Rendering software Cameron knows, to put it simply, the role of this software is to make the basic renderings produced by the computer in terms of lighting, material, color, etc., complex calculations, so that the image effect becomes more real and credible, and even reaches the process of difficult to distinguish between real and false.

The special effects producer for Abyss, Industrial Light & Magic, now uses Renderman, a rendering software developed by Ed Carmore.

When Ed Camor was still in ILM, George Lucas was very forward-looking to buy the permanent right to use this software, and after Jobs bought the animation division of ILM to establish Pixar, Ed Camour put this software into Pixar to obtain a certain equity, but as Jobs continued to inject funds into the loss-making Pixar, the equity of several managers of Pixar was eventually recovered by Jobs, and the Reanderman software also became Pixar's property.

When Eric tried to take over Pixar from Steve Jobs, Jobs tried to divest the renderman software from Pixar's inventory, but failed, which shows the value of the software.

After reading the development plan of the fluid simulation software and understanding the general situation of the Reanderman rendering software, Cameron immediately became interested in the 3D modeling software that Eric just said, and from Eric's words, Cameron keenly felt that the 3D modeling software that Eric said1 was the top priority of this plan.

"San Francisco hasn't discussed a detailed plan yet, and I originally planned to commission Autodesk to develop the software, but there was no agreement on the ownership of the software. In the end, you have to do it yourself. "Faced with Cameron's curiosity. Eric explained.

"Autodesk?" Cameron asked, confused.

"It's the famous AutoCAD software industrial design software development company," Eric said, according to the information in memory, several major 3D animation design software Maya, 3DMAX, and SoftImage in the previous life are all products of Autodesk, and Autodesk has almost monopolized this kind of film and television special effects software.

But even if history doesn't change in any way, that's more than a decade later.

Now Autodesk is also focusing on the development and operation of AutoCAD, an industrial design software, because computer film and television special effects are just emerging, Autodesk is not interested in the development of 3D animation software for film and television special effects. Because they don't think there is much commercial prospect for this kind of highly professional level software.

The reason why Eric wants to entrust Autodesk to develop is mainly because Autodesk has nearly ten years of technology accumulation in 3D design software development, which can greatly shorten the development time of 3D modeling software, however, although Autodesk is not interested in this kind of software, it still wants to share the ownership of the software with Eric, and in the end, the two sides did not negotiate, and Eric can only organize his own team to develop.

Hearing Eric mention AutoCAD, Cameron remembered and asked a series of detailed questions. Cameron finally asked, "Eric, how much are you going to invest in these projects?" I think it's going to be a very big expense. ”

"The development of fluid simulation software and the optimization of Renderman didn't cost much money. $30 million is enough, the main thing is Maya, this software requires continuous investment, but I think it will definitely bring me enough returns in the future. ”

"Maya, do you mean the name of the 3D modeling software you said, I didn't think you were still interested in the mysterious Maya civilization. ”

Eric explains: "Maya here is not a guide to the Mayan civilization of the Americas, but rather an ancient Indian word that means 'dream'. ”

"The name is still ...... That's apt," Cameron said with a smile.

"Of course, in fact, 3D modeling is only the most basic function of Maya, and in my plan, I will continue to add 3D animation, simulation, special effects and other functions in the future, and will interface with Reanderman rendering software to form a complete special effects production process," Eric confidently said, of course, these are just his technical ambitions.

The reason why there will be so many mainstream or non-mainstream special effects software in the previous life is mainly because within ten years of the rise of computer special effects, most software giants are not optimistic about the business prospects of this type of software, and many old special effects companies can only develop their own.

But now, Eric has made this move much earlier than many people, and he has no idea of letting the digital field exclusively use Maya, but after the design of this software is mature, he will plan to bring it to market while ensuring that the digital field is absolutely ahead of the curve. He believes that when there is a mature special effects software that can be used, there will not be many special effects companies willing to develop independently.

This is still the first step, with the development of the digital field and the promotion of Maya software, slowly, many film and television special effects solutions and special effects plug-ins will be developed based on Maya software, just like many applications are developed based on the Windows system, and finally form a strong binding effect.

At that time, even if there are giants in the software industry who want to get involved in this software field, Maya's software status in the film and television special effects industry is already equivalent to Windows and operating systems.

It was always a hassle for a woman to clean up, Eric came back from the tennis court, and it only took more than ten minutes to take a shower and change clothes, while it took more than half an hour for Famick Jensen to walk into the study with a pot of coffee, and the girl had already changed out of the hot crop top and hot pants, wearing a simple white T-shirt and khaki loose slacks, her hair was slightly wet, and her face was also wearing light makeup.

"Mr. Cameron, Ms. Bigelow, do you need coffee?" asked Famick Jensen, pouring his coffee.

Catherine Bigelow, who was originally standing by the wall admiring Eric's storyboard sketches, turned around, smiled and nodded, and took the initiative to come forward to help, while Cameron, who had just been amazed by Famick, had completely lost interest in beauty at this time, and was enthusiastically discussing the special effects of the disaster film series with Eric, and only nodded slightly when he heard Famick's inquiry, and did not even turn his eyes.

"Miss Jensen, don't mind, Jim is like that, focusing on one thing and not paying attention to anything more," said Catherine Bigelow apologetically when she saw Cameron's ignorance of Famic.

Farmik Jensen brought two cups of coffee to Cameron and Eric, returned to the couch and sat down, and then said, "It's nothing, in fact, Eric sometimes does this, once I saw him walking around the window with a frown, so I went up to ask what was wrong, but Eric seemed to be awakened, and became very angry, saying that I had driven away his inspiration." ”

After Farmik Jensen finished speaking, the two women looked at each other, and they invariably felt a sense of sympathy.

Perhaps for this reason, the two women quickly chatted together, and also affectionately called each other by nicknames. (To be continued......)