the director, all the lights when I make a shot, Then when I shot the storyboard, it was close to 85%, maybe UE4 was 80%, UE5 could be close to 90%, and then the requirements of this film were real-time 1:1 viewing and optimization adjustment, which was also our bold imagination and attempt with us at that time, and we did the annual broadcast to promote it in a weekly update. On the one hand, it was also very supportive, and at the same time, the team also used such technology to realize that the audience did not have to urge changes, we were a marathon at that time, and we maintained it for 5 years, including 3 years with some restrictions on working from home during the epidemic, and achieved succession.
Now "Douluo Continent" will be the first annual broadcast animation in early May this year, and it will also come to a perfect end. In this we did not miss a companionship to our audience, the reason behind it is actually the new application of technology, which has achieved a comprehensive improvement in both the update of the platform and the accompanying experience of users.
Wu Yanyu: I just listened to a lot of pictures in my mind, in fact, a "Douluo Continent" it runs through many technological breakthroughs, everyone should still have a deep experience, before "Douluo Continent" Zhou Geng This matter is difficult to imagine for domestic animation, but for today it is even a basic requirement, I believe that behind this is the platform and creators do not know how many difficulties everyone has overcome to get to such a situation today, President Zhao should also be very touched.
Zhao Rui: Actually, in the past two years, technology has changed a lot to our Force, and it should be said that we have created some new businesses for us that we have not tried before. Teacher Zhou should know that we didn't do much animation dramas before, our main process was to do CG and movies, the important reason why we didn't dare to do dramas at that time was because the amount of episodes was very large and very time-consuming, we had our first attempt a few years ago, "Full-time Master" We used the original completely virtual shooting technology in some movies for the first time in TV series, and about half of them were completely virtual shooting.
Since then, we've been building production lines for virtual shooting and then using real-time engines, so we must have started the drama industry almost two years ago. As the technology, the process matured, we started to move into the show. We have spent a very short time, which is completely dependent on new technology, we can now achieve about 1500 minutes of content a year, which is almost 2 annual production of animated series, and we now run such a large amount in the production line, in fact, it is completely dependent on our technology and process research and development.
I think there is another point, the new technology can not only improve production efficiency, but also bring some content expressions that have not appeared to the audience, such as "The Three-Body Problem" There are also a lot of realistic animations in the middle, and we have been thinking that some of the shooting methods closer to the TV series and the visual effects of the TV series can be pulled into the animation for us.
We have been discussing what kind of technology can be pushed to that stage, so in our company we have done a lot of scanning systems like 3D, 4D, done a lot of real person scanning, we also recently pushed a new scan of 2,000 Chinese models, and now it is in the full production process, in fact, to reserve some new data and how to achieve more real people in animation. Not only can it serve some live-shot TV series, but it may also appear in new forms, which look like live-shot complete cartoons, and it may also bring us some new opportunities for the content itself to create some new forms of artistic expression. I think this is definitely something that every one of us who does animation and the company that does animation should firmly grasp, and technology will definitely bring us a very big change.
Wu Yanyu: Although I have simply summarized the changes brought by technology in the past few years, I believe that everyone will think of many pictures of the cases behind these cases, which is actually a very complete context behind the development of film and television industrialization.
The next question I want to ask Director Pei, "The Three-Body Problem" for the whole of China, especially live-action film and television, we can summarize that it is a peak of Chinese science fiction dramas. But before the work of "The Three-Body Problem" is officially met with everyone, in fact, the difficulties behind it are difficult for us to imagine, and even we are not sure what kind of effect this work made in China will be, but the final result is very satisfactory to everyone. In the process of developing this IP, I believe that I have encountered a lot of difficulties, please ask Director Bei to share with us whether there are some difficult points to break through in the entire development process, and now look back at what methodologies have been formed in this development process to share with you.
Lu Beike: First of all, I must be very grateful to Tencent Video for supporting this project, Tencent Video platform for the "Three-Body Problem" project is focused on creation, he did not make too many method restrictions, but also sent a very professional producer. With this support, if you ask the main difficulty, from this purely technical point of view, because it is still the investment scope of TV dramas after all, we all have relevant reserves. The most difficult part of the development of "The Three-Body Problem" was actually the problem of the balance of technical resources, because the total amount of special effects was about 400 minutes, of which 123 minutes were pure animation, which was the animation part of the game. With such a large production volume, our main thing is to study how to use good steel on the blade.
In this process, what I can share is to have better preparation, you have to determine these goals a long time ago, the regular crew often pats him and then modifies his goals, some things can be modified, but some things may cause a lot of waste when modified. At this time, we will rely on relatively detailed technical methods to specify a lot of real shots, such as the shot of the guzheng action in the demonstration video just now, we only saw that shot in 2023, but in fact, the determination of the lens was completely determined in the summer of 2020, and it does not exist that we are doing and changing its lens production direction. Several people must have a feeling, if a film has that kind of modification of the goal in the middle of the production, it will definitely dilute the production resources, this is my core sharing to everyone, that is, you must let the goal not change it in the production process, unless you find that there is no way, must change the situation.
The more changes you make, the more you dilute your cost per unit of time, for example, some shots you may have made some modifications, and if you make several changes, you will have to render several times. Like the entire "Three-Body Problem" we are mostly offline rendering, a small amount of real-time computing content, some are using CPU offline rendering, some are using GPU offline rendering, it involves a lot of companies, like "Three-Body Problem" The overall re-rendering rate is less than 5%, that is, it is very little when it is modified, this is a more core technical experience, if it involves the investment of this kind of film, it needs to be very concerned about the re-rendering rate.
The other part, constantly upgrading the technical solution during the production process, which is more detailed, including the application of the renderer, and several teachers have also mentioned just now, UE5 has not yet come out when we formulate the plan, and we did not know about UE5 in the production of the environment, it was in 2019. But by the end of 2021, the beginning of 2022 began to slowly have these aspects, and then a small number of content used this technology.
Then in the actual shooting to pay attention to the division of real shooting content and CG content, I have a lot of work is to constantly work with the actual filmed art, props, modeling and CG department, director department to consider which things are CG shooting, which things are real shooting, which things are real physical special effects, sometimes it does not use pure digital CG special effects, that is, to separate everything, separate it needs to be done earlier. For example, "Operation Guzheng" has 8 scenes when it is actually filmed at the end, it seems that it is all on a river to hit the boat, and then cut the boat, but it took a total of 8 scenes to shoot, its actual shooting is actually very fragmented, then you need to be clear before shooting the technical task division of each shot, this kind of shot has no way to wait for the director to arrive at the scene and then think about how to move, this kind of does not exist.
I also share with you the importance of these early work.
Wu Yanyu: After listening, I would like to ask that this point is particularly important for peers and practitioners. Early formulation of this clear goal, and to ensure that the general direction in the process of operation is not changed, how to determine how to determine is in line with the later development, after all, the industry is changing rapidly, a drama production cycle is so long, what can be shared with everyone in the early stage.
Lu Beike: Let me share with you a counter-intuitive rule, the more complex the shot, the more mature the solution. Just like building a sandbox system, when distributing shots, there are some lenses that can be tested, but these lenses cannot be shot with the scene, cannot be shots with particularly long and complex processes, and shots with long processes are technically difficult, difficult to shoot, and difficult to take aerial shots, which is called a lens with a particularly long process.
If the shot is purely animated and involves special kinetic requirements, such as a lot of paper effects flying out of the ship, and a separate picture of metal distortion, this kind of picture can delay its technical solution. You know when you shoot like this, it's not that long process, you can do some of the latest technology on these lenses. But our most complex lenses, such as the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2020 to formulate lens technical indicators and slitting goals, the most complex lens in "The Three-Body Problem" you have to use about 19 to 18 years of technical reserves to imagine it, but the animation of the turkey scientist in "The Three-Body Problem", and some of the dynamic methods of Qin Shihuang's human computer floating are relatively later, because the process involved in that kind of lens is relatively short, no preliminary preparation is required, pre-shooting, and then collecting this complex work after shooting, It is more inclined to pure post-completion, and when the process becomes shorter, some innovative technical content can be done.
Wu Yanyu: "The Three-Body Problem" is a very important work, what kind of domestic drama will be filmed, everyone will have a very critical eye, in fact, handing over the answer sheet is beyond expectations, after listening to Director Bei's introduction, you can understand why this drama is so good, and the development behind it is a very important exploration for each drama.
Next, ask Mr. Shen and Mr. Zhao, the specific application track is still different, and the technological breakthrough in domestic animation has been witnessed by us all the way. At present, I see "Full-time Master", "Douluo Continent", "Devouring the Starry Sky", "Covering the Sky" and other works, the future determines what kind of very important works in the next stage of domestic animation, please talk about the two separately, it is also a relatively big problem, what is the current application status of technology in domestic animation, and what are the opportunities and challenges for the two?
Shen Leping: Before Xuanji, there was also "Qin Shi Mingyue" which is a traditional historical theme, "Douluo Continent" does the integration of ancient and modern, the integration of East and West, and "Devouring the Starry Sky" is completely oriented to the future. The most important thing is for our audience, especially anime audiences, mostly teenagers, to give them vision, imagination and perception of the world. The journey now is the sea of stars, how to let the audience feel this inspiration from the works they usually see. Is there a corresponding future-oriented work that can make his imagination run endlessly, similar to "The Three-Body Problem" and "Devouring the Starry Sky", which are particularly important for the exploration of future science fiction themes, not only for technology, but also for the audience. There is also the market for the future.
There is no doubt that the application of technology can provide strong support in this regard. On the one hand, such works can continue to be born, so that its number proportion becomes higher, and on the other hand, the audience is more recognized by the Hollywood science fiction theme, that is, the so-called blockbuster refers to Hollywood films, and now this pattern is gradually changing. In the past, there may not be such a thing as "The Three-Body Problem" in the drama, or go to watch an American drama or something. Whether it is "The Wandering Earth", "The Three-Body Problem" and "Devouring the Starry Sky" bring more to the audience, in addition, everyone has relatively large doubts about the ability of the play, whether the corresponding quality can be produced, or the work itself is excellent, and whether the technical expression can be restored.
First, "The Three-Body Problem" and "The Wandering Earth" are both performed with grand imagination and great rigor. "Devouring the Starry Sky" is even more colorful. If "The Three-Body Problem" and "The Wandering Earth" are hard science fiction, "Devouring the Starry Sky" is closer to Marvel DC's soft science fiction, but it is the same in terms of imagination, and in terms of the credibility of visual performance, can it finally be accepted by our audience. Whether it is the UE5 technology platform we use now, and the exploration and accumulation of CG production in China after more than 20 years, as well as team building. Including Xuanji itself also has behind the production, we have five major virtual platforms to do process and industrialization efforts, in fact, it is also to provide support for these works. I personally advocate that the proportion of this genre should continue to increase in all kinds of works in China, from 3% or 5% now, to 20% in the future. More often than not, we let young audiences, let more film and television audiences see Chinese power to change the world and change the universe.
Wu Yanyu: When we talk about the development of China's film and television industry, scientific and technological innovation is very important, and when we talk about domestic animation, we will realize that it is actually facing younger friends, or they are developing a very critical period of outlook on life, what kind of world view they see animation brings, and their understanding of the universe often comes from your works.
Zhao Rui: The development of technology is reshaping the company. As we all know, most animation companies traditionally have their own directors and shoot themselves. Because of the advancement of technology, we are now more and more a platform for content creation, and we can already radiate our creative capabilities outward. The simplest example is virtual shooting, in our company to shoot cartoons in the early stage is no different from shooting live-action films, in the motion capture studio, personnel settings, technical settings, shooting process, very close to shooting normal film and television dramas, every day the director will be on the scene with the editing, the same day will be cut out on the same day of shooting, so the process is very fast. In addition, after we have formed a relatively good process through complete development, normal film and television directors can come to our company to shoot cartoons with us, and we can already do this.
In our current several works, including our previous works and the "Covering the Sky" that we are doing now, many creators are from the real shooting industry, and we gave them a tool. It is equivalent to using their imagination on this platform, everyone wants to make new things, whether it is science fiction films or other films, to give directors and creators tools. The development of technology has given us the ability to do these things, and that is the first point.
Second, take the "Covering the Sky" that is being done now, "Covering the Sky" has a feature that the amount of assets is particularly large, the first few episodes keep switching scenes, a scene may be used in half an episode in a film to go to a new place, traditional shooting methods can not be achieved. Or back to technology to give content creators new ability to do things that were originally difficult to do, now we use UE5 to do a lot of scenes, save a lot of time, no longer like the traditional process to do simplified models, we can use a large number of high-precision models to do it directly, closer to the film production line process. In the case of limited production resources and limited input, let the director do it more freely. The biggest experience is that there are new forms of content creation, which will bring new opportunities to content creators. I believe that in the future, more and more directors who are not animation directors will participate in the production of animated films.
Wu Yanyu: Actually, I didn't expect that it was the production of its own works, but I didn't expect that both companies have built a mature system that belongs to the industry, and this system itself is also very similar to a platform, allowing more creators to join, copying more cases to more, forming more excellent works in our industry, and then driving the iteration and update of the next generation of technology. The platform behind the platform, we can feel Tencent Video's determination on technology in recent years, and we can see that there will be more discussions and thoughts in the next development. Please look forward to introducing the layout of the platform in terms of technology, as well as the next expansion plan.
Zhou Wang: Just now the three teachers talked about the issue of digital assets, Tencent Video began to lay out the construction of data asset library in 2021, and we have now achieved the effective recovery of project digital assets, including application plug-ins, animation layers, special effects files, and the latest iteration of models, binding files, etc. On this basis, we have also output more technical process documentation for general processes in the industry, as mentioned before by Mr. Zhao and Director Shen, technology is in the development of relative environmental variables, and the platform hopes to create a relatively common process that can provide all partners who are struggling in first-line animation or film and television dramas. Just now several teachers are talking about three-dimensional animation, we only talk about the field of animation, in addition to three-dimensional and about 20% of the two-dimensional animation projects, our previous experience is to use two-dimensional means to solve two-dimensional problems, but with the emergence of more and more hot AIGC, our team is also gradually exploring the boundary between two-dimensional and three-dimensional, with three-dimensional relatively mature industrialization process coupled with AIGC assistance, such as the powerful ability of Tushengtu, to strive to achieve breakthroughs in industry difficulties, to help two-dimensional animation improve efficiency and capacity, I believe that it will give you a surprise in the near future.
Wu Yanyu: The two-dimensional to three-dimensional breakthrough is a breakthrough in one dimension, and this is too important. In fact, every breakthrough is the progress of industrialization from an industrial point of view, when we look back at the development and discovery of technology in recent years, technology is constantly iterating, and brings us real works, we think that film and television industrialization has actually landed, as if technology is pushing our imagination of some things into reality. Yesterday, Mr. Sun clearly mentioned the next layout of Tencent video technology, and mentioned some keywords and several intensive references to virtual engine, CG motion capture, real-time rendering and other technologies, which are very important next and need to be explored. Next, please talk about the industrialization of film and television. First of all, do you understand what industrialization means? And what kind of imagination will technology provide in the next development of industrialization?
Zhao Rui: Industrialization has always been a matter of great concern for our company, because to complete a lot of content, it is impossible to do without industrialization. We first learned industrialization from the outside world, and we first learned a lot of industrialization methods with our partner DreamWorks, but in recent years I have a particularly big feeling, in the new industrialization process, Chinese are more willing to try new things, Chinese have a lot of innovative ideas to do.
Back to what does industrialization really mean? Industrialization is not only technology, there is a very important industrialization of management, as well as the industrialization of the production process. What can technology bring? Technology can give us more tools to automate and manage projects more easily. In the past, it was all relying on people, and everyone knows that there are a large number of people in the actual shooting crew, relying on producers and people from all links to control this project. But in today's industry, especially in the animation industry, industrialization relies on automated management processes, such as new management centers and other applications, but how to do automated management is very important. Therefore, I think that the core of industrialization should use scientific and technological technologies and methods to make the tools and processes that make it more convenient for producers and content creators to manage the entire project more effectively, and I think this can truly achieve industrialization. Specific production renderings and other aspects are a small part of industrialization, and I don't think they are the most important core.
Wu Yanyu: Industrialization inevitably mentions the system, the system construction relies on human and there will be many problems, it seems that we are talking about technology itself, but in fact, it is the creation of science and technology that is larger and more automated systems affect the industry, of course, this matter is becoming more and more important in the content production process. Please Mr. Shen.
Shen Leping: Originally, more of our teams advocated small and beautiful, of course, there are also the attributes of handicraft workshops, and the other is systematization and industrialization. What's the biggest difference? Small and beautiful is a certain probability that a good film will occasionally be born, depending on the team, depending on the very outstanding creator.
For us, if it can be systematized and industrialized, this determines whether China can systematically launch masterpieces in anime, TV series and movies in the future. From the domestic market, for example, our audience will support our own domestic films, domestic animations. But in the future, the protagonist in the global market still has a basic quality, which must pass the qualified line, pass the psychological line of the audience, and then choose the theme.
For example, the five virtual platforms we have developed just mentioned, including virtual film director, virtual actor, and virtual performance. Virtual performance is actually the performance data that actors need to use, whether it is limbs, expressions and other aspects. There is also virtual shooting, which includes digital cameras for Xuanji, and how to quickly correspond to digital cameras in animation production with real shots is to achieve effects faster and trim the effect. There are also virtual lights, it is a choreography system, if there is a smart home at home, there is a plot mode, you can quickly switch 5-6 family atmospheres, there are thousands of them. The atmosphere of the stage drama can be quickly selected and switched, which greatly improves what kind of emotion and atmosphere the creator needs for a certain play, and can quickly get the effect he wants. On the one hand, what he provides is the amount of data, his convenience, and he is a process that continues to accumulate.
On the other hand, we all understand that quantitative change eventually leads to qualitative change, and part of the time for qualitative change is coming. Now we see AIGC, the impact of the last two months on the world, especially on our industry, has been very large. In other words, many people are starting to worry about whether they want a career or not, because this is very real. What do I mean by this point in time? We also see that AIGC requires massive research, learning, analysis, and then constantly training it. Whether it is the platform part mentioned by Mr. Zhao before, or the digital asset part of Mr. Zhou, they are actually preparing in this regard. When you put a massive digital asset library, a large amount of data, mature data, including thousands of refined processes and some intelligent control. Be sure to leave a good interface for AIGC, when it starts to access, the efficiency of this system will be greatly improved, and it will be a new revolution. We are doing this now, on the one hand, to prepare for whether China's entire animation film and television industry can form global competitiveness in the future. In addition, it is also prepared for the changes and even disruption of the times brought about by technology.
Wu Yanyu: Back to the platform, how do you see such a grand proposition as the industrialization of film and television?
Zhou Wang: I prefer to call industrialization process, whether it is digital asset library or CG content. To be honest, we still have a long way to go in the research and development of cutting-edge technology, and this is a point that we must recognize. If we make technology very solid, we will eventually serve art with the help of the application of technology, and it is impossible to replace the creation of art. Whether it is AIGC or the process and standardization of all technical application levels now, if it cannot achieve process-oriented production and creation to a certain extent, it is actually a castle in the air. We must follow the first principle at all the level of implementation and execution, why we do the annual broadcast mode, why we learn with the rendering engine, the ultimate goal is to let the Chinese people master the experience of developing technology, if we develop technology has its own rendering engine, has its own mature AIGC products, it is definitely a qualitative leap, so all the goals are to work in this direction.
Wu Yanyu: It seems that everyone already has a little feeling that this qualitative change has come, and does Director Bei feel the same way? From the perspective of creators, industrialization should be more specific.
Lu Beike: What the teachers just said is very accurate, because they are all some things that they have experienced in real work. I think as Tencent Video, they have paid attention to it, in fact, a very important part of industrialization is to do some standardized calibration of various things. The whole set of databases mentioned by Mr. Shen just now, including the unification of assets mentioned by Zhou Wang just now, these things are very important, and once you want to supplement the means of AIGC, it involves these work of keywords.
In fact, CG production in the middle of it has a set of various management software we are now using in management, in the actual work found that you imported ChatGPT and other programs, for example, when you import related plug-ins in UE, each department is still in its own formation, and now there is no particularly unified set of keywords to unify the understanding of it in all different software, this part is actually a very important point in our current stage of CG industrialization. I feel that Tencent Video is also concerned about this aspect and is now doing it. I think Tencent also knows Epic very well, and it is very likely that Tencent Video will become an asset calibration in this area in the future, and I also look forward to a standard.
Another point is that from the perspective of the actual script and the perspective of the actual shooting staff, they also need to constantly realize what kind of standardized actions are required in the real and increasingly digital process in the process of operation. For example, when we used to be filming, because everyone knew that we filmed, if it involves light restoration where it is necessary to shoot light balls and color swatches, in the past, we had to explain these to the director and photography when shooting, but now the normal crew will not explain these, the photographer himself knows what things probably need to use light balls, color swatches, and when not to use this thing. The point I just said is that our real shooting department is also more and more slowly in line with the standards of the entire digital technology for the industrialization of the process film and television process, which is also the point where they need to learn gradually and gradually form an industry standard.
Wu Yanyu: Today we are facing a new possibility, the boundaries of standards have been broadened, at the beginning of this year, there were intensive emergence of some new product forms with AI virtualization, including ChatGTP at the beginning of the year to today's film and television industry is mentioned AIGC very large wave, this wave swept over, I believe for some people are a little confused, but for the 4 may have some thinking in their hearts, AIGC It may make the film and television industry become the point of capital to refocus on this industry, what kind of changes can AIGC bring to our industry next, which ones will really change the industry in actual applications, and where are our next opportunity points, this question should be discussed by 4 people separately.
Zhou Wang: I think AIGC seems to have recently appeared a god-making surge, but in fact, AI has been training models two or three years ago or even four or five years ago, including domestic technology companies. First of all, this is a phenomenon that you have to pay attention to, and you have to adapt to the emergence of an industrial revolution that is no less than another era. As mentioned earlier, the boundary between three-dimensional and two-dimensional, we found that AIGC has achieved the effect of CG for everyone and everyone can animate in the more mature tools and software of the biograph, which means that whether the industry is interested in CG content inside or outside the industry, interested in film and television content may participate in this industry, which means that we traditionally say that the punch kills the teacher.
Now my daughter is 10 years old, she can quickly generate very vivid image works through AIGC through very simple hand-drawn drafts, which is really achievable now, especially in the animation CG industry from 0 to 1. Of course, it takes time to de-process and industrialize and modularize the whole. But now we can see that AIGC can play a very big role in the overall planning of the script, the early art development, including the director's choice of the overall atmosphere. Next, the strategy of video to the technical exploration of the animation field will combine three-dimensional and two-dimensional and AIGC research to break through the traditional boundaries, so as to further empower the industry, and in terms of visual development, we can also have more themes, more imagination, reduce our costs in relative time, and improve our efficiency. That's what we want to do at the core of the comparison.
Wu Yanyu: From the perspective of the platform, we can clearly feel that AIGC will definitely play a very important role in the future, and the platform may be very happy to see such a change, but for creators, I don't know if it will also bring a certain sense of anxiety, Director Bei.
Lu Beike: I don't feel anxious. I think especially in the past half a year, some works out of the circle, and some characters are out of the circle, so everyone will have a little sense of explosion, but in fact, the CG industry involves this kind of application relatively early, I remember about 19 years to open "Three-Body Problem" when Google considered using it to do noise reduction keying, that is already artificial intelligence, of course, it is not generative, the effect of the circle is actually a generative AI method, its algorithm has brought us a lot of surprises, Since the large models it trains are large enough, it gives us a lot of surprises. In the film shot for Tencent Video now, some of the early concept designs are already in use, and the earliest ones are also used by people in our industry, and it is unlikely that people outside the industry are using them completely.
At present, I can share it with you, because this thing is also in the process of application and learning, I can share a few points. The first point is that the process of conceptual design and storyboard will play a very large role in accelerating, just like Zhou Wang said that his daughter can also do well with some keywords herself, especially for the concept design of imitation feelings of existing works, that kind of thing will be very good. Now the MGA V5 version understands the style of many previous photographers, as well as the style of lens caustics of specific cameras, so it can be imitated very similarly. This is indeed as long as this thing has appeared in this style in the human world before, and you approach it or imitate it, this kind of conceptual design should be a very rapid process in the future.
Second, we have a process that is equivalent to making a more realistic background of a picture, which can produce a lot of related reference pictures or materials, and this process will be more streamlined and efficient than the original. Some processes will involve the styling of film and television, for example, a costume style can now actually train it yourself, especially the existing costume modeling, because the type of modeling in the middle of the plot in reality is ready-made, for example, the total amount of costume modeling in China is not very large, so it is easy to increase this efficiency.
Just now I also mentioned that we found that now in each software, for example, different plug-ins, its unity is unified with programming software, the good point is that natural language programming can make the actual operation staff you really let him write a language from scratch He may be quite difficult, or it takes a long time, now let him use natural language programming will indeed improve a lot of efficiency, this aspect is quite obvious. From the management point of view, the process of these positions just involved may become shorter, which is now some obvious trends, I will share with you.
Wu Yanyu: Thank you. Although I just asked the creator whether he will be anxious, but everyone knows very well that the core creator will not feel anxious or replaced because of this matter, on the contrary, the iteration of technology or the update of the system is more like a tool, indeed no matter how the technology develops, the core artificial productivity is impossible to replace, especially for art, inspiration is our unique thing. Same problem.
Zhao Rui: To be honest, I do have a little anxiety, and people are prone to anxiety because of your fear of this unknown thing. In the past two months, the most common thing our colleagues have asked me is that AI is out, will our work change. I tell them that AI is our tool, just use it well, which is indeed a comforting word, because we ourselves are still in the stage of understanding and understanding what it can do. Because this is a change, and change means that it can be a very big change, a change that we can hardly predict at the moment, and that's where my fear comes from. Now we will spend a lot of time to study what can be done, but still in the relatively early stage, everyone is a certain small point, we say can help me make a small tool, in fact, how these points finally have an impact on the whole process, and even for its definition I believe that the standard setters of this industry in the future, even Hollywood will formulate some, they have not yet reached this stage to say what things should be used, or whether they can be used. I think there's a little more unknown right now.
What can we do now? Let everyone try as much as possible, since everyone is here, everyone will try. I remember that ChatGTP just came out, we went live within a week of the company, we let everyone use it internally, you guys try it, just in our company's internal system they can directly ask ChatGTP questions, and then they can do it, access our internal management system, now I think it's better to let everyone use it first, after using it for a while, sit down and then take a closer look at what it can bring us. I'm still a little anxious myself, and I hope it will pass soon.
Wu Yanyu: On the left, I saw Mr. Shen sharing the layout and thinking of the direction of AIGC, is it actually past the anxiety stage?
Shen Leping: I think it is still necessary to focus on potential, objectively it has subverted an industry, especially the birth of AIGC. For our creation, the first surprise, like many creators, including the painters, including the director. It's not a demo it can write some little stories, creative IDs, can do some ideation. It turns out that you yourself have to rack your brain to think of a lot of ideas, but now you seem to be standing in front of a mirror and saying, "The magic mirror tells me, what is the next inspiration?" "People will feel very spiritual, very good, give you a hundred new inspirations every day, this hundred new inspiration comes from the crystallization of human decades and hundreds of years of inspiration, it is presented to you in the shortest possible time according to your needs." At this time, the surprise is definitely there, but the accompanying anxiety is that it seems that ideas are still emerging faster than we ordinary creators. If a creator finally asks this magic mirror all day, it seems to be a very hurtful self-esteem thing for the creator.
Our team has faced new technological changes before, including experimentation. There were also such so-called difficult times, including when we were using real-time processes, and there were many disputes and even rejections within our team. For something immature, or something completely new. Anyway, he was proud to be a coachman, and the birth of the car would bring anxiety. Of course, our advice is that you learn to drive as soon as possible, and you can drive a horse-drawn carriage and a car, which is of course the best.
At that time, it was recommended that all our teams read a book, at that time there was a lot of controversy, could not be pushed, and even resisted a lot, we pushed a book "The Plan of Weapons", talking about the era of cold weapons and hot weapons evolution Everyone questioned it. After reading it, everyone has fully entered the learning process in the second week, and this wave is basically irresistible when it comes. We have to learn how to swim in the new wave, improve our cognition and our skills. Make full use of the hundred ideas you give every day, is it possible to achieve self-breakthroughs in inspiration, many breakthroughs of people, ancients to modern times are often from the support of technology, thousands of miles a day, thousands of miles away at any time communication, chat, meeting, in fact, all come from this part. The harm he caused and the anxiety he may cause are indeed there, but we can only cheer each other with all our friends, we can grasp the new era, grasp the new wave of technology. Turn it into a very good friend, not our opponent.
Wu Yanyu: The word good friend is very good, although everyone has more or less anxiety in the process of listening, but behind it can feel that everyone is actively embracing change, to a large extent, each era of change will of course destroy some inherent things, but new industries, more new behaviors and the future is unfolding in front of our eyes, and we can't expand too much in terms of time. Finally, I ask the four of you to stand today to look at the future, give some outlook on film and television technology, summarize in short words, what kind of new technological innovations are expected in this industry next, or in the current work, which have planted seeds for the future, please guide first.
Lu Beike: I dare not say the outlook, but let me share the anxiety topic that everyone mentioned. In fact, I personally have been a science fiction lover since I was a child, and it may be that my sense of surprise exceeds anxiety, so my feeling is that I feel that I should hurry up and see what is going on. So my most intuitive feeling is that Mr. Shen just said "friend" is very good, my intuitive feeling is that we will have a good sense of collaborators developed from the human own technology. Although sometimes it feels like this collaborator is more powerful than you, you think deeply that it is still human-generated, and it is not from aliens. So I think the mentality of the future, the mentality of synergy with the power of AI, I think we should embrace it in our future work and the development of CG industry technology, which is one of them.
Second, it will be obvious that there will be changes in the media. Now in fact, these media we see are basically flat media, in the next generation of VR media transformation process, we should use the existing technology accumulation to promote its transformation into the overall media faster. Many of the creative methods we are discussing now, such as the editing method of film montage, still exist in the VR medium? We are creators who are in a transition period, and this part is looking forward to working with the teachers and the audience
Zhou Wang: When we do any technological exploration, we will adhere to the four words "science and technology for good". In the future, whether from the perspective of scientific and technological development or the application stage, in terms of process control, I believe that AI is a very humanized auxiliary tool, and I believe that the creation and pursuit of art will always come first, which is also the beauty of human wisdom. So I believe that no matter how AI develops, even if it develops into the level of robots in science fiction movies mentioned by Mr. Lu, it will definitely follow similar principles and rules. So applying AI, understanding its path, and making it available to humans is the goal of the future. Tencent Video also hopes to empower the entire ecosystem and help everyone move forward together.
Wu Yanyu: Apply AI well to empower future development. Please Mr. Shen.
Shen Leping: Practitioners have made efforts from the systematization and industrialization just mentioned, and done a good job in infrastructure projects, reserved future interfaces, and actively embraced the new wave of technology, new concepts, technology, it further relaxed the threshold for creators, so that more enthusiastic and thoughtful people, and even the audience, even the original amateur creators can create high-quality works. This is also what we expected earlier, for example, we do science fiction works looking forward to the future, in fact, we hope that our future young group, this generation and the next generation of more audience groups their hearts, vision, including their focus on the future, they dare to imagine, and also have this confidence to perform. So I think it's definitely very positive for the industry as a whole. And we are very happy to join you in the whole tide to welcome a better tomorrow.
Zhao Rui: Our group are the first to learn new technologies, and they may have started using new things 20 years ago, and it should be said that they are the most willing to accept changes. Of course, now, we see the advent of a new era, colleagues around me, including this group of people who have begun to be anxious, everyone has a lot of uncertain ideas about the future, I think encourage everyone, when we started this industry 20 years ago, we didn't have any information, everyone came from that era, since the new era is coming, it is no longer the same as before. Whether it is an old group of practitioners or new people, encourage everyone to take on new challenges. One day, we will move on to the next platform and reach new heights.
Wu Yanyu: Thanks to the sharing of the four of you, the sharing of several of them is very pragmatic and rigorous, and at the same time has a very grand "ambition", today's discussion may be more like the starting point of our discussion around film and television technology, and also put forward a vision. When the next time phase in the future comes, we can sit together and watch what kind of road we have traveled in the past, update the progress, and then look forward to the next future.
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