MetaHuman Animator Complete Guide for Head Rotation and Body Attachment

Topics:
1) the importance of using upgraded 5.2 MetaHumans
2) how to export a head animations for standalone use with and without head rotation
3) how to attach a head animation to a body with and without head rotation
4) bonus: using neck data from MHA instead of just the head rotation
NOTE! You can use Compatible Skeletons instead of dealing with retargeting:
• Fun With Nodes: Compat... (thanks ‪@unrealdevop‬ for the tip!)
Original now outdated video:
• (OLD) MetaHuman Animat...
Thanks to:
‪@elliejayliquid‬ for making the video that taught me BlendMasks:
• Combining body and fac...
‪@Jsfilmz‬ for reminding me about disabling Post Process BPs:
• Metahuman Animator Flo...

[@fortbonescreative]

What a thoughtful and fantastic video. I've been pulling my hair out to figure this issue out, and I never would have been able to if it weren't for this. Greatly appreciated!!!

[@ibrews]

You’re welcome !

[@robertnewton9548]

Just watched you drag a metahuman from the CB directly into the sequencer! LOL, had no idea that shortcut existed. Thanks. And for all this instruction as well. Super helpful.

[@ibrews]

Yep you can make anything spawnable that way !

[@oscarlowe1872]

life saver! Was having so many issues with this and your tutorial made things so much clearer. Thank you!! Subscribed

[@ibrews]

Happy to help!

[@bvonkonsky]

Awesome video! I spent three days trying to figure this out, and then I saw your excellent video and it all made sense. Many thanks!

[@ibrews]

Hooray !

[@jimmwagner]

Yes! Yes! Yes! I was wondering how to not have a floating head in the animation. This worked great. Thanks!

[@lubruz7164]

Amazing video! The 5.2 characters look much better, especially in the details of the facial animation y micro details.

[@QReviews412]

This was a ton of help! Thanks man!

[@3dchick]

So helpful - THANK YOU!

[@user-js2tm8pr9w]

you are just insane thank you you just saved my mental health omg thank you

[@shadyx6452]

Thank you so much for the tutorial.

[@jeremy-major]

That is extremely helpful indeed!

[@CEODeliveryBoy]

idk how many times ive watched this from starting with MHA to putting my custom Head animations on body animations via Move, or whatever mocaps, I love JsFlmz but he goes so frkn fast and forgoes the 'beforehand' knowledge and assumes you know every term and action to follow along with what hes doing sometimes. That 'disable post process' part that i just watched this for was exactly the problem i was having. thank you! n thank u JSF!

[@ibrews]

Glad this is helpful! And agreed JSFILMZ is great.

[@VittorioBaldini1997]

@@ibrews HI! Can I ask you a question? Is there a way to invert the head rotation values of a metahuman while animating it via LiveLink in the editor? I'm not talking about recording the animation, I just want the head of my metahuman to rotate left when I rotate my head right, and vice versa. This would allow me to recreate a mirror-like esperience for an interactive installation I am developing. I tried to open the blueprint of my metahuman, but I really cannot find something like "head rotation/pitch, yaw" or anything like that. Thank you !

[@ibrews]

@@VittorioBaldini1997 easiest thing to do is just mirror the actual MetaHuman on the X axis !

[@lukesfilmltd]

oh my a solution that FINALLY works!!!! thank you SO much!

[@tonymarrison]

Great tuts, thanks!

[@nexelus]

no one needs talking heads, we are all artist, fixing this soo much headache, i thought its gonne be solved somehow with the new update, so fkn frustrating ! Anyway thank you soo much for trying explaning some solution to this

[@leo-paulossola2846]

23:19 onwards is what i was looking for ! thanks !

[@PeterRobieArt]

Saved this for later. Great overview and tutorial! I'm curious. I've been working on using Live Link to get animation data from UE over to Maya to do some animation cleanup, exaggerations, etc. and to be fair I'm likely doing something wrong being new to this. My thought was I could export baked animation to a metahuman in Maya and be able to make adjustments and bake the new animation layers or modified mocap back out. I'm going to go over some of your other tutorials and this one as well but if you have any suggestions for this I'd really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing and taking the time to put these together.

[@violentpixelation5486]

Fantastic! Thank you so much.

[@ORTyOW]

11:05 thanks, thats just what I needed, to turn off these bugged head movements

[@gladiyit6771]

Thank you so much again!!!

[@DarkBarBarian]

thanks man ! it will help us😇

[@davidvideostuff]

Many many thx !!!! Love it !!!

[@kat_hak]

OMG! This will be my next tutorial...

[@operators-verse]

BRILLIANT!

[@blurtam188]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

[@ninjamasters9798]

Perfect, thanks

[@venusgrivegnee2330]

Hello, thank you for the great tutorial. Everything works for me except for one thing. When I hit the "Disable Post Process Blueprint" button, my neck is okay but my face stops moving. Can anyone help me with this? Thanks!

[@MiguelGuerra_Audio]

I have the same problem, did anyone find a solution?

[@EliRezik]

same problem here, tried every combenation possible, if the neck is right, the face capture stops working! help @ibrews

[@engelhardt_x]

same issue!

[@fernandabermejo]

OH GOSH THANK YOU! 💥❤‍🔥

[@BrentLeBlancCG]

excitment intenisfies!

[@ibrews]

haha somehow it's 30 minutes long

[@BrentLeBlancCG]

@@ibrews Haha

[@RanBensimon-bl7sn]

Thank you! ❤

[@tubecontroler]

Fantastic!

[@josem.norton4136]

The solution at 25 minutes did it for me. You saved the day! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[@ohheyvoid]

So helpful! Thanks iBrews :) :) :)

[@HelloGeek]

merci beaucoup

[@emdo.unlimited555]

"Manny" + "Quinn" said quickly = Mannequin.

[@ibrews]

THANK YOU

[@emdo.unlimited555]

@@ibrews no sir, thank you! It took a pretty targeted search to find the definitive guide!

[@braedongarner]

For anybody using Live Link to record your animation live (instead of recording the animation on your phone and sending the .CSV file from iPhone to computer) I have another solution that worked for me: 1. Add your Metahuman to sequencer. Delete the face and body control rigs it comes with. 2. Record your face animation in sequencer with Live Link. If you try adding a body animation immediately after doing this, the head will just float in place while the body is moving. 3. Delete your Metahuman Blueprint from sequencer and then add it back. 4. Delete the preset face and body control rigs again. 5. Track the face animation you recorded with Live Link back onto "Face". 6. Now add the body animation of your choice. I hope this helps anybody else who is trying to use Live Link live-synced to Unreal Engine.

[@ibrews]

Thank you for sharing !!

[@elenadmpl]

hey does anyone has an issue with sound? do i have to check somewhere?i put the animation in sequence multiplie times with different ways and doesnt play sound.anyone help?

[@braedongarner]

@@elenadmpl I believe it does not have audio attached to it and you have to record it separately

[@RandomNoise]

Thank you for all of the videos that you have made. Really helpul stuff. however, I am curious if there is a solution for a custom stylized character with bigger eyes. I know it's kinda possible because they showed it in the first demo one month ago, with a cartoony character.

[@locodrome]

Yes - a combination of using Data Driven Eyes, and promoting 2-3 frames for Neutral pose, will usually get you there - my workflow here if you're interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/foC2gXekZs9sgNk

[@jonos138]

It's interesting how with our own created mh heads, they all suffer with that showing all bottom teeth bug, yet when the animation is placed on a 'stock' metahuman it doesn't seem to happen as much. I always have to correct this 'showing exaggerated bottom teeth' all the time. Very annoying.

[@ThelaHunGinjeet1]

You saved me ❤

[@xmkmx1]

Great Video! I have a small question though. Do I still have to edit the Animation BP for the Face when I am doing the Last step (baking from IK then adding to sequencer)?

[@nielslesliepringle3143]

Good question! I lost the mouth animation following tose steps.

[@BreakMaker2904]

Hi Alex, do you know if the issue you are describing at the end of the video, namely, having to rebake the animation from the level sequencer in order to be able to properly sync up the animations coming from the body and the head (with rotation and movement) is an issue in 5.3? I have like 1000 face animations, and having to create a level seqeunce for each and every one seems like a huge amount of work.

[@LordoftheLoadingScreens-oo3wp]

Thank you for this amazing tutorial. I actually followed up everything but my face movement is (because of the disable post process option) much less than the original. Is there any simple solution for that? Thank you very much for your help :)

[@BAYqg]

First of all, THAK YOU!!! Second: Yes I will be so glad if you’d show how to upgrade current 5.1.1 project with Metahuman to work with new Metahuman Animator on 5.2 🙏🙏🙏

[@ibrews]

Will do ! The short version is upgrade your Metahumans in MetaHuman Creator then download them in Bridge, then when you import one it will prompt you to upgrade all of them and it will as long as they’re all downloaded.

[@BAYqg]

@@ibrews oh, sounds pretty doable even for such a newbie like me 😄 Love your efforts and kindness, sir! As I need it ASAP I’ll try to do it rightly after UE5.2 will be downloaded in a few hours. And I will be back here with my results in case it could help anyone else! Much appreciated 🙏😌 Have a good one!

[@BAYqg]

Interesting thing happened to me! First of all, thank you, everything worked as you said in the short version in a comment above!

[@BAYqg]

Now I'm going deep dive to master the blending body and head+neck rotations in the last part of the video ☺🙏

[@BAYqg]

Okay, nailed it! @ibrews , you're a legend, Sir!!!! Everything works fine! (except NeckMask with neck01 bone leads to crash in a stage of compiling proccess, right after pressing the Compile button. But I certainly sure that it's just UE5 regular thing haha, UE likes to crash!) UPD: neck02 won't work as well, lead to crashing. Well, I guess no neck movements for me 😢 Honestly it would me amazing to get a hint why would it might be this way, please. But still happy to have the results and what's more important to acquire new knowledge!

[@user-kn2ih1hq1s]

hi, thanks for your video.. it's at least onwe week that i'm trying to blend the body animation and the face animation but nothing works... after adding the blendmask and compile it i got an warning "Node Modify Curve uses potentially thread-unsafe call Modify Curve . Disable threaded update or use a thread-safe call. Function may need BlueprintThreadSafe metadata adding. " i have no idea what's happening.. i try with other MH and sometimes does't apper this warning but in every case the final result is a blend oh head and body animation but i lose every face animation, no lips movement not eye etc... i'm trying different workflow but nothing works, i even tryed to use different version of unreal but always the same result.

[@ncard00]

Please up the video quality to 4K60fps :)

[@ibrews]

What are you not seeing with 2K60fps ?

[@grmnt.studio]

Yes! Well done. This one works!

[@user-fq2dl7md9j]

Thank you for your work. I do everything identically, but at 8:38 my head does not move. How do I beat this?

[@IamVRan]

Beautifully done my friend! BTW, I also find that to get a better head rot from the face capture, I change the - Curve Blend Option under the Face AnimBP to Normalize by Weight. BTW, do you find that when attaching the face to the body that has mocap data on with the Blend Mask so maintain the head anim on top of the body anim, the scope of the facial anim is toned down a notch? For some reason I find it affects the animation. I have been trying to find a solution for this for awhile now. If you have an idea, please let me know

[@ibrews]

I think you're right! I haven't found a solution yet, looking into it

[@IamVRan]

❤️💙❤️

[@IamVRan]

@@ibrews I did find a solution for this! I had a BOOM moment yesterday and it works. Let me gather my findings around it as my usual notes summary and I can share with you! But it does keep the head on the body, gets full range rot from the mocap and body plus full scope of facial data. When the mouth opened to 100% from the data instead of the 30% I was so excited 😊

[@slaas86]

@@IamVRan hi, any update on this? would be much appreciated :)

[@stop-motion-verse]

Hey Alex, is there a way to do a falloff between the neck and head animation, I feel like there should be a way to match the body to the neck but still maintain a bit of the head movement for a more natural animation. Maybe that will be an update at some point.

[@ibrews]

I think you can get something like that with ‘layered blend per bone’ messing with the alpha

[@bendiba28]

Hi, thanks a lot for those workflows... I have a question, is it a way to reduce the size on disk of the last "animation baking"?? The one that you make at the end of the video in orther to get head rotation apply. I mean in my case it use more than 10x more space on disk. Thanks for your work, its amazing 🙏😉

[@ibrews]

Yes you can open the animation and reduce the keyframes: nfrechette.github.io/2017/01/11/anim_compression_unreal4/

[@bendiba28]

@@ibrews thank you for answering. I'll have a look on that one!! 🙏

[@SajidFarooqRaed]

A little tip for those not entirely familiar with the control rig: You can either have the facial animation driven via the facial rig ""or" via the baked animation. If you have both, you will see...nothing. So: Either copy over the facial rig from the level sequencer animation, Or "delete" the facial rig and apply the exported animation instead.

[@ibrews]

Great tip !!

[@jesterspawn]

This seems like something that will need to be addressed in future versions. I don't think the intention would be that we must always use the facial capture data as-is, with no ability to apply modifications and fixes via the control rig. Ideally, an option to convert the animation to control-rig keyframes would be available, or at the very least the ability to override certain things. The thought of having to perfectly nail every aspect of the performance (including sight-lines in scenes with multiple characters, yikes) in a single take almost defeats the purpose of using animation over live-action.

[@ibrews]

@@jesterspawn agreed !

[@mehface]

If I copy the facial rig from the level sequence animation, then disable the animation blueprint in order to attach the head, the animation on the face stops playing entirely

[@kat_hak]

having the same issue but usually it is because something small is missed I guess@@mehface

[@isaacolander8291]

Thanks for the amazing content! One question - When I "Disable post process blueprint" the facial animations stop completely, including neck rotation. I have set up a blend mask as you showed and followed the tutorial exactly. Not sure why this could be. Any ideas? Best

[@isaacolander8291]

The strange part is, I can see the facial normal maps move and change. So something is locking the face in place

[@RobMoody3D]

god mode

[@Artistly]

I don't know why unreal engine is crashing while baking the animation from the sequencer. Anyone solution on this?

[@bcrbdb]

This video is perfect! Very well explained! Having the Disable Post Process Blueprint checkmark enabled, can we convert the animation again to a face control rig to add additive layers and make additional tweaks to the facial animation ?

[@ibrews]

You can !

[@JohnDoe-pk5kw]

Tried the same thing but the baking process doesn't quite happen correctly and the animation stops working for the face....Even the Faceborad Ctrl rig doesn't work

[@ibrews]

@@JohnDoe-pk5kw are you using an older MetaHuman migrated into 5.2 ?

[@nezaralmonzer]

thanks for your effort, after the baking process the facial animation didn't work and the no keys in Face Ctrl rig, any idea what is happening @@ibrews

[@ibrews]

@@nezaralmonzer play with enabling / disabling Post Process BP

[@andrewjordan5925]

Sorry if you've answered this: do you have tips for connecting animation from head & body when the body & body skeleton is from another (non-MH) source? I've been able to get it close to working, but whenever I enable the Face_AnimBP, the metahuman head collapses into the neck. I'd like to keep & use some head rotation as you show in the third example (probably using one of the neck bones as the blend mask).

[@ibrews]

I think you can literally just raise the head up in the BP ?

[@ulasonat5042]

despite trying everything, the head rotation doesn't work on mine. tried many different things, if someone else knows another solution pls lmk!

[@Xaiierek]

You can try to show us how such animations can be used, e.g. in a fight with a mob or simply with a conversation with another NPC, e.g. we are running with our NPC companion to some place and in a random place a dialogue is launched in which you can see that the character is on us he looks and talks to us and has some kind of running animation when he follows us, I mean cutscenes in the game to make it as real as possible, because you can see that the metahuman has a lot of potential for it. Something like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oaGqmmiMYrWDn9E

[@gc-yb6fr]

Thinks for the vids! FYI Manny-Quinn = Mannequin

[@pm-fv8mz]

Hello ! Thanks a lot for the video. I'm now trying to use an animation montage to play the face and body anim on my character inside my game. I'm not sure if it's the right way... What do you think ?If it's not the right way, is it possible to export the animation of the face and the body inside ONE animation sequence ? Thanks in advance

[@ibrews]

The face and body are different skeletal meshes so they each need their own animation. You can do montages for each of them,

[@pm-fv8mz]

@@ibrews Someone pointed to me the idea of "blend per bone" inside the Animation Blueprint to play both montages correctly. Does it seems right for you or would you do it in a different way ?

[@natanaelgauna3600]

Hi!! Amazing content!! I wonder if would you have any advice for troubleshooting these three issues on Metahuman Animator? - “Promote Frame” randomly jumping to a different frame than the selected one. - Metahuman Identity Solve not accurate result. - “Add Teeth Pose” breaking the Identity Solve even more. Thanks a lot!!!!!

[@ibrews]

Oof I’ve never seen any of those issues. Sorry !

[@natanaelgauna3600]

- “Add Teeth Pose” was working actually. It was just showing the two expressions Neutral/Teeth overlapping at the same time. But I still have the Promote Frame randomly jumping :’). If I find the answer I’ll comment it here. Thanks!!! Great channel!!

[@ScottSquires]

I really wish Unreal would make all of this easier. It's falling on users to figure out how to make the software do the expected behavior. There are also some of us still using straight Apple live link since 5.3 has issues with DX12 at times. And the defined fix above doesn't work i nthat case.

[@potpot1718]

Hi! I would like to ask this. When I export a new level sequence from the performance window. The face under that said export do not show. just the animation and under that is face_controlrig So I cannot baked the face from the performance that I exported

[@nielslesliepringle3143]

I think that changed in 5.3. Just export the control rig

[@mehface]

Hi, this method worked for me, however I would like to track the eyes to the camera by parenting the eye controller to the camera. In order to do so I need to bake the working animation to control rig, but once I do so having the "disable post process blueprint" checkbox ticked disables the animation on the face. Any ideas?

[@ibrews]

Oof never tried that and unfortunately don’t have time soon. Please do let us know if you figure it out 💪

[@akshaynatoo534]

when i disable post process of the face, except the head, all movements go away. any solutions for it.

[@lovelearn341]

I've tried for over 4 hours, but nothing happens. The head still floating Although my body was in A pose... I hope they fix that

[@Xaia]

How can I make his eyes look at the camera at all times while it's moving and talking?

[@ai.ai.captain]

❤️👌

[@joesherman5209]

What are you using to do body animation to go with the live link face animation. Is there a way to do body animation without some sort of special suit.

[@ibrews]

I’m just importing animation

[@dl6078]

Hello, coould you please help with the issue I have? after processing my metahuman face is being distorted when turns to left to right... thank you in advance!

[@marcusjordan8036]

Hey! Am I able to bring in the metahuman with the face animation into blender? I'm not concerned with keeping any of the materials/textures.

[@ibrews]

I don’t think so

[@behrampatel4872]

Thank you ! how does one go from the mesh generated from metahuman animator to metahuman creator. I want to be able to tweak the MH generated by the MHA process in the online app (add hair, etc) and then bring it in to apply animation. Possible ?

[@ibrews]

Yea that’s the standard workflow. It shows up in MetaHuman Creator after you process it

[@behrampatel4872]

@@ibrews it did ! this is insane. Cheers

[@hyunkim2172]

It would be really great if you could share the taken data for people who don't have iPhone.

[@ibrews]

Good idea! I’ll throw some up on Dropbox and add the link to the description

[@user-mo1eh9ix2v]

@@ibrews I can't waiting. You're the best!

[@epicrd7734]

Manny + Quinn = Mannequin

[@LetaoChen]

In the end everything works including neck animations, except my face doesn't move! Any idea what I could have done wrong?

[@3dduff]

Under 5.3 I am getting this same problem. But it worked a couple months ago using 5.2

[@Composit.Design]

Hey! I had the same problem. Two things I changed seemed to help. 1: change the - Curve Blend Option under the Face AnimBP to Normalize by Weight. 2: In the settings for the main Metahuman blueprint, I forced the LOD level to 4 (cause I'm going to be using it in VR and LOD 0 would be too intense) would brought down the poply count

[@wolfenix4576]

at 8:45 the moment i select the skeletal mesh of the metahuman instead of the default animator face, i suddenly lose all the head movement. Any ideas? - Also "Disable Post Process Blueprint" just removes the animation entirely for me.

[@ibrews]

Did you create the blend mask ?

[@wolfenix4576]

Ok i've managed to fix that now thank you, but the face and neck are not attached to the body, any ideas?@@ibrews

[@nielslesliepringle3143]

I got the headrotation to work with the body, thanks to this tutorial. But now the mouth animation is gone.

[@ibrews]

Try messing with Disable Post Process Blueprint

[@Composit.Design]

Hey! I had the same problem. Two things I changed seemed to help. 1: change the - Curve Blend Option under the Face AnimBP to Normalize by Weight. 2: In the settings for the main Metahuman blueprint, I forced the LOD level to 4 (cause I'm going to be using it in VR and LOD 0 would be too intense) would brought down the poply count

[@3dchick]

Ok, so I thought of a question... I set up my 5.2 metahuman and managed to attach his head to a cc4 body in one 5.2 project, and it was a huge PITA. Can I migrate him and his components to another 5.2 project or will that mess things up?

[@ibrews]

As long as it’s 5.2 to 5.2 it should be fine!

[@3dchick]

@@ibrews awesome, thank you!!

[@OfficialCloverPie]

please help me again Brew.., I came back to the project after 4 months, wanted to change the metahuman, i did it, and was having same head floating issues, so i just went to check the face animBP, it didn't had blend mask selected, it was at it's default branchFilter mode, i selected it and compiled and stuff, and now my head is attached to body, but there is no facial expression/animation anymore, when i uncheck disable post process blueprint, the facial animations come back but now head starts to float, please help me..

[@ibrews]

Maybe try updating the MetaHuman to 5.3? Also check out the latest MetaHuman tutorials on the Unreal KZbin from end of September

[@OfficialCloverPie]

@@ibrews I’ll check out Unreal videos.., thanks, but I’m quite surprised that this issue came up, like did i broke the faceanimBP??? Or what happened!

[@salazar665]

Hi.. Subbed.. Can you do a tutorial on retargeting cascadeur animations to metahumans?

[@ibrews]

Sorry I’ve never used Cascadeur ! But the workflow should be similar to: m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/hGi6lax3msp3qNk

[@summer.vfX-trem]

Thanks for the tuto. I'm on UE 5.3. At the end of the tuto, the head is attached to the body and turning (head rotation) but then there is no more animation face (mouth + eyes ...) It's STILL In the baked animation, all is good (the face is animated and the head is turning). If I turn off : Disable Post Process Blueprint, I have the face moving but lose the neck following body. Could it be a 5.3 bug ? HELP !

[@html2664]

I have the same problem and no solution yet. Were you able to fix that?

[@summer.vfX-trem]

@@html2664 I spent a day on this problem. No solution. I'm more and more thinking that unreal output tools, with lot of bugs, and metahuman seems to not be really reliable. Each engine version brings a problem (hear, head, rig....)

[@html2664]

@@summer.vfX-trem Don't be so judgemental. These guys are making a future. This product is far beyond comparing to anything else in this branch :). BTW I found a 100% working solution. Hope you still need it. Make sure you followed all staps in the last two sections of the tutorial: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hJzFZXd7pL-ShLs

[@summer.vfX-trem]

@@html2664 I follow this tutorial today.

[@summer.vfX-trem]

My judgment, is when I compare the need of reliability involve when you're working in VFX (and I know what it is to handle problems from Maya). Unreal, have fantastic tools but all are in beta. I think to be reliable you need to have Dev and dive in c++. If not, then we have to fix the bugs especially when doing cinematics with metahuman.

[@michelanglais3282]

Mannequin = Manny Quinn ❤❤

[@vincenttoujas]

it's not working for me .... I have a very weird distorted neck, next to the body but attached... I tried lots of things.

[@ibrews]

Check out the new method from @feeding_wolves in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hJzFZXd7pL-ShLssi=RLXnQYZpcICMy9Cg

[@bondell1840]

can i export the animation of metahuman to other software like houdini?

[@ibrews]

I think Maya is the only supported outside software

[@DdawgRealFX]

Soooo… .. let’s say you need to have a library of loopable facial animations. Once you bake down the animation to a specific Metahuman… it’s not usable for other metahumans. In a perfect world you would be able to simply turn on disable post process blueprint with an extra setting and have the head deform properly at the connection point. Making the loop is easy but it’s already baked to a head. Is retargeting to another metahuman an option at that point ? Thanks in advance.

[@ibrews]

yes a baked metahuman or face body animation will work with any other metahuman face or body. if you want to have it play via Blueprints, be sure to check out the Play Montage node (you'll have to convert the animation into a montage)

[@DdawgRealFX]

@@ibrews thanks very much in advance for the info. Here’s the thing…. If you bake the face animation to a specific metahuman and then apply it to another unique metahuman face… and you still want to blend the head and neck animations…if you turn off “disable post process blueprint” (I hate double negatives) for the new metahuman it will morph into the face of the metahuman used for the facial animation bake. This is 5.3.2. I was actually surprised to see this happen but it does make sense. I’m trying to create loopable idle animations that will adhere to multiple metahuman characters. I’ve watched countless videos (yours are the coolest) and can’t figure it out.

[@braedongarner]

Is anybody else having the issue where their Metahuman just stares blankly forward? All other animations are there, but the eye animations are not working.

[@ibrews]

Weird! Haven’t run into that

[@braedongarner]

@@ibrews will have to do more messing around with the settings. The data is showing keyframes for eye tracking in the csv file, but the Metahuman isn’t reading it for some reason

[@ibrews]

@@braedongarner is your MetaHuman upgraded to 5.2 ?

[@braedongarner]

@@ibrews yes, I also tried it with another stock 5.2 metahuman (Oskar) and it is having the same issue

[@SinaAfshariJewellsMuseum]

I didn't find how to do that :(

[@SolViewStudios]

Does the plugin not work on Mac?

[@ulasonat5042]

thank you but like in this case, how can we have a proper face anim with rotations and body anim during gameplay and not in the sequencer?

[@ibrews]

then you load it all up either in Blueprints (ideally as montages) or directly in the animation component

[@ulasonat5042]

@@ibrews thanks for your response, however I was not able to do that as I'm a beginner after all. i'd appreciate if you could do a tutorial on that whenever you have the time! thank you! :)

[@ulasonat5042]

@@ibrews so I managed to rotation work during gameplay with montages but rest of the body won't adjust despire layered blend, however it doesn't look all that bad tbh

[@ibrews]

@@ulasonat5042 are you giving separate animations to head and body?

[@ulasonat5042]

@@ibrews yes, i do

[@robertnewton9548]

One more comment (and KZbin comments probably isn't the best forum for this discussion). I'm not sure why you did the interim step of retargeting. I can add a body animation to my MetaHuman and the MHA facial capture I did (exported as an animation) to the face, and those combined work fine (no head rotation from the MHA, but that's ok) with no retargeting in between. Or I may have misunderstood your reason for the retargeting.

[@ibrews]

Mannequin body animations don’t show up for me without retargeting

[@robertnewton9548]

@@ibrews Ahh, ok, thanks. I didn't go through the Mannequin step. Seems to be working. But I'm sure I'll realize eventually why I need that interim step, lol.

[@ibrews]

@@robertnewton9548 yea if you have animations already set for Metahumans or you’re using a static body there’s no need to retarget

[@OMGITSGB]

blending the head removes mouth animation, do you know why?

[@Composit.Design]

Hey! I had the same problem. Two things I changed seemed to help. 1: change the - Curve Blend Option under the Face AnimBP to Normalize by Weight. 2: In the settings for the main Metahuman blueprint, I forced the LOD level to 4 (cause I'm going to be using it in VR and LOD 0 would be too intense) would brought down the poply count

[@OMGITSGB]

@@Composit.Design Thanks! will deff try this out. I just ended up finding the head rotation on the head animation and pasted it onto the other one :P but if thats an easier way Ill deff try it.

[@Composit.Design]

@@OMGITSGB That's a good tip, I'll try that out too. I think I also unchecked the Disable Blueprint box on the face track. It's kinda funny how what works for one person doesn't for the next...

[@jakop3262]

What about metahuman + moveAi ultimate combo?

[@ibrews]

When Move.ai gets a little better we’ll be golden !

[@charliemakescartoons]

From 21:56. My Blueprint looks completely different. There's no 'Layered blend per bone' node.

[@ibrews]

Then it’s likely you’re using an older MetaHuman and not a 5.2 one

[@charliemakescartoons]

@@ibrews It's defo 5.2, as it's the one that was created using the Identity Solver in the Identity menu. I'll try with a new one and see if it works.

[@ibrews]

@@charliemakescartoons you need a real MetaHuman BP

[@charliemakescartoons]

@@ibrews The BP is a Metahuman BP, as it was downloaded from Quixel Bridge. Maybe I skipped a step somewhere.

[@charliemakescartoons]

@@ibrews I needed to click on Animgraph on the left for the menu with those nodes to appear. This must have been hidden for me for some reason.

[@DemonauthorFilms]

The tutorial is great, but I have tried every combination of options and cannot get the head rotation to work. Best I get is head attached to body, moving with the body. No pitch, roll, or yaw with the head. Not sure where I'm going wrong. Using UE5.2.1 with a customized 5.2 metahuman.

[@ibrews]

Hmm sounds correct. Want to send the project .zip to Alex @ agile Lens .com ? I’ll try to take a look

[@DemonauthorFilms]

@@ibrews The project file is 17GB....and I may have found a solution!

[@ibrews]

@@DemonauthorFilms great! Please share for the class !

[@DemonauthorFilms]

@@ibrews This method seems to work without involving the AnimBP or disabling PoatProcess AnimBP: kzbin.info/www/bejne/on-qhZ-Np9WZp8k

[@DemonauthorFilms]

It's not quite perfect... I'm going to send you something and see if you can wrap your head around it... pun intended.

[@elenadmpl]

hey does anyone has an issue with not playing the sound with animation?

[@ibrews]

you have your .wav file in Sequencer?

[@elenadmpl]

@@ibrews no .. where is this wav file?

[@ibrews]

@@elenadmpl it'll be populated automatically if you export from the Performance window as a Level Sequence instead of an Animation

[@elenadmpl]

@@ibrews THANKYOU for the fast responce and thank you again for the tutorials!!

[@elenadmpl]

@@ibrews thank you!!!you are very helpful

[@teegee5070]

Manny + Quinn = Mannequin!

[@Goofy_Toons]

terrifying

[@ibrews]

Gotta love Mesh to MetaHuman !

[@3dbrasiltutorials495]

metahuman animator performance keep crashing

[@nexelus]

the solution to have head animation with rotated attached with body to work properly is overcomplicated, and confusing, why the Epic games haven't fixed yet? and they even say a single word about this when presenting the new metahuman animator update?

[@sabat-ondutyculprit4559]

guys I donot have that layer blend nod at all

[@ibrews]

Are you in the event graph or the animation graph ?

[@sabat-ondutyculprit4559]

@@ibrews both

[@sabat-ondutyculprit4559]

@@ibrews very strange 🤔