Between Two Suns

A Metroidvania about exploring an alien star system.

A lone astronaut is sent to fix a routine maintenance issue on a remote planet, but soon uncovers a growing mystery of long-dead cultures buried beneath the planet that are fighting back, with only a sarcastic robot companion as company on an otherwise dead world.

Team 15 Gameplay.mp4

I've been working on Between Two Suns for three months now.

Responsibilities and individual contributions:

concept art
2D art
UI art
3D modelling
3D character modelling
animation of plants

Concept Art

Some rough terrain designs for two distinctive areas on the planet.

The first one consists of rough, brutalist shapes and design to help convey the alien race that used it. I wanted to convey a more negative or oppressive impression of the environment. By using sharp angles to convey a feeling of brutal power and strength to the player (This is also derived from the way brutalist architecture is composed.) and its rough, more destroyed landscape will hint to the player of its history.

The second landscape was meant to be for a race that's more intertwined with nature, taking inspiration from past cultures like the Maya (not to be confused with the Aztecs, who were more developed in warrior culture and empire building). And their use of water filtration. To convey the nature of its predecessors, I made sure the mock-up featured both rounded and angled forms. Angled shapes to allow angled structures to appear organic. This is crucial as the environment is to be kept consistent using organic structures.

Once again looking back at the shape language in the style guide, I felt that a more 'scientific clean' design would work better for an escape pod rather then a industrial sci-fi design. This meant smooth edges, rounded corners and clean designs. With a design that would contain mostly rounded forms to evoke a peaceful, but advanced, scientific, feel.

After looking through the style guide, I started to create some mock-ups of the interior, focusing on the shape language that had already been established throughout the game.

Our style guide emphasised the importance of avoiding tight hard cornered shapes and how they wanted this area of the game to lean more into Human Industrial Sci-Fi as opposed to a scientific clean style. They wanted 45-degree angled cuts, and capsule elements such as lights, vents, switches etc.

The very first thing that my group members Blake and Sebastian, explained to me was how they wanted the main player area to feel. They described it as being an 'old model' ship, by that they meant, that in a world full of high tech designs and capabilities, they wanted the main ship to be a cheaper model, as if the player's company didn't really expect the player to come back and didn't want to waste any resources.

Building Concept Art

Terrain Concept Art

Rock Development

After talking with Sebastian. Owen and I felt that in order to convey more story with our models, we should change the sharper more ragged areas to instead be a sort of goopy, growth-like texture to convey to the player how the landscape is growing and reclaiming the land after it's previous inhabitants had disappeared.This mix of textures helps convey the alien race that used it, consisting of rough, brutalist shapes and design. I wanted to convey a more negative or oppressive impression of the environment. By using sharp angles to convey a feeling of brutal power and strength to the player (This is also derived from the way brutalist architecture is composed.) This contrasting with the smooth and gelatinous texture of the growing rocks helps show the contradiction between the harsher inhabitants and the original natural environment.This design was inspired by a lot of architectural sculptures that use a mixture of two different materials to show a really interesting contrast.

Plant development.

For the plants of this section I wanted to design plants that reflected a hotter, more desert-like landscape. To accomplish this I referenced native Australian plants that grow in central Australia, where it's hottest. Using these references, I designed plants that were made of a harder material (similar to a nut), or if they were a softer material, looked rather dead and wilted, showing how the landscape no longer supports their original ecosystem. The colour palette consists of dark reds and greens, helping the plants match the reds of the local environment whilst still having a pop of colour to help them stand out. For the wilting or dead plants the colours should be duller and less vibrant, showing how the life is draining out of them.Sebastian asked for a plant that could possibly be used later on in the game to attack the player, so I developed what I lovingly refer to as the 'tooth plant'. Its based off of Venus flytraps, and snaps its two sides shut when anything brushes against it. The concept was that a player might walk over it / move through it and the plant would snap shut, killing or harming the player in the process.

Object Concept art

Kondroc Mask

I wanted to try lots of different styles with the Kondroc mask as the species is meant to be a rather sturdy and strong one that uses rocks a lot in their construction.

I went through lots of iterations for this because I wasn't sure what kind of material it should be made of.

Character design

Astronaut iterations

After some feedback from my initial concept piece for the game's main character, it was suggested that more mechanic like aspects should be considered for the character as they're meant to be an explorer and field mechanic in the context of the story. To help facilitate that I'm adding a sort of chest strap to help carry tools and supplies. (much like a tool belt but seeing as the character is in space they would likely float away.)

Turn around - Front

Turn around - Side

2D Art

UI art

I created a title image for the game, taking inspiration from The Outer Worlds (2019) video game art.

With instructions from Sam stating

'was thinking something like this, just the font/title i mean but maybe with a sun at the top and bottom so the title is literately between two suns. no idea if that will look good but I trust you to make the call on what looks best'

The title features two hot suns that have a similar colour scheme to the games title Between Two Suns with a similar sort of grungy colour scheme to the previous posters created for the game

Images

The posters have all been scuffed and dirtied to help portray a sense of age and negligence, as if the posters have been there for a while now and haven't been cleaned or replaced since they'd been stuck to the walls.

I wanted all the posters to have a rather muted colour scheme except for the one poster of the 'enemy', which is a representation of a random alien species the player may or may not meet at some point. The colour scheme is muted so that it fits into the games rather sterile yet unkept environment, helping to convey a location that at one point was well taken care of to one that hasn't been used in years.

Murals

Kondrocs Mural

two versions, one with a noise layer and one without
shows the Kondrocs holding the power source over their head, very controlling and ominous
dirty and cracked to show age

Iole Mural

two versions, one with a noise layer and one without
shows the Iole holding the power source very tenderly / respectfully
dirty and cracked to show age
handprints in the background to represent community

Decals

Handprint decal that can be placed around the world to help tell a story and history, copies of separate hands are available for placement as well.

3D Modelling

Character modelling

Fully modelled astronaut model

ready for rigging
unwrapped
low-poly for in game function

Helmet and boots

separate objects from character model
allows for in-game decoration and story telling
low-poly for in game function

Objects

Locker for the tutorial level

low-poly for game function
door is a separate piece for possible animation or posing

Garrote model for game

shows how the Iole got around
low-poly for in game function

Bench model for tutorial level

low-poly for game function

Robot model for computer room (B.U.D.D.I)

low-poly for game function
arm hinges are separate objects for any in-game animations
smaller joints are also separate objects for in-game animation or movement

Kondroc Helmet, adaptable and capable of withstanding the sudden pressure changes. They seem big, but they appear to adapt when put on, and the outside looks to portray a different species.

High-poly version for texturing
There is a low-poly version for in game

Terrain

Plant model

high-poly model (wanted to create a low-poly version for in game but was told against it)
rigged
teeth are separate objects for texturing purposes

Three small rock models

high-poly models (wanted to create a low-poly version for in game but was told against it)

(I did NOT texture these)

Animation

Untitled video - Made with Clipchamp (8).mp4

Plant animation for game

runs on loop
simple, doesn't put loads of pressure on engine
works no matter the object scale

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