Robust computing power helped produce the enchanting fighting scenes of the animation movie "Ne Zha 2", a blockbuster attracting numerous audiences with vivid visual effects that require great computing power to show natural and delicate scenes.
Visual effect is one of the highlights of the Chinese animated sensation, which on Monday surpassed the 2015 film "Jurassic World" to secure a spot among the top nine highest-grossing films globally.
On Tuesday, it climbed to the top as the highest-grossing animated film of all time globally.
Producing grand scenes of the animation movie set high standard for rendering technology, which is necessary in animation production for converting 3D digital scenes into 2D images.
Rayvision, a visual could computing enterprise in south China's Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, contributed to the visual effect production of "Ne Zha 2".
The company's independently developed self-service cloud computing platform provided powerful computing service to the film's creative team, so that they can have a much shorter production period.
"Cloud rendering technology is capable of distributing and uploading big local computing tasks to cloud computing clusters. It has completely changed the traditional computing models, allowing production teams to access vast computational resources anytime and anywhere without building their own data centers," said Li Kaixuan, manager of cloud rendering technology of Rayvision.
Noticeable breakthroughs were also made in making visual effects in "Ne Zha 2" that present tiny particles and natural movement of fluid flow according to principles of fluid dynamics.
Nie Huajun, general manager of Shenzhen Rock Visual Effects Technology Company Limited, also a contributor to the animation movie, said many of the breakthroughs they had made were backed by strong computing capacities generated from the western part of China.
"The visual effects of shock waves, along with their smoke, dust, and fluids, need to be produced according to the principles of fluid dynamics. We faced many challenges in making grand visual effects, because scenes like the flow of magma and the explosion need to be backed with huge computing power. In terms of making breakthroughs in new infrastructure, East-to-West Computing Capacity Diversion Project helped us a lot," said Nie.
Gui'an Supercomputing Center, located in Anshun City, southwest China's Guizhou Province, is one of the providers of the strong computing power mentioned by Nie.
"The film has many delicate scenes, like the flow of magma and the waves. Our supercomputing center provided 40 percent of the computing power needed to render these scenes, which is a great support to the creative team," said Xia Hai, director of the construction and development department of Gui'an New District Science and Innovation Industry Development Company Limited.
Computing power backs delicate visual effects production of "Ne Zha 2"
A video featuring a former member of Unit 731, a notorious Japanese germ-warfare unit during World War II (WWII), was released on Thursday in northeast China's Harbin, revealing details of how the unit used meteorological data to conduct horrific bacterial experiments on human beings.
The video was released by the Exhibition Hall of Evidence of Crimes Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, in which former Unit 731 member Tsuruo Nishijima detailed how the unit used meteorological data to carry out a bacterial dispersal experiment.
The video was recorded in 1997 by Japanese scholar Fuyuko Nishisato and donated to the exhibition hall in 2019, according to the hall, which was built on the former site of the headquarters of Unit 731 in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province.
Jin Shicheng, director of the Department of Publicity, Education and Exhibition of the exhibition hall, said that Nishijima joined Unit 731 in October 1938 and served in the unit's meteorological squad. The squad was not a simple observation section but rather an auxiliary force supporting the unit's field human experiments by measuring wind direction, wind speed, and other conditions to ensure optimal experimental results, according to Jin.
Nishijima confirmed in the footage that "the meteorological squad had to be present at every field experiment." He testified to the "rainfall experiments" conducted by Unit 731, which involved aircraft releasing bacterial agents at extremely low altitudes.
At a field-testing site in Anda City, Heilongjiang, Unit 731 aircraft descended to about 50 meters above the ground. They sprayed bacterial culture liquids onto "maruta" -- human test subjects -- who were tied to wooden stakes. Each experiment involved about 30 people, spaced roughly 5 meters apart. After the experiments, the victims were loaded into sealed trucks and transported back to the unit, where their symptoms and disease progression were recorded over a period of several days.
"Unit 731's bacterial weapons were dropped by aircraft from a height of 50 meters in the open air. Therefore, the meteorological squad needed to observe wind direction and speed, which directly affected the precision and accuracy of the bacterial weapons deployment," said Jin.
Nishijima recounted the harrowing experience of the human test subjects.
"They were fully aware that inhaling the substances would certainly lead to death, so they closed their eyes and held their breath to avoid breathing them in. Their resistance prevented the experiment from proceeding. To compel them to comply, they were forced at gunpoint to open their mouths and lift their heads," said Nishijima.
These experiments, disguised as "scientific research," were in fact systematic tests of biological warfare weapons conducted by the Japanese military. The data generated from these inhumane activities became "research findings" shared among the Japanese army medical school, the medical community, and the military at large.
"At that time, the entire Japanese medical community tacitly approved, encouraged, and even participated in the criminal acts of Unit 731. The unit comprised members from Japan's medical and academic sectors who served the Japanese war of aggression against China. Thus, Unit 731 was not just a military unit but represented an organized and systematic criminal enterprise operating from the top down," said Jin.
Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin as the nerve center for Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.
At least 3,000 people were used for human experiments by Unit 731, and Japan's biological weapons killed more than 300,000 people in China.
Video offers details of Japan's germ-warfare crimes in northeast China
