MetaHuman Creator is the editor that opens when you double-click a MetaHuman Character asset in Unreal Engine. It is the primary editor you use to design the look of your digital human. This guide highlights the editor’s interface, including the viewport, tool categories, toolbar, and environment controls, to help you start designing your character.
You can rearrange the primary panels to accommodate your desired workflow.
Toolbar
The horizontal toolbar at the top of the editor includes tools to rig and texture (in high-resolution) the character.
You can add a rig to prepare your character for export or assembly. After you add a rig, the Import, Head and Body, and Materials tools become unavailable.
The table lists the available toolbar items.
| Tools | Description |
|---|---|
Save Icon | Saves the current character design. |
Browser Icon | Searches and selects the character asset in the Content Browser. |
Create Full Rig | Applies a complete skeleton rig for the character. |
Create Joints Only Rig | Applies a joints only rig that is lower quality rig and smaller in size. |
Remove Rig | Removes the rig to re-enable import and editing tools. |
Download Texture Source | Downloads high resolution textures. You can download textures at 2K, 4K, or 8K resolution. |
Refresh Preview | Rebuilds the preview character. |
Authentication | Provides access to login details and the option to sign out of the current account. Users can log back in through the auto-rigging process. |
For more information on how these actions affect your character, see the Managing Character States section in the Creating a Character page.
Toolbox
The MetaHuman panel on the left side of the editor provides tools and parameters for designing, exporting, and assembling your character. The panel includes, to the left, tool categories containing related tools that open in the tool palette to the right. Each tool includes properties that open below the tool palette. The Presets and Assembly options function as a standalone tool that opens parameters instead of additional tools.
Some tools, like the Head Sculpt tool, include additional viewport controls for adjusting specific character features. If the panel becomes unavailable due to adjusting the layout, you can re-enable it from Window > Mode Toolbox.
The table list the available tool categories.
| Tool Category | Description |
|---|---|
Presets | The Presets library is a collection of predefined MetaHuman characters (provided with MetaHuman Creator or created yourself) that you can use to initialize or blend new characters. |
Import | Import tools for creating game-ready characters from custom meshes, template meshes, DNA files, or MetaHuman identity assets. |
Head and Body | Head and Body editing tools change the shape of the body using a variety of blending, conforming, and modeling tools. Use the Head Editing Tools to blend, conform, transform, and sculpt the head, including the teeth and eyelashes. |
Materials | The Material Editing Tools can be used to change the appearance of the character’s skin, eyes, makeup, eyelashes, and teeth. You can also use this option to provide your own skin textures. |
Hair and Clothing | The Hair and Clothing tools change your character’s hairstyle (including eyebrows, eyelashes, mustache, beard, and peach fuzz) and outfit. With the Hair and Clothing Tools change your character’s hairstyle (including eyebrows, eyelashes, mustache, beard, and peach fuzz) and outfit. |
Export | Export tools to extract data from MetaHuman Creator into formats suitable for external workflows, including digital content creation (DCC) applications such as Maya and Houdini. |
Assembly | Assemble your character in assets for Unreal Engine (cinematic or optimized), UEFN, and other third-party DCC applications. |
Viewport
The viewport provides a live preview of the character as you edit it. Additional viewport controls for adjusting the character are available in select tools, like the Blend tool.
The Status overlay provides information about the character’s textures, mesh, and rig. The viewport also contains a Hotkeys list that adjusts based on the tool you select.
If the panel becomes unavailable due to adjusting the layout, you can re-enable it from Window > Viewport.
Environment and Quality Toolbar
The viewport includes a toolbar for environment and quality controls.
The options include:
Preview Material: Changes the material overlay for your character to help visualize mesh adjustments.
Environment Lighting: Choose the lighting for the viewport environment, including the option to upload your own. Defaults to Studio.
Camera Controls: Adjusts the viewport camera's framing, lens, view, and speed. Defaults to Face.
Level of Details (LODs): View the available LODs. Defaults to LOD0.
Rendering Quality: Sets the character's viewport render quality. Defaults to Epic.
View Mode: Adjusts the viewport's render mode. Defaults to Lit mode. To learn more, see Viewport Modes.
Skeleton Mesh Debug: Toggles the visibility of the skeleton rig for your character. You can use it to examine the rig output as you adjust your character design.
Viewport Overlay: Toggles the visibility of the Status and Hotkeys list.
The MetaHuman Creator viewport settings are configured separately from the level viewport. This means that if the MHC Screen Percentage is set to 100.0 but the level viewport is not, the MetaHuman character may appear different.
Other settings for GI, light transmission, and subsurface scattering can be found in MetaHumanCharacterEditorViewportClient.cpp.
Preview Material
You can adjust the material overlay for your character while editing. This control can help with the sculpting process by eliminating visual distractions and providing an experience that’s more consistent with 3D modeling applications. The available options are:
Topology: A grid-based material that highlights different sections of the face and body topology.
Skin: The skin material as defined in the Material editing tools. If a you haven't previously defined a skin material the default skin texture will be used.
Clay: Using clay material instead of textured skin makes it easier to see the shape of the eyes and lips.
 |  |  |
Topology | Skin | Clay |
Environment Lighting
Choose from a set of lighting environments to place your MetaHuman into. These include various combinations of backgrounds and lighting presets that simulate indoors, outdoors, and studio conditions.
 |  |  |  |
Studio | Red Lantern | Moonlight | Tungsten |
The lighting environments are saved as level assets and are part of the MetaHuman Creator Core Data. You can access them in /MetaHumanCharacter/LightingEnvironments. A post-process volume is used to lock exposure.
You can also rotate the light horizontally around your MetaHuman by either:
Adjust the Light Rig Rotation slider in the environment dropdown.
While pressing the L key, click and drag in the viewport.
To learn more about adjusting the lighting, see Custom Lighting Scenarios and Render Settings.
Camera Controls
Select from one of four preset camera positions. This is useful if you panned, rotated, or zoomed the camera, and want to quickly return focus to your character. You can also zoom in on a Face, Body, or Far view (entire MetaHuman). Select Auto to automatically switch to the one relative to the tool menu you’ve selected.
 |  |  |
Face | Body | Far |
Level of Details
Inspect all of your character’s available Levels of Detail (LODs). This is useful to preview what your character will look like at different LODs.
MetaHumans support 8 LODs, from 0 (most detailed) to 7 (least detailed). The difference between LODs is more noticeable up close. If you create a complex project, you may use LOD 0 for characters a viewer or player would see up close, and less complex LODs for background characters and crowds.
 |  |  |
LOD1 | LOD4 | LOD7 |
LODs affect a MetaHuman’s Skeletal Mesh geometry and hair grooms. The more complex your character, the greater the difference between LODs.
MetaHuman hair also renders differently depending on LOD. Higher LODs use strand-based hair grooms, while lower LODs use card or mesh-based grooms.
You can also preview what a card-based hair groom looks like on your currently active MetaHuman by enabling the Always Use Hair Cards option. This option forces card-based hair grooms at all LODs.
Using card-based grooms improves performance on certain platforms and makes MetaHumans have less of an impact on overall rendering performance. Strand-based rendering can be resource-intensive and requires a highly performant GPU to work effectively.
Rendering Quality
Select the rendering quality of lighting, hair, MetaHumans, global illumination, and ray-traced reflections.
You can set the quality Medium, High, and Epic, which is the highest possible quality. High and epic-quality rendering uses ray tracing.
To learn more about rendering MetaHumans in Unreal Engine, see Performance and Scalability Settings.
Animation Bar
When you rig a character, you can use the playback controls in the Animation Bar panel.
The animation applied to the character during playback is determined by the Preview Scene Details panel. You can access the panel from Window > Preview Scene Details.
Preview Scene Details
The Preview Scene Details panel controls how the character is displayed in the Viewport.
Animation Controller | The Animation Controller is used to configure the animation applied to a rigged character during playback. When set to AnimSequence, a template or user-provided animation can be applied to the head and body independently. You can assign the same asset to both the head and body if it contains motion for both. When set to Live Link, animation can be driven using any valid Live Link subject, including in real-time using a MetaHuman Live Link subject or ARKit. |
Grooms | Hiding the character’s hair exposes parts of their face that were previously hidden. This is useful when editing the head. |
Clothing | Hiding the character’s clothing exposes parts of their body that were previously hidden. This is useful when editing the body. |
When using template animations for preview, retargetting is handled by the RTG_MH_IKRig and IK_MH_IKRig assets found in the //Engine/Plugins/MetaHuman Creator/Animation/Retargeting folder.
To see these assets in the Content Browser, you must enable Engine Content. To learn more about retargeting in Unreal Engine, see retargeting documentation.
