Planet Elystar - Mining Colony Environment

Planet Elystar was a discarded concept during my internship, that me and 2 other artists worked on. The Below described planet characteristics and background information was created by fellow artist Marius Kröger (link).

I was tasked with creating the mechanical units for the colonists, as well as the environment following some concept art and game design documents.

The buildings were created by Marius Kröger and the vegetation was partially created by Madleen Heck and me. Enjoy the small visual story we told through these renders created with Unreal Engine 4. The artistic goal was to make a seemingly unfriendly but compelling and interesting gameplay environment.

- All meshes were created with Blender 3.01.
- Textures created with Adobe Substance Painter
- Rendered in real time in Unreal Engine 4 using Volumetric Lighting
See below for a more detailed description of the project.

Background story:
Planet Elystar is a vicious planet found in a distant galaxy. Its atmosphere is characterized by a dramatic changes in seasons, which results in a an ever resetting natural power that reboots the planets biological life in a cyclical manner. Summers are warm and oxygen level are rampant, allowing humans to breathe the atmosphere. However danger lurks in the stratosphere, the elevated levels of oxygen are caused by the rapidly growing vegetation due to the climate change. This react harshly with the planets high hydrogen peroxide content, which reacts with an exothermic reaction when composed with water. Thus the planet catches fire and scorches into ashes every cyclical winter. This encompasses about 3-6 human years. Our colonists have crashed on this planet, aware of its chaotic cycle but not prepared to fight it, how will they survive and ensure their makeshift structures and machines survive? Or shall they abandon them and hide underground until the conditions are adequate again?

The initial idea of Elystar was conceived by fellow artist colleague, Marius Kröger. He imagined a rampant planet with very harsh toxic life cycles.

[Human colonists got stranded on Elystar and made some rudimentary bases for themselves. As for their initial mission, they were carrying heavy duty cosmic grade mining equipment onboard, which they began to use to their advantage in survival]

[They began mining the planets surface to extract materials to survive.] The game these concepts were being made for was going to be a Real Time Strategy game, so detail and consistency from this camera angle and height was a key aspect during production

[Empty Cargo Drone leaving back to the drill site]
The buildings were created by fellow Artist colleague Marius Kröger

[Humans overlooking the vast empty plains between the drill site and the colony]
The humans in the space suit were created by a fellow Artist colleague

[Cargo Drone delivering a shipment of raw materials back to base]

[During summer the oxygen levels are adequate to breathe without a helmet. Once the toxic winter sets in the locals can only reminisce about the good old times when you could walk around without your space suit]

[Once the toxic winter begins the atmosphere darkens and the oxygen levels in the atmosphere start rapidly rising. The atmosphere gets increasingly volatile until the smallest flame or spark will result in a fierce exothermic reaction]

[When their mechanical machines spontaneously begin combusting and killing the operators inside, it is clear for the humans, it is time to seek some sort of shelter, escape Elystar, or die]

[This is why the landscape is scattered with the charred remains of past colonists derelict machinery, who met the same fate]

To compliment the unfriendly and wild nature of the planet fellow Artist colleague Madleen Heck created some unique plants for the flora of the planet. These are characterized by blue pigmentation, hydrogen peroxide content, and fire resistant seeds