Hey everyone

A friend of mine pointed this great website out to me today, and I decided to join.

I guess I'll get right to the point:

A friend and I, along with a large crew and cast of extras, are working on a War of the Worlds fan film, based on the 2005 Spielberg film. The film will be short, featuring an attack on my home town, and the extermination of everyone in it.

My friend and I threw our cash together, and bought FX Home's Effects Lab. However, it doesn't have what we really wanted.

So, we asked for some help on their forum, but haven't heard from anyone now.

The things we need for our film would be a CGI tripod, modelled from the 2005 film, and we'll be needing a neat dust/vaporization effect, for when the humans in our film start getting wiped out.

My friend and I have decided that maybe a model would work for the tripod, but it'd probably look extremely crappy... and for the dust, we haven't come up with an effective idea.

So, I'm wondering if anyone could help me out with the effects work. Really, the CGI tripods won't be seen for more than 20 seconds or so in the film, and the dust effect can be re-used through out the film.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If you wish to talk to me personally, please contact me via MSN messenger at brandonbrownoo7@hotmail.com... or PM me...


thanks a lot everyone! I'm glad I'm a member!

-Brandon Brown

Fan spoof? or fan fan?

If it is spoof I would use models made from something odd, like, er, fruit, or, er, kitchen equipment. Then just move em over a green screen.

For non spoof, proper cgi.

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It's going to be a non-spoof, serious fan film.

The best I've seen for producing the poeple blowing up or turning to dust is ParticleIllusion. Pop over to www.wondertouch.com and check it out. There is a tutorial that is almost exactly what you want I reckon.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Thanks a lot for that link.

Just wondering, what tutorial was the one you mentioned?

http://www.wondertouch.com/tutorials.asp

Looks like I'm a lier again. The one I was thinking of is http://www.creativecow.net/articles/...ple/index.html

This should give you a starting position although the disintegration itself takes a little too long for your specific needs. It will be customisable though.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Thanks a lot!!!

This should really come in handy. I've already put particle illusion on our "production wish list"... :P

You didn't say how much time you have to spend on the production, or did I miss that part? Sorry, trouble getting the pages to load on this new layout but anyhow, have you done the pre-production to get the look of the film, have you drawings of the 'tripod' is it going to be exactly like one out of the film? Yes, a CG one is best but have you got someone who knows their way around Lightwave, 3D Studio Max or whatever you package you have? I'd be torn between Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere 2.0 for editing and After Effects and Particle Illusion for special effects, blue/greenscreen and particle effects. How tight is your script and have you all your locations and studio set ups pinned down at this stage?

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Better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick any day...

As for time, we'll be spending about 6-7 months on pre-production and production. We've been location scouting, working with non-CGI effects, making concept art and storyboards... also, we've been casting crew and cast...

We've done a few drawings of our own for the tripods, and they will look the same as the ones in the Spielberg film.

Although a CGI tripod would be great, we don't really have a experienced special effects crew, as far as computer CGI goes...

We're good, but not that good (yet.)...

As for editing, we plan on using Adobe Premiere... and are looking into using Adobe AfterEffects, once everything in the film is put together.

For special effects, our main programs will be FXLab and CompositeLab, from FXHome... although, they don't have as many effects as we're looking for, hopefully by request, we can get some more.

As for script, there isn't a set plan of dialogue... but, we will be working on that, and piecing together some lines for the survivor group, and some other characters in the film.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated... We're really desperate for any kind of CG Artists who can help us put together some tripods, or the dust effects.

Thanks a lot for reading this

Check your personal messeages inbox, I'm interested in helping with the tripod.