Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 74 (Seeking First Subscription) Wallpaper Rendering Contest

Currently, the total number of registered accounts for "Final Front" worldwide is close to 6 million, with the majority of these being "inactive accounts" created due to the Star Sharing mechanism.

However, even disregarding the fake accounts created by various factors, the number of real registered users on the entire Final Frontline exceeded 20 million at this point.

Furthermore, the proportion of monthly active users is also very high, around ten million.

This figure is higher than that of the previous "Honkai Impact 3". Three months after its public beta launch, "Honkai Impact 3" had 20 million registered users and about 4 million monthly active users.

Compared to its predecessor, Onmyoji, Onmyoji had nearly 100 million registered users and 14 million monthly active users three months after its public beta launch.

Data can reflect many things, such as the current influence of "Final Front".

With tens of millions of monthly active users, the impact of launching such an event is quite formidable.

Even many players who only watched the live stream and had only heard of "Final Frontline" before were attracted to the game by this "huge amount of benefits".

It seems like you'd be missing out if you didn't immediately download a live wallpaper and claim the skin.

In addition, many players discovered something else soon after downloading the wallpaper app and claiming the rewards: the wallpaper app, even setting aside the game.

The software itself seems pretty impressive!

It contains not only the officially preset animated GIFs.

For example, there are free wallpapers from PPSh, and a command room where you can interact and view some basic information.

There's also a live wallpaper featuring a space elevator taking off.

In addition, there is another interactive wallpaper, which is the AR team's changing room, a more everyday scene.

In the doll dormitory, M4A1, dressed in casual clothes, seemed to be hesitating in front of the wardrobe. Occasionally, she would pick up a piece of clothing and try it on, and she would also make some small movements in front of the mirror.

Although it doesn't have the explicit "interactive" gimmick of collaboration skins, its smooth and natural Live2D effects and delicate character micro-expressions still demonstrate a very high level of production quality.

Most importantly, all of these interactive wallpapers are free!!
You can use it as long as you link your "Final Front" account!!
The entire software maintains the clean UI of "Final Front" and is completely ad-free.

In addition to these official live wallpapers, the software also has a lot of "player-made wallpapers," some of which are quite nice.

It's not just computers.

Many players have also reported that after setting their phones to live wallpaper, the software has an "automatic shutdown" function, meaning that if the player does not use the phone for a certain period of time, it will automatically switch to static wallpaper mode.

Therefore, the phone's power consumption did not increase significantly, and it ran smoothly.

Based on the first batch of users who downloaded it for free, as well as the core players of "Final Front", Starry Sky's wallpaper software quickly began to spread on its own through word of mouth.

Because of the enormous initial user base, and because wallpaper software is something that "anyone can use," the second wave of discussion was incredibly intense.

It was even more exaggerated than Chu Chen had imagined.

The first to be ignited were naturally the major gaming forums and player communities.

Initially, the discussion focused on topics such as "free skins are really great" and "Starry Sky Games is generous," but soon the trend changed.

From core gamers to casual gamers, and even casual users who weren't particularly interested in "Final Frontline" but were drawn in purely by its "free, high-quality live wallpapers," Star Wallpapers' reputation began to spread rapidly.

The trending topic "#BestFreeWallpapers" that Xingchen paid for has climbed into the top three on Weibo.

Paying to trend on social media is very common.

However, it is quite rare for a purchased trending topic to generate such a high level of discussion.

Under this topic, fans of StarCraft Games cheered "StarCraft is awesome!", while many talented creators shared their newly made "live wallpapers".

From 9 a.m. when the software was exposed to 9 p.m. until 9 p.m.

Within 12 hours, the number of wallpapers in the "Player Community" section of the Star Wallpaper app increased from a dozen to several hundred, and players quickly noticed this.

This wallpaper app also features many wallpapers and comments uploaded by Japanese users.

This is supposed to be "international software"?

That makes sense. Since the domestic server is giving away skins, there's no reason why the Japanese server wouldn't. No wonder uploading wallpapers of some anime characters results in copyright restrictions in certain regions.

So it turns out it was you Japanese who were behind this!!
Just as the entire internet's attention was firmly captivated by the "treasure software" Star Wallpaper, and the discussion was reaching new heights, Star Games struck again, delivering a powerful combination punch.

At 9 p.m., the official account of Starry Night Games released another celebratory poster.

The celebratory poster read, "Starry Night Wallpaper has been downloaded over five million times in just 12 hours!!"

Meanwhile, to celebrate reaching five million users.

Star Wallpapers has launched an event for global users "ahead of schedule".

[2016 Global Wallpaper Rendering Contest!]

The rules of the event are simple: create a video based on the 3D rendering animation template provided by Starry Sky Games, with the theme of "Train Window". You cannot change the structure of the video footage, the camera position, or the position of the main character.

The event is open to submissions from around the world, and seeks 100 3D rendering works.

The most eye-catching part of the entire event, besides the total prize money of "500 million RMB" highlighted in bold font, was the area below the announcement.

The official StarCraft team also thoughtfully released several "example entries" displayed together. The video begins with a "rendered white model".

That is, the template mentioned in the announcement.

A train, a person is sitting on the left side of the carriage. The camera pans out halfway through the scene, the image is blocked by a shadow, then it comes back to light...
This rendering template is very simple and leaves considerable creative freedom for creators.

Following this "white model video" is the first "example".

The character shown in this example is the mascot of the Final Frontline, 95.

The train became the base vehicle for the final battlefront, and the bedside room became a dormitory room.

The girl sat on the edge of her bed in the base vehicle dormitory, watching the characters slowly moving outside the window. She was writing something, and if you looked closely, you could see that it contained the commander's and the girl's names, with a heart in the middle.

Then the commander's back appeared in the frame, and the girl hurriedly put away what she had written.

The letter that "cannot be read"

[Author: Song Yueying, Starry Night Games]

The second picture depicts the interior of a green train in the 1990s.

The camera is fixed in one corner of the carriage. Through the glass window, which is covered with water stains and dust, you can see the blurry scenery rushing past outside: rolling farmland, distant dark green mountains, and occasionally a signal tower flashing by.

Inside the carriage, a boy was sleeping by the window, holding a physics book to his face.

The old green hard seat, the luggage piled up in the aisle, and the enamel teacup on the table swaying slightly, the water surface shimmering with tiny sparkles.

Light streamed through the train windows, casting dappled shadows in the air. As the train moved slowly forward, tiny dust particles danced in the beams of light.

As the boy's physics book fell to the ground, he woke up from his sleep. The screen went black, and when he opened his eyes again, he had become an engineer, and the train had instantly transformed into a high-speed rail.

A Boy's Dream

[Author: Chu Chen, Xingchen Games]

Since the two scenes share the same framework, the entire screen is linked together. After several example scenes were shown, many people were quickly drawn in.

This visual experience, where each scene unfolds every few seconds and each story continues every few seconds, yet the framework between them is remarkably consistent, is truly novel.

Moreover, the rendering precision and visual quality are simply a beautiful experience.

"Holy crap, did you guys notice? Everyone's handling of the shadowy figure is completely different!! Yueying's method is to use the commander's back, while Chen's method is to directly swap the green-skinned soldier for a high-speed train!!!"

"My God... is this really an effect that wallpaper can achieve?"

"The idea for 'Young Man's Dream' is so creative! Did President Chu really create this himself?!"

"With this example, it feels like the competition's entry barrier has been raised to the maximum!"

"Stop talking, I'm already kneeling in front of the screen! This isn't just a wallpaper, it's a work of art!"

If there are still time travelers.

At that moment, he could immediately tell that Chu Chen's event was a copy of the "World Rendering Competition".

In its previous life, this was a 3DCG rendering competition initiated by pwnisher in 2020, which attracted more than a hundred participants in the year it was launched.

Its results videos have been viewed hundreds of millions of times worldwide.
The reason for this achievement is...

It is precisely because of this "assigned topic" that so many creative ideas can emerge, with a story and an idea appearing every ten seconds or so.

Basically, once you open the video, you'll watch the whole thing.

After all, most viewers are willing to wait ten seconds or so to watch the next scene, even if they see something boring and meaningless.

It's just like drawing cards.

You never know what amazing scene will appear next.

Now, Chu Chen has not only added a 500 million yuan bonus to this, but also given the rendering result a specific function: adding a wallpaper overlay feature.

With the added user base of Starry Sky Games, and with the added boost, Starry Sky Wallpaper's "2016 Global Wallpaper Rendering Competition!" saw its popularity explode even faster than the previous World Rendering Competition.

Moreover, this competition has immediately heightened the anticipation of many Star Wallpaper users.

In the future, these rendered works will all appear as wallpapers in the software!

Wow, just thinking about it is so exciting!
Discussions on various technical forums, such as "Starry Sky is awesome" and "This competition is interesting," were everywhere, mixed with various speculations and jokes about how the five million yuan prize money would be distributed.

Some people are already eager to try their hand at it, wondering if their limited storytelling skills can get them a piece of the pie; others are simply enjoying the spectacle and looking forward to a showdown between various experts.

"Five million! There's a 2 prize for making the top 100. With that money, buying a new graphics card isn't unreasonable, is it?"

"Wake up, take a look at President Chu's example first, then look at your 'stick figure' rendering."

"Haha, stop cursing, stop cursing. It's all about participation. What if the judges are blind?"

In an instant, the popularity of the Starry Sky wallpaper soared like a rocket, even showing signs of surpassing the popularity of the game "Final Front" itself.

(End of this chapter)