Crazy challenge idea - the 6 Million Dollar Man

[jim c]

Yes that's right! Recreate the intro to the "Six Million Dollar Man" (and no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump's Presidential campaign fantasies) using Houdini and the compositor of your choice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HofoK_QQxGc

The idea would be to replace the whole thing with a Houdini created sequence. Use the original as a sort of pre-viz and keep roughly the same shots, etc. There's animation, character building, effects, hard surface modeling, robotics, the whole deal! Then use the existing sound track in the final video.

What would be even cooler is if Sidefx could step in and use this as way of beta-testing H12. Perhaps people could work in teams, to accomplish this? Then the final results would be tied to the release of H12? Or maybe that's a tad too ambitious?

Edited September 3, 2011 by jim c

[hopbin9]

"A million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days" - Number Two in Austin Powers

My favorite episode from that show was the space probe that crashed back on earth, and attacked Steve Austin. It had this long robot arm. I remember screaming at the TV when I was kick "Look out Steve!!!!". Now when I watch it, it's so freaking cheesy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4st0a0gWp0

[jim c]

Wow I haven't thought of that episode in years! And yeah I remember watching it with dread as a kid, and now it's hard to keep from laughing out loud!

Anyhow what do you think of this as a challenge idea?

[hopbin9]

Anyhow what do you think of this as a challenge idea?

Not really something that I see as the Houdini community being overly excited about. I think challenges that focus more on VFX or procedural animations would be more popular.

[jim c]

Huh. I would have thought there was plenty of vfx there. You've got the ship explosion/flash, the flight through the atmosphere (you could do some sort of atmospheric streamers or something), the crash, you could built the "graph" chart that shows how the bionics are integrated into his body, the vfx of running at 60 MPH (I had read somewhere that it's actually quite a difficult effect to pull off convincingly).

[LaidlawFX]

Doing the motion graphics would be fun, but I would hope for some plates on some of the stuff to want to pull it off as a whole piece. I feel like live action would add the extra depth you would need to pull it off, maybe pull some stuff from other films, in lieu of standard plates or cleanup.