Java Unreal Engine Daz Roadblocks

[atheran]

Hello there, I recently started thinking of making an adult game (this doesn't specifically mean a sex game). I have the story ready for the most part, as long as the characters and world. I still haven't decided what narrative form it will have or how players will interact with it, or the visuals. I know I do -not- want a VN game, which leaves either a text based with images or a full interactive one made in Unreal, since I'm used to working with Unreal in the first place. And while this thread is not about asking which one I should go with, I'd welcome some opinions on the subject. In case it helps, it is set in a Cyberpunk world and you play a specific character ( a girl) as a hero/main protagonist. While I have thought of mechanics as well, I'd like to refrain from listing them, as they would heavily depend on the type of the game, but in either case it will be an RPG with stats and skills and so on.

Personally I'd prefer to go for a full 3d third person experience as a dream goal, mostly because of the amount of 3d models I'll have to make which would force me to excercise, gain more experience and build a portfolio out of them. I studied game development and worked as a 3d prop modeler in the past. Also due to my studies I'm well enough versed in programming and UE4 blueprints even more so, so either the art or the programming are not going to be a big issue in it. Time consuming at worst.

But I have a few problems with that approach, namely the animations and the character workflow. For now I have base character model mostly done, based on Daz and then custom sculpting, and my original idea was to port over to CC3 and transfer to UE4 with Reallusion's DHS witch looks phenomenal in UE4. The problem with that is that I haven't found a way to transfer over genitals, due to them being an attachment. If I merge them in the figure I loose the morphs for them and also CC3 is not applying the shader as it's not the model it's expecting. As for animation, I'm bad at it and while I could slowly work and make them all by hand, it's going to be extremely slow.

So I mainly started this thread to ask if anyone has found any solutions for Daz genitals in CC3 so far (that are keeping the morphs and are not turned into a cloth) or a way to bypassCC3 in my workflow and still have the shader applied in UE4 (even if it means I'll have to do some work to get the UVs to match and create similar textures for the genitals that are not going to be in the shader anyways). Baring all that, the other option would be to make a text based game, similar to Lilith's throne with a ton of renders from inside Daz or Maya's Arnold. Would that be interestng to anyone?

 

[Saki_Sliz]

While I am not familiar with CC3, genitals do pose a problem in most non-daz programs. in blender for example, the body mesh is actually in 3 parts. the body without genitals. the HD genital with texture for the body, and a lower quality genital with the uv mask for the genital textures. I usually have to transfer uvs and cut and re stitch the body mesh to get a clean final product, but I can't get morphs to export out of daz regardless so that probably wouldn't solve your issue either.

 

[atheran]

While I am not familiar with CC3, genitals do pose a problem in most non-daz programs. in blender for example, the body mesh is actually in 3 parts. the body without genitals. the HD genital with texture for the body, and a lower quality genital with the uv mask for the genital textures. I usually have to transfer uvs and cut and re stitch the body mesh to get a clean final product, but I can't get morphs to export out of daz regardless so that probably wouldn't solve your issue either.

For Blender the "Daztoblender8" plugin does a great job of transfering over the morphs, as well as applying rigify skeleton to the characters. Can't remember if the character ends up in multiple meshes or if it combines them tho', I'll check that for you and reply. Also haven't tried to transfer a character to UE4 after that process to see if it all works, but I still wouldn't be able to use the DHS shader even if it transfered without problems.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

For Blender the "Daztoblender8" plugin does a great job of transfering over the morphs, as well as applying rigify skeleton to the characters. Can't remember if the character ends up in multiple meshes or if it combines them tho', I'll check that for you and reply. Also haven't tried to transfer a character to UE4 after that process to see if it all works, but I still wouldn't be able to use the DHS shader even if it transfered without problems.

I had heard about the plugin, but didn't know if it had any real advantage, thanks for letting me know. things work so-so between blender and unity, but I have no experience with UE4. I'll also look into DHS shaders since this is the first I've heard of them (digital human shader?)