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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