Chapter #2 - The Thundering Birth of the Future

//////// AUTHOR'S NOTES

So, this chapter ended being a tad heavier than I expected. If you already know the terms Bezier curve, cel-shading and rasterization, this is not gonna be a hard read.

If you don't know any of those technical words, you can still read it like if it was all techno-babble. 

All the terms are technically correct and accurate, as a matter of fact, which might make this a better read if you wanna dive into it deeper.

But as you know, technically correct is still just the barely-enough kind of correct.

Hope you enjoy it ^^

Btw, THIS IS THE PULPIEST PULP THAT HAS EVER DARED TO PULP!
Do not take any of this seriously!

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The Tale of the Mad Scientist - Lewd Game Dev Edition

Chapter #2 - The Thundering Birth of the Future

"May I approach?" The ghost inquires with a skull-like smile.

The Mad Scientist nods.

The ghost hovers over to the monitor. It feels colder all around him.

His eyes enlarge as if they were maws about to swallow live prey. He stands but a few millimeters away from the monitor. The eyeballs bulge with the spherical reflection of the screen's content. The videos play on, followed by the fast and precise printer-like movements of the two void orbs watching it.

As each animation loops around, the ghost pays close attention to the edges of each shape. He shifts his focus to the dance of light and shadows. His gaze locks in on the specular reflections. 

He rises up with a smirk. "So, you are one for party tricks now, huh?"

The Mad Scientist doesn't move.

"Oh, c'mon! You don't expect me to spell it out loud, do you?" He says it with the snarkiest fuckin' tone.

"But I acquiesce," He feigns a bow.

"These images are nothing but a party-trick. A hanky-panky. A toy filled with shaders, filled with...", he proceeds.

"S D Fs", he says as every muscle in his face pitches in for that line.

"Signed Distance Functions", he elaborates while turning to the scientist's audience.

#//// NARRATOR IN A ROBOTIC VOICE ////////////////////
#//
#//  Signed Distance Functions:
#//  A collection of techniques that allow a
#//  programmer to draw graphics on a screen
#//  by using functions that describe the
#//  distance of a given 3D object to the
#//  camera.
#//
#//  When combined with raymarching,
#//  images of arbitrary resolution and depth
#//  can be generated without ever needing
#//  to use the traditional methods for CGI,
#//  like modeling, rigging and texturing.
#//  
#//  WATCH THIS VIDEO FOR MORE:
#//  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8--5LwHRhjk
#//
#//// END OF NARRATOR IN A ROBOTIC VOICE ////

The soapbox is now a stage, and the ghost is a villain about to sing his song.

"A favorite of the nerds out there, I presume. Isn't it truly a dream to never need skills other than coding and maths?" He says as he begins his solo.

"Too bad, though, that it can never yield any *real* results", he debauches. 

"For, you see, such approach is as safe as a jungle that's been left untouched by man for many generations."

"It hides one too many tigers in it" ,he says with a flourish of his right hand that ends in his thumb pointing to himself.

"For... Instance...", he waltzes back to the scientist.

"I couldn't help but notice", he says, "the limited range of motion in the examples you just provided, colleague."

"Could it be because even just a couple more angles in those rotations would turn the images into a mountain of glitches and artifacts?" He whispers snidely.

"Oh, and the things being portrayed. Don't they feel a little too much segmented? Like, just the eyes? Just the crotch? Suspicious~~"

"Could it be because having even a single extra model would slow the rendering down to a pitiful crawl? Or just flat out break it?"

"And let's not forget that this criticism comes from me first accepting", he pauses for a quick laugh, "imagine that, at face value that those videos are truly about what you say they are about."

"Never trust a video on the inter-market, kiddos." He says it with the same energy of that uncle.

The Mad Scientist still doesn't move. What is it about that ghost that stuns her into silence, the crowd wonders. 

He turns his head away from everyone, while still having his torso facing forward at an almost exact ninety degrees angle.
"I'll grant you that the final results do have some polish to them. Maybe even more polish than the average party-trick at this inter-market." 

"But to claim that this is the salvation of a doomed world?" His voice is soft.

"The bridge that connects every soul?" Even softer.

"The medicine that heals all ailments?" This line was practically chanted.

"That", he pauses for a moment, "I cannot allow." He says with the intensity of a shovel piercing hardened soil at the graveyard.

Stillness.

A giggle breaks the silence. Then, a laugh. Then a full on cackle.

"Ha! I expected so much more!", the scientist finally yells breaking the mold, "And to think I let myself be haunted by you!"

The ghost furls his eyebrows. 

"Your sight is short and your understanding of the mysteries upon you, basic", she says.
A one-two punch from the scientist. The ghost recoils.

"I see but what is being shown to me. If all you can serve me are those flat images, then all you get in return are my flat words." A classy riposte from him.

The duel is on.

A standard fighting game UI drops onto the screen.

Round 1. Fight!

Mad Scientist: "I don't ask you to consider anything I said as the truth. Those images speak for themselves."

She advances.

Mad Scientist: "Scrutinize them pixel by pixel if you must, and relish in the fact that no human hand can draw such accurate shapes in perspective at sixty frames per second no matter what."

She attempts to land a strong hit.

Ghost: "Hmm. Agreed. But all that proves is that there's a computer involved somewhere. A given in the inter-market."

Perfect parry. This ghost is no joke.

Ghost: "For what all these glorified JIFs have shown to me, this could be just a bare-bones 3D model rendered with cel-shading. Not even a SDF composition!"

A small jab by him.

Ghost: "That's not an achievement! That's a ten minute YouTube tutorial!"

He combos it in a sweep.

Mad Scientist: "Oh, cel-shading, you say? And what kind of cel-shading could produce such smooth and contextually appropriate shadows on those upskirted thighs? The magical kind?"

She blocks and links into a punish.

#//// NARRATOR IN A ROBOTIC VOICE ///////////
#//
#//  CEL-SHADING:
#//  A special technique named after
#//  cels (short for celluloid), clear sheets of
#//  acetate which were painted on for use
#//  in traditional 2D animation.
#//
#//  Several methods can be used to give
#//  a render the cel-shaded look, but the
#//  most successful and versatile involves
#//  editing the normal vectors of a model
#//  in such a way that shadows and lights
#//  can be drawn uniformly by the renderer.
#//
#//  Best known for their results are the
#//  people at Arc System Works' RED team.
#//
#//  WATCH THIS VIDEO FOR MORE:
#//  https://youtu.be/yhGjCzxJV3E?t=1202
#//
#//// END OF NARRATOR IN A ROBOTIC VOICE //////

Mad Scientist: "Look at the work of the grandmasters of cel-shading. Every normal on every pose had to be set by hand to achieve the smoothness necessary to pass as a 2D look."

First, she does the setup.

Mad Scientist: "Are you implying I'm just as good as them?"

She starts juggling him. She's building meter.

Ghost: "Oh, please. Those are 10 seconds clips, at most. How much time did you spend on this again? A year?"

He breaks loose. She dropped the combo. It's his time to punish.

Ghost: "Even someone like you could do it in that amount of time." 

Waking uppercut. It's a heavy hit.

Mad Scientist: "No... It was more than that. It was... Nearly four years!"

She jumps nakedly at punishment range. What is this? Is she throwing the match?

Ghost: "What?!"

Is he being baited? He is not sure.

Mad Scientist: "And it all started out when we needed to draw pubes on a character!"

She presses the taunt button.

A four year old Tumblr post tumbles in and out of frame. What was that? Did that really happen?

Mad Scientist: "We've been secretly working on this technology ever since. I-I'm sorry everyone."

She presses the pause button and turns to the audience.

Mad Scientist: "I should have told you. I mean, I think I even did at some point... But I didn't explain just how much I was consumed by the idea."

"Every time I rushed to deliver the next update, it kept hammering inside my mind."

"If only I had the engine ready by now, this all would be done so much faster. It would all look so much better..."

"But every time I gained an inch towards the engine's completion, it drifted away further."

"At some point, I decided to go all in into it. And last year, I finally committed to it. It was all or nothing at that point."

"And after all the sacrifices made along the way...", she says as if building up to something.

"Like hell that I'm gonna let a whining specter hold us back any longer!"
She yells while assuming a power stance.

The fighting game UI shatters. This is going full anime now.

"This engine! This new power! It fills me with determination!" She exclaims without even a hint of shame on her face.

"This is not a cel-shaded model! Not even a SDF composition! It cannot be! For if it was..." The will of her words gather up in an aura around her.

"Then there would be no reason to make the range of motion in the animations that limited!" She throws the ghost's attack back at him.

"Guh...!" The ghost takes the hit. He was not ready for this level of nonsense.

But she's right, he monologues insides his head. Displaying such limited range of motion in her examples is not befitting the cel-shading hypothesis.

It actually points towards to...

"Hooooraaaa!" The ghost screams stupefied.

"It's even worse then! These are just 2D vector paths in an off-the-shelf creation suite!" His words attack in retaliation.

"Oh, they are vector paths all right! But they are defined in 3D space!!" She grabs the ghost and executes a seismic throw.

The ghost fumbles his defense and lands on his face.

It's true. Nothing in a Bezier curve definition forbids it from existing in any number of dimensions. They are just polynomials after all.

It doesn't matter to him.

"That's not how they work! They cannot be rasterized in 3D space without intersecting themselves safe from trivial cases!" The ghost summons his energy into a fireball and throws it at her.

"Indeed! That's why, in my tech, they are only ever shaped in such trivial cases!" She slaps the fireball away.

"What?! That makes no sense! You wouldn't manage to create anything more complex than a sphere with such an approach!" He yells in sheer frustration.

"And yet, I can! For, you see," she says while waving her arms to gather the mana around her.

"Those Bezier curves are created not from control points and anchors, but from raymarching data alone!!" She fires a beam of pure technicality at her target.

It hits dead center on the ghost's chest. He can't understand it.

Wounded, he lowers his stance and attempts to stall.

"H-How would that even work?" His damaged lungs fail to prevent him from stuttering. He may gain a moment to recover if he elaborates on it.

"Raymarching gives a hit or a miss for every pixel on the screen. It's point-wise data! It can't be used to create 2D curves, much less...", he continues as he struggles through the reality-confounding field emanating from her.

"Much less 3D ones!" He shouts. The desperate man's defense.

She laughs. Not at the ghost's pathetic attempt at keeping up, but at the sheer relief she feels.

She has this in the bag. Her fears have been placated.

She raises her stance, spreads her legs in an A-position and crosses her arms tightly.

"IN - TEH - GRAY - SHION", she spells it out loud.

And just as an actual spell was cast, two figures erupt from the ground.

Statues the size of a mountain, they appear right below each of her feet and elevate her to the skies. 

They are posed with one hand on their backs and the other proudly displaying an apple and a monad, respectively. 

Standing on the shoulders of giants, her words are echoed by thunderous voices. 

A choir begins singing in the background. It foretells victory.

The shockwave of the scientist's amplified words sweeps the ghost off his feet and slams him on the ground three meters away.

"But that... That's... IMPOSSIBLE!", he shouts in pure anguish. His mind begins to crack.

No, it's not impossible, the ghost reflects on it. Another crack.

It's just extremely stupid.

Unfathomably stupid.

His mind is blown. Blasted open. And now, at long last, he can see it. 

The full picture of endless madness.

Define a 3D function,

      then sample it, 

            then parametrize it, 

                then integrate it, 

                      just to return

                    back to the original function

                         sliced thinly.

"Why...?" He begs for an answer that will never come.

"Why would anyone with the skills to perform such mathematical stunts ever attempt such asinine project?" He tortures himself more.

She extends her hand far beyond the plane of the camera, then pulls it back and fix her glasses.

"The Shinkai Singularity...", she murmurs.

"No...!" The ghost lets out a whimper of dense terror.

#//// NARRATOR IN A ROBOTIC VOICE //////////
#//
#//  SHINKAI SINGULARITY:
#//  Named after the animation works credited
#//  to Makoto Shinkai.
#//
#//  The Shinkai Singularity is a theoretical
#//  point in space-time where computer graphics 
#//  created in Makoto Shinkai's supra-realistic
#//  style are finally able to be mass produced.
#//  
#//  After that point, according to the theory,
#//  no amount of realism portrayed in
#//  films or games will be able to compete
#//  against their supra-realistic counterparts,
#//  no mattering how advanced or well funded 
#//  they might be.
#//  
#//  For every time consumers claim they
#//  prefer more realistic media, what they
#//  actually mean is that they prefer media
#//  that portrays their wishful thinking
#//  as reality. 
#//
#//  Only supra-realistic works
#//  can elevate such desires to their
#//  maximum potential, theoretically.
#//
#//  WATCH THIS VIDEO FOR MORE:
#//  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHPy7r2RDVE
#//
#//// END OF NARRATOR IN A ROBOTIC VOICE ///////

The ghost tries to get himself up on his feet. His strength fails him. He barely manages to get up on all fours.

"You cannot actually believe that you can reach... the Shinkai Singularity", the ghost says.

"I do", she answers with less than ten milliseconds of latency.

"Who..." The ghost grunts. He gets up on his feet once more.

Who.

That word is now branded into his mind. 

Who. 

The ghost arches his back towards the sky. He feels all the rage and confusion swirling up inside.

In a spasm, he bends in the opposite direction and exorcises his torments in a single howl.

"WHO?!!?  SUCH LUST FOR TWO-DEE ANIME TIDDIES!!!  WHO WOULD WASTE THE PRIME YEARS OF THEIR LIFE TO DEVELOP A DRAWING METHOD EQUIVALENT TO COOKING RAVIOLI PASTA BY INSTEAD COOKING SPAGHETTI FIRST THEN DIPPING YOUR HANDS IN THE SCALDING WATER AND FOLDING EACH SPAGHETTI STRAND INTO TINY LITTLE BOW-TIES!?!??!"

"WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!?!?!?!?!?!?"
He unleashes his full despair.

He falls back onto the ground. Gravity must have increased.

A shadow hovers over him. He looks up. The scientist's glistening legs is all he can see. 

"Who do you think you are...", he whimpers.

"There's already billions invested in replicating Shinkai's works as cheaply as possible!" He cries.

"What makes you think that a lewd game-dev with a shoestring budget can achieve what no corporation can!?" He cries once more.

"Because...", she says softly.

The scientist, then, slowly bends over.

Points to the box.

And whispers into his ear:

"I already did."

A low thud is heard from the ghost's chest cavity.

He closes his eyes slowly, but his vision does not go dark. 

Instead, he dreams himself up a garden.

A garden of lush greenery, filled with flowers and peace. He stands up and looks to the horizon. Beauty and calmness as far as his eyes can see. The sky is tinted with blue and pink. The sun light is gentle and everywhere.

He looks to his left side, and a tall tree finds itself there. He touches it softly, and the tiniest white flowers sprout around his hands, forming the letters "CEL SHADING".

He thanks the tree for its existence. It's by the sustenance of its fruits and the shade of its leaves that the garden grows forever healthy and self-contained. Never enough abundance to rot away in similitude. Never enough famine to drown it all in loneliness.

A horn sounds beyond the horizon. Drums start to bang. A blood red light washes the blue out of the sky.

The ghost looks frantically at his surroundings trying to find out what is coming for him. And then he sees it.

Dakimakuras are hoisted up high against the stormy sky. Side by side, there must be over a hundred of them. He blinks to readjust his focus. Now, there are over nine thousand.

The horde is coming. But that should not be possible. Where did they all come from? Why are they all here?!

He looks back to the tree. He sees it fading away into thin trails of dust being carried by the wind. The tree is dying.

He cannot believe it. He hugs the tree tightly, hoping that his own life may be injected into it to keep it alive. It's in vain.

Feeling the coarse tree bark scratching his face, he opens his eyes and spot a vine.

In confusion, he steps away and takes a quick scan at the whole tree. The vine is already all over it.

Panicking, he tries to yank it out. He grabs a piece and tears it from the tree. Maybe he can do it. Maybe he can save the way things were if only he mangles out the deviant.

It's too late.

The tree crumbles like a piece of coal in a vise. The vines rallied by their first victory turn to the soil and begin to spread. In a second, the garden's gone. It's all vine now.

The ghost closes his eyes and ask to whoever might be listening why do the living have to die.

The deafening sound of the horde's stampede is all he hears in return.

In his last seconds, he turns his eyes to the piece of the vine in his hand. His only victory.

And there he can see, carved into each tiny leave, the words:

"Integration of Raymarching Data Signals on Signed Distance Fields Interpolated By...", he gulps, "... Multi-Dimensional Bezier Curves."

He's jolted back into reality. 

He's still laying on the ground. The Mad Scientist towers over him.

"You were not defeated because you over-estimated my sanity," she says somberly, "but because you under-estimated my need to validate the choice of making lewd games for a living!"

The ghost barely hears it. He only has an ounce of strength left in him. 

He needs to bring her to her senses.

"You know nothing of what you've done!" He says with great effort. 

"Graphical Fidelity was our last bastion! Without it," he continues, "there will be nothing left to stop the Hordes of Weebdom!"

"They will ravage through these lands! Nothing will be left un-consumed! Nothing will be left... Un-lewded!" These words bring him much pain.

"HUMANITY WILL NEVER RECOVER!" He shouts with everything he has left inside of him. That is his last chance. His last shot.

A second of silence.

"So it has come to it. HUMANITY", she spits that last word as if it was a vile ichor.

"Humanity's final reckoning comes not by the planet it has abused, nor the cosmos it has relinquished, but by the very children it has forsaken", she ponders.

"So be it", she concludes.

"If all it takes to bring a species down to its knees is some animated drawings, then let me be the one to pound it into fine dust and scatter it to the winds!", she says while gesturing at the air with her fingers.

"NOW!" She clamors.

This is the time.

"Witness the Thundering Birth of the Future!"

She picks up the box.

"The End Of The World made manifest!"

She grabs the lid.

"BEHOLD!!!"

She tears open the box.

The lid flies high as the choir swells up to infinity.

The very last ray of sunshine crosses the sky at the zenith of the lid's trajectory.

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The camera slowly pans down towards the box's contents.

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The choir fades away.....

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.... into the lonely plucking of a melancholic instrument.

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Inside the box, a pauper contraption. A pile of scraps.

And on top of it, lies a single strand of spaghetti, knotted into the tiniest of bow-ties.

                             ___                        __     
RECORD           \==\========|__|=[]
SCRATCH!          \ /                         |.|.  
.                                '                           |.|.
  <========^========>      _||_   
_/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\__||||_  
|                                                                  |  
|                                                                  |  
+-------------------------------------+   

==END_OF_CHAPTER_2================================================

// That's a turntable, not a train.

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