Asteroid Scene Test Renders

Software Used: Maya 3.0 Unlimited (Windows 2000)

Hand-Drawn Sketch

Asteroid Test Render

Asteroid Test Render 2 Using Maya Paint

This scene is inspired by the asteroid chase sequence in "The Empire Strikes Back." The first scene shows several basic Nurbs modeled asteroids and planetoids. The asteroids have a igneous rock texture map applied to them but they look a bit out of focus. I believe these were low resolution maps. I have taken high resolution maps from real boulders and will apply  those once I figure out what I am doing in Maya's hypershade. The asteroids do have a bump map applied to them. That should make them look much more realistic in the sparse  and highly directional "space"  lighting. 

Asteroid Scene 2

This scene makes use of Maya 2.5's new Paint module. I really like the "cotton-candy"  look you can give to these nebulous gases! Not to mention the very rich colors. As you can see, I am still trying to learn how to properly texture map an asteroid. 

Fiery Asteroid Test

This scene depicts a fiery asteroid heading toward tall buildings in the financial district of San Francisco. It is a 1.3MB QuickTime movie file. The display is 720x486 so you may want to download it to your hard drive. The blue screen will be replaced by the San Francisco skyline.
 

Latest Asteroid Test Results 

This scene consists of asteroids animated and texture mapped in Maya and composited in Commotion Pro 3. The MPEG file provides the best quality as far as my web movies go. It is 980KB in size. Click on the image to view the desktop screen capture.