Inside our particle system, a set of rules was given for each creature to live by. For the scene on the left, the white and the red bugs were at war with each other so each "team" was programmed to attack the other alien bugs while avoiding being attacked themselves. The result was a shot with lots of detail in the individual skirmishes and a general feeling of chaos when the scene was viewed from a distance.

The second shot shown here was a beauty shot revealing the two sets of bugs and their respective castles that they had built. The plates were shot with a motion control rig and the data was used to track the virtual camera to the on set movement. The curves of the sand were then modeled into the computer and the bugs were given starting locations and a general direction of movement. From there the procedural animation took over and each step for every bug was animated by the computer. One hero bug can be seen in the foreground digging himself out of the sand with a little puff of smoke.