I am the only one who practices magic: I practice magic in the city

Chapter 497: People's Hearts Are Unstable (1000 new words added, be sure to read it again)
Fang Yu, who was surrounded, answered everyone's questions one by one.

"What did Mr. Ni ask just now? Development tool chain, right? Currently there are no third-party tools, and no third-party API calls are open, so only the engine comes with development tools."

"For materials, the system has a built-in basic resource library and also supports the import of external material files. Mirage supports all formats. Yes, there is no word 'almost', it means all."

“Whether it’s fbx, png, wav, anim, or shader, so far, I haven’t found any material format that Mirage cannot support.”

Fang Yu took a pad, opened the Mirage tool chain, and demonstrated it to the people present.

"In order to make it easier for developers to find materials, all third-party material libraries are integrated into the development tools. When you encounter the materials you need, you can directly click to apply for purchase, and the system will automatically distribute orders to these third-party material libraries."

“As for the materials on the Unity Asset Store and Unreal Marketplace, Youguo Games is a legally operated formal company and will not actively violate the law. The licensing agreement stipulates that they can only be used within the respective engine environment, so we do not support importing them.”

“But if you have your eyes on a resource there, we also provide a solution.”

"The development tool has a built-in 'one-click authorization application' function that can automatically initiate a contact request with the original author."

“If the author agrees and authorizes, we will automatically generate a legal license based on the material sent by the author, and the entire process does not require manual processing.”

"You ask this? Oh, this is the 'magic pen' function in the tool chain. It can convert the original painting into a 3D model of different quality and style according to the requirements."

“…Yes, this is also the kind of human-computer interaction environment we want to create, just like colleagues communicating with each other by pointing at the screen, except that this colleague may be an AI…”

……

While Zhu Yifei was listening to Fang Yu's answers to his questions, he frowned and looked at the pad in his hand with a look of half disbelief and half reluctance.

On the Pad was the Mirage Engine Work Chain Platform, to which they had just been granted temporary permissions.

Is this the engine platform developed by Da Zhou’s game company itself?

Whether in terms of effects or speed, even the development tools have surpassed the Unreal Engine platform?
Even though he had just experienced the shock of "Taishhuang·Shanhaijie" and was holding a pad with the Mirage Engine Toolchain client in his hand, he couldn't believe it.

To be exact, I don't want to believe it.

There is a chain of contempt in every industry, and the gaming industry is no exception.

From the perspective of the global gaming industry, web games are generally at the bottom. A little higher up are web games that emphasize "come and kill me if you're a brother", followed by mobile games, and above that are PC client online games. As for independent games, their quality varies greatly. Those of high quality have a stronger sense of superiority than broken glass, while those of poor quality are even worse than mobile games.

At the top of the contempt chain are the 3A masterpieces that are regarded as the pinnacle of "technology + art + industrialization" and represent "real gaming art."

Of course, in the Great Zhou Dynasty, the situation of the contempt chain was slightly different.

Due to various reasons, the stand-alone industry of the Great Zhou Dynasty disappeared almost overnight ten years ago, leaving only pay-to-win online games and mobile games.

Almost all senior talents in the industry have shifted to these two directions.

Therefore, based on the ability to make money, the game industry in the Great Zhou Dynasty formed a special contempt chain of PC client - mobile games - Tanwan web games - independent games.

Oh, by the way, web games are basically not considered part of the gaming industry. Neither the development team nor the channels have anything to do with games.

Most game companies are content-driven, and professionals such as planners, artists, and programmers have a strong say. However, this is not the case with web games. Web games are based on pure channels, and technical personnel are essentially workers. In such a company, no matter how strong the technology is, it is equivalent to a workshop director.

Of course, there are few people with strong technical skills in this kind of company. The boss’ office is like a tea room. Many of the people who come and go are energetic young men and women from his hometown, and all the aunts and uncles are in the company.

In essence, they belong to the private capital of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, and they just do whatever makes money.

However, there are also some of them who took advantage of this opportunity to transform themselves into game investors and participated in the investment of many games. They have truly squeezed half a foot into the gaming circle. This is another topic.

However, there is a very important link missing in Da Zhou's chain of contempt - 3A.

Because there really isn't.

A few years ago, some people in places like NGA were still imagining when a true 3A would be born in Da Zhou, and they still had some aspirations for 3A.

But in recent years, with the popularity of pay-to-win games, almost all players feel that it is impossible for Da Zhou to produce a 3A game.

Because no capital would be willing to do such a high-investment, long-cycle, and high-risk thing.

As a result, a theory that 3A is useless has emerged. Many people laugh at the fact that a 3A work takes 5 years to develop, but the revenue is not as high as that of a pay-to-win mobile game with a development cycle of three months.

Every time he heard this kind of argument, Zhu Yifei would snort and curse in his heart with disdain:
——I don’t understand shit. Do you know what 3A is?
That is the crown jewel of the gaming industry!

It's a typical case of people complaining about sour grapes when they can't eat them. Do you know how 3A is developed?
I have been following the full process of 3A development since I entered the industry more than ten years ago!

He has always believed that, in terms of both qualifications and abilities, he is the most knowledgeable and powerful game producer in the Da Zhou gaming industry, and has never really looked down on those pay-to-win mobile and online game teams.

Because his first job was an internship at Youbi, after working there for a while, he went to a Miami studio that specializes in outsourcing for EA.

3A manufacturers are also divided into different levels.

Rockstar, which has its own self-developed engine and created the most profitable product in the history of global entertainment, sits at the top of the pantheon. Game developers who have worked for Rockstar will basically receive top-level treatment if they go to any other company.

As for YouBi and EA, where he had worked, they were at most blue-collar factories in the 3A industry chain.

What happened to the blue-collar factory? Even if it is a blue-collar factory, it is a blue-collar factory that applies the precision molding of Salvagnini, the efficient collaboration of Yaskawa, and the full process control of Fanuc!
Do those small domestic workshops understand PLC? Even if you were given a Yaskawa Fanuc, would you use it?
Dayu, once the benchmark of the game industry in the Great Zhou Dynasty and known as the Blizzard of the Great Zhou Dynasty, was almost criticized for not being able to use the Unreal Engine when developing The Legend of Sword and Fairy 6 more than ten years later.

In the era when people were still playing Red Alert in Internet cafes, he was already using the Unreal 2 editor to design levels for Splinter Cell 2.

Moreover, as a foreign company that was the pride of the time, although their income was not as high as that of their foreign colleagues sent to Da Zhou, it was much higher than that of other domestic companies, and the work pressure was incomparable.

When other companies complain that their employees are not worked enough, they are at most busy for the first three months of the game's release, and may even have to work overtime until midnight.

The rest of the time is spent slacking off. The effective working hours are less than two hours a day. It is impossible to take all the annual leave. Every year, HR has to send emails to force employees to take all the annual leave for the previous year before the end of the year. They have no choice but to take it.

The close contact with the most advanced technology in the industry plus the treatment far exceeding the average level in Da Zhou made him feel extremely superior for quite a long time.

That sense of superiority is like walking into a brick factory wearing a suit and seeing everyone else is dirty except him wearing a tie.

It was not until a few years after I left the outsourcing company and started my own business that this sense of superiority began to become distorted.

Yes, it is distorted, not disappearing.

Because we make a lot of money by making pay-to-win web games and mobile games in Da Zhou!
He just couldn't understand how a low-level pay-to-win mobile game that didn't even use Unity, had a development cycle of one or two months, could make tens of millions or even hundreds of millions in a month?
His stable high income, which he was once proud of, is like Kong Yiji in a long gown in front of the mobile game upstarts who get rich overnight and even get 108 yuan in year-end bonuses. He envious and jealously says Ah Q's words to Mr. Zhao: "We used to be much richer than you."

But the difference between him and Kong Yiji and Ah Q is that he has money.

Although they are not as rich as those pay-to-win mobile game teams that get rich overnight, they have earned millions over the years and can be considered to have achieved a low level of financial freedom.

Moreover, he really loves games. He knows all of them, whether it is the Famicom games from thirty years ago or the newly released Dark Souls 3. He dreams of making a real 3A game himself.

In a weird way, the sense of superiority turned into a sour sense of superiority, and it raised its head more and more proudly in front of pay-to-win online games and pay-to-win mobile games.

He was unwilling to turn to the mobile game direction, and was even more disdainful of dealing with his peers in Da Zhou. He focused on the international market, hoping that he could make Da Zhou's first world-renowned 3A game.

How should I put it, the main point is a twist.

But no matter how twisted you are, you still have to eat.

He previously said he was financially free, but that was because he had not started a business.

What can he and his friends do with the millions they invested?

Originally, he thought that since he and his team all came from large foreign companies and had impressive resumes, it would be very easy to find investment.

But who would have thought that in recent years, the venture capital circle has basically become disenchanted with people coming out of foreign companies, believing that people in foreign companies are overambitious and out of touch with reality. If you want to do venture capital in Zhou, you still have to invest in local people.

So, he could only rely on himself and a few partners to pool money to survive.

Three years ago, we finally found an angel investor who invested two or three million, but it was not enough to persist until we saw results.

After they signed a development agreement with Suo Dafa last year, an investment institution decided to invest some money and the agreement was signed. However, before the second payment was made in June this year, the institution suddenly said that due to changes in the group, the remaining funds would have to be delayed.

He inquired about it and found out that it was caused by the changes in Xinhao. They said that the payment would be delayed, but how long it would be delayed and whether it could be paid was completely unknown.

But the problem is that it becomes difficult to find other investments.

After all, the agreement had been signed and part of the money had been paid, but it was not paid later. There were too many equity disputes involved.

This was also the reason Yu Dan gave when he did not vote for him before.

Of course, the main reason is that although Yu Dan recognized the technology of this team, he was not optimistic about his market and did not like his personality, but he did not tell him.

So this time, as soon as he received Yu Dan’s call, he ran over immediately to see if he could get a new opportunity.

Even after arriving in Haixi and knowing that it was Youzi Technology that wanted to make games, he was still somewhat skeptical.

Especially when he heard Fang Yu say that the performance of Youguo Games' "Mirage Engine" far exceeded that of Unreal Engine 4, he sneered even more.

He doesn't think he is a Western worshiper.

However, over the years, every few years there are a few companies from outside the industry that rush into the gaming industry, waving money and claiming to change the industry.

It is said that game companies represented by Ren Tianguo are outdated and they want to overthrow Ren Tianguo.

What was the result? Not to mention the overthrow of Ren Tianguo, up to now, no company that shouted such slogans has really been able to gain a foothold in the game industry. He and Sui Yi have similar views in this regard.

Now his expression is very similar to Sui Yi's.

The difference is that he was four parts shocked, three parts unwilling, and three parts confused.

Sui Yi was three parts shocked, three parts disappointed, but four parts excited.

Is this really an engine developed by an outsider like Yuzu Technology?

How could an outsider company, and a Da Zhou company at that, possibly make such a powerful engine?
Is it possible to create a game with effects that surpass Unreal Engine 4 using only the computing power of mobile chips?
And even the development ecosystem is already there?

That's Unreal 4.

Even though he knew that Youzi Technology was a leader in the global AI industry and had already disrupted the search and short video fields, this disruption did not happen in his industry, and he had not even paid much attention to these two industries, so of course his understanding of it was not that deep.

But when this change occurred in the field he was familiar with and cared about most, and ruthlessly trampled on the technology of the company he believed to be invincible in the industry, the feeling was completely different.

The most important thing is that the principle of this engine is different from any previous engine, and it is a completely different technical route.

No wonder Yuzu Technology didn’t ask for confidentiality at all.

A glimmer of understanding flashed across Zhu Yifei's eyes.

Because they don't need to keep it secret at all!
They are not afraid even if the entire game plan is leaked.

All the game companies in the world now don’t even have the ability to copy them!
It was just like a melee among several countries in ancient times, where they were originally competing to see whose weapons were harder and more tough, and suddenly a troublemaker equipped with AK47 showed up.

Even if we throw a few guns and bullets over and let others copy them, how can they copy them?
For a moment, Zhu Yifei seemed to hear the sound of his own faith being shattered.

"Boss Tiger, since you are very familiar with the monsters in the pocket, then the Q version of the monsters in the demo will be optimized by your team, okay?"

In a trance, Zhu Yifei heard Yu Dan's voice in his ears.

"I?"

Zhu Yifei felt a little confused and nodded subconsciously. Then he reacted and was about to ask a question or two, but he saw Yu Dan started to communicate with other groups about work allocation. He swallowed back the words he was about to say.

"David, it shouldn't be difficult to optimize the plot of the demo. Three days should be fine, right? We need to leave time for storyboard production and testing later."

"Okay, then it's settled. Four days at most. Thank you for your hard work, brothers."

"Yocar, the reality modeling part..."
-
"Ma Liang, the material of these two wings should be similar to DSA51076. The material you generated now looks too much like a bat. Moreover, this pair of wings is closer to the head, so the material should be more delicate. Modify it again."

Sui Yi pointed to two places on the screen where texture rendering needed to be modified.

"I see. Do you mean to mix some of the animal's hair among the feathers?"

A magnetic young man's voice came from the earphones hanging on Sui Yi's ears.

Ma Liang is not a member of their team, but the voice wake-up name of the "magic pen" function in the mirage engine.

"That's right!" Sui Yi snapped his fingers. "Your description is very appropriate. Note that the closer to the wing root, the finer and softer the hair is, and the larger the proportion is. But the closer to the wing tip, the smoother and thicker the hair is, the smaller the proportion is, and the more feathers there are."

"Okay, I understand. I will only revise this part for you to take a look at. It will take about half a minute. Don't leave."

After that, the translucent ball representing the "Magic Pen Assistant" on the monitor began to rotate. Not long after, a high-poly preview image with baked textures that could be used for map generation appeared on Sui Yi's screen.

This high-poly preview is more detailed than any game screen.

"Mirage" is indeed better than "Unreal", but the fact that this high-poly model is more detailed than that of ordinary games is not proof that "Mirage" is better than "Unreal".

All game characters have a "high poly model", which may be made up of millions of triangles and is much more refined than the character modeling in the game screen.

High-poly models are not used for real-time rendering, but for texturing. By baking normals, the visual realism of 3D models in games can be improved.

High-poly models are usually made up of millions of triangles and are much more detailed than the models rendered in real time in game scenes.

It will not enter the game engine directly, but will be used to bake normal maps and other maps, so that low-poly models can also present fine details such as pores and wrinkles, improve realism and reduce the amount of calculation.

To put it more clearly, it is equivalent to two statues. The first statue not only has ears and nose, but also pores.

The artist then took photos of the skin of various parts of the statue, printed out the skin photos, and pasted them on the statue that only had the facial features carved on it.

At first glance, it looks like the statue has pores, but when you look closer, you can see that it is actually a photo.

A character with three million polygons may only have thirty thousand polygons even with the special effects turned to maximum in the game.

"Fuck! This magic pen is so fucking awesome! From sketch to original drawing, and from original drawing to high-resolution model, it takes at least three weeks of work, but it was done in just a few seconds... A-choo! A-choo~~~"

Sui Yi sneezed, took out a tissue from the tissue box next to him, and blew his nose.

After a night of autumn rain, the daytime temperature in Haixi dropped from nearly 30 degrees to more than 10 degrees, and only 7 or 8 degrees at night.

"Even if they use AI, they still have to calculate polygons. Do they use supercomputers for modeling? Otherwise, how can it be so fast?"

"Old Wei, the three views of Fei Yi have been annotated. I have generated a high-poly version. Take a look. If there are any problems, I will adjust them."

Sui Yi turned around and said something to Wei Ao, who was sitting back to back with him. His nose was rumbling, and it was obvious that he had a cold.

"it is good."

Wei Ao responded casually and clicked the synchronization button on the workbench. The changes in Sui Yi's project status appeared on the screen.

What they used was not TeamPulse, the internal management platform used by Youzi Technology and its subsidiaries, but the development chain that came with "Mirage".

These independent game companies were divided into five groups, and Wei Ao's group was mainly responsible for "realistic style" modeling.

"You drew fast enough. Didn't you want to use that 'magic pen' function? Why did you use it again?"

Wei Ao carefully examined the three views of "Fei Yi" painted by Sui Yi, which were densely marked with descriptions of various materials.

"In three days, we have to model twenty exotic beast characters. We have to use them even if we don't want to." Sui Yi took out another piece of paper and blew it, saying unhappily.

"By the way, don't forget to ask Danniu whether this 'Mirage Engine' is going to be open for licensing?"

"If it were open, I think we could start the Journey to the West game we've wanted to make for a long time now. We don't need an AR module, so it should be easier to make."

After hearing what Sui Yi said, Wei Ao let go of the mouse, thought for a moment, turned around, and patted Sui Yi on the shoulder.

"Old Sui, what do you think about us just integrating the Journey to the West game into this "Taihuang: Mountain and Sea Realm"?"

Hearing this, Sui Yi twisted his body and almost hit Wei Ao in the face with his elbow.

"What do you say?"

Wei Ao thought thoughtfully: "Don't you find it strange? This game has nothing but a big world view and some basic exotic beast settings. Even the world view can be expanded infinitely."

"The Taihuang fragments, what kind of fragments are they? Isn't it up to Youguo Games to decide? They can fuse mountains and seas, and they can also fuse Journey to the West. I suspect they even want to fuse science fiction, fairy tales, superheroes, and the like into it."

"Platform! What they want to do is a platform! This is a gaming platform disguised as a game!"

Wei Ao's eyes were filled with excitement.

Sui Yi was silent for a long time: "I don't deny this possibility, but I have two questions."

"First, how does this game make money? How do you set up a charging mechanism when so many things are integrated into it?"

"Secondly, why do they want us?"

"If you ask me, I think we can wait and see until their demo is released, and then find Danniu to learn more about it. What do you think?"

Sui Yi turned around and glanced through the window of the studio on the first floor, and saw a graceful figure in a long skirt turning around the corner.

She has a thin waist and a big body, and she has a great figure.

I didn't see clearly what he looked like, but he looked a little familiar?
Sui Yi was about to look away when he saw another tall woman with beautiful features walking past the window.

The woman was wearing a baseball cap and jeans, with a small backpack slung over her left shoulder. She lowered her head and walked quickly.

Her profile was flawless, with two lightly drawn eyebrows that flew into the temples, a high nose bridge, and eyes as black as ink. She was so beautiful that she didn't seem like a human being.

A plum branch, a little wet from the rain, lay across the window, and its leaves had become a little sparse.

Liu Feifei?
Sui Yi couldn't help but look out the window, but the other party had already turned the corner and he saw nothing.

Forget it, forget it, they must just look alike, so how could Liu Feifei appear here?

Sui Yi looked at the time. Shit, there were only ten hours left before the deadline, and he still had to model two more exotic beasts.

Sui Yi shrugged, looked away, picked up the 2048-level pressure-sensitive digital pen, and started writing and drawing on the Wacom Cintiq 27QHD that came with Youguo Games.

(End of this chapter)