Unreal Engine Afterparty [Development Thread]

Deleted member 1121028

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Dec 28, 2018
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These LBS-optimized JCMs look even better than regular JCMs with DQ skinning. So it would make having to build a custom engine version with DQ skinning obsolete. Unfortunately it's not released yet and there is no set release date.
Dang, that looks absolutely glorious :oops:.
 
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slider

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Jul 14, 2017
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I see that there are a few options for the gland that were not displayed in the video. Will there be an option for retractable foreskin? Seems more difficult to implement, but it would be nice.
 
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Dilly_

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I see that there are a few options for the gland that were not displayed in the video. Will there be an option for retractable foreskin? Seems more difficult to implement, but it would be nice.
this is something I want too and have looked at. There are a few more things to consider with an uncut model, but I think it’s doable. First I need to get everything sorted with the model I have now, which means working nicely with clothing and other logic to hide the dick when it’s not needed.

all of the morphs you see in that clip are working, I just did not demonstrate all of them.
 
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Dilly_

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Quick update. I've got the char creator in a condition now that I'm more or less happy to release. There's a bit more to do but I think I'm done adding content to it, there will always be more content that can be added and I likely will do that over time. But plenty of other stuff to work on. Closer every day. Hate to discuss anything IRL related but I recently found out my roommate is schizophrenic, so that's cool. It's been causing all sorts of problems for me here and made it difficult to work.

All the more reason to get this game out ASAP and get the Patreon live so I can get out!


 

Nantec

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Hate to discuss anything IRL related but I recently found out my roommate is schizophrenic, so that's cool.

You also got a roommate inside your head? That one's causing me trouble for a year now, you know how to get rid of those m8s?

Leave while you are sane, otherwise you will deal with a lot more people you don't want to. Just get out, like your knowledge with that game in unreal so far. Would be wasted seeing you dead or insane like Adeptus.
 
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witcher234

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Quick update. I've got the char creator in a condition now that I'm more or less happy to release. There's a bit more to do but I think I'm done adding content to it, there will always be more content that can be added and I likely will do that over time. But plenty of other stuff to work on. Closer every day. Hate to discuss anything IRL related but I recently found out my roommate is schizophrenic, so that's cool. It's been causing all sorts of problems for me here and made it difficult to work.

All the more reason to get this game out ASAP and get the Patreon live so I can get out!


Are you using the daztounreal material or your own custom material??
 

Dilly_

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Are you using the daztounreal material or your own custom material??

Custom materials. Bits and pieces from the bridge material, some fresnel roughness logic and textures from MetaHuman and some custom logic for masking and adjusting skin values. I also use UDIM since Daz skins are set up to work with it.
 

Dilly_

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Working on the sex system. Not sure how fully-fleshed out I will make it before release, but it's a core feature of the game so a lot of time will need to be spent on it. I'll put a few animations in there for now so the game won't be released without any actual sex stuff. I will be adding additional options such as increasing the animation speed, toggling between free/cinematic camera, cycling through different animations, and some other stuff. It'll turn out pretty good I think :cool:

 
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zombiegruppe

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Aug 26, 2017
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Working on the sex system. Not sure how fully-fleshed out I will make it before release, but it's a core feature of the game so a lot of time will need to be spent on it. I'll put a few animations in there for now so the game won't be released without any actual sex stuff. I will be adding additional options such as increasing the animation speed, toggling between free/cinematic camera, cycling through different animations, and some other stuff. It'll turn out pretty good I think :cool:

Hello Dilly_! I really liked your project, I plan to create a similar project in Unrel Engine with Daz3D models, but I am still at the very beginning of the journey, and I would be glad for your help, maybe I could pay you to find out where to start and how to move on, your advice would be very valuable, and for some reason not all of your videos are available for me to watch, some of the videos do not show, is it possible to upload videos on another resource?
 

Dilly_

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Hello Dilly_! I really liked your project, I plan to create a similar project in Unrel Engine with Daz3D models, but I am still at the very beginning of the journey, and I would be glad for your help, maybe I could pay you to find out where to start and how to move on, your advice would be very valuable, and for some reason not all of your videos are available for me to watch, some of the videos do not show, is it possible to upload videos on another resource?
Yes unfortunately some of the videos have started to expire on the streaming services I used. I use Vimeo now so hopefully they won't expire in the future.

If you are looking for tips or pointers, you can reach out to me on Discord Dilly#6326
 

Dilly_

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Video demonstrating weather-changing effects in Afterparty. You can sleep or take naps to advance time, which also advances the weather. After 8 PM you can sleep through the night. Or you can stay up, walk around the neighborhood, and see what sort of things people are up to.


Since the game now has a full 24 hour 7 day cycle, it makes sense to incorporate time-based events for NPCs and quests. Plenty to do before I can start thinking about that sort of thing though...

Here's a brief checklist of things I want to do before release:

  • Get the inventory menu in a functional state. This is mostly just UI stuff since I already have the core inventory logic done (equipping of clothes and such). Here's a look at that:
View attachment 2022-12-29 21-28-03.webm
  • Add a wardrobe to the player bedroom for clothing customization. All the clothing options you have in the character creator will be available here as well, however I want to limit those and have a small selection at the start since new outfits will be unlocked during gameplay. While using the wardrobe, you will be able to change the outfits you wear during specific events (ex. Outfit worn while sleeping, or at the beach).

  • Add masturbation animations to the player's bed, for male or female anatomy choices. This will reduce your lust which builds during the day.

  • Add a single basic NPC (which is already in game), whose outfit can be customized in a menu inside the player's inventory. This will mainly be for demo purposes as I'd like most NPC outfits to be unlocked during quests.

  • Add sex animations for the above mentioned NPC.

  • Final pass on the char creator, fix lingering UI issues, tweak lighting/post processing, address any clipping with clothing

  • And lastly, save and load testing to ensure all variables are properly saved across multiple save slots.

Some of these things can be done in a day or two, the bulk of my time will be on inventory stuff. Thanks to anyone who has been following this thread the last few months :)
 

Dilly_

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New update. Had to figure out some things with regard to animations. There exist a good amount of sex animations for Daz characters, which can be imported into UE. But these generally go for $10-$20 a pop, and if I want a lot of animations, that's going to add up. Plus, there aren't always good quality animations for the specific thing I need. So, I spent the last week and a half or so learning IK related things. Started by putting together a solid control rig in UE, which is basically just a way to manipulate bones in various ways. Then I wrote quite a bit of code to feed randomized data into the rig, to apply fully procedural movements to limbs. The purpose of this is so that I can quicly import static Daz poses, which are ridiculously abundant, and easily give them movement inside UE.

To give an example, here is a static pose from Daz imported to UE and given movement with my system. This clip is a few days old and has been improved, but it's late and I don't feel like recording another.

Also, the character creator scene has changed. I wanted something that felt more unique, and I'm mostly satisfied with the new one. Also improved the camera controls.
View attachment 2023-01-25 19-28-49.webm

















Lastly, I have been working on the game's first NPC. As Afterparty is an RPG, I want NPCs to react to the clothing state of the player. Here's a look at some of that:





I tried to include reactions for a bunch of clothing combination possibilities, and also set it up so that it's easy to add reactions for every NPC. You can tell it's a WIP from the clips, there are some issues with the lip sync and depth of field, but I hope to resolve that tomorrow.
 

Nantec

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Aug 2, 2017
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Was just thinking about this project of yours, glad you just posted an update lmao

Yea, the prices for daz anims is the same for their morphs without textures.. a little high but game development the legal way is expensive OR time consuming.. it's either pay or learn if you can't do stuff on your own.

But if you just import static animations, can't you create the desired animations yourself by looking at pictures(I know, takes a lot of time even for idle poses)?

I think if you do release this game in the near future, you'll most certainly get the opportunity to get an animator for that kind of stuff even if it is only for static animations, there are a lot out there doing adult poses
 
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Dilly_

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Was just thinking about this project of yours, glad you just posted an update lmao

Yea, the prices for daz anims is the same for their morphs without textures.. a little high but game development the legal way is expensive OR time consuming.. it's either pay or learn if you can't do stuff on your own.

But if you just import static animations, can't you create the desired animations yourself by looking at pictures(I know, takes a lot of time even for idle poses)?

I think if you do release this game in the near future, you'll most certainly get the opportunity to get an animator for that kind of stuff even if it is only for static animations, there are a lot out there doing adult poses

Price of the anims was a factor, but it was also because I couldn't find many good solo anims for both male and female anatomy. There are some good ones out there (primarily female ones) but adjusting them to work with my default character shape as well as morphs was becoming a pain. Now all I have to do is import a static pose from Daz, or create one, and check off some boxes for procedural breathing/leg movement/toe bending etc.

Of course, it doesn't compare to having an animator create actual animations with a vision. But it'll do for now.
 

TheExordick

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Sep 25, 2021
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Really love the work you are doing here, it feels really polished and well thought.
I like your idea of procedural animations to add life to simple poses or add depth to otherwise meh animations. I have two questions regarding this point:
- why didn't you use procedural animations for the jiggly parts? instead of the painful physics? If i recall well there is a video of Epic Games animating the tail and wings of a little dragon to be jiggly with the procedural animations.
- did you think about using additive animations instead? You know, those kind of animations that you can set up to be added on top of regular animations in the animation blueprint (like leaning, breathing, crouching and so on)

Also i'd like to give you merit for the clothing system as well, it feels really robust and gives no sign of clipping through. What is your secret?
 

Dilly_

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- why didn't you use procedural animations for the jiggly parts?
I believe in the video you are referring to they use simulated bodies to achieve the tail wiggling for example. The issue with that is I am already using Kawaii physics for breast/glute/stomach jiggle, which gave me a better result than simulating bodies in the physics asset. I would probably have to disable Kawaii, setup a physics asset for jiggle, then swap it out and simulate. But the issue with that is it would lead to inconsistent results since the jiggle you get from simulating isn't the same as what you get with Kawaii.

But I agree with you that the physics in the clip is rather painful lmao, I just need to play around with kawaii some more to get a better result that's fully dynamic.

- did you think about using additive animations instead?
That would probably work in some cases, like breathing. But if I had two poses, say a sitting pose and a laying down pose, and I wanted to add leg movement, I'd need two different additive leg animations for both of them since the legs are at totally different angles. With my method, the IK is enabled on frame one of the animation, so it doesn't matter if the animation is standing/sitting/laying down, the initial IK locations are set to that specific animation and then given random movement, so nothing is dependent on what the initial pose actually is. If that makes sense.

it feels really robust and gives no sign of clipping through. What is your secret?
Thanks :) Most of the clipping is fixed simply by using the sculpting tools in Blender. Then if it persists, sometimes weight map corrections are needed. For stuff like dresses and skirts, I simulate various leg bending angles in Daz using Dforce and add it to the clothing as a morph, then use morph drivers to sync them up to the legs. You may ask "Why not just use cloth physics?" And the reason is, Unreal's cloth paint/simulation system is sadly incompatible with morphs. With corrective morphs for skirts/dresses, it works with any combination of morphs I apply to the character's body.

And if there is still clipping after all that, a slight offset is applied to the WPO of the clothing material. All of this is enough to completely eliminate clipping in 95% of cases.
 

TheExordick

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Sep 25, 2021
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For stuff like dresses and skirts, I simulate various leg bending angles in Daz using Dforce and add it to the clothing as a morph, then use morph drivers to sync them up to the legs.
This is absolute dope! I have to say the clothing simulations in UE is good for a cape or a flag, but skirts and dresses are way too complicated to handle.
But i guess simulating, importing and syncing morphs for each situation must be a lengthy process (better use pants ;) )

Also i didn't know the kawaii physics plugin and it looks really cool. I need to study it.
 

Dilly_

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But i guess simulating, importing and syncing morphs for each situation must be a lengthy process
It's not too bad actually. Generally if the skirt/dress topology is good, each sim only takes like 10 seconds or so. So I just do them all and export them one after the other and bulk add them to the clothing in Blender. Then I check them and clean them up with sculpting if necessary. The nice part is, between the glute jiggle bones and the Dforce simulation, it almost makes it look like the skirts have physics, even though they don't. But more importantly, they work with morphs, animations, and no clipping, and no ugly jagged lines between the thighs during leg movement, like this:

Capture.PNG

In fact I just remove all weight maps to do with legs entirely. Much cleaner result.