Scoring 9.7 on bilibili, the Domestic Animation “The Great Warrior Wall” has Great Potential

The hardest part of making a high-quality film is persistence, and there is no end to the animation, because it can always get better.

The lively Spring Festival has come to an end. In the wars when you came to me without a smoke, “Wandering Earth” won a total of nearly 4 billion box office. Director Guo Fan said in an interview with the media, ” If you want something you have never had, you have to do something you have never done before.”

Taking this sentence into the cultural industry of the new era, the industry level is improving, and hardware equipment is also improving. With the development of the industry, high-quality movies and TV works must be the future trend. Since the film and television industry is like this, the animation industry is no exception.

In recent years, China’s animation industry has developed rapidly, and the animation market has great potential for development, but there is still a gap compared with countries with advanced animation industry. Therefore, at present, keeping up with the future development trend and producing excellent and high-quality original works is the urgent task for domestic animation to meet the needs of all levels of society.

In 1995, the American Disney Company and Pixar Animation Studio jointly launched “Toy Story 1”, which was the first long story animation completely made by 3D computer animation, which caused great shock in the industry at that time. From a technical point of view, this is the first revolution in the history of animation. The success of this film has made 3D animation the mainstream of American animated films, and has led the rapid development of the animation industry.

Later, whether it was the “Toy Story” series of animated films or “Flying House Tour”, along the way, Pixar Animation Studios spent a lot of manpower and resources to research and develop new technologies to simulate human expressions and polish the realities of animation. Sex. American animated filmmakers have always understood that animation design and production are like sailing against the water. If you don’t pursue high-quality images, they will be surpassed by other countries or regions sooner or later. Therefore, many animators have said that half of the success of American animated films is the success of technical quality, and the other half is the success of image and plot.

We turned our attention to the domestic animation industry, and we can see many works like “Luo Xiaohei Ji Ji”, “Fox Demon Little Match”, “Giant Great Wall Biography”, “Magic Dao”, “Under the One Man” and so on. A lot of new explorations have been made. In order to allow readers to understand more intuitively, the author made a simple understanding and analysis in the early 2019, the new domestic TV animation “Giant Great Wall Biography”. Recently, the film has been widely concerned by netizens with its image quality, bloody plot, and positive positive values.

From the screen, the film abandons the traditional pursuit of technology, without excessive pursuit of skin, hair and other details of the design, and instead focus on color, lens use, character expression, motion fluency and so on. Whether it is falling leaves, sugary people with glittering powdered sugar, drums and bamboo forests, such as the use of real scenes, character image design, clothing and dressing reference history and culture, etc., or the details of the fighting scenes of the protagonist’s large scenes and angles, They are all remarkable.

▲ Domestic TV animation “Giant Great Wall Biography” PV

In terms of word of mouth, “Giant Great Wall Biography” has scored 9.7 points in Station B. The work was broadcast in the golden file, and the ratings broke 1.38%. “Village Guardian” is comparable, whether in the official Weibo or in the comment area of ​​the major broadcast platforms, netizens have given this film great enthusiasm, shouting “acceptable.” It must be said that all kinds of traces are proving that the market potential of high-quality Guoman is not limited to what we have seen before.

Under the online, “Giant Great Wall Biography” has also received the attention of many industry experts. Song Lei, director of the Development and Research Department of China Animation Group, said not long ago that “The Great Wall of Great Walls” is an animation work with film-level production standards. It uses Chinese elements such as ‘Great Wall’ and ‘Dragon’ to successfully culture. Blend with the animation.”

Mao Yong, secretary general of the Cartoon Committee of the China Television Artists Association, feels very gratified. “I can make such a great effort for a piece of work, and regardless of its art style or technical ability, or the rhythm of this narrative, I feel very good, indeed it is It has reached a film-level level. As far as the development of the Chinese animation industry has been carried out over the years, many technical capabilities and design capabilities have been very good, and it is almost ready to be in line with international standards.”

“Giant Great Wall Biography” is an all-animal three-dimensional fantasy blood series cartoon produced by Youku, two-point anime and electric animation, and polished by two o’clock. I have created two points of IP such as “Stone of the Tomb” and “I am Jiang Xiaobai”. The animation “Building the Great Wall” specially selected the animation team with the experience of making movies, with the standards and attitude of the film. To create a TV animation series, it is no effort.

The high-quality picture effect is not well-made after the opening of the team. This time, we have the honor to interview the creative team of “The Great Wall of the Great Wall”, listen to them to share the details behind the creation, and feel the heart of the original team creation.

“There is no end to doing animation, because it can always be better.”

Q: “Giant Great Wall Biography” is a TV anime drama. In addition to the serious story, why do you want to pursue high image quality?

A: Animators have the dream of making an animated film, and hope that their work can be presented on the big screen. “Giant Great Wall Biography” is our own IP, just like our own children, so even if “Giant Great Wall Biography” is not a big movie, we still hope to use the existing resources to make it the best and the ultimate.

In the eyes of many people, we actually chose to make this film in a way that seems unappealing. In the process of production, whether it is the accuracy of the image quality, the erection of the lens, or the level of detail of the performance, we will be more demanding than ever.

In the end, we are still very pleased that the picture quality of the film is always above the level line, and even after the production is getting more and more sophisticated, the picture is getting better and better.

Q: It is actually more costly to pursue high quality in such a large-volume work of “Giant Great Wall Biography”. How do you balance the relationship between efficiency and cost?

A: The hardest part of making a high-quality film is persistence, and there is no end to the animation, because it can always be better. Because this is a TV episode, it is difficult to maintain high image quality all the time. We will have pressures on budget and cycle, but we try not to think about it, and we don’t have time or energy to think about it. Because there is no way to choose, there is no way to balance, and the triangular relationship of quality, time and capital cannot be broken. The only thing we can do is to bite the scalp, clench our teeth, use all the resources in the current situation, do everything, and do our best.

We have positioned “Giant Great Wall Biography” as the first animal-like fantasy blood animation series in China. Whether it is just starting to draw the picture effect atmosphere map, or according to the atmosphere map for post-synthesis, each shot will produce a single-frame effect picture. We will correct each effect picture from the perspective of visual art, and create this with the standard and attitude of making movies. Works, and from the beginning to the end are all demanding themselves at the film level.

“The roles are all for the plot”

Q: There are a lot of netizens who have posted some fan maps on Weibo. Everyone expresses their concern and love for the characters. What is unique in character design?

A: This is a whole animal character work, so the balance we need to balance is to be like an animal and a few people in the shape and performance. It is necessary to preserve the animal’s true habits and also to consider the audience. The empathy of the time.

Therefore, in order to control the shape of the character, we put together a dozen versions of the character setting diagrams in the design process to compare and compare, and finally design the character image that everyone sees now. The model version of the protagonist Ono is as many as thirty.

For example, Ono, it is a wolf. The original wolf is an animal that is farther away from us and more fierce. Therefore, we also refer to pet dogs with wolf genes such as Husky and Samoyed as reference. In order to balance the personality of Ono, we are shaping When I was a character, I chose a white complexion and blue clothes.

The setting of the heroine’s wash in the drama is actually an orange cat that Chinese people prefer. Its color and costume design are designed with the image of an orange cat, and we have made some differences between the pattern and the face. Processing, so it is unique.

The ice flow setting is a rabbit, which is a very cute animal in real life. In order to create a cool character, we chose the gray main color with blue clothing, plus the frozen shape weapon, the whole character. The character of the image jumped out instantly.

Having said that, in fact, the characters are all serving the plot. The thought we spend on this is to make the character more attractive and attractive, and to strive for natural and smooth performance in the role performance.

In terms of facial expressions, it is also changed from the previous two-dimensional map to the real expression of the body. Accurately, the five senses will have their own design structure, and then use motion capture and face capture to interpret the characters.

Q: Compared with other children’s animations, “Special Effects” is a lot of special effects. What is the most difficult part of this special effect?

A: Compared with the same type of children’s animation, “The Great Wall of the Great Wall” has a lot of special effects. Although the team is full of experienced old animators, but it is still a feeling of crossing the river by feeling the stones, we will also die because the picture effect has not reached the ideal state.

For example, on the first time, Ono summoned the special effects scene of the giant soldiers. Because the small giants made their debut, the team paid great attention to it. But in fact, for us, to make this scene from text to concrete form, we need great imagination, so our special effects team found a lot of reference to sneak peek to find the direction of production, but the final effect not bad.

For example, after the ice has flowed out of the field and the special effects scene of the night fight from test to completion, it has spent more than 250 hours on the special effects team; the lens production volume including the vortex cloud is also a challenge for the special effects team, they are From the more than ten sets of lenses, we will select the special effects shots that everyone sees.

“A good work must be able to touch people’s hearts and create empathy.”

Q: Everyone will describe the “Giant Great Wall Biography” with the quality of the big movie. To achieve this effect, what kind of thought did the team spend in the production time of this year?

A: First of all, in the big picture of the whole film, we think that every child lives in an adult. They can understand the plot and understand the quality of the picture as well as adults. A good work must be able to touch people’s hearts and produce empathy. Our original intention is not to look at the children, but to ask them to take a little effort, but the more they look, the more they taste, through this film. Let the children think a little and try to have a dream.

Secondly, in the production, because animation is an adventure theme, not only the scenes involved, but also different scenes with different scenes, so we have established the system’s lighting standards, scene standards, subdivision processes, in order to achieve high efficiency and high quality. Production. In terms of lighting effects, we use 4-5 盏 lighting layering, split channel, you can freely switch the degree of light receiving, switch the atmosphere at will, give more free space in the later stage, and the screen operation is more flexible.

In terms of technology development, we have changed the animation creation process through innovative tools. The company specially set up a research and development group for the giant project, developing automation tools according to the needs of different links in the production, using plug-ins and scripts to save the process of repetitive labor, and solving process collaboration and optimization. For example, the R&D team developed scripts for the automatic fluttering of the streamers on Ono and the wash head, which greatly saved the animator’s time, and they could focus on animations and expressions.

Q: We can see that there are various styles of architectural design in the film, and also see some details with Chinese elements. Is there any design concept in it?

A: I think art doesn’t just mean the beauty of the picture, but also the story from the picture, so we all use the story to create these pictures. Our creative team is very proud of me. The creative staff are very thoughtful and individual. They often throw a point out, and everyone will brainstorm and add to this element.

What we think is that China is 9.6 million square kilometers. We should show the great rivers and mountains of the motherland to the next generation through animation. So we designed four countries with the attributes of the animal world. In the case of Qingshuiguo, as the name suggests, the mountains and rivers are green, and the landscape of China is naturally the land of Guilin. So we took the mountains of Guilin as the basic elements and the whole picture, and the green color is the basic color to reflect the Qingshui country. A peaceful, clean country.

Of course, this is not enough, so we have made other attempts, such as strange landscapes, cascades of waterfalls, paddy fields, emblem buildings, novel rabbit holes, volcanoes with fantastic colors, in order to make Chinese cultural elements more fashionable. Some, we are constantly trying.

Next is the second country we designed, Baichen State. It is located in the center of the mainland in our story. It is the capital of the king. We naturally think of the kingdom being the ancient capital of the nine dynasties, so we refer to the Drum Tower to design the Imperial City. And in the whole atmosphere, because this king city is about to be destroyed by the war, we have adopted the feeling of a sunset and snow.

The third country, the Sands Country, as the name suggests, the Western Region, the Yellow Sands, the Gobi Beach, this is also the story that will appear in our follow-up plot. We call it the Silk Road, which can convey some of the fusion of different cultures. Collision should have an attitude.

The design of the Black Wind Country In the architectural style, we will learn from some Tibetan architecture of the Potala Palace. We want to let the children stay at home and enjoy the great rivers and mountains of the motherland. Therefore, I feel that art is not only beautiful, but only a picture, just a color. I think that art must be given more and deeper things to be richer.

When it comes to the expectation of the work, the team said, “Our perspective is storytelling. I hope to finish the story and let this IP stay with you for a long time. We still have a lot of ideas to achieve.”

Of course, animation is the product of a variety of art synthesis, providing a platform to fully demonstrate your imagination and art. Animists should keep a clear head while pursuing technology and image quality. They should not abandon other important factors such as plot, person setting, and narrative rhythm. We also hope that more high-quality domestic animation works will appear in the future.