I am doing a project that will be done most likely in XSI from start to finish. However this kind of project seems to me to be better (more effective and with greater control) suited to Houdini.

The effect is a flower bush forming into a specified shape from the rest shape. The way I was thinking of doing it in Houdini is:

1. Do a simple poly cage describing the bush shape
2. Spread some random points over the surface (must have somewhat even distribution tho)
3. capture the normals at the points
4. instance a flower head on those points with transform derived from the normal

5. Make a stem from a group at the bottom on the flower head with a median tangent to the ground (make it curve to the ground)

6. Animate the base cage to the form #2

Is this a good way to make it (or even feasable)? Any other ideas? I was thinking of trying it out in Apprentice if time permits, but would rather not experiment too much due to the workload.

Thanks!