Brother Dao Took the Entertainment Industry by Storm, Fans Beg Me Not to Kill Anymore

Chapter 969: Crisis for the Production Team—Is the Release Date Being Pulled Away?!

”So thatʼs the situation this time.”

During the video conference, Xiao Zhou, the operations manager, organized the basic information she had gathered and carefully reported it to the other participants.

”It all started when a blogger on an overseas website suddenly posted a video claiming that the mecha model used in our overseas promotional trailer for ʼTime Confrontationʼ was a model created for a competition by another blogger on the platform. This model had already been released in August of the year before last, participated in a world rendering competition, and even won an award. Although more than a year has passed, many people in the industry still remember this incident vividly.”

”So when this video went viral, the traffic on the other side immediately caught up with the hype we had been building up recently, and it instantly caused a sensation overseas. Several other well-known bloggers also jointly released videos to condemn the production team. At the same time, domestic media also took action, and major platforms suddenly became trending topics - itʼs hard not to suspect that both domestic and foreign sides had made preparations in advance.”

Xiao Zhou moved the mouse to switch the entire video feed of the meeting to her own computer screen and provided a photo.

In the photo, a cool silver and blue mecha model appears before everyone.

This mecha has a complete full-body design, along with very detailed 3D data and model displays from various angles, such as side views, back views, close-ups of the face, and magnified images of other details and textures... The entire set of data is very complete, and the images are clearly meticulously prepared.

Upon closer inspection, one will find that this mecha is indeed very similar to a certain mecha in ”Time Warp”.

Especially after Xiaozhou showed a screenshot of a mecha scene that flashed by in their trailer, everyone realized that the similarity was indeed hard to say, and it fit the two possibilities in the current public opinion - either it was direct plagiarism, or AI incorporated this work.

There arenʼt many mechs in ”Time Standoff”. Apart from the protagonistʼs entire mech that fights from beginning to end, some mechs only appear in the chaotic battle at the beginning.

Even though the battle was quite chaotic, the production team was still working hard to portray it. The person they were working with, Mr. Huang, who had almost gone bankrupt when he started an online celebrity company and whose dream was to sell his mecha models all over the world, provided more than fifty original designs.

After much deliberation, they sought collaboration with other designers, and the production team ultimately kept about twenty drafts.

I just didnʼt expect that even though they were being this cautious, a problem still occurred.

Is the AI ​​malfunctioning, or is there a designer involved in plagiarism during the entire design process?

-

The meeting was captured by about ten camera lenses. Besides the operations department who came to report on the situation, there was also Lin Cheng, the head of Linghui Entertainment, the main operations team and post-production team of ”Time Confrontation”, as well as the director and agent who were far away in Beijing.

Everyone looked rather grim. The emergency online meeting was organized to address the current public opinion crisis as quickly as possible.

Liu Rulan tapped on the table, her face cold as she scrolled through her phone while listening to the plan provided by the operations team, growing angrier the more she listened.

”Weʼve already confirmed that this mecha design wasnʼt provided by Mr. Huangʼs team. So who is the designer for this design? It couldnʼt have just popped up out of nowhere, could it?”

”Which part of this entire process went wrong? So much time has passed, havenʼt you found out what happened yet?”

Her voice quieted the meeting down a bit.

Lin Cheng chimed in, ”Has the post-production team not yet identified the modeling teacher responsible for this content?”

”Weʼve already started the investigation—”

Sha Ye, who was in charge of the entire modeling process in the later stages, also spoke out in the meeting with great frustration.

After turning off his microphone, he couldnʼt help but curse and swear in front of his computer.

”Which little brat was in charge of this part? They couldnʼt possibly have actually used AI to run it just to be lazy, could they?! My reputation is ruined by this piece of trash...”

However, when he pulled up the project file to search for the notes, he was shocked to find that the mecha model section was labeled ”Xiao He”.

It turns out it was that bastard Xiao He—

Huh? Somethingʼs not right?! Wait a minute—

Xiao He?

ah?

Xiao He was in charge of this mecha model?!

Sha Ye was stunned; the words he wanted to say stuck in his throat.

Fearing he might have misread it, he quickly opened the history of several other project files and compared them with the internal attendance records and the reports of several renderers. In the end, he had to confirm that the person in charge of this modeling was indeed Xiao He.

How could it be Xiao He?!

In the later stages of ”Time Confrontation”, Xiao He actively participated as a technician, but most of his work was to test the AI-assisted functions he had at the time. Therefore, he was mainly responsible for the early modeling and rendering, which naturally included the modeling and restoration of some mechs.

Many people might immediately question the copyright issue upon hearing that it was made with AI. However, their AI assistance simply reduces most of the modeling work for modelers and improves rendering efficiency. The database they use is also a copyrighted work built internally by them.

Just like an original draft of a complete mecha design, all the data is only two-dimensional, representing the authorʼs independent creation. The modeler still needs to manually create the 3D model. However, with AI assistance, the model can be quickly generated based on the existing design draft, and then the modeler can refine and reconstruct it...

There are no copyright issues involved at all. AI is just a tool. There are fundamental differences in how AI is used. In fact, some AI assistance can greatly improve work efficiency.

In fact, this model has existed since the emergence of AI, and many companies involved in this field have already begun research and development and use it. It is not the only company, Linghui Entertainment, that has adopted this auxiliary form.

However, the same tools are used by some people to plagiarize and do bad things, ruining their reputations and naturally affecting those of them who use the tools normally.

They are quite helpless in the current situation.

Most importantly, based on their current investigation, they have indeed not found the original design drafts for this mecha...

Thatʼs terrible! Could it be that Xiao He accidentally included his AI-generated mecha model in the test?

Then, during post-production, they completely failed to notice that this mecha model wasnʼt part of the original designs for this batch, so they just put it in the scene... You canʼt just put these things in like that!

Sha Ye felt that Xiao He wasnʼt that kind of person, but he wanted to immediately ask Xiao He himself... However, he suddenly remembered that Xiao He had been cornered by the media at an event not long ago, and he didnʼt know if Xiao He had come out yet.

-

The meeting did not pause even as Sha Ye fell into an eerie silence.

Xiao Zhou continued, speaking with trepidation, about the public opinion situation on various platforms—

Itʼs quite obvious that thereʼs solid evidence to support this claim, and many people feel that ”Time Standoff” canʼt be explained clearly.

This is a time when we are already very sensitive about AI, and the fact that a science fiction film touches on this topic makes us question the quality of the film.

Although many films now choose to downplay issues related to plagiarism or AI, and some small-scale discussions will not shake the foundation of box office revenue, there is no need to worry. However, this time the exposure occurred before the filmʼs release, and there was a sudden outbreak of public opinion both domestically and internationally. This is obviously due to malicious manipulation behind the scenes.

This might not be fatal for other film crews, but itʼs a very heavy blow to their upcoming movie.

Other competitors will definitely take this opportunity to continue to suppress them. If things donʼt go well, ”Time and Space Standoff” may be withdrawn from the Spring Festival release schedule.

Theyʼll suffer huge losses, and Xiao He and Shu Han, who are closely associated with ”Time and Space Standoff,” will definitely be severely affected.

As a result, after this news came out, everyone went crazy, marketing like crazy and shouting non-stop, afraid that they might kill ”Time and Space Standoff”.

Of course, they might be even more eager for Xiao He and Shu Han, the two cash cows of Linghui Entertainment, to fall because of this.