23. The Deadline Still Comes
Three days before the deadline.
Back in this era, Photoshop was the mainstream for portfolio work.
Because it was easy to use even if you were not a professional, and because you could retouch images, most people in architecture relied heavily on Photoshop.
But Photoshop’s base is pixels. If you keep zooming in and out on the screen, you can see that the image is made not of smooth lines but of square pixels.
Because of that, file sizes could become excessive, and when printed, the image quality would sometimes break down.
For these reasons, as time passed, people in architecture began making design reports in Illustrator rather than Photoshop.
Illustrator is a world made of vectors. Because the smooth lines stayed alive as they were, the file size was lighter, and image breaking almost never happened.
For graphic work, there was clearly a subtle difference in quality.
Moreover, since a design report must be printed and bound, a vector system was essential.
When Geonshin checked the computer, the Adobe Illustrator installed here was not even the newest version for the time.
Photoshop was clearly the 2002 version, but Illustrator seemed to have been installed only in formality.
But for Geonshin now, the gap in program versions was not a problem at all. Because the number 5 shining on the back of his hand was beginning to turn the impossible into the possible.
Geonshin began filling the blank pages with an idea that would change Gwangseong University’s future.
Pastel tone icons and diagrams whose meaning you could grasp at a glance. Why this land needed an empty space, what this space would mean to citizens and students, why they needed to tear down the wall and communicate with the city.
When his upgraded perspective and ideas, strengthened through the drawings he had taken from the folder, combined with the “creativity” stat that supported them, something like potential exploded out of Geonshin.
Geonshin’s hands did not need time to worry. Using DM Architecture’s design report that had been input through a folder coupon, he fused it into Division 7’s new concept, and his hands danced.
“Wow! Th–, what is this!”
Startled by Geonshin’s work, the server administrator blurted it out without realizing.
“Ah, I’m sorry. Isn’t this Illustrator? Wow. So you can use it like this too. I’ve never seen it before!”
Of course, the administrator was shocked.
For example, in StarCraft too, everyone is given the same races, weapons, and stats fairly. But the build-up using them is completely different, isn’t it?
Depending on the strategy to beat the opponent, new techniques and functions are created in various ways even within the same game.
Illustrator was no different.
No matter how old the program version was, the current Geonshin had the skill to pull results with the latest build-up.
“Wow. Later, if you join the company, could I request you to train the employees on the program? This is insane. I’m someone who teaches people how to use programs like this wherever I go. But I’ve never seen a function like this!”
Geonshin said with an awkward smile.
“Ahahaha. Well, I’d like that too. But for now, we have to solve this project first. If we lose this, the team gets disbanded.”
“Ah! I’m sorry. I won’t disturb you. But it’s okay if I just watch from the side, right?”
“Yes, as much as you want.”
Just then, Team Leader of Division 1 came into the server room. He brought a CD case and handed it to the administrator.
“This is our neighborhood living facility project. I wrote the details on the case. Please keep it stored well.”
“Yes, understood.”
“And my computer CAD right now…”
The team leader, about to explain why he had brought it himself, suddenly lost his words when he saw Geonshin’s monitor in the corner where he was working.
‘That’s the Gwangseong University project, isn’t it? So it’s Division 7. Ah… that time, the design pool, and at Division 7’s presentation… it’s that part-time worker.’
Many people did not pay attention because he was just a part-timer, but the people who had seen that shocking design pool back then were already recognizing Geonshin. The Division 1 team leader was one of them.
The team leader stared blankly as he stole glances at the monitor.
First, he was shocked by Geonshin’s hands controlling the program at an unbelievable speed, and second, he was shocked by what was contained on every page.
He could not see the details clearly, but just by the placement of the diagrams and icons, he could immediately understand what they were trying to say.
To think this was a part-timer’s skill…
“Ah, no. I’ll come back later.”
The team leader left in a hurry and walked quickly down the hallway.
‘Is Division 7 about to cause an accident like this?’
“What, Division 7?”
The Division 1 team leader told Director Park Seonggi what he had seen in the server room.
“It’s that part-time worker, you know. His hands looked… not normal. And it was definitely something like a design report, but it was clearly different from the style we usually work in.”
But Director Park Seonggi, who listened to the team leader’s worried words, smiled with a sneer.
“Yungu. Division 7, that part-time worker, what could they possibly make, holed up in some server room or something. And do you know where Mirim Architecture sent their CG and design report outsourcing?”
“Ah, I don’t know. Well, Mirim and us both often give work to Studio 101 or AkiCG, so… wouldn’t it be one of those?”
“No. It’s Beta Digital.”
“Be- Beta Digital? Wait, they even do domestic architecture company work?”
Strictly speaking, Beta Digital was an overseas firm.
A company that mainly made animation, a graphic video specialized company that even participated in Disney or Pixar works.
Since famous foreign CG experts were at a level where they taught domestic experts, their quality was beyond question.
They only did architectural CG work when overseas master architects carried out projects in Korea, but this time, with Mirim Architecture, they agreed to take on a domestic architecture project for the first time.
“Then no matter how hard Division 7 tries, they can’t do it. To run into an opponent like that…”
“That’s why don’t worry about Division 7. Just hurry and move forward with what you’re doing now. The president told us to bring it quickly. Do you want to work through Chuseok too?”
“Ah, no. I can’t do that. Haha. Understood.”
Director Park Seonggi turned his chair and looked out the window. Then he frowned.
It was because the images he had seen at the design pool came back to him. It was only a bridge interior image, but the intense feeling from then still had not been erased.
He felt bitter that Mirim was working with Beta Digital, but on the other hand, he also felt relieved. No matter what that guy tried, he could not beat them in output quality.
‘Mo Seungjin, kkk. This is as far as you go.’
Thinking of Division 7 being devastated, Director Park Seonggi naturally let out a laugh.
One day before the deadline.
Before he knew it, the deadline was right in front of them.
‘Even after the regression, there’s still no Chuseok holiday. I was going to go down and see my mother. Is this also fate?’
Before the regression, Geonshin had once had a submission schedule set for the day right after the Chuseok holiday ended, just like now. After burning the whole holiday and being worn out from all-nighters, he submitted and asked the person in charge.
‘I heard you stay up every night, so I set the date like this so you can rest a bit during Chuseok. Hahaha!’
If you endure three times, you can even escape murder, and things like this happened every year in the architecture industry.
On Christmas day, Geonshin had seen an assistant manager get proposed to by a boyfriend who came briefly in front of the company, then go back in to pull an all-nighter.
He had also seen, on the other hand, an employee come back after breaking up on Christmas day and pull an all-nighter while crying.
Every time, he would lament his own position, having to keep those people there and make them work.
So the price of this endless labor had to be compensated by winning. If they burned themselves white like this and still had nothing left…
That resentment was unimaginable.
‘Let’s burn the last flame today too. Tomorrow morning, I have to hand it over to the print shop.’
For an ordinary office worker, this schedule was truly impossible. Starting modeling with only one day left. But Geonshin had the status window. He used the status window skill and began the CG work.
‘No time. Today, it’s immediately [CG Work].’
When the number 5 shining on the back of his hand met the high performance computer, his hands flew like a fish that had met water, darting between the water and the surface.
In an instant, the surrounding buildings appeared, and he pulled in Team Leader Seungjin’s drawings and began raising the sports field plan into three dimensions.
His left hand pounded countless shortcut keys, and his right hand danced with the mouse like a figure skater on ice.
Of course, as Team Leader Seungjin worried, after the regression, this was the first time he was making such a massive aerial view. But it did not matter at all.
He already had enough experience before the regression, and now he had the status window skill. The synergy of the two was enormous.
And unlike when he was only making a simple design report, as soon as he started working in 3D Max, Geonshin began to be amazed by this computer’s ability.
Even with a load that would have already caused a normal computer to stutter or freeze mid-modeling, this computer ran without much strain.
‘As expected. It’s on a different level from the office computers.’
As he turned the 2D drawings into 3D models, Geonshin began to admire it.
Geonshin too had been a CAD monkey who only punched out drawings for twenty years, but Team Leader Seungjin’s drawings had no visible error at all.
Geonshin placed the program blocks in the correct positions to make the circulation concise.
And the consideration of bundling service rooms like the electrical room and mechanical room into the core where the stairs, elevator, and restrooms were grouped, so that they would not stand out to students, showed just how meticulous a designer he was.
Even though it would not have been familiar and would have had many constraints to build a sports center of this huge scale underground, he overcame the difficult level difference of the site and settled it neatly into the existing sports field, making it a feasible plan.
‘As expected, he’s not ordinary. Team Leader Seungjin. This is why they said he was the ace of Division 1.’
And even while he was churning out work at this speed, there was not a single mistake. It showed his perfectionist tendency.
Anyway, the moment Geonshin finished the modeling, he started rendering right away.
Of course, rendering increases quality by the time it takes, so he could not do it roughly. But with the deadline right in front of them, he had no choice but to fill the insufficient time with Photoshop.
As soon as images came out, Geonshin immediately retouched them in Photoshop and moved into panel work. The time had already passed 2 a.m.
Panels were work where you simply had to make the optimal layout based on the sources used in the aerial views and the design report.
It looked simple, but in fact it was the most important work.
In marketing, if you had to melt all information about your product into a single poster, and if you knew that it was directly tied to sales, then of course enormous worry would be needed, wouldn’t it?
But Geonshin, using the status window skill along with creativity, finished an A0 panel in a flash. This was work that was possible only because it was Geonshin.
‘Okay, save. Safe!’
For the past few days, Geonshin had been shut in the server room, focusing like crazy on nothing but work.
Before the regression, it would not have been strange at all for him to be ruined and need to lie down for a day or two. But was it because his body had become young.
When he stretched lightly and washed his face once, his mind snapped awake. The younger Na Geonshin was truly an iron man.
Outside the window, a bluish light was already spreading, and dawn was entering the hallway.
When he opened the office door and went in, he saw the people of Division 7, exhausted and asleep at their desks.
Director Yoo-uk was snoring as if his head would break, and Team Leader Seungjin had fallen asleep without letting go of the mouse until the very end.
Even Assistant Manager Soomin was sleeping with her hair stretched out like a ghost.
Geonshin paused to take in the appearance of architects who had burned themselves white.
A familiar view of the office.
After twists and turns, they had finished all the work for the Gwangseong University competition.
A project that had seemed impossible now only had submission left.
Geonshin opened the office window to ventilate and said,
“It’s time to submit now.”
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