NSFW 'Kitty', Concept for a game i am working on.

[tomcat]

Yes indeed! not only that, but you can, at will, by spell (or admin mode if they want to bypass the RPG aspect of if) change the appearance of any character you encounter.

I am interested in options for creating a character generator for the game engine. Especially with maturation for my project.

I sincerely hope i can get a piece of that pie.

Although there are a lot of adult games, but I see quite successful commercially, even free products.

571 paid members
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I am using Unity.

I'm using Godot.

[nomorecookies]

I'm using Godot.

Godot is simply not capable of many of the things i require for my games, so i am not sure how to do much of anything with it.

I am interested in options for creating a character generator for the game engine. Especially with maturation

that would most likely involve a separate Mesh/Model for every age, as the technical aspects of doing that with morphs and bones are far out of reach of most people, and left in the hands of larger teams with money. You Can easily make a pre-exisiting mesh for each year of age, since skeletal meshes do not GPU Instance anyways(in general), as they are all unique. Much of it is just linking Sliders to Morphs and Bone Scales. The more difficult aspects are Runtime Baking the Mesh afterwards, and allowing Clothing Changes that are efficient, and do not clip, and Bake after each change. I can do this in Unity, but for the most part, Godot is just not ready for such things, AFAIK.

Although there are a lot of adult games, but I see quite successful commercially, even free products.
571 paid members 2,067 $/month

As this particular game will be a full RPG, i am hoping to get a bit more than that, but, that is good news, thanks!

[tomcat]

Godot is simply not capable of many of the things i require for my games, so i am not sure how to do much of anything with it.

I don't consider Godot to be a perfect engine. But what does it lack from your point of view?

that would most likely involve a separate Mesh/Model for every age
…
You Can easily make a pre-exisiting mesh for each year of age

There was such an idea. But it would need very many models to grow smoothly. The distribution of stages by age would not be quite equal — a person grows faster in childhood and you get more stages per year of life. But there would be an even bigger problem with clothes — need to match them for each stage.

[nomorecookies]

I don't consider Godot to be a perfect engine. But what does it lack from your point of view?

Well, it is across the board.. a simple example is loading up a rather limited poly 3d scene in Godot, and watching it stutter. same scene running in Unity or Unreal at 250+ FPS.
It is more something that if it works for what you are doing, that is good. just basic tests i did, some time ago, showed me it was incapable of handling what i needed it to do.
It is a smaller eco-system too. with Unity, if i am feeling lazy, i can usually just go buy a solution to a problem, if one was not already presented freely.
Let me ask you.. have you found a way to Bake blendshapes in Godot? or Combine multiple Skeletal Meshes (or whatever Godot calls them., Skinned Meshes in Unity) at Runtime, for performance reasons? i mean, the list would go on and on. But again, if it works for what you are doing, that's a good thing. it just cannot do what i need it to do, technically, as of the last time i checked. But, even if it Could, i really am not prepared to adopt a new engine, and everything that comes with it, at this point.

that would most likely involve a separate Mesh/Model for every age
…
You Can easily make a pre-exisiting mesh for each year of age

There was such an idea. But it would need very many models to grow smoothly. The distribution of stages by age would not be quite equal — a person grows faster in childhood and you get more stages per year of life. But there would be an even bigger problem with clothes — need to match them for each stage.

my thought is that you would have yearly stages (full skeletal meshes), then a blendshape/morph target/ shapekey that morphs between one year to the next. that amount of geometrical change should not pull the mesh far enough from the Skeleton to cause significant distortion issues, and when it hits a 'year checkpoint' you would swap the Mesh. Again, the problem you are encountering has been handled mostly only by the larger companies so far. They seemed to use a combination of Skeletal Scaling, and highly distorted Morph Targets (complex deltas), that would look Nothing like you'd expect, if they were not bound to the Skeletal shape, at that moment.
here is how "The Sims" handled it, for the most part.
Innovation in the Sims 4 Character Creator

but yes, what you are wanting to do usually requires a moderate team, at least.. perhaps rethink the scope of your ambition, or accept that there are not many shortcuts, and just starting plowing through!

Honestly, the best example of what you are talking about that i have seen, is MakeHuman itself. Perhaps you can analyze the code, and modify the techniques for Godot?

[tomcat]

Thank you so much for your detailed and detailed response! This kind of discussion really helps to “look from the outside” and greatly advances the work.

I'll be Godot's Devil's advocate for a bit.

Well, it is across the board.. a simple example is loading up a rather limited poly 3d scene in Godot, and watching it stutter. same scene running in Unity or Unreal at 250+ FPS.

I can't compare how scenes work in Unity or Unreal. There was once a suggestion that it would be a good idea to create a scene that could be imported into either engine to compare performance. Unfortunately, it didn't go any further. But, here is the big scene similar to what I want to make and whose performance I am quite satisfied with.

Godot-Hochablass_test_2.zip (294 MB)

Godot is developing very strong and fast right now. Big differences even between minor versions 4.2 -> 4.3. Optimization and new features are being done.

It is a smaller eco-system too. with Unity, if i am feeling lazy, i can usually just go buy a solution to a problem, if one was not already presented freely.

I don't have the ability to buy assets. That's the political situation in the world. Right now I'm trying to do everything on free software (excluding only Windows itself) — you could say it's an experiment. Godot has Asset Library, which solve a lot of problems.

Let me ask you.. have you found a way to Bake blendshapes in Godot? or Combine multiple Skeletal Meshes (or whatever Godot calls them., Skinned Meshes in Unity) at Runtime, for performance reasons?

I'm using a translator and maybe that's why I don't understand exactly what you're talking about. Form keys can be transferred to Godot, and optimization is the next stage — I will deal with it later.



Right now it is important for me to make at least an MVP PoC.

my thought is that you would have yearly stages (full skeletal meshes), then a blendshape/morph target/ shapekey that morphs between one year to the next. that amount of geometrical change should not pull the mesh far enough from the Skeleton to cause significant distortion issues, and when it hits a 'year checkpoint' you would swap the Mesh.

I tried to do that. The result was not encouraging.

here is how "The Sims" handled it, for the most part.

EA didn't implement smooth growth. Fixed growth is quite easy to do. It was Sims 4 that convinced me that EA will not make smooth maturation and fix a lot of bugs, which was the impetus to explore the possibility of making an alternative to it.

My immediate goal is to make a semblance of Illusion's character generator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTsLxmhNGnQ

They seemed to use a combination of Skeletal Scaling, and highly distorted Morph Targets (complex deltas), that would look Nothing like you'd expect, if they were not bound to the Skeletal shape, at that moment.

LOL A similar thought visited me recently, just the other day. A quick test showed the fundamental feasibility of such an approach. Right now I'm trying to make a validation with a simple rig.

[nomorecookies]

That is honestly, not bad. a very good start. just a bit more work and i think you will be able to fix it.
As far as Baking Blendshapes, it seems that Godot supports that now, so that is good.

Let us know how progress goes!

[tomcat]

Honestly, the best example of what you are talking about that i have seen, is MakeHuman itself. Perhaps you can analyze the code, and modify the techniques for Godot?

I suggested moving MakeHuman to the engine. But this proposal did not meet with enthusiasm. For me, it's an impossible job right now.

but yes, what you are wanting to do usually requires a moderate team, at least..

But I already work not alone and I think that there is a possibility that the team will expand with time and success.

[joepal]

To be clear, the lack of enthusiasm was not because of the idea in itself. I'm all for a MH version on godot. The problem is lack of manpower for maintaining multiple platforms.

Me I'm locked up most of the time with MPFB, to the extent that I'm mostly neglecting the original MH code. Picking up another project would spread the time even thinner.

[tomcat]

The problem is lack of manpower for maintaining multiple platforms.

Godot has no such problem. It is originally a cross-platform system. At the moment we are working on the project: me on win, one partner on Linux and another on Mac. The project itself is on GitLab. And there are no problems from the fact that the platforms are different. Export is done literally with one button, for different platforms at the same time.

But my proposal was not so much in Godot, but in transferring MakeHuman to any game engine in principle or a ready base. To make development easier. Blender was suggested, or here, maybe something new.

But the decision has already been made and work is in progress.