FURTHER REFINEMENTS...

Building some landscape here that can be shot from various angles.

CREATING A SNOW STORM...

Actually, getting the snow to fall was the easy part, the trick was getting them to bounce and flutter as they came down. That too, was pretty easy, but only after a few hundred failures...or so it seemed.

TWO MOTORCYCLES

THE OLD TROOPER

THE SENTINEL (redux)

A few refinements: first, a better slouch in the saddle. Makes it look like he really could sleep on duty. Which he does. Second, a 'chin light' under the X-Machine. It will usually be off, but occasionally it will click on and scoot ahead scouting the best path through the jumbled landscape of Kibble XXI.

RED DWARF

Basically a walk test, but also a chance to play with lighting. Since Kibble XXI is at the edge of the universe, and lit mainly by the 'sunlight' from the last Red Dwarf star, objects will tend to be strongly lit on one side, and pretty dark on the other.

SNOW TEST

A test of Particle System snow that worked pretty well. The flake size and speed are just about what I was hoping for, but I need to add a bit of turbulence to make the flakes flutter more convincingly to the ground.

BEETLES IN THE MIST

Here's a little test piece for The Sentinel. On the spitball asteroid/planet where he is stationed, (Kibble XXI) there are only two life forms. One, a tiny flying thing which looks like a cross between a bat and a sparrow (not designed yet) and scoots around in middlin'-sized, fast moving flocks, and large, placid, stupid-ish beetle(even by beetle standards)that crawl around in the high, snowy peaks gnawing lichen off the rocks. Mostly, only their backs show through the snow and they look like modest-sized, black, shiny boulders...except that when Beast approaches, the boulders start to back away.(no legs are seen). If Beast and Rider get too close, a frightened beetle will rear up on its hind legs and make formalized threat gestures. Occasionally, Beast will just dip his head and inhale one of them.