HP Z
Fury Drop
Stunt
/ 2023
A tech demo with a deathwish
HP wanted to feature the herculean processing capabilities of the Z8 Fury workstation in a demo you wouldn't soon forget. But watching a computer render data is… not exciting.
So together with agency Giant Spoon, our twisted minds drove us to imagine a stunt that would put the Fury’s survival on the line. Prove its speed, or face self-destruction. So we hit the render button and tossed it out the back of a plane at 14,000ft... with operator attached. The chute would only deploy once the project had been completed.
Tim Kafka, head of CG at The Mill worked with his team to create an impressively complicated sequence: a high-elevation view of a stylised landscape inspired by Anza-Borrego State Park in Southern California—where the drop would take place. Recreated with SideFX Houdini Heightfields, a terrain generation and simulation system, utilizing Houdini’s new Karma XPU renderer also let the team take advantage of both the CPU and all four GPUs in the Z8 Fury.
The final project fully-rendered in a competitor's machine took roughly 5:00 minutes. In the end, it only took 30 seconds for the Z8 to complete its task and launch the chute.
THE FURY DROP SPREAD ORGANICALLY WITHIN THE NICHE POST COMMUNITY, BRINGING THE NEW Z8 LINE AND SPEC SHEET INTO THE SPOTLIGHT.
Creds
Agency: Giant Spoon
Production: Unit9
ECD: Ian Grody
GCD: Andrew Mellen
Director: Cole Paviour
VFX + Talent: Tim Kafka
Creatives: Whit Jenkins + Brad Hall
