Growing a New Tangle Slime
Secret Style Breakdown
Hey everyone, I’m Dan Venhardt, the resident 3D Character Artist here at Monomi Park. We wanted to share part of our development process of the new Secret Style Pack for Slime Rancher, which adds a ton of new slime looks and largos to the mix.
Meet the new tangle slime style... Nightshade!
So what goes into making a slime? Let’s break down how we brought the new tangle slime style to life, step by step!
Early Explorations
We knew we wanted to keep certain thematic elements present on many of the new slime styles, and for tangle slimes we felt it was important to maintain an iconic flower element as well as plant colors. We worked through many ideas (some just for fun) in order to feel out the direction we wanted to go.
A few alternate ideations for the new tangle slime
Nothing was off-limits at this stage, but ultimately we wanted the design to work within the framework of the current slimes’ animations. In the end, we decided on a plump rose-shaped flower as a nice contrast to tangle’s current flower design.
Building the Model
Using 3D programs like Maya and 3D-Coat, a high-resolution model for the flower was created so that details and lighting information could be translated to an optimized low-resolution model in a process called texture baking.
Once the source mesh’s details are “baked” to the game mesh, we can bring this model and its base textures into Unity to apply colors within the slime’s materials.
Tangled Shades
In Unity, we can play with the flowers’ color gradients and smoothness to create a variety of different looks. Using color masks, we can control which parts of our slimes are shiny or soft.
While exploring colors, we found a nice velvety contrast with a darker flower that felt like a good fit for the new tangle slime. Ultimately we decided on a violet flower with a cool blue specular rim, as we felt it looked best in most lighting conditions.
Classic (left), Nightshade (center), and Early Variants (right)
Nightshade Largos!
After the models and materials for the new slime styles were done, we could finally begin the creation of every new largo combination. We want each largo to be distinct, taking advantage of multiple materials and shaders while inheriting their parent slimes’ major features. Each nightshade largo inherits the new flower (often deriving from the base slimes’ dominant color like its classic cousin), as well as its new tint of green when dominant.
I can't wait for you to discover all of the new slime styles and their largo combinations! Be sure to keep an eye out as we share more styles coming in the Secret Style Pack!
The Secret Style Pack is an all-new downloadable content pack for Slime Rancher!
Search for special treasure pods throughout the Far, Far Range and discover each slime's unique secret style. Once discovered, you will be able to re-style every slime of that type whenever you choose!
Both the new Secret Style Pack DLC and Viktor's Experimental Update will be available this June, but you can wishlist the Secret Style Pack today!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079180/Slime_Rancher_Secret_Style_Pack/
Be sure to follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on news, style reveals, and be the first to know when the Secret Style Pack is available :slimeamazed: