MetaHuman for Unreal Engine 5.7 delivers improvements to a wide variety of areas in the MetaHuman framework, including MetaHuman Creator, MetaHuman Animator, and MetaHuman for Houdini.
Major Changes
MetaHuman Creator
MetaHuman Creator in Unreal Engine is now available on Linux and macOS, bringing powerful, integrated digital human creation to your preferred platform. If you haven’t already migrated from the MetaHuman Creator web application, follow our migration guide for instructions on how to bring your existing MetaHuman character into Unreal Engine to continue authoring!
We’ve enhanced the body mesh conformation process with support for varied poses, and introduced UV-space vertex correspondence between the conform template and model meshes – enabling more accurate results with less effort. The parametric body controls are also now more intuitive, making it easier to stay within human proportions with increased precision and control.
With this release you can automate and batch process nearly all editing and assembly operations for MetaHuman character assets using Python or Blueprints. For the first time, more deeply integrate MetaHuman Creator into your pipeline and creative workflow with an API that supports sculpting, conforming, wardrobe, rigging, and textures, streamlining full character assembly. Preview edits live in MetaHuman Creator, run them interactively in Unreal Editor or a compute farm for offline processing.
MetaHumans in Unreal Engine
The Unreal Engine Groom Plugin now enables finer control in shaping and animating hair strands with a joint-based workflow. You can now blend simulations with art-directed motion, access full use of skeletal mesh animation workflows, and achieve greater artistic freedom with enhanced selection sets and paint tools. The toolset offers full compatibility for MetaHuman grooms originally created in Houdini.
MetaHuman Animator
Real-time animation from MetaHuman Live Link sources can now be accessed via a Blueprint interface, with an example graph provided in our documentation.
The workflow for generating calibration data from the checkerboard take – captured using a stereo camera pair – has been improved to provide better automatic frame selection, visualization to aid manual frame selection, and repeatable configurations across multiple takes.
Combined with the new MetaHuman Animator Calibration Diagnostics plugin (experimental) to validate calibration against performance footage to more easily determine if it is the best calibration to use.
MetaHuman Capture
We’ve improved the real-time animation options in the Live Link Face iOS and Android applications by extending the range of supported cameras.
With Live Link Face, you can now generate real-time facial animation using an external camera on supported Android devices or iPads (Note: Apple's iOS does not support external cameras at this time). Video can be recorded from an external camera on iPad only.
You can also generate animation in realtime by selecting from any on-device camera using Live Link Face on iOS & Android. Video can be recorded from the on-device camera on iOS only.
MetaHuman for Houdini
The latest MetaHuman for Houdini update brings parametric groom tools, a guide-driven workflow for creating hairstyles using pre-authored data. The toolset includes a follicle generator to handle density and positioning around the hairline that generates guides based on flow, length, and volume parameters, as well as hair strand interpolation and styling for advanced detailing such as clumpiness. This is a fast and approachable way to block and iterate new hairstyles.
Meanwhile, for those wanting to learn how to create more advanced hairstyles, we’ve published the new MetaHuman Groom Advanced Kit for Houdini on Fab as an extra learning resource.
MetaHuman for Houdini is now available for Linux.
MetaHuman for Maya
The latest update to MetaHuman for Maya is available on Linux and introduces support for Maya 2026.
Release Notes
MetaHuman Creator
New
Add support for Linux and macOS.
Pose agnostic body conform from template mesh.
UV-space vertex correspondence between conform template and model meshes.
Add Python and Blueprint API support.
Dynamic minimum/maximum bounds based on height for parametric body controls.
Explicit control over hand and feet proportions using new hand and foot circumference parameters.
Reduced parameter bleed between the chest and shoulder regions.
Improved localisation of legs and arm parameters.
Support for editing and assembling characters with Virtual Textures.
Compatibility with projects using Substrate (without adopting Substrate-specific features).
Assemble MetaHumans ready to use with Unreal Animation Framework (experimental).
Preset palette of foundation makeup color options.
Melanin and redness color picker for eyelash properties.
Advanced texture resolution options during download and assembly of a character.
MetaHuman-compatible wardrobe items validation.
Improved placement and visibility of the logout button.
Faster resize of clothing when changing the body shape.
The interface remembers your previous state, making navigation faster and more consistent (including scroll positions, filter strings, expand/collapse states, and asset selections).
Bug Fix
Numerous stability and performance improvements.
MetaHuman Animator
New
Blueprint interface for the real-time MetaHuman Live Link sources.
New (experimental) stereo diagnostics tool,
Improved stereo calibration workflow,
Extended list of mood overrides available for offline audio driven animation processing,
Generate tongue animation when solving animation offline using a mono camera,
Mood override selection for real-time audio driven animation.
Realtime mono video head position calibration includes head rotation,
Option to remove curves/keys that are not being used.
MetaHuman Capture
New
Generate animation in realtime from an external camera using Live Link Face on iPad or Android devices.
Record video from an external camera connected to an iPad device using Live Link Face.
Generate animation in realtime by selecting from any on-device camera using Live Link Face on iOS & Android.
Record video from any on-device camera on iOS using Live Link Face.
Improved real-time framerate on iOS and Android – hitting 60FPS on top end devices.
Live Link Face has a new “face mesh” preview for visualizing tracking.
A lock button to reduce accidental screen taps when using an external USB camera on Android.
Bug Fixes
Improved stability of Live Link Hub to Unreal Engine communication used by Capture Manager.
Fixed issues around calibration and depth mismatches during ingest in Capture Manager.
Fixes bug on iPad where takes would be recorded in an incorrect orientation.
MetaHuman Animator mode is now available on iOS devices without a TrueDepth camera.
MetaHuman for Maya
New
Add support for Maya 2026.
Add support for Linux.
Removed support for Maya 2022 as this version is no longer supported by Autodesk.
Replaced MSI installer with cross-platform alternative.
Improvements to the shader used by Character Assembler.
Bug Fixes
‘Follow Head GUI’ controls now function as expected when assembling a character using a single joint hierarchy.
‘Look At’ control is fixed when using Z-Up in Character Assembler and Expression Editor.
Fixed Expression Editor’s automatic propagation of changes in the Neutral Pose to lower LODs.
Updated ML Joints Matching model to fix joint placement for the eyes in Expression Editor.
Pose Editor will now correctly mirror a pose when the other side already exists.
Incorrect RigLogic node name used by Pose Editor.
Strip Maya namespaces when saving the DNA file in Pose Editor.
Improved implementation of RBF node used by Pose Editor.
When converting a legacy character to DNA, the up axis will now use the scene up axis.
Simplified the validation error message raised by RigLogic in Pose Editor.
Fix failure to export ABC file from Groom Exported if output path contains whitespace characters.
Fixed deformation stack which allows scenes to be more optimized.
Stopped Pose Editor always loading a legacy scene with Y-up, regardless of the source up axis.
Fixed locked vertex normals and incorrect mesh shading when loading a DNA file with different up axis in Pose Editor.
MetaHuman for Houdini
New
Parametric groom tools for quick and iterative hairstyle creation.
Optimized MH Groom Head import of DNA mesh and textures, adding custom FBX and ABC options.
Updated MH Groom Rooter with more robust clump footprint usage and improved parameters interface with new options.
Enable the import/export MetaHuman head and body animation with Unreal Engine.
Add support for Linux.
Replaced MSI installer with cross-platform alternative.