LogInAsher Zhu continues to experiment with digital slime showcasing a new mind-blowing setup.
Senior Technical Artist at Epic Games Asher Zhu, whose incredible experiments with digital slime have already been featured a couple of times here on 80 Level, has pushed slime simulations to the next level with one more mind-blowing setup.
Continuing his work on a physically correct slime simulator game prototype, the creator unveiled a brand-new blob of slime simulation created using a combination of surface tension, viscosity, and anti-gravity force and complete with a neat refraction shader that marches individual rays on the light spectrum and can "accumulate light energy".
With the demo, Asher also showcased the prototype's gameplay features and setting, showing that the game unfolds in a picturesque Japanese town during the summer season. The player was shown to be able to pet the slime, throw it at walls to create graffiti, walk through objects, dissolve objects by feeding them to the blob, and more. Notably, the slime gradually dries out over time, prompting players to maintain its hydration by adding water every now and then.
"Currently, I'm prototyping for fun and researching – funny to say this, but the slime is an extremely difficult engineering problem to solve," commented Asher. "Designing art for it is like making coffee with.. a list of coffee atoms. It's hard but also super satisfying, the moment I figured out how to keep the slime's form smooth while jumping, using a combination of surface tension, viscosity, and anti-gravity force was pure joy and glory. I'll continue posting my progress, with gamedev tips and tricks along the way."
We highly encourage you to follow the author's Twitter page so as not to miss any future updates.
Earlier, Asher also demonstrated Frenzied Flame Greatsword, an Elden Ring-inspired VFX project depicting a flaming claymore creating myriads of embers after each swing and leaving an ash afterimage of the mannequin that crumbles to dust over time:
If you would like to learn more about the artist's production workflow, we also recommend checking out our interview with Asher, in which he explained how to set up water simulations with Unreal's Niagara Fluids, demonstrated how to create the water surface and whitewater particles, spoke about making the water simulation's color scientifically accurate, and more.
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