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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

Preparing our video footage

Before we go over to DeepMotion, there are some key factors we need to know with regard to recording our performances on video. Let’s look at them now:

  • Camera quality and position: DeepMotion is capable of working with low-end cameras such as webcams or old smartphones, all the way up to high-end cinema cameras, so long as the picture is sharp and steady and has a reasonably high frame rate. Many lower-end cameras have a minimum frame rate of 30 fps, but you will get a better result on fast-moving actors if you use a higher frame rate.

Also, ideally, the camera should be stationary because the software works out the performer’s motion based on a fixed floor position. The ideal position of the camera is about 2 meters from the performer.

  • High-contrast filming: As this markerless mocap solution is tracking pixels rather than sensors, we need to make it as easy as possible for the software to differentiate the background...

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