Hello everyone, my name is Gilles Charbonneau, just a few words to announce that I have started working on a new short (30 minutes) film based on the War of the Worlds novel by H.G. Wells, it will be fully animated and rendered in Blender and I will switch to 2.8 as soon as the beta gets out!
I will post here often, but you can also follow the project on these medias.
Mad Steam Studio on Facebook
Mad Steam Studio on Twitter
Here is a test render done in Cycles…
Very nice render, though I’m thinking heaven help the render time for a 30 minute anim.
And please remember that the Martians were in tripods in the book, and not the weird flying things that the Tom Cruise movie had.
Thanks, I am working on a tripod model as we speak, I want to stay a close as possible to the original novel for this project, I am also pretty well versed in the use of the Fracture modifier, so you can expect more than decent FX for this film!
As for rendering, the whole scene is textured with the Principled shader and should work pretty much as is with Eevee, I cant test it out at the moment because of a graphics card problem, but as soon as the problem is solved I will test Eevee thoroughly, I am confident that the whole thing would look awesome in Eevee!
Eh - the Tom Cruise movie had tripods…it was the 1950s version that had the flying machines (although technically the original book did - but they were only mentioned a couple of times late on).
“Have you seen any Martians?” I said. “Since I crawled out——”
“They’ve gone away across London,” he said. “I guess they’ve got a bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky is alive with their lights. It’s like a great city, and in the glare you can just see them moving. By daylight you can’t. But nearer—I haven’t seen them—” (he counted on his fingers) “five days. Then I saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the night before last”—he stopped and spoke impressively—“it was just a matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they’ve built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly.”
Across the pit on its farther lip, flat and vast and strange, lay the great flying-machine with which they had been experimenting upon our denser atmosphere when decay and death arrested them.
I learned nothing fresh except that already in one week the examination of the Martian mechanisms had yielded astonishing results. Among other things, the article assured me what I did not believe at the time, that the “Secret of Flying,” was discovered.
Looks like an interesting project OP. I have always loved WOTW.
What design are you looking at for the fighting machines. I had a go at the Jeff Wayne version many years back in my pre-blender days:
The ones from the novel were basically simple cylinders with cones on top, I want mine to be a bit more interesting, at the moment I am aiming at an octopus look for it, awesome creatures octopi, they deserve to be the image of the machines that will bring mankind to its knees! 
Been a long time time since i read it, but I’m sure they all died before they got the flying machine working.
I used WotW in my English lit exam, for the oral part. I used the artillery man decrying Poems and rubbish in favour of science, much to the chagrain of my English teacher.
No - in the first quote, I think it’s the artilleryman that says he has seen hints of them in the sky.
Here’s the quote from the artilleryman…
“it was just a matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they’ve built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly.”
Looks good - except the bollards on the left. They look somehow fake - and appear to have no shadows.
I see your point, maybe too clean to look real, especially in that era?
As for the shadows, they are there, but they are very shot (sun is high), and they face opposite the camera!
I’m so glad you’re setting this in it’s proper period and sticking to the book, it’s was one of my favorite science fiction novels and I always wanted it to be made into a movie, but it’s never been done right. One interesting detail from the book, near the end when everyone’s had a chance to study the machines left by the martians, is the almost impossible conceit that there are no circular wheels used in their construction, no hinges or joints making use of the wheel. I don’t know how you can design anything like that but it was obviously an attempt by the author to make the martian technology as far removed from anything human as he could, So perhaps that can guide you in some way. I’m sure everyone who reads that book has their own idea what these things look like.
It’s not the cleanness that is making them look fake.
The bottom half of the bollard looks like an object which has smooth shading turned on - but which has sharp edges needing a loop cut or bevel to help with the normals.
Can you post a solid shaded view of the scene.
I had hoped the Spielberg version had been set in the correct period - given how well period movies can now be done (Warhorse, Titanic, Saving Private Ryan etc)
I hated the “oh they have invisible shields” cop out that the movie took from the 1950s version - because modern day weapons are too powerful.
One of the key parts in the book are the fleeting victories the humans had against the fighting machines - the artillery guns on the bank of the river - and of course the Thunderchild - giving brief hope, then having it dashed.
The Spielberg movie totally lacked this emotion because you knew the martians couldn’t really be harmed until the shields came down (the ludicrous ‘grenade up the alien sphincter’ scene doesn’t count)
really nice
can’t wait to see the finished movie
Definitely one of my favorite novel, I was hitching to make an animated film of the novel for years, but there was copyright issues, these went out of the way last January, so now is the time, a huge undertaking, but a gratifying one in my book!
Also working on characters, here is my latest test render of the narrator, I really like Cycles as a render engine, its all textured using the Principled Shader, cant wait to see how he’s gonna look in Eevee though!
