1. Start by opening up Modeler. We will start to place some points that we will use to control the Hypervoxels that will make up our asteroid field.

Use the Spray Points tool (Create > Spray Points) and spray out a random mass of points. Something like figure 1.

2. Unless you live in miniature-world, asteroid fields are usually bigger than a few meters.

So use the zoom tool and zoom out your view ports so the grid is let's say 100m. And use the Size tool (Modify > Size) and scale it up so its diameter is about 500m.

Now Save this object and fire up Modelers trusty companion Layout! Time to get asteroiding!

3. Load up the asteroid points and position the camera to a good view of them, kind of like figure 2.

4. Time to start creating cute little asteroids for your Star destroyer to blow up in a fiery cloud of space dust! Under the Scene tab, select Volumetrics and in the dropdown menu saying Add Volumetric select HyperVoxels, then double click on the HyperVoxels 3.0 that will appear beneath the menu.

5. Now that we have the HyperVoxels 3.0 window open, lets open the VIPER too, so we can see what we are doing. I like to have the VIPER and the HyperVoxels windows parallel in my workspace.

Back to the HyperVoxels window. The first thing we need to do is tell HyperVoxels to use our points. On the left side of the window is an Object Name list. Select the asteroids object and then click the Activate button just above the list. Then click Render in the VIPER window.

White blobby masses. Cool.

6. Let's shape these sloppy white balls into strong feisty asteroids! First we need to do something about the size of them. In the right part of the HyperVoxels window, there is the Geometry tab. Under that we see Particle Size. Decrease that until you get a good size for the balls, there shouldn't be too many blobs that "blob" into each other. 8 meters should be enough for this object. Now we are going to put some random sizes to them, so change the Size Variation to 200%. Now it will look alot more randomized and chaotic.

7. Now let's asteroid these asteroids! You might want to change the VIPER to Preview only a single particle. In the top of the VIPER window, under the Preview Options dropdown menu, select Particle Preview. It should now render out a single blob of white. It's a representation of a single asteroid. Perfect for when we surface them. We will start by modifying the "geometry" of the asteroid, using the tools found under the HyperTexture tab.

Start by changing the Texture to anything, we are going to take a look at the different ones and then select the one that will suit our options best. Take a look at the pictures below to see what the different textures to do your poor little HyperVoxel. I have changed the Amplitude to 200% for illustrative purposes.

Smoky1 - Cool eh? Without the use of ANY polygons!

Smoky2 - Funky. Could be useful to some people? But not for our foxy..i mean voxly asteroid.

Smoky3 - Trippy! Throw a rainbow gradient on that and yay,1970!

Turbulence - Kind of useful for our purpose. But bland like an english suburb on a rainy day.

Dented - It's the invasion of the 50 ft white boogers! With a bit of tweaking this could make a good asteroid as well.

FBM - Thinking that i get this from a single vertex, it gives me such a warm and fuzzy feeling!

Theatergoer - It kind of looks like it's being devoured by voxel eating bacteria, don't you think?

Hybrid Multi-fractal - For such a fancy name it doesn't really do much, does it? But it's all in the tweaking!

We will go for a tweaked Dented one. It will give us a rather nice looking asteroid.

You can add a reasonable about Frequencies or Octaves without sacrificing too much render time.

8. Now lets put some colour on it. Switch to the Shading tab in the Hypervoxels window. Now this works pretty much exactly like the normal Surface editor. You have a Texture editor and an Envelope editor, and all the channels you would expect when surfacing an object. Start by changing the base colour of it by clicking on the little white square just to the right of the colour channels RGB values. There you can select, like me a grey-brown colour. But feel free to make a magenta coloured asteroid if you want. Now open the Texture editor by clicking on the little "T" icon that's to the right in the colour channel. Now we are in the Texture editor. When it opens it defaults into an Image map-mode. So change the Layer Type to Procedural Texture. Then start to tweak out a nice texture, add several layers if you wish. I will go with just one very dark brown layer of Turbulence.

9. Now we will modify the Diffuse channel, so open the Texture editor for it, just like you did with the colour channel. But change the Layer Type to Gradient. Change the Input Parameter to Bump. And then set the keys in this fashion (to set a key, click in the white vertical bar. Your gradient will show up here).

One at a Parameter of 0.0 and Value of 50% and another one at a Parameter of 0.2 and a Value of 75%. And a last one at Parameter of 1.0 and a Value of 100%.

This will make the recessed areas of the asteroid a bit darker than the outer, more exposed areas.

10. Finally, open the Texture editor for the Bump channel. Set the Layer Type to Procedural Texture and select the Crumple texture. Change the values so you get a good defined bump over the asteroid.

11. Now lets see how our asteroid field look! Highlight the main LightWave window and press F9.

12. It's a good start but looks pretty mood-less, so let's add some good lights to it! That will spruce it up.

Start by turning off the Ambient Light. Ambient light is evil in space scenes. Now increase the Intensity of the main light to about 200% and give it an off white colour. Rotate it so its almost facing the camera on a top-down angle.

If we render now it will be pretty dark, but with some nice edges being seen.

13. So lets add another light to illuminate these hunks of space rock a little more. Create another Distant Light. Give it a reddish colour and an intensity of about 100%. Aim it an an almost opposite angle as the first light. You can also add a Point Light far beyond the asteroid field and give put a lensflare on it.

And there you have it! A nice asteroid field to fly your ships into to be come obliterated in a cloud of fire and molten voxelrock.

And all we used was a bunch of points. cool, eh? This way you can add gazillions of asteroids without having to worry about such silly things like polycounts.

I have included a second scene file for the image below. Feel free to dissect it and examine.