The importance of computers is self-evident for the production of film special effects, with its help, not only can many special effects be extremely simple to do, but also many effects that are difficult to achieve manually can be easily put on the screen. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Therefore, as early as when Lucas was producing his Star Wars, he pioneered the way of renting supercomputers to assist in the production of special effects for movies. Although this is certainly a cost, just look at what 1982's "Star Trek: Khan's Wrath" looked like when it was first filmed with computer-aided filming, and compare it with 1979's "Alien".

And that was in 1982, and even the world's most powerful supercomputer at that time had only 400 million calculations per second, and "Khan's Wrath" didn't rent much of an exaggerated share. And now, the guy at the Livermore National Laboratory in California, where Alice and Maiya are going, is 3.9 billion times!

What is the concept of 3.9 billion times?

It's roughly the same as a Core i3 dual-core processor in the 21st century, and it's a grade with a higher frequency and close to the i5 series.

However, it is impossible for Alice to rent all the computers that people just baked last year, so what can be obtained is the level of a Pentium quad processor.

Quite rubbish.

But it's enough.

Mr. Akaman is a soldier, Maiya is independent and autonomous, and she also goes to the "office" with Alice, so Aunt Kaori, who is staying at home, has no objection to her daughter's sudden departure from the city when dinner is about to be made. In this way, in the middle of the night, the two girls raided someone's laboratory hundreds of miles away from Los Angeles.

Overall, the process went smoothly.

Even if the layman does not know the specific status of this national laboratory, since it can have the strongest new supercomputer released last year, it is obviously not comparable to ordinary scientific research institutes. For a lab like this, with a packed schedule, even in the early hours of the morning, there are a large number of people working, and of course you won't be caught off guard by the uninvited arrival of the two girls.

And in terms of the rental invitation, it also went very smoothly.

Supercomputers of any age have been rented out, and the question is who the tenant is and how long they need to be rented. For the capitalist United States, if Alice is at the forefront and buys a lot of supercomputers and most of the computers with huge sums of money, even if NASA wants to study rocket launches, they must honestly line up.

The end result was a four-month lease for Alice at 3.9 billion operations per second, equivalent to 75% of the computing power of the Core i3's low-end processor, for $10 million.

It is also thanks to the fact that this computer was just settled in the laboratory last year, and many enterprises and institutions that need computing power are still lined up with other supercomputers, otherwise it would not be Alice's turn to take three-quarters of the share.

Well, 75% of the 3.9 billion times, although it is still rubbish, it can still be the same as the original Core i3, at least much better than the Pentium IV.

The entire 10 million dollars of money was only used to rent supercomputers, and such a huge amount of money made Maiya simply stunned. However, Alice's words made her even more speechless.

"The more developed the economy, the more and more movies will be produced at a high budget, and there will be many similar situations in the future. Not to mention one or two thousand, even if it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to shoot, it will definitely appear after 2005!"

As for why it was 2005, Maiya certainly had nothing to say, but she did feel that what Alice said was correct. Looking back at the entire Hollywood movie shooting cost and box office, isn't it just getting higher and higher?

Of course, neither the arrival of the 10 million dollars nor the beginning of the lease period will take effect from now. After all, Alice hasn't even revised the script yet, Cameron, as a director, has to recruit actors immediately, and Mr. Lawrence also plans to be the producer himself, so there is still a lot of related work.

So, when Maiya drives the Humvee, refuels three times the whole way, and finally returns to Los Angeles, Alice will appear at DreamWorks again.

This is a film with an unprecedented investment cost!

Whether it's the cost history of Alice and DreamWorks, or all the movies in the entire history of Hollywood, this "Alien II" will be the most expensive!

"Ten million dollars, just to rent a supercomputer!?"

In the office of the chairman of DreamWorks at noon on a weekday, Lawrence was so frightened by the sky-high price that he couldn't keep his mouth shut: "Is it necessary to be so extravagant!? Even if it is Lucas's Star Wars New Hope, the entire shooting cost is only 13 million, right? 10 million is just to rent a computer, how high are you planning to make the shooting cost!?"

However, if Lawrence was worried about money, Cameron laughed excitedly as if he was a child who had been looking forward to a year and had just received the coveted Christmas present: "The world's most advanced supercomputer! 75% of the computer share! Haha, Alice, tell me about it, when you and Akaman's girl went to someone's lab, were those people scared stupid!?"

"It did scare a lot. ”

Alice smiled admittedly: "Ten million dollars, for a laboratory, this is a sky-high income, enough for them to conduct many experiments." After I showed the proof of property, the director hurriedly urged me to pay the deposit as if he was afraid that I would regret it, and the whole process went smoothly. ”

However, Lawrence still looked distressed: "But this is 10 million, I only spent so much to promote "Ghost Record" for you last year, even if you pay for this money yourself, 10 million......"

"Uncle Roger, why did you suddenly fall into the eye of money?"

Alice propped her chin with one hand and looked at Lawrence with disdain: "The problem is to look at it the other way around, since this movie spends so much money on special effects, how can the box office be bad? I have people who have made a box office of 200 million with "Ghost Shadow", the theme and sequel nature of "Alien II" are here, but if the box office also exceeds 100 million, isn't it a big profit?"

"Roger is just distressed. ”

Sitting in the corner of the sofa, Maimi, who was purely a driver for Alice again, suddenly interjected with a cashew nut in his mouth: "But Alice, now that you have computing power, how are you going to use it? Hiring Industrial Light and Magic will cost a lot of money, right? This is not counting equipment rental, I think you have this posture, you can't afford to rent armored vehicles from the US military, right?"

Lawrence nodded vigorously and smiled bitterly: "That's what I'm worried about, Alice, Lucas's asking price is never cheap, if you can ensure that you can handle the special effects part by yourself, I won't be so distressed, but ......"

"Then let Alice be my special effects artist!"

Cameron spoke, with Alice's such a large investment, the excitement of his whole body was aroused: "The last movie was the director, and the screenwriter of "Brain Cell Invasion", I said girl, since you are so eloquent, the position of the head of the special effects team should be deserved, right?"

"Just kidding, it's like a joke. ”

Of course, Alice took the job: "Just my brain, the endless creativity in my head, and my computer technology, to make special effects for your movie, isn't it easy to die?"

Seeing the girl boasting so much about her intelligence, the two adults and a high school girl in the room immediately burst out laughing.

"Okay, okay, then I'll hire one less!"

Cameron patted Alice on the shoulder, but then said, "However, you are not a professional special effects artist after all, and I still have to hire some more people in the industry." Let me see ......"

"At present, the industry is only doing computer special effects, is it good for industrial light and magic?"

Alice waved her hand and said, "Leave the work to me, you can rest assured." The Industrial Light & Magic gang is, to put it bluntly, a large collection of experts from all over the world, and you just need to hire some ...... Let me see ......"

Thinking about what technology is needed for "Alien II", Alice said: "Model designer and mechanical designer, these two types of people hire five people to work for me, it's enough!"

It's really enough.

Whether it is the design of the spaceship, the design of various sci-fi guns, or the design of colonial buildings, and many other aspects, with Alice's head, the design drawings are a concept that takes shape at one time. There are five model designers and five mechanical designers, who are responsible for making their own work according to Alice's requirements, just like a field command center with many mining exploration planes, just obey orders.

Cameron thought about it briefly and agreed.

If it were for other little girls to run in front of him and say this, if it weren't for the girl's sake, he Cameron would have kicked people out a long time ago.

But since it's Alice, this girl who has become a multimillionaire at such a young age by relying on technology patents has to be a different story.

After all, since she has already thrown 10 million into renting a computer, she will not waste the movies she has invested in, right?

"But I still have a question. ”

But Cameron still has a question: "You're the only one who knows how to operate a computer, and since you have rented so much computing power, you must have a way to make computer special effects, right? What kind of software do you use? Is it one of ILM?"

"Oh, this ......"

Alice touched her chin: "Maya, Premiere, After-Effects, Nuke, Fusion, Bustion, there are a lot of them." ”

Cameron frowned deeply, forming a deep forehead line: "Maya...... Which company's software is this? Why haven't I heard of it at all?"

"Oh, of course you haven't heard of it. ”

Alice shrugged her shoulders and grinned: "Because this is all software that I developed myself when I was bored, I plan to open another IT company to buy them~"

"What is the name of the company......?"

"Adobe! don't ask me why I'm doing this, I think it sounds good!"

"I didn't ask ......" (To be continued.) )