S
Serednac
I've put in a fair amount of time learning c++, though when I finally got into the editor I couldn't bother to learn the "Epic" flavor of the language. I have trouble understanding blueprints (which seems odd because like the former it is heavily influenced by OOP and prefabs), but I'm sure there are other people out there who want to make some sort of h-game. I liked the setup that Artificial Girl 2 used to have, which hasn't been followed up (successfully imo) by IIlusion. I have spent most of my time around Skyrim/Fallout, and the Source Engine, but tbh, the Bethesda stuff is limited in what can be changed, you can add items, add some animations, but the core gameplay doesn't really change since you can't add additional behavior (Havok stuff that Bethesda rarely, or doesn't have permission to share.) Source Engine isn't too friendly either and the SDK always seems to be broken, even now there is no updated SDK for anything other than Dota2, and Global Offensive, neither of which are suitable for open world style gaming.
So I'll be throwing some of my blueprint setups on here and some general procedures I use for getting a character in or whatever. The character related stuff is probably stuff that has been taught to death on youtube, the unreal channel, and the documentation, but I've seen that the setups used for playing animations are very similar to what you would have to script in a Bethesda game. I'll try my best to replicate the Illusion controls, but what I won't do is lock the player/scenes to specific place on the map (as was done in SBP, sigh.) Hopefully someone else can pull useful and minimal setups from what I share.
I was inspired by Redamz and LustOverReality. At first I couldn't decide if I would use UE or Unity, but after I took a look at the content pipeline for UE it seemed easier to get things working. I was somewhat familiar with c++ when I started (probably somewhere between intermediate and beginner), and I wanted to avoid picking up c# sloppily in hurry to get things working. Blueprint seems simple enough (most of the time), and I can easily share what I have in pictures.
7/30
Some of the things I have so far:
Switching between a single character and two characters in the act.
Plain old Maya orbiting camera.
A very ugly default level.
7/31
Mouse wheel controls to adjust the speed of the animations.
Added a wheel shortcut to zoom in and out on the player or couple.
A sprint shortcut key; still need some sort of stamina bar and variable to prevent it from being held down indefinitely.
Dumb wandering AI, basic traces to keep it from colliding with the environment or getting stuck, it moves a few units around (moves too often and fast I think, like an enemy in Quake or Unreal), and I have a general controller for getting an NPC to follow other actors and the player.
What I still need:
Creating a multidimensional blendspace to keep the behavior/state graph from being cluttered by too many transitions, or running out of hotkeys to switch between positions.
A wheel menu for switching positions; this will be hidden automatically so you don't have to add hotkeys to hide menus.
Simple AI to get another character to follow you around.
A general blueprint I can use to swap characters, but cleanly enough so it won't require having to remake animations for every new mesh.
A workflow for manually retargeting animations using very different skeleton rigs, since I am not too good at modeling or animation I'll probably just use ripped models as placeholders for what I do, but chances are that the skeletons of such models don't carry animation in between too well. This may be the most difficult thing to do.
(Lower priority) what I want:
A workflow for creating regular static or physics meshes to place on the map. I have yet to actually make a custom collision hull, but I want to see how to setup some simple ragdolls for curtains.
Clothing/hair/breast physics would be nice, most of which could be preanimated, but I haven't tried applying rigid bodies or cloth/hair effects to anything I've imported.
Wandering AI in areas so the world isn't empty.
An inventory system for clothing, and resources.
Some lite character customization; this will probably require some extra thought on how to equip additional meshes on the default characters, and how to make them swappable so that there are wide ranges of choice.
I might upload videos if I find a place where I won't get banned for adult stuff. I could leave it on a throwaway youtube account with unlisted videos, but I'm sure someone will eventually come along and flag it anyway.
So I'll be throwing some of my blueprint setups on here and some general procedures I use for getting a character in or whatever. The character related stuff is probably stuff that has been taught to death on youtube, the unreal channel, and the documentation, but I've seen that the setups used for playing animations are very similar to what you would have to script in a Bethesda game. I'll try my best to replicate the Illusion controls, but what I won't do is lock the player/scenes to specific place on the map (as was done in SBP, sigh.) Hopefully someone else can pull useful and minimal setups from what I share.
I was inspired by Redamz and LustOverReality. At first I couldn't decide if I would use UE or Unity, but after I took a look at the content pipeline for UE it seemed easier to get things working. I was somewhat familiar with c++ when I started (probably somewhere between intermediate and beginner), and I wanted to avoid picking up c# sloppily in hurry to get things working. Blueprint seems simple enough (most of the time), and I can easily share what I have in pictures.
7/30
Some of the things I have so far:
Switching between a single character and two characters in the act.
Plain old Maya orbiting camera.
A very ugly default level.
7/31
Mouse wheel controls to adjust the speed of the animations.
Added a wheel shortcut to zoom in and out on the player or couple.
A sprint shortcut key; still need some sort of stamina bar and variable to prevent it from being held down indefinitely.
Dumb wandering AI, basic traces to keep it from colliding with the environment or getting stuck, it moves a few units around (moves too often and fast I think, like an enemy in Quake or Unreal), and I have a general controller for getting an NPC to follow other actors and the player.
What I still need:
Creating a multidimensional blendspace to keep the behavior/state graph from being cluttered by too many transitions, or running out of hotkeys to switch between positions.
A wheel menu for switching positions; this will be hidden automatically so you don't have to add hotkeys to hide menus.
Simple AI to get another character to follow you around.
A general blueprint I can use to swap characters, but cleanly enough so it won't require having to remake animations for every new mesh.
A workflow for manually retargeting animations using very different skeleton rigs, since I am not too good at modeling or animation I'll probably just use ripped models as placeholders for what I do, but chances are that the skeletons of such models don't carry animation in between too well. This may be the most difficult thing to do.
(Lower priority) what I want:
A workflow for creating regular static or physics meshes to place on the map. I have yet to actually make a custom collision hull, but I want to see how to setup some simple ragdolls for curtains.
Clothing/hair/breast physics would be nice, most of which could be preanimated, but I haven't tried applying rigid bodies or cloth/hair effects to anything I've imported.
Wandering AI in areas so the world isn't empty.
An inventory system for clothing, and resources.
Some lite character customization; this will probably require some extra thought on how to equip additional meshes on the default characters, and how to make them swappable so that there are wide ranges of choice.
I might upload videos if I find a place where I won't get banned for adult stuff. I could leave it on a throwaway youtube account with unlisted videos, but I'm sure someone will eventually come along and flag it anyway.
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