War of the Worlds (1953) Martian Thing

[jesshmusic]

Here's something I whipped up today to see if I could get it close. It could be better, but I'm happy so far. I have more to do, but C & C is most welcome!

 

NOTE: The images and animations in this post of the thread represent the most recent work. If you want to see how she developed into this continue reading.

 

->UPDATE (Feb 15, 2005): Here is a new short animation and rendered image.

 

Martian War Machine Probe is Revealed! (Quicktime - Mp4 Codec - 500 KB)

 

 

NEW RENDER (1024x768):

 

[ChrisThom]

I don't like the way its's looking at me.

 

BTW, It's nice to see someone else in the Middle TN area for once.

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

Don't know if you will be doing any animation of it blasting things or not but-

the sound of the death beam from the George Pal W.O.T.W. movie can be easily duplicated by tapping on a fully tightened garage door spring. Call me a nut, but I found this out while installing a new garage door...I was smacking that darn spring over and over - my face beaming with glee, till my wife started screaming......... <_>

[jesshmusic]

Right you are! .... If only I had a garage door....

[jesshmusic]

Here is a minor update. I have changed the textures on the wing tips and front. I have also worked on the texture for the heat ray glass. I added seams for the wing tips and adjusted the seam for the front. C&C welcome as always.

I still have to model the probe and hatch.

[jesshmusic]

Another angle:

[higginsdj]

Looks great. Now all you need to do is build some other other models and animate them to the War of the Worlds Sound track (the Richard Harris/David Essex version of course). Hmmmm this actually sounds like an interesting idea!

 

Cheers

[Paul Forwood]

I think you meant Richard Burton, higginsdj.

That was Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.

 

OOOoooooo LAAAAaaaaaa!!!

[higginsdj]

Ahhh - another senior moment - they were both Poms

 

Cheers

[jesshmusic]

Looks great. Now all you need to do is build some other other models and animate them to the War of the Worlds Sound track (the Richard Harris/David Essex version of course). Hmmmm this actually sounds like an interesting idea!

 

Cheers

C'mon now, I would have to do my own score!

 

I was thinking of having a couple of these things going down my street. Just to see if i could do it.

[ddavis]

Hi Jess,

Love the model

I've always liked that ship, and of course the sound.

How many times have you been watching some other show or movie and recognized that sound being used?

Lots of good references on the web, I'm sure you already saw it but for the rest of us this link seems to be the best.

http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/War...rMachineTop.htm

From the pictures you posted I can't tell but does the "death ray" have the bumpy look to it? A particle emitter should look great as the beam.

Thanks for sharing.

[jesshmusic]

I took a little artistic license with this model, especially with the textures. I think the original model had a more pointed rear and the green wing tips were smaller than mine.

 

As for the heat ray, I will render a pic tonight of it close up soe you guys can see the texture I applied to it. It is kind of unique, but different than the original.

 

I do see that I need to adjust the "cobra" head of the heat ray a little. Thanks for that link, I was using a different one.

[jesshmusic]

I had to do some corrections with the overall shape and the smoothness. C&C encouraged.

[jesshmusic]

Here is a close up of the Heat Ray. I have not made the eye of it yet.

[jesshmusic]

A minor texture update...

[Nosferatu]

Here's an idea...

 

It might look cool to restore the wingtips & nose to the original look, with transparency. Then you could have the same shapes (but smaller) with that new texture inside of the wingtips & nose. It might look more mysterious & less cartoony (not a criticism).

[jesshmusic]

That's actually a pretty good idea! I think I'm going to do that. I was already doing it for the heat ray, so it won't be a problem to do it for the rest of the thing.

[R Reynolds]

FWIW

 

The original 36 in. (91 cm) wingspan miniatures built by the Paramount prop department were finished in copper sheet metal to give the them the appropriate red colour (from the "Red Planet"). And if I remember correctly they had a brushed finish.

[jesshmusic]

I'm actually taking a slightly different road on the textures....

 

I may be getting ahead of myself because I still have some modeling to do. I am doing things more carefully on the modeling than I am used to. Trying to become better, you know. I actually modeled seams between the wing tips and front dome and I will be modeling an interior for those, the heat ray, and the force field leg generators on the bottom. I also plan on modeling the probe that comes out of it and perhaps the hatch.

 

I am having a little trouble smoothing out the hole I made for the probe. I dread having to mess with the bias handles, but I may have to.

[patmals]

Looks great!!! I love the George Pal movie!

Actually love ol' 50's and 60's (70's and 80's a bit too) Sci fi stuff!

 

NO COMPUTERS!!

 

Your martian war machine looks very very cool!

 

I am wary of the new Spielberg / Cruise film though...

[jesshmusic]

C'mon, it's Spielburg! And after seeing Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai and Collateral, I am even more of a fan. I like the approach Spielbrug is taking. It should be good.

[R Reynolds]

I dread having to mess with the bias handles, but I may have to

 

Don't worry about it. If you're really paranoid, make a new copy and mess away. Bias tweaking may be boring and annoying but it's not dangerous.

[jesshmusic]

Maybe it was the older version, but I was trying to tweak the bias handles once and something awful happened and I couldn't undo it! Another thing that causes me trouble is getting the model at just the right angle in the view to properly do the tweaking.

[R Reynolds]

I was trying to tweak the bias handles once and something awful happened and I couldn't undo it!

 

So if you turned on manipulator properties, you couldn't manually reset the values to zero?

 

Another thing that causes me trouble is getting the model at just the right angle in the view to properly do the tweaking

 

One thing that I find helpful is to select the spline, open the properties window and click on bias. Now you have numerical access to the manipulators and can incrementally increase or decrease the value while you watch the spline and/or surface change.

[jesshmusic]

Updated textures, modeled the Heat Ray "Eye". More to come!

[jesshmusic]

Dirtied up the model a little...

[jesshmusic]

And the bottom...

[Mr. Jaqe]

Whoa! That looks very much better than the first color. Really like it

[jesshmusic]

Thanks! I gotta fix the bottom decal, though. It is acting a little weird.

[Newbert_Zero]

now u made my spaceship look like a 2 year old made it....

[guernseyfreak]

Hi Jess,

Right now Simon Productions is creating a motion picture called 'Against The Author, The War of the Worlds'. I had to model a fleet ship for one of the vast scenes, but I couldn't think of what it should it should look like. Then I came to this thread when I saw 'War of the Worlds' in the title. I love the finished ship pics. Is there any way you could post the model or e-mail it to me so I could use it in the motion picture. Of course, you will get full credit for it! Anyway, e-mail me when you get the chance.

[jesshmusic]

That would be cool, but it is a reproduction of the actual Martian War machine from the 1953 War of the Worlds movie and I am not sure it can legally be used. I can send you the model when she's done, no prob, i just thought you should be aware.

[Zaryin]

That looks fantastic. Now get some sound effects and destroy a farm house, mwa hahaha!

[jesshmusic]

Thanks for the comments everyone! Here's a fun render I did to checl out the ship's lighting...

[Mr. Jaqe]

LOOK OUT! She's going to attack!! Man, that thing looks alive.

[guernseyfreak]

Oh, ok, thanks anyway though! Cool render by the way!

[jesshmusic]

No prob, you should check out the movie. It is really fun to watch the good sci-fi movies from that era. Directors now could learn from that time on how to make a story-driven movie when you can't rely on Special Effects... even though it did win the Oscar for SFX.

 

 

[jesshmusic]

Oop! Got a major shape adjustment coming up. I found some blueprints that someone (I don't know who drew). They look pretty accurate, do I am going to start adjusting things. Fun!

 

Here is a good ref for the probe i am eventually going to get to:

[jesshmusic]

After reworking the War Machine with the refs, here is the result so far.

[jesshmusic]

Update!

 

I modeled the opening that the probe will emerge from and the door. I think I got it pretty smooth.. and still no hard edges on the whole model.

[jesshmusic]

Here is an animation of the probe door opening:

 

Probe Door Test (Quicktime 700 KB)

[jesshmusic]

Here is an animation of the whole ship with the probe door opening:

 

Probe Door Test (Quicktime 700 KB)

[Mr. Jaqe]

whoooooaaaaa! that's SO supercool!! I love it!!

[jesshmusic]

Thanks.

 

I am soooo ready to model the probe! It looks like it's going to be as coplex as the ship itself. I have a vague idea how I'm going to rig it too, but I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it. Woohoo!

[jesshmusic]

Here is a fresh, higher quality render of the War Machine. After I model the probe, I may do a short with it.

[jesshmusic]

Here is a short animation to see how the lighting rig works and to test some volumetrics.

 

Martian War Machine in Warehouse

[pixelmech]

Jess, that is looking great. Brings back memories of when I first read that book, and how terrifying it was!

[jesshmusic]

Thanks.

 

I'm even considering modeling the Martian itself. I could make a whole little War of the Worlds short.

 

I have also considered seeing what this ship would look like if they could have put legs on it. I like how they did it in the movie, though.

 

BTW. The Motion Blur is set to a default of 20%. I believe in LightWave it is more like 40% and I like the way that looks. What percentage do you guys use?

[ChrisThom]

This is very cool so far. Perfect timing since Steven Speilberg's War of the Worlds is coming out later this year.

[jesshmusic]

This is very cool so far. Perfect timing since Steven Speilberg's War of the Worlds is coming out later this year.

That may have played a part in AMC showing the movie that Sunday afternoon. I really think that these models from a lot of the old (good) sci-fi movies had a sense of style. Especially this one.

 

Thanks for everyone's comments.