With MetaHuman Creator and the MetaHuman Character asset in Unreal Engine replacing the MetaHuman Creator web application, it is important to understand how your existing project and MetaHuman characters can be upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.6.
Upgrade Your Project
In this scenario, you want to upgrade your existing project to Unreal Engine 5.6.
This can be done simply by opening the project in Unreal Engine 5.6. Any MetaHuman characters already added to the project using Quixel Bridge will be upgraded and continue to work as expected. However, they will not receive any of the improvements made to the new version of the MetaHuman Assembly assets.
For example, you create MetaHuman characters for Unreal Engine 5.5 using the MetaHuman Creator web application and add them to your Unreal Engine 5.5 project using Quixel Bridge. Later, you upgrade your project by opening it in Unreal Engine 5.6. Your MetaHumans will be upgraded to work with the new engine version, and will keep the same features as before.
Upgrade Your Project Only
In this scenario, you want to upgrade your existing project to Unreal Engine 5.6 without upgrading the MetaHuman characters.
You can continue to use the MetaHuman Creator web application to create and author MetaHuman characters for Unreal Engine 5.5. They can be imported into an Unreal Engine 5.6 project using Quixel Bridge. However, they will not receive any of the improvements made to the new version of the MetaHuman Assembly assets.
For example, you create MetaHuman characters for Unreal Engine 5.5 using the MetaHuman Creator web application. Then, you add them to your Unreal Engine 5.6 project using Quixel Bridge and the Import or Import and Migrate option. Your MetaHumans will be upgraded to work with the new engine version, and will keep the same features as before.
Upgrade Your MetaHuman Characters
In this scenario, you want to upgrade your MetaHuman characters to use in an Unreal Engine 5.6 project.
To upgrade your MetaHuman characters you will need to use the migrate option in Quixel Bridge to migrate them from the MetaHuman Creator web application to a new MetaHuman Character asset in Unreal Engine. Once migrated, an assembly pipeline can be run to create the new version of the MetaHuman Assembly assets which will include all of the improvements.
For example, you create MetaHuman characters for Unreal Engine 5.5 using the MetaHuman Creator web application. After upgrading your project to Unreal Engine 5.6, you want to keep working on the characters and use the Migrate or Import and Migrate option in Quixel Bridge to migrate them to MetaHuman Creator for Unreal Engine as new MetaHuman Character assets. When ready, you run the ‘UE Cine’ or ‘UE Optimized’ assembly pipeline to create the new version of the MetaHuman Assembly assets and take advantage of any new features.
Upgrade Only Your MetaHuman Characters
In this scenario, you want to upgrade your MetaHuman characters without upgrading the project to Unreal Engine 5.6.
This is currently not possible. The new version of MetaHuman characters and their assets only work with the matching version of Unreal Engine.
For example, the version of MetaHuman Character and Assembly assets for Unreal Engine 5.6 only work with Unreal Engine 5.6 or later.
Base Skeleton Offset Update
Removing the default +2cm offset in the MetaHuman base skeleton.
Updating Retarget Source Asset in the Body Rig
Update the Retarget Source Asset for each Pose Asset in the body rig to fix unexpected transforms in imported characters.