New developer?

[CONEBONE69]

I finally decided to make a game (or at least try) and i want to use Unreal Engine i don't know anything about it so i'm watching some tutorials on youtube, i'm using Last Hope as an example of what i could do but i have some questions:
Does the autor uses Daz Studio to transfer characters, clothes and animations to UE?
Can i buy those animations or do i have to make them myself?
The sex events on the game are cinematics or normal gameplay?
If you guys could give me any tips or help me i would appreciate it
Tank you.

 

[SliveEmerald]

There are some animations you can buy but not many because they take a long time to make and generally aren't worth the time for the artist (Assuming you're using DAZ figures).

I'm not sure what you mean by transferring characters, but keep in mind the licensing agreement for assets from DAZ3D and Renderosity. If you simply make renders of still images or animations and put those into your game then you don't need the interactive license. Since you mentioned UE, it is one of the engines that CAN directly use the asset files in engine, but doing so requires you to purchase the interactive license for whichever assets you want to use in that way and is very expensive. Most engines used in adult games like Renpy and RPGM don't support the use of those assets directly and basically everyone just uses renders and rendered animations in adult games.

How you make the sex events as either cinematic or gameplay is entirely up to you, but using DAZ assets in gameplay will require the interactive license I mentioned above. UE4 is a very robust engine and can do pretty much whatever you want it to, so long as you know how to do it.

If you want a tip: Don't make your first game in UE4, it's way more work and quite frankly as a solo developer it's very difficult to make decent games especially if you're just starting. Use either Renpy or RPGM, depending on what kind of game you want to make and start learning Daz Studio for rendering if you're not a traditional artist.

 

[CONEBONE69]

thank you for your comment, i forgot about the interactive license, the reason i don't want to make a game in RPGM is because people doesn't seem to like it, i guess you are right, first i'm gonna make one in Renpy and if people like it i could make one in UE when i have a better rig and more knowledge about the engine

 

[huliolopez]

Unreal Engine is a good choice - but it's a very long shot, so be prepared to spend at least half a year to grasp basics. There are lots of free courses on youtube and not-so-free in udemy (but they are still quite cheap, like 10$ per course) or try cgpeers or other torrent, paid courses are often shared there.
DAZ Studio character have some optimisation-related problems, if used in games. Not a big deal, but I prefer not using DAZ at all, or use DAZ character as base and refine manually in Zbrush and Maya. Better take a look at Makehuman.
Animation - you can check rendererotica. It's paid, if i remember correctly, but not too expensive. Also you can always make your own animations - it's not a rocket science, definitely easier then programming stuff, lol. And remember that sex scene are usually just a number of short loops (and you can always use motion capture on your girlfriend ) There are some good games on Unreal Engine - if they could make animations, then probably you also can.
You definitely shouldn't be working alone - that's road to nowhere. You may not realize it now, but gamedev is freackingly time consuming. People spend years on platformers or 2d top-down shooters, especially when they are not full-time developers and need to prioritize their main job first. Find yourself a partner, better two - there are lot's of people around who want to make games for fun or experience.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

DAZ Studio character have some optimisation-related problems

Iirc g8f base mesh is around 65k polys, I find it somewhat even a bit low for rendering.
What's the average budget for a game engine like Unreal ?

 

[huliolopez]

Ok, I'm not telling that DAZ shouldn't be used in games, only that I really don't like it. And what I don't like - very high polycount (usually custom-made models are around 30-40k polys for important characters and 10k for casual NPC), too many materials and bad skeleton structure, that makes it more difficult to animate.
I've tried using g8 based model, that had more then 100k polys (I think at least half of them was in the hair) - and it was working fine. But the custom made model had only 15k polys and in general looked much better.

 

[Madmanator99]

In that game he is using daz models for the characters, but custom animations, probably also custom rigging/skeleton, it is kind of advanced for someone just starting. What I suspect he did is export the different character models and their clothing, meaning there are no morphs involved, just the full 3d geometry of each character and their specific clothing. Then I strongly suspect he changed the skeleton (except the head, too time-consuming to rig), and animated them, the reason why is the way the breasts move, that is not a feature of the daz skeleton for genesis figures. It can be done, but it would take so much time to do with the daz skeleton. Still possible.

With that beeing said, it is not difficult to change the rig/skeleton of genesis figures, just tedious, and kind of advanced, but doable. For example, it is possible to use the skyrim animations with daz models in UE, just change the rig/skeleton of the figure to that of the skyrim female in a 3d software, and job done.

But in the end, the main thing is the licensing and rights, I believe that also played a role in why he may have gone the custom way, cheaper/safer but also requires more time/dedication to the project, and artistic/technical talent too.

As for high poly counts, that plagues developers to no end, the only way is to give up details for performance, and use lods, but honestly, computers these days can display alot of polys. So as long as you don't place a crazy number of high poly characters on the screen, with high poly background assets/props, including the textures, you should be ok.

And remember, the normals can give a huge boost to the details of your models even if they are low poly, it helps alot in UE. You can make your own normals from the characters you make in daz, using 3d softwares (export high poly, and low poly, then create the normals), then use them in UE and it will boost the details back up, even with a base/low resolution exported genesis figure.

(and you can always use motion capture on your girlfriend )

I actually did that I used my wife, but the same principle hehe. Or she used me? Not sure, hmm, my memory is blurry .... Nevermind!

Iirc g8f base mesh is around 65k polys, I find it somewhat even a bit low for rendering.
What's the average budget for a game engine like Unreal ?

The subdivided-once g8f is 65k poly, but the base is 16k. As for the budget, honestly it realy depends, Usually games are developed for a range of users, so it can go from very low to very high. Sometimes so high that decisions are taken to reduce the actual maximum, even thou some computers could handle it. Just not worth the time to make the models/textures for it from a publisher point of view mostly. So honestly devs aim for the best outcome, and publishers bring them back to reality sadly.

But that still leaves a huge space for smart devs to use the lods/normals/bumps and make it so the game looks detailed even with low polys everywhere, it's also part of the crunch towards the end of development of a game, but doable.