Welcome to MetaHuman for Unreal.
This is a quick start guide to show you
how to convert your character meshes into rigged MetaHumans.
First, make sure that the MetaHuman plugin
is installed and enabled inside your project.
Keep in mind this is an experimental plugin,
and the assets it uses might change between releases.
Don't worry, though, the MetaHumans it generates
are tried and tested rigged assets.
Make sure you're logged into to Quixel Bridge, that you have
a MetaHuman Creator account, and that you
have accepted the terms of the license agreement.
The first thing you want to do is
import the mesh you want to convert to a MetaHuman.
If your model is made of multiple meshes,
make sure you tick Combine Meshes,
as the eyes are an important component for the process.
Static meshes and skeletal meshes are both supported,
and you can import FBX or OBJ files.
For dense meshes, say over 200,000 vertices,
we recommend OBJ for quicker import times
and static meshes for simplicity.
But any combination you prefer will work.
If your mesh doesn't come with the material,
make sure that you create one and that you bind it.
Import the albedo texture for the skin
and connect it in the Material Editor to the base channel.
Save it, and you're good to inspect the mesh next.
The mesh doesn't need to be watertight.
Holes are perfectly acceptable.
But it needs to be manifold, and overlapping vertices
and shared edges should be merged.
We rely on the rendering of the mesh for tracking,
so it's important that it doesn't
have any visual artifacts.
Next, you create a MetaHuman identity asset.
It can be found in the MetaHuman asset submenu.
For the time being, you can ignore the Capture Data
asset in the same submenu.
These assets encapsulate the workflow
to submit your mesh for rigging.
Open it, and if you hadn't accepted the MetaHuman license
agreement, you might be prompted to accept it at this point.
The GUI has several sections, but for this tutorial,
you only need to know about some of them--
the parts tree, very similar to other component-based trees
in UE, the guided workflow toolbar, where tools become
active and highlighted depending on what
point you're at in the workflow, the promotion
timeline to manage the track frames, and the viewport
for the meshes and frames.
For now, you can safely ignore the markers outliner, which
is part of a more advanced workflow,
and the asset detail panes.
The asset provides several components,
but they tend to be the same for most tasks.
Components from Mesh is a useful shortcut
to set up everything by simply selecting a mesh.
The Neutral Pose is a reference to the mesh you imported.
It is also the selection context that activates
the frame promotions timeline.
There are a few details to a good neutral pose--
an unobstructed view of facial features.
No hair accessories should be covering the facial features.
The eyes should be open, but not overly wide.
The mouth should be closed with no teeth showing,
and relaxed facial features.
Next we need to promote the frame for tracking.
This effectively takes a screenshot of your viewport
and tracks some facial features.
You must have the Neutral Pose component selected,
and we recommend you respect a few guidelines.
Use a long lens.
An FOV of 20 or less is recommended.
Start from a frontal view, with good symmetry,
and presenting the inside of the eyelids
and an even view of the lips.
Lastly, good frame occupancy helps.
Make sure the face takes most of the frame,
with little padding below the chin or above the head.
Once you have a good frame, it can
be promoted with the plus button in the toolbar
or the one in the promotion timeline.
Name it if you want, and right-click it
and set Autotracking to on.
The very first time you're tracking the asset,
you'll have to wait for a few seconds--
maybe up to a minute.
But after that, tracking will be instantaneous
when you release the mouse button from navigating
in the camera view.
You can make adjustments to your framing,
and once you're happy with the results,
right-click and lock it to prevent
accidental manipulation.
Tracking is a 2D process that works best
with bright and even lighting.
If you have an albedo texture, unlit mode is ideal.
Now that you have a frame and that it's tracked,
the Identity Solve button on the toolbar should be active.
Press it, and the template mesh will be
fit to the volume of your scan.
You can click the free roaming camera mode in the promotions
timeline to unlock the camera without compromising
your existing promoted frames, and toggle
between frame buffers A and B up top and center.
You can set the contents of each frame buffer
independently to compare the meshes by toggling quickly,
or check the overlap if they are both visible in the same frame
buffer.
This is the only part of the process
where the MetaHuman identity asset details are actually
necessary.
The very last thing you need to do
is visit the body part component, set the height
and body preferences from there, and then
the Mesh to MetaHuman button in the toolbar
should become available to submit your data.
Our template as it was fit to your volume
will be submitted to the backend, and in a few seconds
to a few minutes--
partly depending on your connection--
you should receive a notification.
At that point, your mesh is now a MetaHuman.
It will be immediately available for you to inspect and further
tweak in MetaHuman Creator, and shortly
after to download as an asset from Quixel Bridge.
We're done with the Unreal part of this tutorial,
and we have only one optional step left.
MetaHuman Creator has received a lot
of improvements and updates.
We'll look at two that are specific to the Mesh
to MetaHuman workflow.
MetaHumans generated from Mesh to MetaHuman
have a special icon in their thumbnail.
This indicates their provenance and that they have an influence
attribute.
We introduced an additive offset that can
be blended through the influence slider across the whole head
and across regions both symmetrically and
asymmetrically.
Mesh to MetaHuman performs two functions.
It finds and configures the MetaHuman
most similar to your mesh, and then
introduces the differences between the specific volume
of your submission to the vanilla MetaHuman.
Most of the time, these differences are desirable.
They're what makes your mesh unique.
But they might also include undesired elements.
In this demo's case, the actresses we scanned
had the customary scanning skullcap on her head,
and you can see it coming through
in the volume of the forehead.
When that happens, you can simply select the region,
choose to operate symmetrically or not,
and decide how much of that difference
you want to blend in.
This can also help when the model
has very unique or strong or maybe even exaggerated
features.
By changing the region's influence,
you're in control of the balance between the likeness
of the volume and the proximity to a standard MetaHuman,
which determines the cleanliness of the rig.