Unreal Engine Using Unreal Engine for Adult Animations?

[LadyLilith-3D]

There are some older topics on this subject but I figured I would put this out there to see if anyone has been doing any similar or has tried it. I've been using Daz for still renders and have gotten decent with it. The next step is animation. Before I dive into it (and I've been doing a lot of reading where people say Daz isn't the greatest as animation and to us something else.) I wanted to see if anyone has any experience or insight on using Unreal Engine for animation clips.

My thought is to use Daz for all my "still" renders, then use Unreal Engine for Animation and Cut scenes as I could build a full set and use sequencer. It seems like you can make some beautiful Cinematic scenes with Unreal and it would be nice to be able to incorporate that into a VN. Plus, it would give me experience in the Unreal Engine that could potentially help me in future endeavors.

Thoughts?

 

[Egglock]

Why not author your entire project in UE4? If you're planning on using it for animations, mind as well take advantage of everything UE4 has to offer. You can do your renders inside UE4 with their movie render queue feature. Just something to consider, link to documentation below

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On the note of animations, I haven't messed around with it too to much, but from what I saw, there's a good amount of feature to compete with other 3D software tools i.e Blender, though the more advance or fine tuning isn't there yet, which would require you to do them inside Blender and import it into UE4 for adjustments. The bigger issue I believe you'll face is transferring the control rig to other skeletal mesh, I haven't been able to find any documentations or tutorials regarding copying the control rig to other skeletal mesh, though I'm sure there is a way in doing so.

I took a look around, and it seems like Daz3D plugin Daz3D to Unreal seems to do a good job at importing the models into UE4 with little issue. That could possibly eliminate the issue I mention above with copying the control rig across the skeletal mesh, though don't quote me on this as I haven't done any test to verify it. I assume it's safe to say as long as you're using the rig that Daz3D created, things should work without problems. The materials/morphs seems to import correctly too, so that's one less thing to worry about.

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

Why not author your entire project in UE4? If you're planning on using it for animations, mind as well take advantage of everything UE4 has to offer. You can do your renders inside UE4 with their movie render queue feature. Just something to consider, link to documentation below

You must be registered to see the links

On the note of animations, I haven't messed around with it too to much, but from what I saw, there's a good amount of feature to compete with other 3D software tools i.e Blender, though the more advance or fine tuning isn't there yet, which would require you to do them inside Blender and import it into UE4 for adjustments. The bigger issue I believe you'll face is transferring the control rig to other skeletal mesh, I haven't been able to find any documentations or tutorials regarding copying the control rig to other skeletal mesh, though I'm sure there is a way in doing so.

I took a look around, and it seems like Daz3D plugin Daz3D to Unreal seems to do a good job at importing the models into UE4 with little issue. That could possibly eliminate the issue I mention above with copying the control rig across the skeletal mesh, though don't quote me on this as I haven't done any test to verify it. I assume it's safe to say as long as you're using the rig that Daz3D created, things should work without problems. The materials/morphs seems to import correctly too, so that's one less thing to worry about.

I've been toying with the idea of just using UE4 for the while project as well. The Daz export to Unreal seems to only be compatible with certain Daz products, not all of them which is a slight limitation in that regard. I may just have to bite the bullet and take the time to start testing it all out on my own. Was just trying to get some feedback before jumping in. Thanks though!

 

[Egglock]

If animation is the primary focus, and you plan to do most of your renders in Daz3D, take a look at Blender instead and see if that fits the bill more. As there are more tools and features that will make the animation process a lot easier than if you did it in UE4.

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

If animation is the primary focus, and you plan to do most of your renders in Daz3D, take a look at Blender instead and see if that fits the bill more. As there are more tools and features that will make the animation process a lot easier than if you did it in UE4.

Blender just looks like a beast to learn and use correctly. Not going to lie, it's intimidating and I feel like it would take me sooooo long to learn.

 

[Egglock]

It's not all that bad lol. Imagine having to learn Blender during its 2.7x days. Now that's intimidating. I'd say give both a try and see which one fits your workflow better. Never hurts to have more tools to the tool belt.

 

[Dark Erotic 3D]

The problem I have with bring Daz characters directly to Unreal is that the 3rd party genitalia doesn't come over with morph or quality texture blending. That's why my current pipeline is DAZ to Blender (I would also recommend the Diffeomorphic add on for transferring morphs and merging main mesh with anatomy) then finally on to UE4. The official Daz to UE bridge is improving daily, but the main problem is that if you what functional anatomy for your Daz characters in UE4, things get complicated. I'm building a 3rd-person game in UE4 right know and would love it if anyone could share a good workflow for bring Daz characters (with genitalia morph targets and animations) into Unreal.

 

[Egglock]

share a good workflow for bring Daz characters (with genitalia morph targets and animations) into Unreal.

I wouldn't say this is the best/good workflow from Daz3D to UE4, but have you thought about importing them separately? Then setting them up in blueprints?

 

[Mr. Lemonade]

The biggest advantage to using UE4 or any real time graphics engine would be render speed. You'll start to see disadvantages when you start thinking about porting characters from Daz3D to Unreal.

If you're talking about animation, you'll need to port over facial and genital morphs from Daz. Then you'll have to figure out how to rig those morphs for animation in-engine. There is a tool that exports facial and body animations from Daz3D characters, but from what I understand you won't get any genital or hair morphs to port.

IMO it's not worth doing if your work will ultimately end up into a game with pre-rendered assets. UE4 doesn't look better than IRay unless you've enabled raytracing. The render speed improvements are only helpful if you're planning on rendering very high resolution images (2k-4k). Given the time and effort you would put into getting a character fully realized you might as well go all the way make the entire game in-engine.

 

[Dark Erotic 3D]

I wouldn't say this is the best/good workflow from Daz3D to UE4, but have you thought about importing them separately? Then setting them up in blueprints?

Thanks for the idea. I'm going to test that.

 

[Dark Erotic 3D]

The biggest advantage to using UE4 or any real time graphics engine would be render speed. You'll start to see disadvantages when you start thinking about porting characters from Daz3D to Unreal.

If you're talking about animation, you'll need to port over facial and genital morphs from Daz. Then you'll have to figure out how to rig those morphs for animation in-engine. There is a tool that exports facial and body animations from Daz3D characters, but from what I understand you won't get any genital or hair morphs to port.

IMO it's not worth doing if your work will ultimately end up into a game with pre-rendered assets. UE4 doesn't look better than IRay unless you've enabled raytracing. The render speed improvements are only helpful if you're planning on rendering very high resolution images (2k-4k). Given the time and effort you would put into getting a character fully realized you might as well go all the way make the entire game in-engine.

I appreciate your insights Mr. Lemonade. Yes, there are a couple tools for transferring morphs--the one you may be referring to is official Daz to Unreal bridge plugin. You are correct, it doesn't "like" the genitalia. I'm working on a 3rd-person 3D game as opposed to an animated/visual novel. Because of this, I won't be doing any pre-rendering. everything will be real-time. Although Daz characters are definitely not optimized for Unreal, I'd prefer to use them because they are rigged and morphed very well. Also, because I was a 3dx artist in my previous life, I have a LOT of these assets. Now I just need the get those gens working in engine. I feel that I am close...

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[Dreamfantasy]

The problem I have with bring Daz characters directly to Unreal is that the 3rd party genitalia doesn't come over with morph or quality texture blending. That's why my current pipeline is DAZ to Blender (I would also recommend the Diffeomorphic add on for transferring morphs and merging main mesh with anatomy) then finally on to UE4. The official Daz to UE bridge is improving daily, but the main problem is that if you what functional anatomy for your Daz characters in UE4, things get complicated. I'm building a 3rd-person game in UE4 right know and would love it if anyone could share a good workflow for bring Daz characters (with genitalia morph targets and animations) into Unreal.

Do you know if this problem with morph and texture blending is fixed now in 2023?

I'm starting to explore and want to start doing some stuff..