How are those special effects made in American blockbusters?

If you want to do those special effects, please study math and computer development. If you are personally interested, you can try to develop something to understand what knowledge and technology you need to master. No kidding, here are two examples:

1. Now all the software you can find on the market can't be made. Because it is commercial software, there are only a few functions to be upgraded, and plug-ins are needed to explain this. But you can't find a good plug-in, because there are no large plug-ins made for free. Commercial software is not as good as the internal software (internal software) of professional companies, and the gap is about 5~ 10 years. Generally, internal software will be eliminated after 5 years of use, and articles will be published in major industry associations and sold to commercial software companies for large-scale transformation, with certain rewards. Writing these modules in advance requires some computer scientists, not CG personnel. To put it bluntly, it is development.

2. When you explore by yourself, you will gradually understand that not all problems are related to hardware, only when the problems you want to solve need special hardware support, such as CUDA hardware acceleration. Generally, most problems are solved by CPU.

So both hardware and software need your knowledge of science and engineering. Don't say that you just want to create and are not interested in technology. The real answer is that there is no technology to support creation for you. Do not rely on plug-ins. Each plug-in is a developer's personal experience and may not meet your needs. This will lead you to learn the bottom layer of those plug-ins. This subject is still self-taught. Unfortunately, there are not many such courses in China, and many problems are world-class problems, and they are a branch of computer graphics. Fortunately, these courses have official textbooks in foreign universities and have also been translated into China. It is recommended that you read books on "Computer Graphics", but don't look for DX 1 1 or OpenGL versions. You should study the pure science edition in a down-to-earth way, which contains the derivation process of mathematical formulas and tells you how they are used in practical problems. After reading these books, you will understand that there is no essential difference between 3 D and the later stage, just packaging different knowledge bases into different software, and then constructing some process concepts to facilitate artists (precisely to reduce the difficulty of understanding). Of course, this division software is also differentiated according to the current computer capabilities. With the development of computers, there will be more and more 2.5D software. Actually, it's all 3 d

In addition, in my personal opinion, the current commercial software is forced to upgrade by peers, and I don't really want to help you make things. No matter what concepts he puts forward (such as modeling, mapping and rendering), they are all process concepts that provide you with low-level repetitive work, and high-level ones will not be distributed to CG labor market. Because of commercial software, you will be confined to the low-level OEM field. If you want to break through, you must at least gain the same knowledge power as their predecessors. It is possible to get rid of passivity and have a guiding role.

In addition, thank the respondents for their detailed answers. Just illustrates the problem:

1. Hardware: The various devices mentioned in his or her article remind me of a friend of mine who is engaged in photography. My friends often complain that the shooting pay is unbearable. You know, the cost of the first black-and-white photo of China is a gold bar. At that time, you can buy a quadrangle. How poor the photographic equipment was at that time! I remember shooting astronomy with a seagull black-and-white camera when I was a child. It was expensive to buy 600 films. But now Nikon Canon exposure can reach 18000, but shooting is worthless, because anyone can! Who made the money? Nikon canon, of course Foreigners have long known that software will be pirated, so embedded programming has entered the camera hardware. If you want to take movie-level photos, you have to buy my hardware! Even if you can steal the software, it is difficult to analyze the hardware. Or I'll upgrade. The hardware used by foreign film and television special effects companies is developed by themselves. For example, one of Pixar's three bosses is Apple's Steve Jobs, and his evaluation of Pixar's internal self-produced computers doesn't even understand himself!

2. Related software: For example, group software, which is used in The Lord of the Rings, is extremely large in China and will cost a lot of money. In fact, it took the author of this software only two hours to make a scene of The Lord of the Rings's confrontation with the monster in a notebook. Slow calculation, bad calculation, he can change the kernel code! You don't have to render group experiments. He is using software, not being used by software! At present, most top technicians in the broadcasting industry (including advertising) use 10~20 kinds of software. Domestic production companies will integrate their own production processes (how to use 10~20 kinds of software in a string), and once the method is fast, it will spread quickly. Please think about it, you just use the correct and effective mathematical formulas set in each software through various concepts provided by the software. It is impossible for ordinary production companies to integrate these mathematical sets into a self-developed software. This will bring two consequences: A. Waste of resources, but cheap personnel. Software can't be done without ability. Many so-called application experts have done it. In fact, his personal efforts have played its due role. Most users can't use the software110, let alone a developer like The Lord of the Rings. B. solve the cost problem with piracy. The answer is the same as above, and I can't get out.

3. Work for CG workers: Don't repeat it, and don't think that you will get plug-ins that others can't get. You can do more than just the software itself. If you want to do more than that, you must rewrite the software with knowledge other than software to serve you. What is knowledge outside of software? For example: Hang Weiya: You can use Weiya from two technical directions:

A. blue screen keying technology: this technology belongs to the later stage technology. Roto (keying) is only a low-level manual work, but many softwares are automatic roto, which belongs to "iconology" and signal science. The lowest level of knowledge is convolution and Fourier transform. I dare not discuss it at all. Please consult your university information engineering teacher.

B. Tracking technology: excluding two points (including camera control and image recognition of Vita), having knowledge of descriptive geometry and perspective, and a little fuzzy mathematics. Combining these two kinds of knowledge to solve the three-dimensional space of the repair site is the so-called "reverse engineering". Using the knowledge of three-dimensional "graphics", the three-dimensional environment of two-dimensional images is solved in reverse. Please consult your graphics department for this kind of knowledge.

Mastering the above two points, high number and dispersion are the basis. Why do you have to master it? The answer is that the actual situation is unexpected for most software, unless you have excellent basic skills in mathematics and physics, you can adjust accordingly without development. Usually follow up with other software. To put it bluntly, the current software does not have this module (math set) function, which is why you need to use a lot of software. If you master the above two points, you can do two things: A. Redevelop this software with your knowledge. B. the software is not open, so you can only write your own software. Don't expect any big software company to integrate a big and complete software! In that case, the software company will have no food to eat! This is their "flower price policy" and "defect design method".

4. Why the living environment of the game is better: As the interviewee said in the street, the level design, numerical design and Logitech judgment in the game are all controlled by the game developers, and the control of the game needs to be developed for the expressive force of the picture. These are all because the game industry is newer than the traditional film and television industry. No game company has absolute independent intellectual property rights, and it needs to be redeveloped on the shoulders of its predecessors. It has caused the initiative to own some independent intellectual property rights. And don't mind other stones can attack jade's way of life. But there is a generation gap between traditional movies and computers. Talents can't catch up, even if gamers are used to make up movies, they can't survive under the old system. It needs a series of changes from decision-making level (non-management level) to production, including personnel layout, salary structure and management system. This is basically a big change, not as good as a small company that has just been born.