Well its been around 2 years since i last posted here and almost 1 year since i last used maya so now i have some free time i thought id ease back into things with one of my favourite topics, movies. I always loved the cg work in Starship troopers even if the story wasnt my cup of tea, i attempted something similar to this waaay back when i was still fairly new to maya and looking back at that terrible attempt made me want to try again and do it right (perhaps maybe i`ll look back at this in 5yrs and say the same thing). It started out as a bright sunny daylight shot, but i think its got a more dramatic effect by switching to night, plus it hides the fact that there are only about 20 bugs in the scene, hardly a swarm! As for the details... the bug model is very poly friendly at just 25k, the explosion fireball was just a poly sphere with a glow but i think its fairly convincing as a fiery ball of death. Maya 4.0 (yes i know its OLD!) + some postwork in photoshop.