This image was done with the Bryce 7 beta. It doesn't use any features of the beta (except the faster rendering) but it does show me that the program is fairly stable. It's also a chance for me to reuse the model I made for my January Bryce Challenge image, and for me to play with procedural materials. All planetary and stellar materials are out of the box textures, combined and then tweaked in the DTE. The Runabout model is just a bunch of Boolean primitives (yes, it's the shadow you see on the foreground landscape. For scale, the Runabout is about the size of a Soyuz, only a little wider and about two centuries more advanced). This image was rendered at 2400X1200, then rotated (for the intended artistic effect) and resized to come in under 500kb without a ton of compression. As always, thanks for viewing, commenting and favoriting. ---- I'm sure the Runabouts were just a consolation prize to make us support the Exploration Service. Not that I mind. Flying these little beasts through uncharted star systems beats the heck out of driving shuttles back and forth between the surface of Libertas and the old ramscoop of same name. Sure, the Runabouts are cramped when you stick more than two people in them and they've got nothing but old-fashioned reaction drives, but they're good solid Libertine tech, built to last with barely any maintenance. Plus, the microwave plasma drive can run off water, so refueling is a cinch, and the worst a busted tank can do is rust. There are two Runabouts on each exploratory ship. With pilot and flight engineer that puts at least four Libertines on every expedition, even if we don't manage to provide that many scientists. Not much room for science when you're trying to tame the Inback and grow Earth crops on alien sand. But farming grains under the bitter sky is not in my blood. This is where I belong. Sure, the fancy ship blinks across light-years in a wrenching instant. And it flies across space with pods that fake a gravity well. The science I'll never understand. But most of those physicist-engineers and science punks rarely leave the ship. If they want samples or detailed surveys of rocks under the gaze of alien stars, that's when I get to blaze the way. -- Lieutenant Jose Burbank, Flight Officer, CES Shackleton, Confederation Exploratory Service, 3 June 2237