How to Rig and Animate a Metahuman: Maya to Unreal Engine 5 Workflow

[@Madguru]

Thanks for the shout out :). I'm so glad the tools have been helpful for you.

[@azielarts]

Absolutely! Well deserved!

[@venomtang]

You linked the Animation Survival kit book, is that an Amazon affiliate link? If it is you need to mention that or im going to flag/ report you

[@reaper5859]

I am unable to get your product to work, Maya version 2022, Metahuman version 5.3, Drag and Drop doesnt do anything at all and doesnt add any buttons to the active panel etc

[@Dominicn123]

hey bro, i just wanted to write and say thank you very much, i've gone insane the last 3-4 weeks trying to learn how to make cutscenes for my game project in unreal, seriously, i've been learning unreal and working on my game for a year now and this has been the most irritating part, every tutorial is all mixamo bullshit that you don't want lol, but you did exactly what you said at the start and took the thing i wanted to do in my head and presented a solution for it, like, exactly lol you did so so well, and earned youself another sub and fan in me lol

[@jonairenikus]

First time I write a comment) But you deserve it. Thanks a lot, man! I learned how to model, to animate, to rig and a little bit about UE. Now it's really possible to put everything in one project with Metahuman. I am really excited!

[@rez40k]

updated Bridge can export rig into maya 2023 pretty decent, but for shaders it wants render engine to be DirectX 11 (preferences/display/viewport 2.0). and, not for the record, there is a free autorig - advanced skeleton

[@matinmhd5179]

Use in Bridge for UE5 The UAsset version of this MetaHuman is not compatible with UE4. You can download it in Bridge for UE5. I want to download, I get this error from the bridge software, what should I do? Thank you

[@pandoraskeyboard]

Hey, did you ever solve this?

[@Dethgears]

MH Settings, Download Settings, Models, change Metahumans tab from UAsset to SourceAsset.

[@ronaldolamont]

Good, clear, concise and easy to understand! Well done! I'm a new subscriber! 👍🏾

[@azielarts]

Made my day!!!! Happy to have you

[@AJsapala481]

Awesome video! Thank you!!!

[@azielarts]

You are welcome!!

[@jamqdlaty]

So it seems there's been some change. Standalone Bridge tells me to downlaod Metahumans for UE5 in the build-in Bridge for UE, I can't do it in the Standalone one. And Bridge for UE doesn't have option to export, just to add to the project.

[@ashleyaucoin859]

Did you find a solution/workaround for this?

[@jamqdlaty]

@@ashleyaucoin859 Nope. :(

[@adreyguy1139]

Same problem

[@BroliestBro]

Change download settings from uassets to source assets

[@anjason-n7k]

great! Thank you, bro, this is of great help for beginners

[@azielarts]

You are very welcome! I am really glad it was helpful!

[@ryanjstever]

Thank you so much! A walk tutorial would be great, please. Have you worked with mocap data and metahumans in maya yet? Id like to see that as well. Thanks!

[@azielarts]

Good to know, thanks! Yes I have, you need to do some retargeting but it works great

[@henryfinlay]

Awesome tutorial.. But is there some step missing to correct Y=up in Maya, vs Z=up in Unreal? When I import into Unreal, it looks like all my animation is tilted 90 degrees, which makes sense to me because Y has been tilted on its side in Unreal. Does that make sense? Am I skipping a step?

[@vincentzhang1192]

Thank you ,this video helps me a lot

[@dianaAnKylo]

amazing tutorial! Thank you!

[@azielarts]

You are welcome!

[@azielarts]

‼PSA‼ - Due to a recent update, Maya 2023 now works with the plugin, and past versions may give you some issues. Thanks so much to @janedwardmanibay8414 for the heads up 👍

[@vuknikk]

Thanks for everything man, one of the coolest tutorials, also love your recording stage setup. I am trying hard here since I really need this workflow! However, after doing everything as you did, and trying with Maya 2022.1 and then now Maya 2023 , I get message in the Bridge that Export to Maya is successful, but nothing ever appears in Maya, no window of any kind. What could be an issue, do I need to do something in Maya settings ? What else it could be ?

[@Luka-el4gm]

love it thanks men!

[@azielarts]

👍

[@rafayelkotbashyan8492]

hi, I did everything according to your tutorial, but when I click export May it doesn’t give any response, can you help? :(

[@kevinsvlog4381]

thank you man. This will help me a lot!

[@azielarts]

Absolutely, so glad you found it helpful!

[@ryanjstever]

thanks for the video, how would you compare this script to the free Advanced Skeleton script?

[@azielarts]

Great question! For me personally I find this script saves me time in setup and is easier to use. But that is just my personal preference. Advanced Skeleton is also a great option

[@alpboysan]

Hey, great tutorial, seems to work fine apart from one thing, when i apply the animation and play it in the sequencer, the body scales up about ten percent, pretty strange. Any thoughts on this?

[@UnoFaroStudio]

You'll most likely want to check the Asset Details tab when opening your animation sequence in UE. Make sure you've added your MetaHuman body type skeleton in Retarget Source Asset and update the animation -- for example "f__med_unw_body" if you were working with the female/medium/underweight skeleton.

[@arkadiuszgaska]

Hi, I have the same problem, did you manage to solve it?

[@iamwatmissu9938]

Thank you for your superb tutorial! Help me a lot. BTW, if I am a rigger and want to hand the rig May file to the team, how best setup as the animator team require to install a lot of driver(UE/bridge)?

[@azielarts]

Hey great question. I think you would just pass the Maya rigg to the team since that is self contained. Once you have made the rig you don't need the plugin anymore. All you need to do to get the animations you made in Maya back on to your character in Unreal is to export an fbx animation with just the joint chain, and just import that as an animation file into unreal. The plugin is really just needed to get the character out of the unreal environment and into Maya, but once you have the metahuman set up in both Maya and Unreal, it is really just about passing a baked joint chain animation between them and unreal will recognize it is the same character.

[@iamwatmissu9938]

@@azielarts I tried open the maya file in other Computer, it require some UE driver and dna file, also my rig use Metapipe too. So it quite big issue to ask freelance animators to install all of requirement to open the rig. @Madguru may I have your suggestion,please?

[@azielarts]

Strange, it should not need a plugin if you import the references. I have not used metapipe, i am wondering if that might be the issue?

[@iamwatmissu9938]

I also test with send the original file which haven't use Metapipe yet, to the other computer that hasn't install UE and bridge yet. It can open maya file, the body joint can move the mesh, but the facial UI can't move the facial rig. @@azielarts

[@azielarts]

@@iamwatmissu9938 have you tried importing references before sending the file? That is the only thing I can think. Otherwise they might indeed need a UE plugin.

[@msafaacademy8167]

this is soooo useful thank you Bro so much But what about walk cycle

[@azielarts]

I am so glad! I have not gotten to that video yet, hopefully soon

[@BaolongZhang]

this is soo useful! thank you so much!

[@azielarts]

Amazing! Really glad it was helpful

[@raretype3979]

is there a way to optimize the project with the rig? its pretty slow, and I can see that in the video it is as well. Particulary the torso and root

[@azielarts]

Do you mean in Unreal? I have not d Found a way yet. Sometimes I lower the engine scalability settings then I am working on a meta human for animation.

[@filipmasiulewicz5036]

Hi. My blendahapes don’t work when the head is animated in UE after exporting it from Maya. Applying DNA file changes nothing. I tested various fbx versions and of course enabled morph/blendahapes options in export settings.

[@JUYAN16]

Is there a way to import the FBX back into Maya and make the head controls work?

[@arkadiuszgaska]

Hello, is this working only with retargeted metahuman or is italso works with a custom animation blueprint which uses the metahuman skeleton not the manequin skeleton. It looks like the plugin exports the animation only for the mannequin skeleton?

[@rudy552]

I'm using the same version of maya as you but I can't find the bridhe plugin in maya. Can you help me?

[@arkadiuszgaska]

Hi. I have a question. How to make the scene with metahuman in maya run more smoothly when animating? When I grab the body_ctrlShape the rig moves slowly. Thanks :)

[@user-fs2ze]

You have a mistake in the description with the word BRDIGE BTW thanks for the tutorial!

[@azielarts]

Omg thanks for the heads up👍

[@minuscolochao1557]

is it possible to rendering metahuman completely in maya ? with hair and clothes skin texture

[@azielarts]

Unfortunately not that I know of, you can export the texture maps, but the hair and materials are all very proprietary to Unreal

[@alchemy4327]

Im noy able to export from quixel standalone why ? its not support for 5.4

[@ZMihran]

Bro, thank you very much for a great tutorial! From the video we can see that Madguru's rig controllers are too big, it won't be convenient to animate. Please tell me, is it possible to resize the controllers in Maya?

[@PedroScherz]

Is it possible to export the mesh, rig and blend shapes from Maya to Blender?

[@reinohvp]

Can I send the full character with custom edits like cloths from Maya to Unreal Engine and not just the animations?

[@azielarts]

Hey, yep you can!

[@thisisriil]

I follow the tutorial, but the facial rig that i exported from are not readable inside the sequencer, any thought?

[@azielarts]

Hmm should be working. Make sure that you have animation checked on in the fbx export settings. What happens exactly when you try to import it? Does it give you an error or just does not show up?

[@thisisriil]

@@azielarts Thanks for your response man, I figured it out, actually its the namespace issue

[@azielarts]

@@thisisriil oh awesome! Glad to hear

[@manaskakkad]

​@@thisisriil, hey there! I have the same issue. Can you please share the solution which worked for you. Thanks

[@joseelmersilvafernandez1806]

hello,I have problems when I want to download a metahuman from quixel bridge,it told me to install bridge for unreal engine 5,I don´t understand because I use UE5.3

[@DarkW1zard]

hi. how add obj marvelous designer garment to avatar metahuman in UE5?

[@azielarts]

Hey! You would need to skin the new clothes to the exported metahuman skeleton in a 3d package like Maya or Blender and re-import it

[@janedwardmanibay8414]

how did you get quixel to maya working? I have both maya and bridge installed, followed your tutorial and when I click export it says that it exported to maya successfully but nothing happens in maya

[@azielarts]

Hmm are you using Maya 2018? Also try restarting the computer

[@janedwardmanibay8414]

@@azielarts its all good now, turns out you need pymel installed along with maya for quixel bridge to work, and autodesk just updated to pymel 3 apparently which caused errors for quixel bridge so I just installed a newer version of maya this time with pymel checked in the installation prompt and it just worked

[@azielarts]

@@janedwardmanibay8414 nice! glad to hear, what version of Maya worked for you?

[@janedwardmanibay8414]

@@azielarts 2023 but I think 2022.3 works too

[@azielarts]

@@janedwardmanibay8414 Awesome, thanks for the update. They must have made that change recently.

[@mayur8782]

bro this metahuman import work with blander ?

[@azielarts]

Ooh have not tried! I think it should

[@rez40k]

there is a long list of plugins in the export settings - not just blunder, but houdini, marmoset, cinema etc )

[@brycegeurts3345]

This worked in maya 2023 for me.

[@XaiaDigital]

Seems like this is no longer working. Unreal 5.2 has different rig and bridge to maya brings only the head.

[@azielarts]

Ooh thanks for the heads up. I will look in to this

[@gauravrai853]

@@azielarts facing the same issue any update on this ?

[@rez40k]

and we have two separated files here - for the head, and for the body. coincidence? i don't think so

[@hanumaanek]

HI.. i get this error "Could not send data over port 13291" when exporting to maya.. Edit: nevermind i solve it.. i must install PyMel for maya

[@evidencestorage8698]

same problem, thanks man

[@BroliestBro]

@hanumaanek can you please share the process

[@evidencestorage8698]

@@BroliestBro I had to reinstall maya with the Pymel option, that fixed it for me

[@BroliestBro]

@@evidencestorage8698 thanks . I installed pymel and it worked

[@sirchadimus4139]

This pipeline doesn't exist anymore it seems with the release of FAB, they didn't replace this functionality.

[@FancyFun3433]

I love you

[@vanityvoodoo969]

No need to spend money for a program to do the rigging unless you are absolutely lazy. There are free programs like accuRig, and Maya also has auto rig feature.

[@azielarts]

Valid point. However, I believe our most valuable resource is our is your time.

[@jakejuan-ue4pg]

Bro.Advance Skeleton is Free no need for that lol.just my opinion

[@azielarts]

Yeah totally, I just find the Mad Guru plugin a lot easier to use, especially for beginners. Totally respect the Advanced Skeleton approach though.

[@jakejuan-ue4pg]

@@azielarts the problem of Mad Guru rig is that luck of feature like matching IK or FK versa etc.but anyways its on your preference maybe hes your friend promoted his stuff and that totally find bro.have fun Cheers.

[@poppi3362]

I cant get it to work with the face rig. Trying to apply a advanced rig skeleton to the metahuman with face rig makes the rig way too small. Do you have a solution for this?

[@rez40k]

@@poppi3362 that an interesting question about marriage of advanced face with metahuman face rig. imho, it's easier to remake all face poses for metahuman rig, than swap advanced controls to metahuman bones.