For the Mayweather/Pacquiao fight we created a fully playable 8 bit ode to Nintendo favorite “Tyson’s Punchout” using a Nexersys boxing trainer as the controller. Users chose to fight Manny or Floyd using the punching pads, then followed cues from the game to slug it out to the Knockout. While users played the game, an automatic 360 degree, 12 GoPro bullet time array worked to create a branded video for the user to have as a takeaway from the event.

A sign-in system was written so that brand ambassadors could log the users in via a branded web-app. The game ran itself for 10 days with this minimal input. The 360 rig captured, rendered, and emailed users automatically the entire time. A robust backend was created in Touch Designer to emulate the game logic in a node based, python environment. Models were created in C4D and then post processed to appear 8 bit when viewed through Touch Designer.

The bullet time rig’s back end was created by combining the power of the Foundry’s Nuke compositing software with scripting in Python. Templates for Nuke files were written in plain text and edited programmatically via python to automate the video creation. Without Nuke, branding and mixing the slowmo with the bullet array for this project was impossible.

Arduinos were used as serial host devices throughout from the punching machine to triggering the 360 array.