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The General Knight Rider thread.

Well, I guess all this confirms my point, that any use of an LMM to generate car-stunt shots based on old footage would need human mediation to make sure the computer didn't simulate hubcaps flying off a modern car that didn't have any. Of course, I always favor using human artists as a rule, but LMMs/"AI" could be helpful at accurately simulating physical details to add texture and make a CGI car stunt look more realistic.
 
Yeah, that's the kind of stuff AI should be used for, to help the human artists with a few shortcuts, not to totally replace them.
I think if you want to draw people into a show like Knight Rider, it would be better to make it less grounded. Cars can do so much now, that if you really want KITT to seem futuristic, you need to come up with bigger, more futuristic abilities.
 
I think if you want to draw people into a show like Knight Rider, it would be better to make it less grounded. Cars can do so much now, that if you really want KITT to seem futuristic, you need to come up with bigger, more futuristic abilities.
Well, KR2008 had nanites that allowed it to transform. Could anything be more futuristic than that? Flying? It would become yet another CGI showcase, but on a TV budget. It's easier to make believable spaceships than cars.
 
Yeah, that's the kind of stuff AI should be used for, to help the human artists with a few shortcuts, not to totally replace them.
I think if you want to draw people into a show like Knight Rider, it would be better to make it less grounded. Cars can do so much now, that if you really want KITT to seem futuristic, you need to come up with bigger, more futuristic abilities.
AI isn't there yet. There is more hype than reality.
 
Well, KR2008 had nanites that allowed it to transform. Could anything be more futuristic than that? Flying? It would become yet another CGI showcase, but on a TV budget. It's easier to make believable spaceships than cars.

I could buy KITT having some kind of large auxiliary drone with wings and a tail that could fly down, attach around the frame of the car, and turn it into an aircraft. Maybe there could also be an attachment to turn it into a boat. (A crime-solving boat!)

I still say the most futuristic part is KITT himself, the sapient mind within the car. With all the hype about so-called "AI," it has no actual thought or cognition. The focus should be on KITT as a character, not just as a vehicle. A car that can reason, plan, emote, and be friends with its driver is just as futuristic today as it was in the 1980s.
 
I like the idea of having an amphibious car that could operate as a boat/submarine even though that concept is as old as a James Bond movie from the 70s. A camouflage ability, albeit not the transformer idea, would be important. Also, the car should have some kind of off-road feature. A flying car idea is as old as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but it would be interesting to see it done in a somewhat plausible way. I imagine there will be all kinds of jokes about the lameness of contemporary AI models.
 
A camouflage ability, albeit not the transformer idea, would be important.

I feel that the Viper/KR2008 gimmick of the car body splitting into small pieces that rearrange to change its shape is hard to reconcile with the premise of the car having indestructible body armor. So I'd rather settle for a simple color change as a camouflage mode. Or maybe a deployable outer shell that can be retracted or jettisoned to reveal KITT inside. Maybe there could be an "unfolding outer shell" drone along with the wings-and-tail drone and the boat-parts drone. Giving KITT a set of multiple support drones would be a nice new approach, and it'd be great for the toy line, selling these different accessory kits that could be attached to the basic KITT toy.
 
I feel that the Viper/KR2008 gimmick of the car body splitting into small pieces that rearrange to change its shape is hard to reconcile with the premise of the car having indestructible body armor. So I'd rather settle for a simple color change as a camouflage mode. Or maybe a deployable outer shell that can be retracted or jettisoned to reveal KITT inside. Maybe there could be an "unfolding outer shell" drone along with the wings-and-tail drone and the boat-parts drone. Giving KITT a set of multiple support drones would be a nice new approach, and it'd be great for the toy line, selling these different accessory kits that could be attached to the basic KITT toy.

If the "shell" was some kind of shape memory alloy that could mesh/bond and then un-mesh/un-bond -- something futuristic, it could work.

What I find to reconcile is explosive that while they can't damage the vehicle,s never seems to flip them of, blast them away from where they were, etc.
 
I'm not sure how reliable this site is, but it's reporting that the Knight Rider feature film may be intended as part of a shared universe along with reboots of Airwolf and what would now be called The Six Billion Dollar Man, since those are all Universal properties.


Is Steve gonna have a voice in his head?
 
I think it would be easier if they had seperate Specialized Vehicles for every domain they plan to operate or deal with.

Trying to Hodge Podge everything into a Sports Car, while Thematic, is troublesome from a Engineering Stand Point.

Let Sports Cars do what they're optimized to do, don't try to turn it into an Aircraft, Submarine, etc.

We can just introduce AI functions into a Armed Attack Helicopter & Armed Attack Speed Boat.

Land = Sports Car
Sea = Speed Boat
Air = Attack Chopper

You have the fundamental 3 Vehicles necessary to cover the vast majority of scenarios and you can keep the main cast small if you only need 1 Operator per platform.

That also allows you to sell more Toys & Merchandise.

KITT, as an AI, can have Local Machine & Server Level functionality.
It doesn't have to be locked down to the Physical Platform.

KITT could also be portable on the Operators Smart Phones as they're out in the field.
 
I think it would be easier if they had seperate Specialized Vehicles for every domain they plan to operate or deal with.

Trying to Hodge Podge everything into a Sports Car, while Thematic, is troublesome from a Engineering Stand Point.

Let Sports Cars do what they're optimized to do, don't try to turn it into an Aircraft, Submarine, etc.

We can just introduce AI functions into a Armed Attack Helicopter & Armed Attack Speed Boat.

Land = Sports Car
Sea = Speed Boat
Air = Attack Chopper

You have the fundamental 3 Vehicles necessary to cover the vast majority of scenarios and you can keep the main cast small if you only need 1 Operator per platform.

That also allows you to sell more Toys & Merchandise.
What, is this UFO?
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I think it would be easier if they had seperate Specialized Vehicles for every domain they plan to operate or deal with.

But then you're doing Team Knight Rider again, and that didn't work so well the first time.

Trying to Hodge Podge everything into a Sports Car, while Thematic, is troublesome from a Engineering Stand Point.

So is building a car that can transform its surface appearance, but that didn't stop Viper or KR 2008. Again, none of these shows has ever aspired to any significant degree of realism. It's all about Rule of Cool.

And there have been some prototype cars that could convert to planes by attaching wings and a tail. Although I was also inspired by an article I saw on Gizmodo the other day about a robot vacuum cleaner that can dock into a harness that lets it climb stairs.
 
Shows like this, in my opinion, just need to be enjoyable and have a degree of realism and buyability; I don't expect perfection, total realism, completely grounded science.

Can I buy K.I.T.T. can talk and turboboost? Yes, as fake as it is.

Can I buy 2008 K.A.R.R. is a fighting transformer? No.
 
But then you're doing Team Knight Rider again, and that didn't work so well the first time.
Because you had 5x very average looking cars instead of 1x dedicated Cool Looking Sports Car.

Also having different platforms allows for a variety of shots in different environments.

So is building a car that can transform its surface appearance, but that didn't stop Viper or KR 2008. Again, none of these shows has ever aspired to any significant degree of realism. It's all about Rule of Cool.
But they never tried to go "Too Far" from what their original platform could do.
Most of what they were capable of was similar to being a Armored Sports Car.

And there have been some prototype cars that could convert to planes by attaching wings and a tail. Although I was also inspired by an article I saw on Gizmodo the other day about a robot vacuum cleaner that can dock into a harness that lets it climb stairs.
Yeah, I know what you are talking about, but those "Flying Cars" are just cars that turn into crappy versions of an aircraft.

If you were a real aviator, you'd want a real dedicated Aircraft instead of this horrible Hodge Podge.

The amount of compromises to become a "Flying Car" usually isn't worth it.

Much less a "Armored Flying Car".

Can I buy 2008 K.A.R.R. is a fighting transformer? No.
I don't understand why they turned KARR into a Transformer, that was super dumb.
 
Realistically, sure, but again, realism has never been a priority for Knight Rider. I mean, what's realistic about a car that can do ramp jumps at will without a ramp?
Just have Vertical Retractable Pneumatic Jacks that fire and punch the ground and launch the car at a upward angle.

Speed Racer solved that issue long time ago.

The harder part is designing the Shock System of the Car to handle the impact load on landing, especially with the extra weight of any armor or weapons on board.
 
Just have Vertical Retractable Pneumatic Jacks that fire and punch the ground and launch the car at a upward angle.

Speed Racer solved that issue long time ago.


Riiiight, because Speed Racer was a paragon of realism...

But KR called it "Turbo Boost," which implies some kind of jet propulsion. They never explained it, though; Michael just pushed the button and the car jumped off a ramp out of the camera frame.
 
Riiiight, because Speed Racer was a paragon of realism...
The solution made sense, because it works with the physics of how to get your car airborne for a short hop.

But KR called it "Turbo Boost," which implies some kind of jet propulsion. They never explained it, though;
You can call it whatever label you want.

If you want it to be a set of Pneumatic Firing Jets of Air, I'm sure we can charge up some Air Cannisters and have it fire vertically from under the car to achieve a similar result.

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EDIT: You're right, the original Knight Rider had Pneumatic Firing Jets of Air is what Turbo Boost is based on, they just have multiple Vent Nozzles that can be pointed in several directions via the computer.
Reverse, Forewards, Vertical Launch.
Michael tells KITT which direction he wants, and KITT Automatically chooses which one to use.

Michael just pushed the button and the car jumped off a ramp out of the camera frame.
That was the filming cheat to accomplish the effect.
 
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