Orion

Gummy Galaxy concept art ​

This page collects a round of concept art for Gummy Galaxy, drawn as if it were a game with Orion as one of its worlds. It's a study. The worlds, emblems, and directions here are proposals to react to, and none of them are decisions yet.

The art was made locally: 3D renders in Blender's Cycles and EEVEE, 2D pieces as hand-written SVG captured with Playwright, and print and pixel treatments in Pillow and ImageMagick. The sources can draw every piece again.

Material: translucent gummy ​

The marks started as flat SVG shapes under a lighting filter. They read as molded plastic. A ray-marched shader that lets light pass through the candy, deepens the color where it's thick, and glows at the edges read as gummy. The material test put the three side by side. The translucent look won, with each mark kept to about two flavors and lit by the same scene as its background.

Three versions of the spiral sun mark: opaque vector gloss, translucent gummy, and translucent gummy in two flavors lit by the background.The Orrery mark as a ray-marched translucent gummy on the tide background, with controls for mark, look, background, and size.Six ray-marched gummy marks in a row: orbit badge, orrery, galaxy pop, star bear, gumdrop planet, and belt drops.A grid of the earlier SVG marks on six backgrounds, before the move to translucent gummy.

Blender carried the same material into full scenes, and the same marks were rendered in clay, plush, glass, and hard candy to compare.

The Orrery in translucent gummy: a spiral sun, a pink ring, a banded blue planet, and a green moon on a blue glow.The Orrery in a two-flavor palette of pink and lemon on a grape glow.The Orrery in fully transmissive glass, reading as acrylic rather than candy.The Orrery in matte clay on a pale studio background.The Orrery in felt on a peach glow.A pink gummy bear with a star on its belly.A green gumdrop crusted with sugar crystals inside a pink ring.A blue and pink swirl lollipop in clear hard candy.Three puffy gummy stars on a string.Every mark together on a glossy floor with shallow focus, the companion floating overhead.The same diorama as a white clay study.

Worlds ​

The galaxy is a handful of worlds in one orbit. Each world is a flavor and a place, and it leaves one emblem behind that stands for an idea in Orion.

WorldFlavorEmblemStands for in Orion
SwirlheartLemon, peach, cherrySpiral sunHome
RingwellBlueberry, skyRinged planetGroups
Gumdrop HighlandsGreen appleGumdropReady work
Noodle ReachGrape, licoriceLinked loopsDependencies
Cotton ShoalsCotton candyCloudNotes
Taffy BeltSix flavorsWrapped candyInbox
Geode MoonRock candyRock-candy crystalDone
  • Swirlheart is where every run starts: a candy town under the chewy spiral sun.
  • Ringwell is a jelly ocean under a ring you could walk on. A group is a ring around its work.
  • Gumdrop Highlands is sugar-dusted hills that are always ripe. What grows here can start now.
  • Noodle Reach is floating islands tied together by sagging licorice bridges. Nothing goes anywhere without crossing a link.
  • Cotton Shoals is soft cloud islands where thoughts drift and pile up.
  • Taffy Belt is an asteroid belt of wrapped candy drifting in from everywhere, sorted by miners into worlds.
  • Geode Moon is a quiet moon where finished work crystallizes and glows.

The world map: a spiral galaxy with seven worlds on a dotted route out from the spiral sun, each with its emblem and the Orion idea it stands for.

Swirlheart: a giant spiral sun over lemon dunes, lollipop trees, and a temple marked with the spiral.Ringwell: a jelly ocean under a planetary ring, with a striped lighthouse and jellyfish.Gumdrop Highlands: sugar-dotted green domes, a windmill, little houses, and a gumdrop signpost.Noodle Reach: purple floating islands joined by sagging licorice bridges with lanterns, and a gate topped by linked loops.Cotton Shoals: pink cloud islands, hot-air balloons, floating note cards, and the companion asleep.Taffy Belt: wrapped candies drifting through space over a mining outpost with a conveyor of candy.Geode Moon: glowing crystal shards and a crystal archive tower under a dim spiral sun.

The worlds were also pushed through a 300 px pixel canvas to see whether they hold up as a retro game.

Swirlheart as dithered pixel art.Noodle Reach as dithered pixel art.

Emblems ​

Each emblem works as a glossy medal in its world's flavor, as a one-color mark at small sizes, and as a gummy you could pick up.

Seven medals in their world colors, each with its emblem in cream and a small one-color mark, captioned with flavor and Orion idea.

The seven emblems as translucent gummies on a grape glow: spiral sun, ringed planet, gumdrop, linked loops, cloud, wrapped candy, and crystal.

Two linked gummy rings, grape and cotton candy.A cherry gummy candy in a lemon wrapper with pleated ends.A cluster of faceted blue and lilac gummy crystals.A puffy pink gummy cloud.A blue banded gummy planet inside a pale ring.The emblem sheet printed as a three-color riso with halftone dots slightly out of register.

Companion ​

The companion's proportions come from CompanionStar.tsx: a four-point star 182 tall and 104 wide with a 66 core, and two side stars at about 0.45 scale on sagging tethers. The model sheet tries nine expressions with poses. The other pieces try the companion as a card, a spec, merch, signage, and a toy.

A model sheet: construction lines and proportions on the left, nine expressions with poses on the right, and color swatches.

The companion as a translucent gummy on a blue glow.The companion in felt, eyes closed happily, on a pale background.The companion in matte clay on a peach glow.A holographic trading card of the companion with the moves Hop and Keep Watch.A blueprint of the companion with front and side elevations and its dimensions.A die-cut sticker sheet with three companion moods, a DONE burst, a ship-it banner, and planet and gumdrop stickers.The companion as a pink neon sign over a blue Gummy Galaxy script on a brick wall.A storybook page: the companion hops on a stack of cards with a DONE stamp.The storybook page as a pink and teal riso print.The gummy companion render as a dithered sprite.

Game feel ​

The game references are the GameCube and Wii era: Super Monkey Ball's floating courses, the console's channel menu, and WarioWare's four-second microgames. Each piece maps a game idea onto something Orion already does.

  • The floating course puts the companion in a clear gummy ball, with wrapped candies for bananas and gumdrop bumpers. A second version runs it through a 480p, 16-bit framebuffer with ordered dither and bloom.
  • The channel menu shows the worlds as channels, plus the Focus Music prototype and a shop.
  • The microgames turn Orion actions into commands: link two cards, sort the inbox, finish a card, unwrap what just arrived.
  • The side-scroller mock puts Gumdrop Highlands on platforms, with ready cards as collectibles and links as the bridges between them.
A pink checkered course floating in a blue sky, a GOAL gate at the far end, and the companion inside a clear gummy ball.The same course through a soft 480p framebuffer with dither and faint field lines.A glossy white console menu with channels for each world, Focus Music, and Gummy Shop, and a pointer on Gumdrop Highlands.Four microgame screens: LINK!, SORT!, FINISH!, and UNWRAP!, each with a bomb timer.A side-scroller level with green platforms, pink noodle bridges, floating cards, and a HUD.The side-scroller level as 16-bit pixel art.

Kitbash ​

To try directions quickly, some scenes are bashed together from free CC0 kits, with the gummy marks placed on top. The kit pieces are a base for exploring scale, composition, and light. Art that ships would replace them.

  • Poly Haven scans and HDRIs bring photoreal food, rocks, plants, and props.
  • KayKit kits by Kay Lousberg bring stylized buildings, hex tiles, and a space base. Their materials are shifted toward candy, or redrawn with a stepped toon ramp and ink lines.

Every standing piece is dropped onto the surface under it with downward rays, so nothing sinks into bumpy ground.

A photoreal tabletop: the companion on a strawberry cake on a cutting board, gumdrops blurred in the foreground.Pikmin scale: the companion two centimeters tall among scanned flowers at sunset.Geode Moon at night: scanned moon rocks, glowing blue gummy crystals, and a ringed planet rising.An orthographic hex board in apple and blueberry tiles with candy-colored buildings, trees, gumdrops, and the companion.A small green gummy planet with buildings and trees planted around its surface.A cel-shaded space outpost with ink outlines on orange terrain, under a cream sky of wrapped candy.A foggy purple graveyard gate lit by lanterns, linked loops over the arch, and the companion in front.The same scene through a Kuwahara filter, flattened into brushy color.

Key art ​

Posters and packaging try the galaxy in borrowed print styles: mid-century gouache, art deco travel posters, woodblock prints, and a candy wrapper.

A gouache poster with a spiral sun, a striped ringed planet, a tiny pink world with a cottage, and the companion, titled Gummy Galaxy.An art deco travel poster for the belt: an orange planet ringed by candies, sun rays, and the companion waving.A woodblock print with a spiral sun, cloud bands, seigaiha waves, and the companion riding a swell, with a vertical title cartouche.A pink candy wrapper with crimped ends, a starburst, the companion as mascot, and Space Gummies, six flavors.

Sources ​

Everything above can be drawn again from docs/development/design/gummy-galaxy-sources/. Downloaded assets and renders are ignored by git.

  • blender/gummy_scene.py builds the gummy marks, the companion, and the diorama, and renders them in a style and on a background. With --save, it writes the built scene to a .blend instead, which kitbash.py reads from blender/library/.
  • blender/kitbash.py builds the kitbash and game scenes from the downloaded kits and the saved marks.
  • blender/batch.sh, blender/emblems-batch.sh, and blender/kitbatch.sh render the sets one at a time. They pause while macOS reports a thermal warning, or while the battery is under 30% and unplugged.
  • gallery/companion.py, gallery/worlds.py, and gallery/era.py write the SVG pieces as HTML pages. gallery/blair-poster.html, gallery/wrapper.html, and gallery/storybook.html are written by hand.
  • gallery/treat.py applies the film finish, riso separation, pixel art, and 480p framebuffer passes.
  • gallery/build_gallery.py finishes every piece into gallery/site/, a browsable gallery page.
  • prototypes/ holds the earlier HTML studies: the design shelf, the SVG marks, the material test, and the ray-marched gummies.
  • tools/fetch_polyhaven.py and tools/fetch_kaykit.py download the CC0 assets into assets/.

The scenes need Blender 3.4, since the scripts use its Principled BSDF input names. The treatments need Python with Pillow and NumPy, plus ImageMagick for the Kuwahara pass.

bash
cd docs/development/design/gummy-galaxy-sources
npm install
npx playwright install chromium
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install pillow numpy
python3 tools/fetch_kaykit.py
python3 tools/fetch_polyhaven.py model strawberry_chocolate_cake carrot_cake croissant lemon food_lychee_01 food_kiwi_01 wooden_cutting_board tea_set_01 moon_rock_01 moon_rock_02 moon_rock_03 moon_rock_04 moon_rock_05 boulder_01 flower_gazania shrub_01 garden_gnome
python3 tools/fetch_polyhaven.py hdri studio_small_09 the_sky_is_on_fire satara_night kloppenheim_06_puresky christmas_photo_studio_01

Save the marks the kitbash scenes use, then render:

bash
for shot in companion companion-happy gumdrop emblem-gumdrop emblem-knot emblem-candy emblem-crystal emblem-cloud emblem-spiral emblem-ring orrery; do /Applications/Blender.app/Contents/MacOS/Blender -b -P blender/gummy_scene.py -- --shot $shot --style gummy --palette full --save $PWD/blender/library/$shot.blend; done
zsh blender/batch.sh
zsh blender/emblems-batch.sh
zsh blender/kitbatch.sh

Draw the 2D pieces, capture them, and build the gallery:

bash
cd gallery
python3 companion.py
python3 worlds.py
python3 era.py
for page in *.html; do [[ $page == index.src.html ]] || node ../shot-poster.mjs $PWD/$page $PWD/${page%.html}.png; done
../.venv/bin/python build_gallery.py

build_gallery.py expects the treated frames next to the kitbash renders: ../.venv/bin/python treat.py gc ../blender/kit-renders/monkeyball.png ../blender/kit-renders/monkeyball-gc.png for the 480p pass, and magick ../blender/kit-renders/hollow.png -kuwahara 5 -modulate 100,112 ../blender/kit-renders/hollow-paint.png for the painted one. The riso and pixel variants come from treat.py riso and treat.py pixel, for example treat.py riso storybook.png storybook-riso.png pink-teal and treat.py pixel platformer.png px-platformer.png 320.