This guide shows how to assemble a MetaHuman character in Autodesk Maya. It assumes you have already created a MetaHuman character in Unreal Engine and used the DCC Export tool to export the head DNA, body DNA, and texture files.
The DCC Export assembly pipeline has the option to export either a folder or a zip archive. If using a zip archive, you must extract the contents to a separate folder before using the contents with the Character Assembler.
Assembling the MetaHuman
Open Maya, then create or open a scene.
From the MetaHuman menu, open the Character Assembler tool.
Click on a MetaHuman character’s tile (2).
The Filter (3) can be used to identify the character if the selected directory contains a large number of characters. Each tile displays the character name and a small UE version badge (e.g. UE5.6, UE5.8) in its bottom-right corner. Hovering a tile shows a tooltip with the export folder name and version.
Right-clicking any character tile opens a context menu with two options:
Show Details — Opens a dialog displaying the full ExportManifest.json for that character as formatted, read-only JSON.
Show in Explorer — Opens the operating system file manager at the character’s export folder.
Set the MetaHumans Directory (1). This should be the folder that contains the MetaHuman Characters exported from Unreal Engine.
Once set, the main panel will refresh to show each MetaHuman available for assembly. The grid refreshes automatically whenever the directory path is changed — there is no separate Refresh button.
(Optional) Configure the import settings to import the head, body, textures and scene orientation (4). Clothing and hair will not be included. The available options are:
Head — Imports the head mesh (8 LODs) with its rig and joints under the MHHead: namespace. Enabled by default.
Body — Imports the body mesh (4 LODs) with its rig and joints under the MHBody: namespace. Enabled by default.
Textures — Connects character-specific texture maps to the head and body shaders. Enabled by default.
Combine Skeletons — Merges the head and body joint hierarchies into a single skeleton. Only available when both Head and Body are enabled. Disabled by default.
Up Axis — Sets the coordinate system used when importing DNA data. Options are Y-up (default, matches the Maya default world axis) and Z-up. The previous From DNA option has been removed; select Y-up or Z-up explicitly based on your scene configuration.
Click Assemble (5).
Assembling a MetaHuman in Maya will overwrite all existing content in the current scene. All unsaved content will be lost.
Once the assembly process completes, your Maya scene will contain the selected MetaHuman.
In order to display textures properly, make sure that under Preferences > Display, DirectX 11 is selected as a Rendering Engine. We also suggest using the Reset to Legacy option in Maya’s Color Management Preferences.
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