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Characters for games

speedpacerspeedpacer Posts: 9
in New Users

I'd like to use Daz3d for character creation for an Unreal Engine game and I just want to make sure my shopping list here is complete.  

It looks like all I need is Daz3d Studo 4.9, which comes with Genesis 8 Starter Kit, the Indie Game Developer License ($500) and Decimator for DAZ Studio ($100.95) to lower the poly count?  Then maybe some body/face morphs to make them unique?  Aside from purchasing clothes, hair, etc. and maybe other licenses from vendors, is that all I need to get started?  

And if so, is there anything in DS that technically prevents the exporting/importing to Unreal until the license is purchased?  I'd like to test it out and check out the performance before I purchase the license if possible. 

Thanks!
Donnie

Comments

  • speedpacerspeedpacer Posts: 9

    Nevermind. I just fought with the postgresql issue for about an hour, tried all the suggestions dating back 2 years and couldn't get it to work. Uninstalled. 

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,842

    There's nothing preventing export if you don't have the license. You don't need the license to do a few tests in Unity as long as the DAZ content remains on your PC only. The license is needed to be allowed to distribute the content/game.

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,842
    don.earnest said:

    Nevermind. I just fought with the postgresql issue for about an hour, tried all the suggestions dating back 2 years and couldn't get it to work. Uninstalled. 

    Just in case: you can use DS without the postgresql CMS, it's used only for categories and "smart" content tabs. If you use the regular content library tab and install content with DIM or mmanually then you don't need it.

  • speedpacerspeedpacer Posts: 9

    Thank you, Leana.  Funny... I decided to give it another shot based on your second reply and reinstalled everything and it worked this time. 

  • InkuboInkubo Posts: 745

    The thing you'll have to watch out for is that there isn't just one indie game license. See https://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=license -- the models are owned by various creators, and a license to use one person's products in a video game doesn't entitle us to use anyone else's stuff. You'll need to pay attention to who made each model you want to use, and buy a license from each creator in order to use it.

    Hopefully you'll find one creator who suits all your needs and can get just that license. Good luck!

  • JustAMartinJustAMartin Posts: 11

    I recently found an interesting article that mentions possible issues you might get when using DS models in Unreal:

    https://crazyrestosim.wordpress.com/2017/10/05/daz3d-to-ue4/

    In short, the things to watch for, are animation artifacts caused by the fact that DS uses Dual Quaternion skinning, but game engines use Classic linear skinning and also DS has corrective morphs to make animations look better, but game engines will not use those morphs "automagically" and you will need to somehow manually apply them (not sure, how, and not sure if you need to create your own corrective morphs from scratch or can reuse the DS ones). Also, bone rotation axis can cause problems for programmatic animations and mentioned corrective morhs.

    Also, DS exported models lack roughness / normal maps and LODs.

    The author mentions some ways to solve the issues but unfortunately does not provide detailed tutorials. I haven't yet found a complete DS -> Unreal pipeline tutorial anywhere, although I have searched Unreal forums, youtube, paid courses and have asked experienced DS / Unreal content creators to create such a tutorial, maybe collecting donations on Patreon etc. to pay for their efforts - I'm sure people will be interested because I have found some quick&dirty DS -> Unreal video that was funded through Patreon, but the video was just another quick start and not complete guide. So, yeah, we still have none.

  • InuGamesInuGames Posts: 65
    edited January 2018

    We made some progress since that post, see more pics and video here:

    https://crazyrestosim.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/victoria-goes-to-the-beach-video/

    Video (recording killed color somehow, it's should be like screenshots)

    Post edited by InuGames on
  • LimbaLimba Posts: 53

    Nice work.

    I also have gamedev license and playing around with Unity and Vive :)

    I'm playing around with hair shaders to get nice looking hair. Haven't got any good results with my shaders.

    Tested also few hair asset from asset store and one of these was working pretty good but was pretty heavy to use. It was drawing every hair and doing physics to it.

     

  • InuGamesInuGames Posts: 65
    edited February 2018

    Thank you. The hair is a problem for me too. Daz store has a lot of different hair, but most of them are very high poly. I didn't found many low poly hair yer. The one I use is called short ponytail, it's relatively low-poly.

    Another problem is hair textures. Unreal has a pretty decent hair shader, but like you can see in that page it demands some specific textures. Which daz hair doesn't have. Hair is the next thing I plan to work on.

    If you know some other low poly hairs suitable for games let me know. Right now I'm learning how to make low poly hair myself.

    Post edited by InuGames on
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