Hong Kong films: From street thugs to Hong Kong financial tycoons

Chapter 101 Dimensional Reduction Attack: The Collective Kneeling of Hollywood Elites

Tai Po Industrial Zone, Top Secret Factory Area No. 0

More than a hundred top visual effects artists, concept artists, and architects from Hollywood were like a hundred lifeless terracotta warriors, firmly nailed to the outside of the blast door.

No one spoke; even breathing was deliberately suppressed to the lowest possible level.

Kevin dropped the canvas duffel bag from his hand, kicking up a fine cloud of dust, but he didn't even bother to look down at it.

His pupils contracted sharply, and in his deep blue eyes, the 20,000 indicator lights on the server racks, twinkling like stars, were reflected in the depths of the factory.

The cold air, mixed with the distinctive fishy smell of an industrial water-cooling system, rushed out through the door, ruffling Kevin's messy blond hair.

"Gulp."

Someone swallowed hard in the crowd, the sound particularly clear at the quiet factory entrance.

The bearded special effects artist held his head in his hands, his mouth agape enough to fit an adult's fist.

He initially thought Fatty Wang was bragging, but now, the overwhelming sense of pressure from the heavy industrial computing power felt like a solid iron hammer, shattering all his pride as a white elite.

"Is this...is this really real?"

The bearded man muttered to himself, his voice trembling.

"Even if you emptied out the entire Silicon Valley in California, you couldn't gather this many high-end computing nodes. Did they move all the world's chips here?"

Wang Pangzi stood aside, watching these foreigners act like country bumpkins who had never seen the world, and felt incredibly satisfied.

He reached up, took off his Panama hat, fanned himself with it, and grinned.

"How do you all esteemed directors and special effects artists fare?"

Fatty Wang joked in broken English, "Are you feeling your luggage is a bit heavy? Should I get a few people to help you carry it in?"

Kevin snapped back to his senses, grabbed Wang Pangzi's arm with surprising force, and his eyes turned red.

"My lord, take me inside. I need to see the specific parameters, I need to see their motherboard architecture, quick!"

Fatty Wang shook off his hand and curled his lip: "What's the rush? Our boss is still inside. Know your place."

As they were talking, the crisp sound of leather shoes could be heard coming from the corridor deep inside the factory.

Lin Yao walked out with his hands in his suit trouser pockets and steady steps. Chen Zheng and Lu Qiu, wearing a helmet, followed half a step behind, closely on either side.

Upon seeing the person in question appear, Fatty Wang quickly put on a fawning smile and jogged over to greet him.

"Boss, everyone's here. Kevin's team from Dream Maker Studio, and a few core concept artists we poached from Industrial Light & Magic, not one missing."

Fatty Wang reported with bows and scrapes.

Lin Yao stopped and calmly glanced at the more than one hundred Hollywood elites outside the door. There was no coercion or any grand promises.

Lin Yao simply raised his right hand and pointed to the cluster of 20,000 servers that were roaring behind him.

"Everyone, you've come from afar, thank you for your hard work."

Lin Yao spoke, his English pronunciation was very standard, and he carried a kind of composure and ruthlessness unique to those in a superior position.

"My name is Lin Yao, and I'm the owner of this factory, and also your current boss."

Kevin boldly stepped forward, his mind reeling as he looked at the excessively young Asian tycoon before him.

"Mr. Lin, this is Kevin. Are all the machines here prepared for your film company?"

"It's not just these."

Lin Yao calmly corrected, "This is only the first phase of the project, 20,000 units. The remaining 80,000 nodes will be connected to the network in the next month."

"A total of 100,000 supercomputers will form the largest graphics rendering matrix in human history."

When Lin Yao uttered the exact number of 100,000 units, the Hollywood special effects artists gasped again.

One hundred thousand units! This boss is not only rich, he's a complete madman. Concentrating so much computing power to make a movie is not just using a cannon to kill a mosquito, it's using a nuclear bomb to blow up a pond!

"Boss, they didn't believe we could do polygon rendering. They thought we were just throwing money around."

Fatty Wang was stirring things up from the sidelines.

Lin Yao smiled and turned to look at Lu Qiu.

"Lu Qiu, now that the guests have arrived, let's show them the picture we just came out of and let them appreciate it, to see if our hospitality is good enough."

"Okay!"

Lu Qiu took a remote control out of his pocket and pressed a button on a 100-inch color display screen above the factory gate.

"Whoosh!"

The screen lit up, and the high-definition still image of the ancient Yinglong, which had just been rendered using 20,000 nodes and took 35 seconds, was displayed without reservation to all the Hollywood elites.

Silence, a deathly silence. Kevin felt as if he had been electrocuted, and he lunged forward two steps, staring intently at the giant dragon on the screen.

As a top-notch CG expert, his perspective on images is completely different from that of ordinary people.

Ordinary people only see the realism and imposing presence, but in Kevin's eyes, he sees the intricate anti-aliasing of the dragon scales, the diffuse reflection path of light by the water vapor in the clouds, and the terrifying number of high-polygon models at the bulging muscles of the dragon.

"Ray tracing technology, a global illumination engine, and this incredibly advanced physical hair calculation system —"

Kevin's voice was already trembling with obvious sobs; he was so excited that his whole body was shaking.

"Perfect, absolutely perfect! This is simply a masterpiece of God!"

Kevin suddenly turned his head, looked at Lu Qiu, and asked like a humble student seeking knowledge, "Excuse me, engineer, how long did it take you to render this image? Three days, or a week?"

In Kevin's mind, being able to produce such complex light and shadow effects within a week was already a miracle of hardware.

Lu Qiu pushed up his black-rimmed glasses and held up three fingers.

"Three days?"

Kevin swallowed hard.

"My God, 20,000 machines running for three days—that's enough efficiency for us to change film history!"

"No."

Lu Qiu shook his head, his tone as calm as if he were saying that he had eaten a bowl of noodles with soybean paste for lunch today.

"It's thirty-five seconds."

Boom! Those words nearly caused the blood vessels in Kevin's and all the Hollywood special effects artists present to burst.

"How much...how much?!"

The bearded special effects artist plopped down on the ground, clutching his hair with both hands.

"Thirty-five seconds? That's impossible! You must have taken pictures of the physical model beforehand, scanned them into the computer, and tricked us. Thirty-five seconds isn't even enough time to load the textures!"

Believe it or not.

Lu Qiu was too lazy to argue with them.

"Once we assign you authorized accounts tomorrow, you'll see how it works once you sit in front of the terminal and run it yourself."

"Our underlying algorithm has been reconstructed, and with the addition of a dedicated GPU chip, 35 seconds is already considered slow. Once all 100,000 machines are connected to the network, this image will only take 6 seconds."

In six seconds, Kevin was completely convinced. He turned around and looked at his team members.

Those white elites who were once arrogant in Hollywood and thought Asians didn't understand the film industry have now all lowered their heads, their eyes filled with deep awe for pure computing power.

"Mr. Lin."

Kevin walked up to Lin Yao and bowed deeply, his attitude extremely respectful.

"Please forgive our previous arrogance. You are not only a generous boss, but also a pioneering entrepreneur."

"The entire Dream Maker Studio will pledge our lives to you. Please tell us, what kind of world do you need us to create within this matrix?"

Looking at Kevin's completely submissive appearance, Lin Yao's eyes flashed with a hint of satisfaction.

This is the crushing power of capital. There's no need to painstakingly poach talent; just lay the goods on the table, and they'll kneel down on their knees.

"What I want to create is not a movie."

Lin Yao turned around and led everyone into the factory area, walking slowly, his voice echoing in the empty factory.

"Director Wang should have shown you those concept art sets. What I'm going to create is an Eastern mythology universe called 'Primordial Era'."

"In this blueprint, film is just the beginning."

Lin Yao stopped in front of a row of operating server racks, reached out and gently patted the cold metal casing.

"You now have the computing power of 100,000 supercomputers as your backing. I want you not only to render the scenes in the movie to the extreme, but I also want you to preserve all the 3D models and motion capture data."

"After the movie is released and it opens up the global market."

Lin Yao turned his head, his deep gaze sweeping over everyone present.

"Our second step is to launch a large-scale 3D online game of the same name, using the Loongson microcomputers that we have deployed all over the world, so that all viewers who have seen the movie can personally enter this primordial universe to fight monsters and level up."

"The third step is to buy large tracts of land in Hong Kong and the mainland to build a fully-fledged prehistoric-themed amusement park and develop all related figurines, clothing and licensed merchandise."

"This is a massive project that will last for ten or even twenty years."

Lin Yao looked at Kevin, his tone revealing an ambition that could conquer the world.

"The background setting of this mythological universe is vast and boundless. Any story of an ancient god would be enough to support an epic blockbuster."

"Our library contains enough storylines to make twenty movies. Your task is to use your technology to bring this vast world to the big screen, bit by bit, in a realistic way."

A massive project spanning ten to twenty years, a grand vision that would take twenty films to complete!

The Hollywood elites were thrilled. For visual effects artists, the worst thing is to lose their job after finishing a project.

Now, Lin Yao has drawn up a grand blueprint for them, one that they can work until retirement.

Moreover, this blueprint is not just an empty promise; those 20,000 humming servers are the most solid guarantee!

"Boss, don't worry!"

Kevin shouted excitedly, even changing his form of address to match the local custom.

"As long as we have computing power, we can even reconstruct God's beard strand by strand, as long as we have the computing power!"

"Very good. Go to the Peninsula Hotel to rest tonight. We'll officially start work tomorrow. Fatty Wang will be in charge of your logistics."

Lin Yao waved his hand, ending the conversation.

Watching Fatty Wang happily lead the group of completely conquered foreigners to their accommodations, Chen Zheng walked to Lin Yao's side and handed him a fax document he had just received.

"Boss, the Pan-Asian Alliance has made a move."

Chen Zheng pushed up his glasses and gave a cold laugh.

"The movie 'The Celestial Master Exorcising Demons,' which Sixth Uncle and his team invested in, has been scheduled for release early next month."

"They've booked 80 percent of all cinemas in Asia, trying to squeeze us out with their screen time."

"Moreover, they also publicized it in the newspapers, saying that they were the real physical special effects team and mocking our farm in the Tai Po Industrial Area as a scam."

Lin Yao took the fax, didn't even bother to glance at it, and threw it directly into the trash can next to him.

"A bunch of old fogies about to go to their coffins, just a final burst of energy before they die."

Lin Yao put his hands in his pockets and looked at the flashing blue indicator lights.

"Ignore them and let them go to the movie theater to earn some pocket money."

Lin Yao spoke casually, as if he wasn't bothered by his opponent's provocation at all, but Chen Zheng knew that behind the boss's unhurried demeanor often lay the most deadly intent.

"Old Chen, our film 'The Great Deification of the Primordial Era' is scheduled for release during the Spring Festival."

Lin Yao gave the order in a calm tone.

"The Spring Festival film season? That's still more than half a year away."

Chen Zheng was stunned for a moment.

"Half a year is just enough for Lu Qiu to run 100,000 machines at full capacity, and also enough for these Hollywood workers to push the special effects to the highest level of perfection."

Lin Yao turned around and walked out of the factory, the sunlight shining on him.

"Since we're sending off the old era, we should at least make it a grand affair."

"Let Uncle Liu and his gang jump around for a few months first. When the Lunar New Year season arrives, I will use epic scenes calculated by 100,000 supercomputers to teach them what a real massacre is."