My Animation Era

The end of the year is approaching.

The temperature in Jiangchuan also dropped sharply with the arrival of winter. Gu Miao, who was running around in long sleeves before, had to add a fleece jacket.

He has been very busy recently.

The animation "The Magic Soldier" is about to premiere. As Wanbao's main work in the second half of this year, its performance is also a point that he is very concerned about.

At the same time, the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" animation commissioned by CCTV has also entered the most exciting part. The Battle of Chibi, the Battle of Guandu, the Battle of Yiling and Liuchu Qishan and other exciting war marching scenes are in full swing. .

to be honest……

Gu Miao feels that the most difficult thing about making these war scenes is not the production process, but how to conceive the storyboards and scenes.

No matter what difficulties you encounter during the process, as long as it is technically achievable, it will eventually be solved satisfactorily.

The process of conceiving is very troublesome and tortured.

big occasion!

Soldiers from both sides gathered on the battlefield and fought towards the city wall or enemy troops amidst the dull beat of drums. The generals from both sides were like tigers rushing into the flock of sheep, chopping melons and vegetables until heads were rolling.

It is actually very feeble to describe such a scene with words.

Because the sensory stimulation brought by pictures is obviously much stronger than words. There are many scenes and scenes that are two completely different feelings when heard by others and seen with your own eyes.

In order to do this well and make the animated war scenes more shocking, Koizumi and Ma Kui boldly innovated and tried many new techniques in animation production, even taking into account the faces of each soldier.

Trivia!

Whether it's animation or comics, as long as there are more than 10 characters appearing in the same screen, most of them have "passer-by faces."

Better yet, at least draw a nose, mouth, and eyes. Although these little soldiers all look like clones, they still have noses and mouths.

If you are lazy, just don't draw the nose and mouth, just draw the outline of the character to indicate to the readers and viewers that there are many people.

Can the Romance of the Three Kingdoms be like this?

The answer is no!

In the head-on collision of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, it is unrealistic to draw the eyes and nose of everyone, but it cannot be completely omitted. At least the closer to the protagonist and core supporting characters, the richer the facial details will be.

Take Prime Minister Zhuge as an example.

Suppose a soldier stands behind the prime minister holding a weapon and acts as a bodyguard. Then he is the soldier closest to the protagonist, so he will have extremely rich facial details, and may even have expressions and eyes.

"anyway……"

Just as she made herself a cup of tea, Gu Miao suddenly thought of a question. She turned to Ma Kui and asked, "How did you create such a big scene with hundreds of thousands of people gathering?"

The bird's eye view is a must.

But apart from the perspective, the canvas is only that big in total, and the content it can hold is extremely limited. How to express that there are many people, at least hundreds of thousands of people?

"Usually, through lines, the audience is told how many troops each side invested in this battle."

Ma Kui explained with a smile: "On the other hand, when we were producing, we used multi-perspective editing and rendering to show the huge crowds of people on the battlefield in a small way."

In a single shot, there aren't actually many minions.

Even if it is an overlooking shot with the largest number of people standing in a dense pile, in fact, if you count carefully, there are only a few people in this crowd, only more than a hundred people at most.

Didn't you expect that?

Looking at the huge number of soldiers, the real number turned out to be less than a hundred, far less than imagined.

This is also considered animation common sense.

Not only animations, but many people in live-action film and television dramas, especially those with war and costume themes, basically use this method to show a single scene.

Based on Gu Miao's experience in making anti-Japanese dramas, a war scene can be considered a big production if it uses hundreds of extras.

Thousands of people?

It has to be a movie-level project. TV dramas generally don't use this scale, and the TV screen is small, so there is no need to cram so many people into the camera.

Tens of thousands of people?

Even by Zhang Guoshi's standards for making movies, there have never been many big battles like this.

Therefore, in those film and television works, large scenes that often involve hundreds of thousands of people are actually edited and spliced, or even a vague concept of seeing the big from the small.

No one really thinks that there are so many extras during filming, right? Do you really think box lunches are not expensive?

The same goes for animation.

The TV screen is limited, to be precise, the resolution and canvas size are limited, and it cannot hold so many details. Therefore, when producing a war drama like "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the number of characters is not as exaggerated as imagined.

If you subdivide it into each frame and pick it out individually, you will find that in this frame, the soldier in the distance is even just a black pixel...

"Actually, this question is not important. What is really important is how to highlight the power of generals during a war!"

Ma Kui knew very well that the battles in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms were, to put it bluntly, different from those in history books. The role of generals was magnified, and fighting was like playing a game.

For the generals on both sides, killing ordinary soldiers was like mowing grass, and they were solved easily.

Can a real war be like this?

obviously!

There are elements of fiction and exaggeration in the novel. As a star on the battlefield, military commanders must show their strong strength.

The most typical example is Lu Bu.

Lu Bu is very powerful, but can he really wield the Fangtian Painted Halberd and defeat thousands of armies with ease? Do you know what the concept of "ten thousand armies" is?

Lu Bu could drown tens of thousands of people with just a drop of spit.

The extremely exaggerated performance of the generals' strength can be regarded as a more fantasy part of the original novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

In order to present the excitement of this part, Ma Kui and Xiao Quan made "cheating mode" on all the generals such as Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Lu Bu, and Dian Wei.

Normally, they are fine. They look no different from ordinary people. At most, these generals are relatively strong and not as big as three heads and six arms.

But once they arrive on the battlefield, these generals act like they are firing up Gundams. Unless the enemy generals take action, ordinary soldiers cannot do anything to them.

"If these generals are well shaped and the soundtrack is well-targeted, the war scenes in the animated "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" can be said to be perfect."

Gu Miao thought of something.

For a wonderful war scene, the soundtrack should account for at least half of the credit.

Passionate music, especially symphony with rapid drumbeats and percussion, is definitely the best catalyst to create a cruel atmosphere of war.

If the sound of horse hooves, as well as the rapid breathing and shouting of the soldiers were added in the middle, the effect would be even better!

Speaking of which...

Although the Five-Element Song from the animated "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has a different style, it seems quite suitable to be used as an interlude in major battles such as the Battle of Chibi and the Battle of Guandu?

Pig's trotter rice is really the best choice for fast food. I feel that the roadside pig's trotter rice in every city is delicious...