Unreal Engine Abandoned LifePlay [v2023.04 Stable] [Vinfamy]

[n1ck]

I'm new to the game, and I like the concept.

I'm downloading v1.15 now. In the meantime, I wanted to question about a few things I see in v1.14:

1. Selecting a city. I tried to download and install the Munich map. If I choose to randomize unknown buildings, with these distribution: Office 25%, Residential 20%, Retail 25%, Leisure 30%, that is leaving no building unknown, it takes too long to load. After 15 minutes in my i7 with 32gb RAM I gave up and force close it. I do notice that I began to have this problem when I tried to delete all my saves to start afresh, and delete the [GameInstall]/LifePlay/Contents/Saves folder. However it doesn't totally delete it because I notice the game mainly use C:\Users\[%user%]\AppData\Local\LifePlay folder for saves. Even after deleting it the long map load time persists. Is there anyway to give a user some indication on what the engine is doing during that long time, i.e. progress bar?
2. Making mods. Does the modding system works like Bethesda engine mods, that is override the same filename with later loaded mod? For example, if I have mod A loaded 1st, and have the file Scenes/MyScene1.lpscene, and mod B have the same file, with mod A loaded 1st, does the mod B version override mod A? What if both file named the same but have different paths, i.e. Scenes/MyScene1.lpscene in mod A and OtherScenes/MyScene1.lpscene in mod B.
3. In the Customize NPC Distribution screen, in the left panel, there are several preset files listed with what I assume the probabilities of each file is chosen. Does the GeneratePerson and GeneratePersonTemporary API uses this distribution? How do I add or delete templates to that panel, adding or removing the corresponding files from the respective folders? What template does the engine use for creating trans person? At the bottom of the panel there's a summary of Total Male Female, which indicated that both must be around 1. What if one of them is 0, i.e. if Total Male is 0, will GeneratePerson create only females?
4. If I'm not mistaken, MakeHuman is somehow involved in the character models. Is there anyway to export/import template files to/from MakeHuman? I'd be happy even if I have to make manual edits between MHM and lpcharacter as long as I can model and preview the templates in MakeHuman.
5. The Polyamorous Module. It does seem that the API is not ready yet for multiple partners. All the API I see only returns a single Actor object, which gives some weird results. Such as, if I have 2 GFs, proposed sequentially, when I use the LoseHomeDating API to force move the 1st GF to my home, cos apparently SetLivingWithPlayer API doesn't do the job, at first it appears that the 2nd and latest proposed GF is actually moved in. Propose Sex With Partner will always select the 2nd GF, and all events involving GF will always selects her. However, if I invite the 1st GF and Propose Sex With Partner with her as companion, it will select the 1st GF. Later on Propose Sex without companion and all event involving GF will select the 1st GF instead. What is the roadmap for this module? Are there any workaround in the meantime?
6. The Incest Module. Making a relative a girl/boyfriend seems to remove the relative status. No family related events seems to select such person afterward. Is this a bug?

Thanks

 

[Vinfamy]

@n1ck Thanks for the detailed feedback
1. It's not recommend to randomize more than 10-20% of the unknown buildings (which is why the default 'recommended' figures are all very low). 100% randomized can mean 100,000 more buildings for the game to handle - this takes a very beefy Pc to handle and can result in indefinite loop. 10% randomize should be plenty already in my experience. The munich map has decent data also, you can prob even play it vanilla without any randomization at all
2. Yes, at least that's my aim anyway. I'm a Bethesda modder myself so every modding related in LifePlay is inspired by the systems in Bethesda games
3. Yes, generatePerson and generatePersonTemporary follows the rules you set in the NPC Distribution menu + the racial distribution included in each map. To adjust gender distribution and chance of trans, look over to the right side. The left side of the menu is for body types only - male and female should add up to 1 or the math won't work out and silly results can happen. You can check the body presets in the male and female folders in LifePlay\Content\Modules\vin_Base\Presets . And yes, you can simply add and remove lppreset files to and from these two folders and the game will read them.
4. It's not MakeHuman per se, it's done by the same guy that started MakeHuman. Others have suggested the ability to edit characters using external software, but 'post-build' importing isn't really an Unreal Engine feature and would require quite a bit of coding around the limitations. Not impossible, but very difficult.
5. Yeah, the poly amorous relationship system is not perfect. I didn't think about Poly stuff at all when I first started the project. The current system is only a workaround but works alright, at least for the players. I realize it would be a pain for modders to work with.
6. It's deliberate as I figure if they become your significant other, you should treat them as such and shouldn't get the normal incest scenes, which won't make much sense anymore. The game does remember they used to be your relative though (if you propose and get married, the text changes and mentions this), and this can be used in the future to create a bunch of unique incest scenes for incest-bf/gf.

 

[n1ck]

@n1ck Thanks for the detailed feedback
1. It's not recommend to randomize more than 10-20% of the unknown buildings (which is why the default 'recommended' figures are all very low). 100% randomized can mean 100,000 more buildings for the game to handle - this takes a very beefy Pc to handle and can result in indefinite loop. 10% randomize should be plenty already in my experience. The munich map has decent data also, you can prob even play it vanilla without any randomization at all

I see. Glad to know that.

Nevertheless, can we get a progress bar when loading a map?

2. Yes, at least that's my aim anyway. I'm a Bethesda modder myself so every modding related in LifePlay is inspired by the systems in Bethesda games

I used to mod their games also, up to Fallout 3, then their games became too much for my PC to handle. I just recently upgraded my rig, so maybe I'll get their newer games.

I'm glad you've decided to adopt their modding system. I always thought Bethesda games have the cleanest mod system compared to ANY other big name games.

3. Yes, generatePerson and generatePersonTemporary follows the rules you set in the NPC Distribution menu + the racial distribution included in each map. To adjust gender distribution and chance of trans, look over to the right side. The left side of the menu is for body types only - male and female should add up to 1 or the math won't work out and silly results can happen. You can check the body presets in the male and female folders in LifePlay\Content\Modules\vin_Base\Presets . And yes, you can simply add and remove lppreset files to and from these two folders and the game will read them.

lppreset? do you mean lpcharacter files?

I'm thinking of creating my own presets, but notice 2 things:

1. It seemed replacing a preset by making new files with matching names in a separate module doesn't override the one in the Base module
2. In the game, while saving a template, there's a text box for entering the variance. My assumption is that variance will be applied equally to the current value then saved as range in the lpcharacter file, i.e. if the current value is 1, and the variance is set at 10%, then the value will be saved as '0.9=>1.1'. However, I found that's not the case. Just done the statistics and found there's approximately 40:60 split around the true value, rather than 50:50. With '0.9=>1.1' example, the true value is not 1, but actually 0.98. The variation is skewed toward the upper end. Just to check my math, do all the default templates use 40% variance (41.1194% to be exact)?

I also see there's templates for age groups and phenotypes. Does the engine automatically blend them after selecting the main template? What is the sequence of the template loading? Does passing template(s) at function call, i.e. getPerson(twenties) override that sequence?

4. It's not MakeHuman per se, it's done by the same guy that started MakeHuman. Others have suggested the ability to edit characters using external software, but 'post-build' importing isn't really an Unreal Engine feature and would require quite a bit of coding around the limitations. Not impossible, but very difficult.

I see. What I'm thinking is more about tweaking the existing parameters, not full mesh export/import. Previewing the model in the existing editor is rather clunky, with only 3 zoom steps, and limited number of steps to rotation. The sliders also don't update itself while loading new templates. Only the 1st loaded template will update it. Subsequent loading won't update, so doing a minor tweak can result in drastic change cos when interacting with the slider, it still retain the settings from previous file while internally the values already changed according to the latest file.

When I read somewhere in the credits mention MakeHuman, I thought the models and morphs already compatible with it and/or can be loaded with it, make few tweaking of the parameters, save to MHM, then transfer the morph settings into lpcharacter files because of the similarities between MHM and lpcharacter files. At no time there's actual mesh/vertices export/imported between the two.

I'd like to suggest to do away with the zoom and rotate button. Instead the user can directly manipulate the rotation with mouse, i.e. click-and-drag the model to rotate it smoothly, and mouse scroll for zoom. Refactoring the template editor into a separate UE4 project will be superb.

5. Yeah, the poly amorous relationship system is not perfect. I didn't think about Poly stuff at all when I first started the project. The current system is only a workaround but works alright, at least for the players. I realize it would be a pain for modders to work with.

Well, at least I'd like to see an API to get a list of who the player is dating.

I see a lot of the get* API returns only 1 actor, or at least from what I understand the docs. However I saw this in the doc for getRelatedPeople:

WHO: Actor = getRelatedPeople(Siblings); If Actor2.isValid()
    // Find a family with at least 3 siblings

Does this implies that a get* API can return multiple actors? If so, how can we access them? I can't find anything in the docs about an API returning multiple results.

6. It's deliberate as I figure if they become your significant other, you should treat them as such and shouldn't get the normal incest scenes, which won't make much sense anymore. The game does remember they used to be your relative though (if you propose and get married, the text changes and mentions this), and this can be used in the future to create a bunch of unique incest scenes for incest-bf/gf.

Have to check this.

 

[Vinfamy]

I'd like to have a progress bar too, but half of the process is just Unreal Engine loading a massive file, not sure I can break down this part.
Yeah lpcharacter I meant. All default templates use the same variances.
Lpcharacters are the only file types that I allow duplicates in different modules, which is why they don't overwrite unless you directly replace the files. Although maybe they should just be treated like any other files (lpaction and lpscene overwrites fine, you can test this)
generatePerson() / generatePersonTemporary() decides on the gender then loads a body type from the male/female folders, then blend it with one of the races in the phenotypes folder, it then gives the character stats, finally it randomizes face (including skin to reflect the age and fitness stat), hair and sexy bits
I want free zoom and rotate in the character editor too, but Unreal has a very clunky system to handle switching between menu/ buttons control and keyboard/mouse control.
Yeah, although I never thought about poly stuffs initially, I did plan ahead for arrays. Each variable in the game are actually stored as an array. GetRelatedPeople() is the only one that uses array for now so I haven't explained this in depth in the docs (but the functionality is there to expand on). The way it works is:
Actor = getRelatedPeople(Sibings)
(This gets you a group of siblings in the game, the Actor variable will remain empty, the game instead fills Actor1, Actor2, ..., ActorN with the siblings)

 

[n1ck]

Yeah lpcharacter I meant. All default templates use the same variances.

Could you tell me how much variance the default templates use? Can you confirm whether the engine splits variance evenly around a true value or skewed, i.e. given 10% variance, the engine will create a range of -10% to +10% rather than -(0.4*10%) to +(0.6*10%) and write them in lpcharacter file.

generatePerson() / generatePersonTemporary() decides on the gender then loads a body type from the male/female folders, then blend it with one of the races in the phenotypes folder, it then gives the character stats, finally it randomizes face (including skin to reflect the age and fitness stat), hair and sexy bits

Is there an API for randomizing the sexy bits? I see only randomizeFace and randomizeHair API.

How does the blendPreset API works? If template A have settings for Morph 1 and 2, and template B have only settings for Morph 2, does blendPreset replace template A's Morph 2 settings with template B's and leave Morph 1 settings alone? Is it just a simple replacement or any other math involved?

Yeah, although I never thought about poly stuffs initially, I did plan ahead for arrays. Each variable in the game are actually stored as an array. GetRelatedPeople() is the only one that uses array for now so I haven't explained this in depth in the docs (but the functionality is there to expand on). The way it works is:
Actor = getRelatedPeople(Sibings)
(This gets you a group of siblings in the game, the Actor variable will remain empty, the game instead fills Actor1, Actor2, ..., ActorN with the siblings)

For the time being, maybe I could capitalize on this behaviour.

 

[sdibolcrif]

The game does remember they used to be your relative though (if you propose and get married, the text changes and mentions this), and this can be used in the future to create a bunch of unique incest scenes for incest-bf/gf.

Ah, that's cool, glad you added that in

 

[Moist Goddess]

I was wondering will drugs, drug dealers, and addiction ever be included into the game. I kinda like the idea that there may be a risk of addiction if my character she messes with drugs to much. I also think it would be cool to have consequences to addiction like loss of job, loss of relationships, losing money and forcing options like stripping as prostitution to make ends meet. Once again I am loving the game and the updates are great!

 

[shubhodeep halder]

Try Home button then

where is the home button?

 

[Deleted member 187195]

The facial and breast randomizer is separate from and is done after the presets are applied, which focus on other parts of the body and skin tone / muscle tone etc.
I can add an option in v1.16 in the NPC Shape Distribution menu to adjust the 'average boob size'.

That would be great!

 

[Deleted member 187195]

Also, I don't want to keep harping on about graphics but I noticed that Manuel Bastioni has been making progress on his open source blender models. Are you waiting for 1.7.x to be finalized or would you be willing to implement for example 1.6.1 which is available for download?

 

[Kharnos Strayder]

So is there like cheats for making the game even more fun? Unsure about scrolling through 63 pages to see if this was already answered.

Also for some reason I cannot figure out heads or tails what to do. Is there a guide or something out there?

 

[mazqaz]

Any chance for a mac version? I mean you already got linux up there

 

[sdibolcrif]

@Vinfamy I've noticed having pregnancy stats on results in most sex scenes between NPCs giving a "player not involved" message - can NPCs still not get each other pregnant outside of the cuckold-pregnancy scene?

If so that kinda defeats the purpose of sabotaging the condoms at swinger parties

Also, couple minor persistent bugs: transgirls still use the "rub pussy" animation, and events always describe all NPC relationships as being the same as the player's (e.g. my neighbor complains about fights with her "husband" and I often see my brother's "wife" taking him to sex shops, even though both couples are only dating)

 

[n1ck]

Also, I don't want to keep harping on about graphics but I noticed that Manuel Bastioni has been making progress on his open source blender models. Are you waiting for 1.7.x to be finalized or would you be willing to implement for example 1.6.1 which is available for download?

Thanks to bring this up. Now I can edit models outside of the game using blender. Just need to figure out the morph key mappings.

More over, I can ditch DAZ and switch to blender full time, yay

@Vinfamy, what MBLab version does the game uses? Are there value scaling involved between the blender version and the game? Need to write my own converter between the 2, it seems.

 

[Vinfamy]

Could you tell me how much variance the default templates use? Can you confirm whether the engine splits variance evenly around a true value or skewed, i.e. given 10% variance, the engine will create a range of -10% to +10% rather than -(0.4*10%) to +(0.6*10%) and write them in lpcharacter file.


Is there an API for randomizing the sexy bits? I see only randomizeFace and randomizeHair API.

How does the blendPreset API works? If template A have settings for Morph 1 and 2, and template B have only settings for Morph 2, does blendPreset replace template A's Morph 2 settings with template B's and leave Morph 1 settings alone? Is it just a simple replacement or any other math involved?


For the time being, maybe I could capitalize on this behaviour.

I can't remember what variances I used originally tbh (this was nearly a year ago now when I first started develoment and way before even the first public release). I'm also not sure if it's skewed or not, no expert on statistics. If it is, it hasn't been noticeable in the results for me.
I can add RandomizeSexy
yes, BlendPreset works like that. And it's just a simple replacement.

I was wondering will drugs, drug dealers, and addiction ever be included into the game. I kinda like the idea that there may be a risk of addiction if my character she messes with drugs to much. I also think it would be cool to have consequences to addiction like loss of job, loss of relationships, losing money and forcing options like stripping as prostitution to make ends meet. Once again I am loving the game and the updates are great!

You can deal drugs in Right Click > Organized Crime.
I know a few people on LoversLab have been working on a drug mod. I probably will also add more drug content at some point.
It's just something that would take time for me as I would have to do a bit of research . I'm not very knowledgeable about the drugs and addictions and would find it hard to write about them.

There's an issue with the break up button in the contacts options. It never ends a relationship with an NPC or pops up any dialogue or anything either. Is there an LP scene for this option in the dating folder? I've tried the domestic violence LP scene no luck there either.

Oh really? Thanks for reporting. Will check this
You can also break up by invite your gf out, then right click anywhere > End date > Walk her home > Break up

where is the home button?

Also, I don't want to keep harping on about graphics but I noticed that Manuel Bastioni has been making progress on his open source blender models. Are you waiting for 1.7.x to be finalized or would you be willing to implement for example 1.6.1 which is available for download?

I'm already using parts of 1.6.1 in the game (this was released in March, Manuel doesn't update very often), I'm waiting for 1.7.

So is there like cheats for making the game even more fun? Unsure about scrolling through 63 pages to see if this was already answered.

Also for some reason I cannot figure out heads or tails what to do. Is there a guide or something out there?

There's cheats everywhere in the game, most notably you can edit every NPC's stats in the Contacts menu (hotkey P).
Check Esc > FAQ . It answers most common questions that first-timers usually have.

Any chance for a mac version? I mean you already got linux up there

I'd love to have a Mac version, I just haven't figured out a way yet. Unreal isn't very good at one-click platform adaptations. Doesn't help that I don't even own a Mac device
The game's full source is up on Github though so if any Mac users who have some experience with EU4 want to have a go, it would be much appreciated. The Linux version was made possible by a volunteer Linux user who helped me test my Linux conversion attempts, without his help, I would never have figured out on my own.

@Vinfamy I've noticed having pregnancy stats on results in most sex scenes between NPCs giving a "player not involved" message - can NPCs still not get each other pregnant outside of the cuckold-pregnancy scene?

If so that kinda defeats the purpose of sabotaging the condoms at swinger parties

Also, couple minor persistent bugs: transgirls still use the "rub pussy" animation, and events always describe all NPC relationships as being the same as the player's (e.g. my neighbor complains about fights with her "husband" and I often see my brother's "wife" taking him to sex shops, even though both couples are only dating)

I added in a NPC-NPC pregnancy system, but haven't used it in any scenes so far. I was supposed to add them the following update after that update but completely escaped my mind. Thanks for reminding me.
Yeah, there are probably a lot of oversights with trans content still in the game. I would need a whole update sometimes to iron these out.
I'll look into the wrong NPC relationship descriptions for the next version.

Thanks to bring this up. Now I can edit models outside of the game using blender. Just need to figure out the morph key mappings.

More over, I can ditch DAZ and switch to blender full time, yay

@Vinfamy, what MBLab version does the game uses? Are there value scaling involved between the blender version and the game? Need to write my own converter between the 2, it seems.

It's the latest, with some code modifications from me

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[Vinfamy]

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Based on the

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(still ongoing, keep voting for future updates) and continuing the theme of ending 2018 with animation updates, here's the plans for v1.16:
- Gangbang (1F, 3M+) animations
- Scenes and actions to trigger the new animations
- Add more NPC-NPC pregnancy scenes
- Home invasions as a criminal
- Running brothel and stripclub as businesses
- Add a few more API functions requested by modders
- Tweak the character lighting for less intense bloom
- Bug fixes and improvements
Estimated Release Date: 6 - 9 Dec

 

[Deleted member 237]

Bug : it seems you can impregnate the girl when you fantasize about sex with her.

 

[n1ck]

I can't remember what variances I used originally tbh (this was nearly a year ago now when I first started develoment and way before even the first public release). I'm also not sure if it's skewed or not, no expert on statistics. If it is, it hasn't been noticeable in the results for me.

I'm attaching a plot of variance setting and squared-error of the expected true value. I made this chart by first making a preset and save it without variance, then incrementally make saves with increasing variance. The without variance version serves as a control. The expected true value was calculated from the ranges by the following formula:

value = start + ((end - start) / 2)

The calculated value then checked against the control.

As you can see, after 30% variance the error rises sharply. If the 1st half is the range between start and true value, and 2nd half is between true value and end, other tests shows that greater variance settings will increase the 2nd half while decreasing the 1st half, hence increasing the true value. The cutoff seemed to be at 32.43% variance. After that the expected value will vary greatly from the control.

I can add RandomizeSexy

Yes, please

yes, BlendPreset works like that. And it's just a simple replacement.

Thanks for the confirmation.

It's the latest, with some code modifications from me

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Again, thanks for this. Though, the github code seemed to be from MBLab 1.6.0. Had a confusing time when comparing it to the current stable, 1.6.1a

I dunno what exactly changed in the morphengine.py other than you seem to bypass a check against expression morphs. How that affect the normal operations of MBLab I dunno. Removing the limit of a morph setting from 0-1 maybe? I do see some of the default templates uses value more than 1.

I did expect to have to create a mapping between MBLab json save with lpcharacter files because of the 'MorphName_min'/'MorphName_max' thing which seem to split a setting value range from -1..1 into 2 morphs. Turns out it was MBLab thing, so I can directly convert the json to lpcharacter. Yay.

BTW, I notice there are some API that's not yet documented, like getAnyRelative(). Can we expect an update to the docs?

Also, is there anyway the test scenes which include childbirth without having to wait 280 days from conception?

Another is can the tips at the upper-left screen be disabled only when in settings menu? It obscure some of the settings and there's no way I know of to dismiss it.

 

[A.David]

game is cool but how know this option work Optional: pregnancy ? or maybe change time or skip

 

[mazqaz]

@Vinfamy I'll try my best to make it compatibale with the mac, and I'll let you know if I succeed currently the biggest is issue seems to be with dx11