"God, I should have done this a long time ago."
Lin Lixin looked at Schwarzenegger in front of him and nodded repeatedly in amazement.
The California sun is scorching, especially for Hollywood stars who usually work in Southern California.
Even though it's springtime, Arnold is wearing sunglasses.
"Is this Wesker's?"
"Of course, I feel like I can't live without it anymore."
"Yes, of course."
Lin Lixin looked at his glasses, then simply put them on for him, took two steps back, and gestured with his hand to indicate a viewfinder frame.
"Okay... now take your clothes off."
Why are they making people take off their clothes as soon as they arrive on the island?
Even though he was a man who had seen it all, he couldn't help but feel a chill at this moment and cautiously took two steps back. After thinking for a moment, he gritted his teeth and took another step forward, adopting a submissive posture.
This is risking one's life for one's future.
"What's wrong with you? Why are you being so fussy when I just ask you to take off your shirt? Didn't you used to be a bodybuilder?"
"Yes..."
After a struggle, Schwarzenegger, shirtless, appeared in front of the pool.
Lin Lixin looked at the well-built, muscular body with satisfaction and suddenly clapped his hands.
"I should have done this a long time ago!"
A Hollywood action star, a tough guy type of actor, Schwarzenegger is the perfect fit for this role.
"Huh? What?"
"A character from Mortal Kombat, what else?"
Lin Lixin looked at Schwarzenegger, and the scene before him gradually overlapped with the "Johnny Cage" in his mind.
In the actual Mortal Kombat series, Johnny Cage's character was likely based on Jean-Claude Van Damme, another well-known Hollywood action star.
According to the setting, Johnny Cage is a Hollywood superstar who joins the battle in order to obtain film material. He also forms a team with Liu Kang and Sonya Blade, becoming Earth warriors who protect the Earth.
"Wait, Sonya Blade!"
Lin Lixin slapped his forehead, suddenly realizing that he seemed to have already completed the puzzle of Mortal Kombat a long time ago.
He looked at Arnold and said:
"Are you currently filming the Terminator 2?"
"Yes, Mr. Lin, it will be released in the middle of this year."
" Sarah Connor, I mean her actress Linda Hamilton, available anytime soon?"
If Lin Lixin were to find a suitable actress to play the role of " Sonya Blade," Linda Hamilton would definitely be one of the most suitable candidates.
During this period, she worked out to develop a strong and muscular physique in preparation for her role in " The Terminator 2 ".
A well-trained female warrior, with her unique charisma, was a natural fit for the role.
A martial artist of Jeet Kune Do who originated from Shaolin monks, he uses nunchucks as his weapon and the dragon as his totem.
It's unnecessary to even think about who this character is paying homage to.
For Hollywood, and even for the entire Western cultural sphere, Bruce Lee will always be the absolute representative of the concept of martial arts.
It's a pity that Bruce Lee has already passed away.
But... Lin Lixin looked at Brandon Lee standing to the side.
You can find some meal replacement literature here.
Today's filming wasn't a formal shoot, nor was it even part of the project approval process.
Lin Lixin brought them to his island purely to explore the feasibility of this approach.
Looking back now, I realize I had actually already put all the pieces together.
"Speaking of which, you still haven't told me the answer, Lin. How do you plan to differentiate yourself?" After everyone sat down in the room, Brandon Lee finally asked the question that had been bothering him.
Lin Lixin had only vaguely mentioned to him that he needed to rely on " Hollywood," but he was still completely confused about what that meant.
"It means exactly what it says. Have you guys been following the gaming scene lately?"
"Of course, I've been watching it. Battlefield 1991 is truly a great game!"
"I don't deny that, but I'm not talking about Gamenova, I'm talking about 3do."
Upon hearing this, Lucas gave a thoughtful look that revealed his understanding.
Although he didn't know what Lin Lixin was planning to do this time, based on the people present and Lin Lixin's arrangements just now, he could more or less guess some of it.
"3DO? You mean that expensive game console that doesn't have any games? I have heard of them."
Schwarzenegger continued.
"Yes, I heard that Trip seems to be very enthusiastic about 'interactive entertainment,' believing that FMV-style cinematic performances are the future."
Lin Lixin explained with a smile.
Although the 3do approach has been proven to be wrong, their advocacy did serve as a wake-up call for Lin Lixin.
"To be honest, while there are problems with adapting material for film and television, it's not entirely unworkable. EA seems to have completely misunderstood this; they're simply wasting the subject matter."
How so?
Does a live performance necessarily have to be a pre-recorded video?
Admittedly, pre-shot and rendered videos are in a class of their own in terms of visual effects and expressiveness.
However, it also has its rigidity and inflexibility.
Trip attempted to create an interactive film using enough fragmented footage to replicate the commercial success of Dragon's Lair.
But it completely missed the mark.
"What I want to do is bring Hollywood popcorn action blockbusters into video games."
Looking back to 1992 when Mortal Kombat was born, the market already had a mature formula for fighting games.
This refers to the Street Fighter style championed by Capcom Bitch, the master of action games.
Cartoon style, highly competitive, and a combo system. At the time, Midwaygames planned to make a fighting game and grab a slice of this market.
The Mortal Kombat development team, from top to bottom, are all genuine United States.
For them, Capcom's formula was simply too cumbersome.
They decided to create a game that was the complete opposite of Street Fighter.
"We don't do cartoonish styles, we do realistic ones."
Lin Lixin said, then his gaze fell on Lucas.
"It's not just about realism; we also want to use live actors directly in the filming, and then digitize them in post-production to fit them into the game."
"You mean... the motion capture equipment we used for Maikou before?"
Lucas immediately realized what was happening.
This isn't the first time Gamenova has used this technique of combining reality and illusion.
Back in the days of " Michael Jack's Moonwalk," in order to better recreate his flamboyant dance moves, Lin Lixin spent a lot of money to get Lucas an optical motion capture system.
Small spheres made with a highly infrared-reflective coating are processed in real time by an array of multiple infrared cameras. This motion data faithfully reflects the character's most dynamic postures.
Although it is very expensive, it is also very easy to use, compared to creating or tracing directly from the computer.
If this were applied to future fighting game projects, one could foresee extremely exaggerated action scenes.
"Hmm... that is indeed a feasible approach, but no, I mean literally, we'll use live actors in the filming."
Lin Lixin shook his head.
Early versions of Mortal Kombat were not like the ones we have today; they didn't have the sophisticated 3D or CG technologies available now.
To achieve the realistic effect that Midway wanted, they chose a very radical path.
Unlike the mainstream hand-drawn pixel frames, the mk1 directly chose to use real-life footage.
The final business results proved that Midway made the right bet.
The live-action shooting and the overall style of MK are a perfect match, complementing each other perfectly.
Compared to two anime characters fighting on the screen, MK1 presents players with a scene of two real people killing each other in the game.
When you think of Street Fighter, you might think of strategy and competition. When you think of the King of Fighters, you might think of coolness and fun.
But if it's Mortal Kombat, the answer would be completely different.
Violence, gore, cinematic style, comic book style...
It's like a fighting game version of Doom, even more radical than Doom.
Placed in the early 1990s.
Every element of MK1 hits the mark perfectly in United States pop culture.
Or, in their words, this is so cool!
"If I had to put it in perspective, it would be more like the designs for Street Fighter and the King of Fighters; we'd use rotoscoping."
When discussing the concept of "motion capture," Prince of Persia is undoubtedly an indispensable element.
In 1989, an era of underdeveloped semiconductors, the fact that Prince of Persia could run with stunning graphics on a crappy 8-bit machine like the Apple II with a processor of only 1MHz and 4kb of memory is enough to make it a game that will go down in history.
Its underlying principle is actually rotoscoping.
First, live footage is shot, then converted frame by frame into pixel animation. The advantages of doing this are obvious.
Prince of Persia has become an immortal milestone in the history of action- Adventure games.
The fluid and realistic action sequences allowed " Prince of Persia " to carve out its own path.
"Wait, you mean this work is 2D? But why?"
Unlike the two actors, Lucas, who owns his own graphics and visual effects company, is much more sensitive to these things.
He keenly caught some details in Lin Lixin's words.
Using rotoscoping allows for very smooth motion and a certain degree of realism, while also being much cheaper than optical motion capture.
However, its drawbacks are also obvious: it cannot do 3D.
Lucas thought that after this period of graphics card promotion, Lin Lixin intended to further increase investment on this basis.
"For smooth playback, for higher definition, and to accommodate more videos."
Lin Lixin chuckled.
Unlike other fighting games, Mortal Kombat has a unique mechanic that runs throughout the series. Without it, Mortal Kombat would likely be just an ordinary fighting game, ultimately fading into obscurity and becoming one of the countless failed attempts to challenge the action game masters.
"Fatality ( Finishing Move )."