Kenneth,
It is an awesome picture, really, and you absolutely captured the 50's mood.
Yes, that 'gravity'thing seems a bit disturbing and unatural, but could be 
put under the head "artist's licence" :-)
I think that what is missing, are a pair of small figures running in the 
foreground. Preferably one male, one female of course, again in the mood of 
the 50's pulp.

Very well done!!

Thomas

"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> schreef in bericht 
news:web.465638506c22a2c93c5caeed0@news.povray.org...
> I've been working on this scene for a *long* time--far too long to admit 
> to.
> :-)  Endlessly tweaking 10^3 + 1 details, most of which visually interact.
> But I've been looking at it too long, so it's time to post a  version, to
> get some feedback.
>
> H.G. Wells's WAR OF THE WORLDS has always been a favorite of mine, in all
> its forms--novel, films, comic books--especially the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED
> comic from the 1950's (drawn by Lou Cameron.)  I think the artist 
> perfectly
> captured the essence of Wells's description of the Martian war machines
> (adding a bit of sleek 50's "futurism" to them as well.) So I tried to 
> come
> up with a single image that would pay homage to the comic art, AND depict
> the Machines' awesome destructive firepower and ruthless nature, in their
> relentless goal of eradicating humankind!
>
> Trying to copy comic book art in 3D is an exercise in compromise.  I found
> that the various depictions of the Machines changed--sometimes
> radically--from panel to panel in the comic. Artistic license, of course;
> but that meant coming up a with SINGLE overall shape that would look
> "correct" and true-to-form from any angle. Not easy!  Especially the head
> (basically an sPatch bicubic-patch model, with some CSG.) Just tweaking
> *that* took ages. And I added a few details overall, that the artist
> forgot. ;-)
>
> Both Machines are the same model--a separate .inc file-- and the code is 
> set
> up to allow easy rotation and movement of various parts...which turned out
> to be VERY useful for getting the Machine and its green ray positioned
> *just so* in relation to the other scene elements.
>
> The tentacles are spline shapes, with sPatch "sections" placed and scaled
> smaller toward the tips (with some code to keep the sections correctly
> butted up against each other.)
>
> The explosion started out, long ago,  as ALL media...hundreds of 
> individual
> media-filled spheres--which was taking forever-and-a-day to render. Had to
> switch to a different scheme (and to my faster PC!) Much less media now;
> lots of textured spheres instead, for the various smoke trails. And simple
> textured boxes for the little smoke "tendrils" under the flying embers.
>
> No gravity effect yet; that's probably obvious.  :-(  I have some
> gravity/decellearation equations ready to go, but incorporating them into
> the smoke-trail code would take a re-write (I didn't plan for that when I
> wrote the trail code, unfortunately.)  I *could* say that the explosion is
> at the "moment of detonation," before gravity and air resistance have had 
> a
> chance to show themselves.  ;-)
>
> Oh, and I must have examined 200+ seed values, to find the few that looked
> good for the various random elements in the scene (of which there are
> many.)
>
> The scene still needs *something*, but I'm not sure what. Some objects on
> the ground are much-needed, but I don't want them to hide the
> background--which presents a conundrum.
>
> Any critiques and suggestions welcome.
>
> Ken W.
>

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