Asteroid field in Maya?

This is a scene from Earth and Beyond. Does anyone know how to do an asteroid field ike this in Maya 6?

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several ways to achieve ...

but, i guess the most basic way is to sketch particles in your scene with random radiuses, then add vortex & turbulence field to it.
when you are satisfied with the shape, go to solvers/initial state/set for selected.
after that you can replace particles with actual geometry, under particle menu: particle/particle instancer (replacement) and voilà, you've got your asteroid field ...
btw, if you dont wanna create your rock/boulders yourself then download rockGen.mel from highend3d.

:wink: