WOTW Tripod - NEW update 1st October (Spoiler)

[SoloCreator]

Hi,

Haven’t been doing much blending lately so I thought I would make a fresh start with a new project. I found the new War of the Worlds movie so inspiring and just had to have a shot at modelling those tripods.

I put the spoiler Warning because I don’t wish to ruin it for those who haven’t yet seen the movie as I think it’s best to let the movie make the first impressions of these gigantic machines.

Anyways, here is my progress so far with version 1.5

I know it’s only one render and still a major WIP but hopefully it’s just enough to get some feedbacks. I`m eager to follow the explicit detail of the tripods from the film so I am desperately searching for some more detailed reference pics, prefereably showing the features underneath the hood section of the tripod.

If you’re good at drawing and still have a good idea of what all the mechanics underneath looks like, give it a go and post it here. I just need anything to work on really, the more detail the better.

Thanks

Jon

[_Kothe]

I havn’t seen the movie, so I can’t give you any crit’s in that subject.

But…

The modelling looks realy good and I think it got awesome lightning even if it’s just WIP. The lights got realy good “halo-shine”. So there isn’t much to complain about.

Are you able to put a reference up (You allready got the spoiler-warning) so I may compare with that?

[SoloCreator]

Hi Kothe,

Here are the references I’ve been using:

The first picture was made by one of my favourite concept artists “Ryan Church” so I’m keen to stay true to his desgin. The last too images are of course from the film which also have details that I’d lik to implement into my model.

But as you can see, these images show very few details of what’s under the hood section so I’m a bit stuck at the moment.

[SoloCreator]

Here’s a small update.

Haven’t had that much time to work on it and most of the improvements aren’t all that noticable but I thought I would post it anyway.

Any feedback would be appreciated

Thanks

[osxrules]

Hi Solocreator, it’s good to see you around again. I hope you’ve been getting on OK.

I can see a lot more detail from the angle in the latest picture and the lights look excellent. More like the movie than the concept though. Same with the shell now. In the first picture, it had some translucency like the concept drawing.

Possibly the top needs to be longer and converge to a point, though I could only be sure of that on a side view. The front of the shell looks too sharp but maybe you’re still modelling in two halves.

I think the angle on the collar is too low also.

That’s all I can think of just now. I tried to look for references but no luck. If I come across any, I’ll post them ;).

[SoloCreator]

Thanks for the feedback.

The translucency is still there but a lot harder to see because of the overwhelming light source from the left side. Though the translucency still needs a lot of tweaking.

I’m actually using a semi-sphere deformed by a lattice. It works very well but it will certainly need some smoothening out in some areas after the lattice phase of the modelling is complete.

I’m not sure whether the collar area is too low. I think when I add the extra details of pipes and hydrolic etc…the neck won’t look to long and thin. I’ll see how it looks after those details have been filled.

I have a job interview soon (first in a long time :-? ), so I can’t do anymore work on it right now. But I’ll be sure to get blending as soon as I’m back.

Thanks again.

[osxrules]

@SoloCreator

I have a job interview soon (first in a long time :-? ), so I can’t do anymore work on it right now. But I’ll be sure to get blending as soon as I’m back.

I hate interviews because I always kick myself afterwards thinking I should’ve showed this or said that and I definitely shouldn’t have said that etc. Interviews don’t come along often so they are important.

I don’t know if you’re honest at an interview but it seriously doesn’t work in in your favour. If you say you’ve been unemployed for over a year or so, you can feel the atmosphere change. Just say you’ve been freelancing and show them some of your blending work even if it’s not for a 3D job.

Good luck and I hope it all goes well.

[sprinkles]

Very, very nice, I only have one request, can you change the lighting so everyone can see the full detail?

[M-K]

great special effects in the movie!
your model really starts to look like one from it.
as for the crit: the lamps are to small, specially the side ones.
i think they are a little lower too.
in one scene [SPOILER]tom gets picked up and dumped in the ‘snack’ container[SPOILER]
i think you should model them too

[WhiteBoy]

I was going to tackle this model as well, but I couldn’t find any reference pictures from the film. Of course, that wasn’t long after the movie was released…

[SoloCreator]

Sorry about the long wait.

Things didn’t work out too well with that job. It was at a call centre, thought I would like it but it wasn’t quite what a had in mind %|

osxrules, I couldn’t agree with you more. As soon as I left the interview room all these ideas start coming to my head about what I could/should have said.

Oh well, wasn’t too important anyway. I’ll just have to keep searching.

Thanks for the tips

Now for the update:

I managed to find some new reference images (I Love U google ) that show a lot more detail of the hood section. So I’ve spent most of my spare time improving just that for now, though I did improve the leg a little earlier.

I didn’t change the light setup yet as I don’t think there’s enough details to show. Maybe in the next update.

I know the side parts still need popping out but I’m not done with the accuracy on the other axis yet. Also the whole cockpit section needs a lot more work.

[WhiteBoy]

Amazing work so far.

Would you mind posting the links to your new references? I’ve been looking for some decent ones for some time now, but I guess you’re just a better Googler than I am.

[SoloCreator]

Hello again WhiteBoy. Thanks for your comments

Here’s the link you requested:

http://www.waroftheworldsmovies.info/photogallery/thumbnails.php?album=23

I think if you had spent over an hour searching for these pics, you would have found them aswell (and looked like :o )

I was a victim of some rather obsessive searching %|

…anyway, here’s a test render to see my progress since the last update.

I’ved popped out those side parts of the hood section and added some detail to the front. Probably won’t be able to finish the Tripod until the film comes out on DVD unless I find a new wave of useful pics.

Still…much more to do from the references that I’ve got so far.

[Dwarfose]

good work so far
no creative feedback tho sorry, looks good to me

[WhiteBoy]

Fantastic! Thank you! That is exactly what I was looking for.

Now I suppose I at least owe you some creative feedback, huh? I’ll see what I can do.

It looks very nice so far, but I think we need to see a larger render with multiple angles.

Honestly, I’m trying my hardest to come up with suggestions for you, but you’ve done such a top-rate job so far (especially considering the serious lack of references available right now) that it’s difficult.

Anyway, after closely examining the references, I think I may have found several very minor issues.

First of all, I noticed a few subsurf issues in the areas outlined in red circles. I understand these are probably difficult areas to manage. In fact, these problems could easily be fixed in post pro, but that doesn’t really help much if you ever plan to do any animating. Plus, it’s just good form to keep your mesh as clean as possible.

The next thing I noticed was that the collar feels too rounded and smooth (red arrow). In many of the designs I’ve seen, there have been very few, if any, rounded edges. The dominant theme is definitely sharp and jagged.

Next, notice the straight yellow line. I can’t be sure, but I believe the borders of the “popped out” areas of the hood should be straight. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Anyway, aside from the remaining missing details (such as the eye-like window on the top of the hood), I don’t see anything else worth mentioning.

Keep up the amazing work. By the way, maybe it’s time to move this project to the Focused Critique section.

[SoloCreator]

Thanks for the helpful feedback. Sorry it took so long for a reply, had a long weekend and wanted to spend more time with my girlfriend.

I’ll be sure to dent out all those weird bumps and creases. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

You’re right, the collar section in most of those refs is actually quite straight. I don’t think it’s even joined at the back. I’ll need to re-model it.

I’m still a little confused about a lot of the important details though. for example.

What is the middle light, is it really a light or a turbine-jet engine like that off an F-16. It looked more like an engine in the film but I don’t remember too well.

I cant make out where exactly the two exhausts of the tripod should be nor where the death-ray guns are attached. So many details I don’t know, especially under the hood section.

I really need to see the film again but it doesn’t come out on DVD for like a month.

lol, the Focused Critique section scares me. I know it’s all for the best but…I find the environment too aggressive. This is just a hobby afterall

[Rhaythe]

This image seems to portray it as more of a luminescent glow, kinda like what the bridge of the enterprise would be if you had a spotlight shining out of it. The others look almost more like flood lamps.

[sprinkles]

I have to know something… how di dyou do the details in the Hood thingy?

Was it a normal map? If so, can you post how you made it?
Or was it vertex editing?

[SoloCreator]

The details on the hood section were such an important part of the model for me I wanted to get them right.

The spike part was modelled using Dupliframes. I then joined that to a single mesh. Parented the mesh to a lattice to apply the neccessary deformations in the Z and Y axis.

Once deformation was set, I applied deformation and deleted the lattice. Modelled the rest from there and applied a secondary lattice for deformation of the other X axis.

…So I can still tweak the mesh in the Z and Y axis without ruining the X axis deformation.

I think I’ll have to re-modell it as I’ve noticed a lot of new details from some new reference pics I found. So I keep having to re-model.

I’ll probably have to wait til’ the film comes out so I can get a proper look.

[Khnum]

thx for showing your workflow, that’s quite helpful!!