Chapter 68: Establishing the Special Effects Department

Lu Yu frowned as he read through the information, scratching his head in mild frustration. He continued to research special effects software, discovering that the most widely used application in the market was Maya. Though not the absolute best in the industry, it was sufficient for most special effects needs. In film production, Houdini was the preferred choice for large-scale effects, while RealFlow was used for medium and small-scale fluid simulations. Of course, there were many other special effects programs employed as needed, such as After Effects, Fusion, Nuke, and so forth.

Maya’s greatest advantage lay in its character animation controls, but it often required the assistance of other special effects software. These programs were all paid, with annual licensing fees. For example, Maya was priced at $1,470, while Houdini cost $4,495.

A truly skilled special effects artist needed to master at least one or several of these programs. But expertise in software alone wasn’t enough; extensive professional knowledge was essential. For instance, without understanding explosives, one could never recreate the collapsing dreamscapes of "Inception." Without materials science, the heavy, textured mechas of "Pacific Rim" would be impossible. Without biology, the vivid animals of "The Jungle Book" couldn’t come to life. Without physics, the breathtaking cosmic vistas and higher-dimensional spaces of "Interstellar" would remain unimaginable. Without fluid dynamics, the stunning ocean scenes in "Life of Pi" could not be rendered.

Special effects were indeed crafted on computers, but not the ordinary desktops used daily; powerful workstations and servers were required. For example, NVIDIA’s water-cooled deep learning workstations sold for as much as 550,000 yuan, while IBM or Huawei storage servers cost over 400,000 yuan. Even with such top-tier hardware, it would still take about fifty hours of continuous operation to render a single frame of special effects. And a single second of film required at least twenty-four frames. Roughly calculated, a five-second effects shot would take one machine 250 days to render. To shorten rendering times and boost efficiency, the only solution was to massively increase hardware. Established giants like Industrial Light & Magic in the United States operated their own render farms, housing thousands of workstations and servers running day and night.

Lu Yu frowned; a mature special effects company needed hundreds or thousands of hardware and software suites, with costs already sky-high. Yet the largest expense in film effects production was manpower. "Titanic" had a team of 739 for its effects, "The Avengers" had 1,453, and "Avatar" boasted as many as 1,855. Only through the convergence of top hardware, top software, and top talent, after years of painstaking effort by thousands, were those awe-inspiring, magnificent visuals achieved.

These factors made post-production effects extremely expensive. There is a short poem by Bing Xin: "The flower of success is admired for its brilliance, but its budding was soaked in the spring of struggle and showered in the rain of sacrifice." Yes, behind every dazzling achievement lies untold hardship and sweat.

Having grasped the entirety of the special effects ecosystem, Lu Yu fell silent, pacing back and forth in his study. He realized he had vastly underestimated the complexity of the endeavor—more than just a little. The challenge was far greater than he’d imagined. Lighting a cigarette, he walked to the window, opened it, and gazed into the night, weighing and reconsidering his plans.

This indecision wasn’t entirely Lu Yu’s fault; the reality was far beyond what he had anticipated. Yet after finishing his cigarette, Lu Yu resolved to pursue the idea—otherwise, his thoughts would never be at ease. Thinking of the lagging domestic effects industry, he felt all the more compelled.

Once his decision was made, everything became simpler. He pondered where to begin. Hardware was out of his reach for now, and industry talent couldn’t be acquired overnight; his only starting point was software.

He considered the dozens, even hundreds of special effects programs, most of which required annual fees and were rarely developed by domestic companies. Steeling himself, Lu Yu decided to assemble a team to develop a comprehensive special effects suite—a core modeling program, supplemented by effect modules and plugins.

Moreover, he planned to make it open source, taking inspiration from the Linux system. He would lead the development of the core digital effects software and essential plugins, opening the code so that others could build upon it. This would not only keep pace with the rapid transformation of the effects industry but also attract more contributors to enrich and perfect the platform.

As for whether this would impact other special effects companies or bankrupt some, Lu Yu didn’t care in the slightest. "Destroy you? What’s that to me?"

With these issues settled, Lu Yu felt relieved, even a bit exhilarated. Transforming an entire industry—the thrill of it was intoxicating. Suppressing his excitement, he shut down his computer and realized it was already late at night. Shi Zixuan and Qin Xiaomian had retired to their rooms. Lu Yu twisted his stiff neck, washed up, and went to bed.

The next morning, he awoke at half past nine; the two women had already left for work. Lu Yu dressed, had breakfast outside his apartment complex, and then made his way to Nebula Corporation at a leisurely pace.

The receptionist greeted him with a smile as he entered. Lu Yu smiled back and went straight to Liu Shichang’s office, knocking on the door.

Liu Shichang was working at his computer. Upon seeing Lu Yu, he stood and asked, “Mr. Lu, what brings you here?”

Lu Yu replied, “I’m checking if you’re slacking off.”

Liu Shichang laughed. “Ha! If you don’t know how busy the company is, who does?”

Lu Yu grinned, “You seem too idle, so I came to give you something to do. Otherwise, I’d feel guilty for paying your salary.”

Liu Shichang pouted. “Oh? What’s the task? Just tell me.”

Lu Yu said, “I have something interesting in mind, and I need you to handle two things right away.”

“First, register a wholly-owned subsidiary under Nebula Corporation. Let’s call it Yunhan Technology.”

“Second, set up a technical department immediately and recruit a batch of competent programmers—yes, a batch. Start with thirty, and we’ll see about more later.”

Liu Shichang was unfazed by the first request, but the second made him pause. “Thirty? And that’s just the first batch?”

Lu Yu nodded. “Yes, it’s urgent. Secure office space—preferably nearby, upstairs or downstairs.”

Liu Shichang agreed, and Lu Yu left to find Zhou Jing.

Ever since Zhou Jing joined the company, aside from the initial acquisition of a cosmetics firm, she’d had little to do and spent her days binge-watching dramas. Lu Yu found her at her workstation, engrossed in a show. When he tapped her desk, she turned, saw it was him, paused her video and took off her headphones. “Mr. Lu.”

Lu Yu nodded, “Come to my office for a moment.”

Zhou Jing followed Lu Yu into his office. He sat and gestured to the chair opposite. “Sit.”

Once Zhou Jing was seated, Lu Yu continued, “Since you’re so idle, I’ll give you something to do. I want you to immediately investigate the current special effects companies in the country.”

“I know about top firms like Viewpoint Pictures and Stone Digital—no need to look into them. Focus on experienced small and medium-sized companies, especially smaller ones. As long as their work isn’t cheap and they have some technical prowess and real experience, prioritize them.”

“If you don’t have enough personnel, hire one or two consulting firms—they’re professionals.”

“Once you have the report ready, bring it to me. We’ll start acquisitions once I decide.”

Zhou Jing took note. “Understood, Mr. Lu. Is the company entering the special effects industry?”

Lu Yu replied, “Yes. Get on this right away.”

Zhou Jing nodded and left to begin her assignment.

Lu Yu, finding himself with nothing pressing, took out his laptop and began a detailed study of the special effects software on the market. At noon, he had lunch with Liu Shichang, then resumed his research afterward.

Comparing the software, he found that Illusion—which could be translated as "Particle Mirage"—was clearly dedicated to particle effects. Its main function was creating particle system-based animations such as fire, explosions, smoke, fireworks, and so on. Lacking extra filter features, it rendered extremely quickly. Its intuitive interface allowed users to easily create particle animations.

Maya, on the other hand, was a three-dimensional modeling and animation program, renowned for its polygonal modeling capabilities. New algorithms improved performance, and multi-threading support fully leveraged multi-core processors. In short, Maya was comprehensive, flexible, user-friendly, highly efficient, and rendered very realistic visuals—hence its popularity.

Houdini, strictly speaking, was a three-dimensional computer graphics program, redeveloped from Prisms and compatible with Linux, Windows, and MacOS. Its structure and operation differed from other 3D programs, and its built-in renderer was mature, capable of quickly rendering motion blur, depth of field, and displacement effects. Its control over various effects was exceptionally strong, especially in particle effects and dynamic modeling.

Other programs specialized in particular aspects of effects. For example, Nuke excelled in compositing, while the rest had their own strengths. Each software had its advantages and ran on different platforms. Some weren’t interoperable or even compatible, mainly due to differences in development environments, and of course, competition among companies.

This made working with these programs cumbersome for special effects artists. The toolsets varied, leading to frequent mistakes.

The more Lu Yu studied, the more convinced he became that developing an open-source special effects suite would not only directly elevate the domestic industry, but also indirectly advance the entire field. That, he realized, was the true significance of his open-source project.