Patreon Development Feed - New Swets! (Patreon)

Hi guys! Oscar here with a quick update about one of the more recent additions to the upcoming Highlands Update!

Sticky, slimy, bouncy and hungry! Swets have been a part of the Aether's ecosystem since some of the earliest versions of the mod and have remained largely the same throughout, but it's worth noting that really they are just slightly reworked Slimes from Vanilla Minecraft.

So it only made sense that with the visual overhaul we're implementing for the Highlands Update, Swets should get a visual (and mechanical) makeover too!

As with every mob, item, structure or character, the first step is a sketch. For the Swet I decided I liked the idea of the creature being a floating head encased in a Jelly layer that it uses to feed, but initially my design was more abstract, without a real "face" or features. Just a blob of junk with strange tendrils protruding from it. But after some discussion and reflection we decided giving the Swet more of a facial structure would help the design, so I gave it layered, glowing eyes! Quite cute in a strange sort of way!

The next step is modelling! For mobs we currently use a Minecraft mod made by iChun called Tabula, which allows us to create models within Minecraft's game engine!

For the Swet model it is easiest to model the head and the jelly parts separately, then combine them in game for the mob.

To represent the head's tendrils I used flat planes, and modelled two cubes for the central part of the head so the eyes can be sunk into the model in texture.

For the jelly I went for a kind of rounded cube design, with the bottom most piece intended to expand and contract while jumping to make it look like the jelly pools up underneath the Swet when it is sitting on the ground.

The texture was then produced and added, which both shows off areas of the model that need to be tweaked while also testing how the texture will look in game without fully implementing the model.

Once both the model and texture were finalised, Brandon implemented the new look onto the current Swet mob! Looking good there little buddy!

But that's not all, not only were we upgrading their visuals but we also wanted to update their function!

Based on their original function of attacking the player by absorbing them, the new Swets will latch onto the player's skin and drain their energy while also slowing the player's walking speed.

The way the player knows whether a Swet has latched onto them is through an overlay on their vision, showing gloopy Swet goo covering the bottom corners of the screen.

This is something that's important to the Swet's function as it may be hard to communicate to the player whether there's a Swet on them when they can't see their body!

We started off by making a 64x64 texture for the corner of the screen showing the Swet goop, which would alternate between two shapes to show the Swet draining the player's energy away.

And there we go! Brandon got the overlay working! But we noticed something a little... off about it.

Oops! Looks like we've kept in the Aether's tradition and accidentally made Clouds instead of slime! Oh well, the overlay is there now so all it needs is a simple texture change.

There we go! Much... gloopier. Also worth noting the overlay scales with the Minecraft window so you don't need to worry about your window's shape or size!

So now that the Swets can attach to you and feed off you, how do you get them off? Well one way is to just wait for them to finish their meal, but luckily the player is such a tasty treat that the Swets overfeed, becoming bloated and slow after detaching from the player and unable to latch back on.

Additionally Swets are also weak to water! Hopping into a pool of water will dissolve the Swet's Jelly layer, disabling their ability to latch onto you and leaving them defenceless to attacks.

We've also rearranged the colours Swets can be! Now the Swets found in the Highlands are Blue, Purple and a new Green! With more new colours coming as we add new areas to the mod!

Currently the Swets still use the same old jumping animation, but wanted to revamp their squishy, bouncy animation set to fully utilise their new design!

Luckily Jaryt is a wizard of animation! So now a Swet's Jelly pools underneath it when resting on the ground.

And Brandon also implemented varying sizes of Swet Jelly upon spawning, giving even more variation between individual Swets! (so stylish, so unique)

We will also have the Swets actually render on the player model like arrows! So they will appear on the Inventory GUI and be visible in multiplayer!

Alright that just about covers it! Thank you guys for reading this and pledging to our Patreon, without you none of this would happen!And many thanks to Brandon for doing an amazing job programming the new Swets!

I hope to publish more of these Patreon Feed posts in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that!

See you guys again soon!