MetaHuman
Epic's framework for realistic digital humans
Also known as: MetaHuman Creator · Unreal MetaHuman · Digital human Unreal · Mesh to MetaHuman · MetaHuman animator
Definition
MetaHuman is Epic Games' framework for creating high-fidelity digital humans for Unreal Engine. It provides ready-made, fully rigged characters with realistic skin, eyes, teeth and hair grooms, tools to customize them, and tools that can build a MetaHuman from a scan or a mesh. MetaHumans come with facial rigs that work with animation and performance capture, and they are used for games, film, virtual production and visualization.
In production
Use a MetaHuman as a base to save the time of building a realistic character, then customize its look, clothes and hair, and check the licensing terms for your project and engine. They are heavy for real-time use, so consider level-of-detail settings and platform limits. For stylized games, MetaHuman is rarely the right fit, but its rig and the way it handles faces are useful to study.
Learn MetaHuman in
Tools that use MetaHuman
See also
Skin Shading
Subsurface scattering and specular for skin
Hair Cards vs Strand Hair
Two ways to make hair in real time
Facial Rigging
Blend shapes and joints for facial expressions
Photogrammetry
3D models built from photographs
Skeletal Mesh
Skinned mesh driven by a skeleton
Motion Capture
Recording real-actor motion