HG Wells War of Worlds add-on

[Andy44]

[2 cents]
On aerodynamics, if this thing has anti-gravity, perhaps it would have the technology to generate a nice sleek Sears-Haack shaped force field around itself for supersonic flight? It could help with your launch drag.
[/2 cents]

Well, remember, the war machine rides to Earth inside another vehicle referred to in both the book and movie as a "cylinder", which is coated with a layer of material that looks like rock or stucco. The cylinder crashes like a meteor and then, after unscrewing the lid, the war machines emerge. The machine and crew are presumably suspended in some sort of force field during the violent launch and landing phases of flight. There is a scene in the film in which the machines take a nuclear blast at close range and don't even blink thanks to their force shields, so I see no reason why your aerodynamic shield couldn't be applied to the cylinders, either.

 

[pattersoncr]

Andy,When I was a kid, my dad used to listen to the musical version of War of the Worlds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Wayne's_Musical_Version_of_The_War_of_the_Worlds (It was a progressive rock album put out in the late '70s. One of the songs from it "Forever Autum" did pretty well as a single.)(He even copied it to 8-track so we could listen to it in his Ford Pinto ) There's a climatic scene in the album with the Thunderchild taking out one of the tripods before getting melted to slag. After having listened to that dozens of time I was hugely disappointed when I finally saw the movie and discovered that I wasn't going to get to see the tripod fighting machines just these silly floating manta-ray thingies instead . This is not to disparage what you're working on, it's great mesh-work. Just something I thought I'd share that with another War of the Worlds fan.

 

[Andy44]

I understand, but I saw the '53 film first, and didn't read the book until much later. The edition of the book I have has great cover art, with a really scary-looking tripod on it, more mechanical than Spielberg's tripods, but more alien than some of the other versions.

At the time I read the book I was into BattleTech, and since the tripods in the book do not have the magic force fields which make them invulnerable, and can be taken out by lucky hits with artillery shells, I reasoned that the book machines were basically 3-legged BattleMechs. So, of course, I built little model tripods and staged a 2-part battle at a game convention, in which a Martian invasion is met by BattleMechs, followed by a human counter-invasion of Mars. I built Martian scenery and all. Really got geeked out over it.

If it was easy to do animated tripods in Orbiter, I'd seriously consider it.

 

[jedidia]

It's not easy to animate a tripod no matter where... It's pretty tough creating a walking motion with three legs, unless you move two of them unisono. You can cheat in a movie, but making a believable animation in a game where you can look at it constantly and from every angle you like is no piece of cake at all... :dry:

Of course, the lack of decent animation-tools in Orbiter makes things even worse. But you could use Max for animation and then just get the numbers out...

 

[Quick_Nick]

Half-Life 2 pulled it off very well with a tripod whose motion was determined by surroundings.
[ame="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6366486712265131062&q=&hl=en"]Half Life 2 Strider Battle[/ame]
The source for HL2 includes animation for the 'Strider'(tripod) and I can get you recordings of the animation from various angles if you want. You can even enable Inverse Kenematics in the model viewer for more realistic walking sequences. You probably can't get something as smooth and real in Orbiter, but you can try to get close.

 

[Master of Blades]

Wouldn't such a Tripod require the Source/Havok physics engine?

 

[Quick_Nick]

Wouldn't such a Tripod require the Source/Havok physics engine?

My idea was to examine the walking sequence and look at what joints move what amounts and when and put that into Orbiter. Of course it wouldn't be too dynamic, but it wouldn't need to be.
Also, if you really wanted to, the source for most of the Strider's general motion(minus IK motion) is probably included also.(ex: for automatically aiming the gun, etc.) I wouldn't think anyone really cares for this though.

 

[Urwumpe]

If it was easy to do animated tripods in Orbiter, I'd seriously consider it.

Just google for "three leg stride", you will find many papers on the topic and also many design alternatives.

 

[Missioncmdr]

Here is a good page on how a tripod can walk:

http://drzeus.best.vwh.net/wotw/other/gait/

 

[pattersoncr]

Sorry to derail this whole thing with my mention of tripods Andy...

 

[Quick_Nick]

If it wouldn't be considered more derailing , here is a video of a slowish-moving animated tripod with few joints.

 

[Linguofreak]

Of course, there's also the problem of making *any* walker a stable gun platform.

 

[Andy44]

Well, I think if you have stasis field technology that lets your crews and equipment withstand thousands of G's, walking on three legs and stabilizing a gun shouldn't be too difficult. Heck, the gyro stabilization on many modern tanks and helicopters should do the trick, and you can't fire those out of a cannon into space!

 

[Cairan]

THE movie

Check this out, it's the whole movie, watched it yesterday night at 3:00 AM... A CLASSIC!

 

[Linguofreak]

Well, I think if you have stasis field technology that lets your crews and equipment withstand thousands of G's, walking on three legs and stabilizing a gun shouldn't be too difficult. Heck, the gyro stabilization on many modern tanks and helicopters should do the trick, and you can't fire those out of a cannon into space!

Granted.

Simplicity, however, is a virtue in weapon/weapon platform design.

 

[Andy44]

Some progress. I have created a rudimentary spacecraft3 file for it. I created a "heat ray" by setting the main engine max thrust to almost zero and placing the main engine exhaust plume in front of the heat ray lens and orienting it in the +Z direction. The result is startlingly effective. You fire the heat ray by throttling the "main engine", and you move by firing the RCS thrusters. Set Altitude Hold at 30 meters and you're ready to wreak havoc upon those slimy humans.

The only problem I have with this heat ray method is that the smoke clouds from the exhaust plume still float to the back of the vessel, when I would prefer them to either float forward or to just eliminate them altogether. Any suggestions?

Arrival at the Cape:

Bearing down on the hang rail station:

Sucks to be a hang rail passenger today! (Notice the smoke clouds going the wrong way)

 

[Missioncmdr]

The Heat Ray does look pretty good. I say all that needs to be done is change the exhaust texture to something red tinted.

 

[Master of Blades]

Yeesh, never realized it was that big D:

 

[Andy44]

Okay, folks, I need an opinion. I am working on the "cylinder", which in the '53 film looked like a meteor, with a rocky surface. This is the Martian atmospheric entry vehicle that the war machine rides through space in and emerges from after the crash landing. The cool thing about this is that as I look as the source material, it's clear that the entry vehicle in the film is actually a lenticular-shaped lifting body! This is perfect, because we had discussed before how we want the entry vehicle to generate lift so it can reach a targeted landing site. The rocky-looking surface is presumably some sort of heat shield coating. (The 1950's were so cool with future space ideas.)

Now for the problem: If you recall in the film, the opening of the cylinder unscrews and the heat ray emerges and fries the unfortunate farmer and his migrant workers. The problem is that the opening is nowhere near big enough for the rest of the war machine to pass through. What you see in the movie was obviously done for dramatic effect; the means by which the rest of the machine exits the entry vehicle is never depicted, nor is it shown in the "blueprints" floating around the internet.

So what do you think? Should I build the cylinder exactly like the film with a small opening, or should I make the opening bigger so that the war machine can fit through? Effectively, most of the top half of the entry vehicle would have to hinge open in order for the war machine to pass through. The third option is to have two portals, the small threaded one that penetrates the big hinged lid, kind of like a small door in a big door. I'm trying to keep this entry vehicle as simple as possible, but two doors shouldn't be too much trouble.

The only problem I have with this heat ray method is that the smoke clouds from the exhaust plume still float to the back of the vessel, when I would prefer them to either float forward or to just eliminate them altogether. Any suggestions?

Also, anyone have any ideas about this question?

 

[Urwumpe]

Didn' t the martian assemble their war machines after landing and securing the landing site in the novel? Maybe you can implement the cylinder as a factory which produces the war machines from stored (and later conquered) materials?

Also, I think a cylinder would make more sense, when looking that you have to launch it with a cannon, also I think the crater caused by the hard landing was also important for the mission of the martians (as instant fortification).