MetaHuman Import

Copresence provides the MetaHuman Import Wizard as an Unreal Engine plugin to create a MetaHuman based on your Copresence scan. This tutorial is based on Unreal 5.5 and 5.4.

Setup

This section will explain how to setup the Copresence MetaHuman Import Wizard. As a prerequisit, you need to install the official MetaHuman plugin.

After completion, you are ready to use our MetaHuman Import Wizard. Start by downloading the plugin for the supported version of Unreal Engine from here:

• Unreal Engine 5.5

• Unreal Engine 5.4

Install our plugin for a specific project by extracting the downloaded zip to [Project Root Directory]/Plugins.

Restart the Unreal Editor, in case it has been opened while extracting the content.

To ensure the plugin is activate, navigate to the plugins menu in the Unreal editor via Edit -> Plugins and enter Copresence into the search bar. Make sure the plugin is activated. If activated, the “Copresence” menu will be located in the top menu bar of your Unreal editor.

Workflow

This section will show you how to convert Copresence avatars into MetaHumans and import them into Unreal Engine. As a prerequisit, you need to have a Copresence account and a recorded avatar with exports unlocked. If you don’t have an unlocked avatar, you may also choose the default Demo Avatar which is added to every account and unlocked by default.

Log into the Copresence webapp and select your unlocked avatar. Click the … and choose download. Select MetaHuman and download the .zip asset file. Open the Unreal editor and navigate to the main menu bar. Click Copresence -> MetaHuman Import to launch the wizard.

After a short introduction the wizard guides you through the following steps.

Source File Selection

Select the file you downloaded from the webapp and click Continue. This will import the Copresence scan assets into your Unreal project.

Running Mesh-to-Metahuman

The next step explains the Mesh-to-MetaHuman workflow. The process is semi-automated and needs some manual operations to be performed.

Press the Create MetaHuman button to create a new MetaHuman identity file in your assets. The file will open automatically and is already setup with your Copresence avatar. From here on, some manual steps are required.

1. Make sure the avatar is facing the camera and completly visible. Select Neutral Pose in the MetaHuman tree view on the left.

2. Press the Promote Frame button. You can find it in the top menu bar. Acknowlege the prompt to promote the current view

3. Now the next button Track Markers is unlocked and you can press it.

4. Make sure the tracked features look reasonable, i.e. the eyebrows, eyes and mouth are marked correctly. Press the MetaHuman Identity Solve button.

5. Finish this step by pressing the Mesh to MetaHuman button. Make sure to select the Full MetaHuman option. After this, the reconstructed geometry will be uploaded to the MetaHuman Creator, ready for editing in the next step.

Now, you may close the Mesh-to-MetaHuman dialog window and proceed with the wizard.

Editing in MetaHuman Creator

After the Mesh-to-MetaHuman transfer, the current state of the MetaHuman is rather a draft than a finalized character. That is why the final editing takes place in the MetaHuman Creator tool. The previous step has already uploaded the geometry to the tool, so you can start editing right away. The MetaHuman Import Wizard in Unreal now outlines the most important steps to follow. They are summarized briefly below:

In the category Face -> Skin* select the skincolor coordinate that is shown in the copresence wizard
Under Hair -> Head select an appropriate Hairstyle for your MetaHuman
Disable the eyebrows by selecting None in the Hair -> Eyebrows menu
Select a proper bodyshape and head scale in the menu Body -> Proportions

Importing the MetaHuman

The MetaHuman is now ready to be imported into your current Unreal project. Go back to the Unreal editor and follow the instructions shown by the import wizard.

Open the Quixel Bridge by navigating to Window in the top menu bar and select Quixel Bridge
Select My MetaHumans under the MetaHuman category
Select your MetaHuman and quality preset High or lower and press the Download button. This will generate and download the assets required for your MetaHuman. This step can take a few minutes.
Once the download is finished, press the Add button

Apply Copresence Assets

In this last step, the face textures of the MetaHuman get replaced by the ones from the scan. Therefore, go back to the wizard window and select the blueprint of your MetaHuman. Then, press the Transfer Texture button.

At the moment, we are working on importing our hairstyle reconstructions automatically into MetaHuman. For the time being, you need to manullay extract the hair.abc file from the downloaded zip and import it according to the UE documentation.

Finalize

Now your MetaHuman is ready to be used. Press the View MetaHuman button on the last page of the wizard to open the MetaHuman blueprint. Make sure to close any opened editor windows for this blueprint. Otherwise the contents of the asset will not be refreshed. You can close the wizard now and drag the MetaHuman blueprint asset into the scene.