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Reimagining Characters with Unreal Engine's MetaHuman Creator

Reimagining Characters with Unreal Engine's MetaHuman Creator

By : Brian Rossney, Ciaran Kavanagh
5 (7)
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Reimagining Characters with Unreal Engine's MetaHuman Creator

Reimagining Characters with Unreal Engine's MetaHuman Creator

5 (7)
By: Brian Rossney, Ciaran Kavanagh

Overview of this book

MetaHuman Creator (MHC) is an online, user-friendly 3D design tool for creating highly realistic digital humans that can be animated within Unreal Engine (UE) and enhanced with motion capture technology. This means that filmmakers and game developers now have access to a high quality, affordable solution that was previously only available to specialist studios. This book will focus on using UE5 and MHC from a filmmaker angle. Firstly, you’ll understand how to use the online MHC to create a digital character, changing its facial structure, body type, and clothing. After that, you’ll learn all the necessary steps to bring the character into UE5 and set it up for animation. Then, using an iPhone and a webcam to capture face and body movements, you’ll mix these motion capture files, refine the animations using the MetaHuman Control Rig, and save these takes to be reused and edited again within the Level Sequencer. On top of that, you’ll learn how to create a rendered video file for film production using both the Level Sequencer and a VR Cinematic Camera. By the end of this book, you’ll have created your own MetaHuman character, as well as face and body motion capture data, and learned the necessary skills to give your future projects further realism and creative control.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
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1
Part 1: Creating a Character
4
Part 2: Exploring Blueprints, Body Motion Capture, and Retargeting
9
Part 3: Exploring the Level Sequencer, Facial Motion Capture, and Rendering

Editing the MetaHuman Blueprint

To start, we need to create a new Level Sequence because we’re going to add our MetaHuman Blueprint to the Level Sequencer:

  1. Just like in the last chapter, drag and drop the MetaHuman Blueprint from the Outliner and onto the Level Sequencer. Again, you’ll notice that a Metahuman_ControlRig and a Face_ControlBoard_CtrlRig have been created. Delete both of these as we don’t need them.
  2. Next, click on Face from the Blueprint in the Level Sequencer. In Figure 9.23, you’ll see how the Details panel has given me parameters for me to edit, namely the Animation Mode and Anim Class.

Figure 9.23: Selecting Face from the MetaHuman Blueprint

Ensure Animation Mode is set to Use Animation Blueprint and that Anim Class is set to ABP_Metahuman_Faceware_LiveLink Face.

  1. Now test your facial motion capture data by hitting the Play button at the top of the Unreal Engine interface. This will run...

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