Beijing Universal Studios officially opens today. Let’s see what high-tech features have “cheated” you?

Beijing Universal Studios officially opens today! Where are the most "deceptive" and most expensive exhibition areas? In addition to having fun, let's find the technological secrets that can be found everywhere in Universal Studios>>

Written by reporter Wang Xueying Edited by Liu Zhao

New Media Editor/Nie Shufang

Interview experts:

Zhang Qingli (Chief Designer of Section 3 of Beijing Universal Theme Park, Deputy Director of the First Design Institute of Beijing Institute of Architectural Design Co., Ltd.)

Wu Jiming (Deputy Secretary General of Beijing Civil Engineering and Architecture Society)

▲Photograph of the iconic sphere outside Beijing Universal Studios Resort/Wang Xueying

Beijing in September undoubtedly ushered in its busiest autumn. With much anticipation, Beijing Universal Studios Resort (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Universal") finally opened. Before you actually enter the park for an "adventure", you may need to know these unknown technological secrets about Beijing Universal.

☞ See layout | What?! There is almost no "Kung Fu Panda" theme?!

As the fifth Universal Studios in the world and the third in Asia, Beijing Universal Studios is the largest in the world so far. From the trial operation on September 1 to the official opening on September 20, this theme park located in Tongzhou District, the sub-center of Beijing, has been in a state of "hard to get a ticket" every day. The tickets for the first day of opening were sold out within 1 minute on the pre-sale day. However, in the face of a variety of theme parks, the most common complaint is - "Why is the park I like so far from the entrance?"

▲Photography of the rockery in Beijing Universal Harry Potter theme park/Wang Xueying

In fact, each park of Universal Studios is very particular from the selection of themes to the overall layout. For example, Beijing Universal has planned seven major theme parks in the first phase of the park, namely Hollywood, Jurassic, Kung Fu Panda, Harry Potter, Transformers, Minions and Water World. With so many IPs under the Universal Group, why did Beijing Universal choose only these and not others? This requires data and market research to "speak".

▲Photography of the lifelike interior projects in the Jurassic theme area/Wu Jiming

"In the early stage, the US team sent people to conduct a poll, and conducted a lot of research on the age, occupation, gender and other groups of the respondents. In the end, it was found that 'Jurassic Park' was the most familiar IP to Chinese audiences, followed by Transformers," said Zhang Qingli, chief designer of the third section of Beijing Universal Theme Park and deputy director of the First Design Institute of Beijing Architectural Design Institute Co., Ltd. As the general contractor of the Beijing Universal project, Beijing Architectural Design Institute Co., Ltd. was responsible for and participated in the overall planning control of Beijing Universal and the design of the two major theme areas of Kung Fu Panda Land of Awesomeness and Water World, as well as the Universal Hotel and parking garage.

Zhang Qingli told reporters that the audience of any theme park cannot be targeted at only one group, but must cover as many different people of different ages as possible. "The Jurassic series of movies was introduced to my country very early, so people from different ages are familiar with it. Therefore, it has also been designated as a very important exhibition area of ​​Beijing Universal Studios."

(Photography/Wu Jiming)

Based on the cognitive preferences of audiences from different countries, Universal Studios Orlando has opened "The Simpsons" and "The Mummy Returns" theme areas, while Universal Studios Osaka has set up different Japanese comic IP theme areas such as One Piece, Sailor Moon, Detective Conan, etc. In view of this, after taking into account the preferences and familiarity of Chinese audiences, Beijing Universal Studios eventually changed the "SpongeBob and Patrick" theme park in the original design plan to today's "Kung Fu Panda" theme park.

In this regard, Wen Ziji, former deputy director of the Beijing Tourism Bureau and former director of the Universal Theme Park Preparatory Office, also said in an interview that research is an indispensable part of the construction process of Beijing Universal, and it is very important to fully consider the habits and preferences of local consumers. "Which project to build and which not to build, all these require research. For example, when building a roller coaster, should we build a double-track roller coaster or another type of roller coaster? These cannot be determined by thinking, but by a lot of research," he said.

▲Photography of the Kung Fu Panda theme area with Chinese characteristics/Wu Jiming

In addition to the consumption preferences of the large region, when Universal Studios lays out the locations of different theme parks, it also needs to fully consider the routes of the float parade and the main characteristics of the groups that the park is targeting. "For parks like Harry Potter and Transformers, there are more adults who go there, so when planning the layout, we will consider placing them farther away from the entrance, while Minions can be placed relatively close to the entrance," Zhang Qingli introduced. At the same time, in order to avoid mutual influence between the various areas, parks like "Water World" that are open-air and have explosion special effects can easily interfere with tourists' immersive experience in open-air projects in adjacent parks if the layout is not appropriate.

"The amusement equipment is actually customized for Chinese tourists," Zhang Qingli told reporters. Considering the differences in body shape between Easterners and Westerners, the seats at Beijing Universal Studios are also redesigned and customized to ensure the safety and comfort of tourists. "The number of people on each car is also re-matched. For example, in the United States, there are 10 people in a car, but in China, it is adjusted to 13 people." In addition, Beijing Universal Studios has made adjustments to the design of the corridors and the width of the fences based on local conditions while ensuring fire safety.

☞ Firefighting | Wake up! What you think is real is actually fake

In the process of building a large theme park like Universal Studios, how to ensure fire protection and evacuation has become the most critical and important issue. In fact, in order to ensure the fire safety of the park, each theme area has a large number of fire hydrants "hidden" - you ask me why I didn't see them? That's because they are well hidden!

▲The "wood" sculptures that can be seen everywhere in the Kung Fu Panda theme area Photographed by Wang Xueying

According to reports, in order to ensure an immersive experience for tourists, Beijing Universal Studios has themed the fire hydrants in the park. "You can't make tourists feel uncomfortable, and you can't hide them too secretly so that people can't find them in an emergency. For indoor rides, according to our fire regulations, the 'emergency exit' must be always on. What should we do? This requires us to give it a themed package," he said. "You think there is no (emergency exit), but in fact there is. As long as the signal system fails, the emergency system will start immediately and automatically light up. Only then you may find that you have so many layers of protection around you."

▲Photography of the details that can be seen everywhere in the Minions theme area/Wang Xueying

In order to better prevent fire, Beijing Universal Studios also used a lot of "black technology" in materials. Take the Kung Fu Panda Park as an example. As a park with Chinese characteristics, Beijing Universal Studios perfectly presents the Peace Valley in the movie indoors. Visitors are amazed by the carved beams and painted buildings everywhere. However, not many people can imagine that these lifelike "wood" carvings, "wood" carvings, "wood" archways, and even the big "trees" with lush branches and leaves beside the arch bridge are not real wood, but a new inorganic material that is not only non-flammable but also non-toxic.

"This technology is now very mature and has been used in other theme parks in China. Moreover, it is not just wood that is not wood and stone that is not stone. For example, the fur on the panda, the decorative wallpaper on the wall, and the moss on the handles are all real fur, real paper, and real moss. They are all made of special materials. Otherwise, there will be great fire hazards," said Zhang Qingli. In order to ensure that the sprinkler heads can cover all the attractions in Heping Valley without destroying its unique overall atmosphere, they also sprayed the smoke alarms with special materials.

"This kind of paint is not an ordinary paint. How can its fire resistance be maintained? Can it guarantee a 2-3 hour evacuation time? These have been tested by us and the fire department," Zhang Qingli told reporters. For large indoor theme parks such as Jurassic and Kung Fu Panda, the first thing the team needs to do when designing is performance analysis, using computers to simulate the flow of smoke in a fire environment and the way people evacuate, and to design the location, height and number of sprinkler heads and smoke detectors. In the final on-site acceptance, they also have to light a real fire for on-site testing to ensure the reliability of the fire protection system and even achieve precise positioning and fire extinguishing.

There are many other places in Beijing Universal Studios that also use "smoothing illusions", for example, in the castle of "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey", the flickering flames are actually firelight projected on the water mist; the real feeling brought by the various explosions in "Transformers: Battle for Fire" is a masterpiece of the cooperation of hot air and water mist; even the "bullets" that "hit" the water surface in "Waterworld" are a trick made of air.

☞ Focus on safety | Transparent theme park: invisible security guarantee

In addition to the "fake so real" safety escort, environmental protection and the safety of special equipment have also become issues that need to be addressed during the construction of Beijing Universal Studios.

First of all, soil safety is a problem that Beijing Universal Studios faces during the site selection stage: Does the soil quality in the selected area meet the child health and safety standards? To this end, Beijing Universal Studios combined the safety standards for heavy metal content in the soil set by the US team and carried out a "major change" of the soil in the park's foundation. In fact, during the construction of Shanghai Disneyland, the US side also asked the park to change the soil because the local soil was alkaline, heavy in viscosity, and had poor air permeability. For this reason, the Shanghai Institute of Landscape Architecture and Planning also specially developed a set of localized soil change standards that meet the "Shanghai Disney Standards". Today, the average 3-meter-thick environmentally friendly soil below the surface of the Disneyland park is the "Made in China" new soil.

Following the soil is the water source issue. At present, Beijing Universal Studios has not only built many lakes, water scenic spots and projects in the park, but also set up many direct drinking water supply points. How to ensure the cleanliness and safety of these water sources? In this regard, Zhang Qingli said that there are many large water treatment rooms hidden in the park, which use large water pumps to send water to multiple water stations, and then use biological purification and physical purification methods to filter the water source. For this reason, the US team has also set up a set of environmental protection material use standards. Whether it is paint or cement, it must meet the environmental protection standards.

"The drinking water in the park is transported by a special set of pipelines and water purification systems. Its water quality is better than many ordinary mineral waters sold on the market," he said. "And because some projects will spray water on people, the water must be clean and cannot be secondary water. Now the park's water filtration system uses RO filter element reverse osmosis membrane technology."

▲The Kung Fu Panda theme park has a cave-like Panda World. Photographed by Wu Jiming

In addition to environmental safety, Beijing Universal has also made preparations for the hardware facility safety that people are concerned about. Previously, a roller coaster in a domestic amusement park was suspended in mid-air for several minutes due to a malfunction. In order to avoid similar problems, Beijing Universal not only set up an automatic return device for the most exciting "Decepticon Roller Coaster" in the park - when a problem occurs during the operation of the roller coaster, the vehicle will not be forced to suspend in mid-air, but will automatically return to the drop-off area. At the same time, when designing the track route, multiple safety rescue areas were set up to ensure that "no matter where the problem occurs, it will fall to the corresponding rescue area without the risk of hanging upside down". In addition, the special equipment in the entire park is under CNC monitoring, and the entire line of the equipment is distributed with countless monitoring points. If there is a problem at any one of them, employees can quickly and accurately lock the fault point and repair it, which also greatly improves the timeliness of problem solving.

At the same time, during the internal testing phase, all equipment will run 24 hours a day without interruption, which will directly test the fatigue coefficient of these special equipment under high-intensity operation, thereby ensuring the safety of equipment operation when the park is actually opened. During this period, some of the more exciting projects will also be adjusted continuously. For example, the initial acceleration of the "Decepticon Roller Coaster" was originally set to 5G, which is comparable to the pressure that fighter pilots bear during a dive. Later, after multiple rounds of internal testing and speed adjustment, the "Decepticon Roller Coaster" was gradually reduced to the current "4.5 seconds from rest to 104 kilometers per hour".

▲The Decepticon Roller Coaster is one of the most exciting rides in Beijing Universal Studios Photographed by Wang Xueying

"The amusement parks we saw were open from 9am to 10pm, but in fact they were still brightly lit in the second half of the night, as each park began to conduct equipment inspections for the day," insiders said. The inspection work in amusement parks is so hard and dangerous that many people may not be able to imagine it. "Only at that time will each project reveal its 'true identity' - various lines, tracks, gears and even elevators, and our inspectors must follow the process and inspect every single one."

☞ In-depth experience | The best at “cheating” and the most willing to spend money

The realistic riding experience has always been the "killer weapon" of Universal Studios. Take the most popular "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" as an example. As a 4D immersive indoor roller coaster, this project uses 360-degree projection technology, and through sophisticated automatic devices and auxiliary special effects, it allows visitors to truly experience the feeling of riding a broom to explore.

In this regard, Zhang Xu, chief engineer of the Universal Studios project of China Railway Construction, the construction unit, has also publicly revealed that in order to achieve an immersive experience that is indistinguishable from the real thing, the "Forbidden Journey" has set up "244 sets of riding piers, 27 sets of spherical screen equipment piers, and thousands of riding track embedded parts, and the accuracy error of each one does not exceed 2 mm". In order to ensure the accuracy of the underground pre-buried electromechanical pipelines, its electromechanical team adopted the core technology of "BIM+3D scanning" and successfully controlled the accuracy error of the center positioning of the end of the electromechanical pipeline to within 1 mm.

In the Harry Potter theme area, the base of the Hogwarts Castle - a 15-meter-high artificial rockery is also genuine high-tech. Although it looks like it is made of stones, it is actually a fake stone mountain covered with a "steel cover": this "steel cover" is "woven" from more than 600 pieces of steel mesh, and each three-dimensional mesh is welded from more than ten steel bars. The workers used spraying and other technologies on such a steel skeleton to achieve "building a mountain on flat ground." It is reported that in the process of building the rockery, the engineering team also ingeniously developed a new process, successfully solving the processing and installation problems of 18,000 special-shaped steel bars in the rockery, making it the first large-scale mesh project in my country completed entirely by domestic operating software and independently designed bending machines.

What many people did not expect was that the Kung Fu Panda theme area at Beijing Universal Studios, which is mainly for family fun, was the most lavish one who dared to "spend a fortune" - the display screens used in the water project "The Journey of the Dragon Warrior" were all top-level 8K high-definition LED screens. "You can hardly see the seams on it, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is the world's top screen," Zhang Qingli told reporters: "In such a dark environment indoors, the brightness and clarity it can achieve are beyond the reach of any projection technology."

Why are the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park so lifelike that adults are afraid of them even when they are close to them? Why do we still feel thrilled when we "speed" with Bumblebee in the city even though we know everything is fake? In addition to a whole set of advanced and sophisticated high-tech, scientific thinking is also particularly important.

"This realistic effect is a presentation after full digital control. Here, all the details that can be refined have been carefully disassembled. Designers continuously decompose tasks to turn engineering problems into controllable steps and modules, and everything can be carefully rehearsed and constantly corrected. When all the details are done to the extreme, this kind of 'realism' will not be a difficult thing," Wu Jiming, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing Civil Engineering and Architecture Society, told reporters: "Never tire of testing and improving, even if it is just the design of the queuing environment, the eyes and subtle dynamic reactions of the characters, the tactile details in the interaction... calm down and pick out every little detail, this kind of craftsmanship is what we should learn most."

References:

https://www.chinanews.com/sh/2021/09-06/9558969.shtml

https://news.bjd.com.cn/2021/08/31/162944t100.html

http://www.workercn.cn/34055/202109/07/210907011503738.shtml

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Produced by: Beijing Science and Technology News | Science Plus Client

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