Character Pipeline

From MetaHuman creation to mocap retargeting — the full character animation pipeline

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Topics
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Videos
30+
Tools
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MetaHuman Pipeline
Full pipeline: UE 5.6 setup & creation → facial mocap → Maya export → ZWrap custom characters → Blender pipeline → stylized characters → Substance Painter texturing. Key change in UE 5.6: "MetaHuman Creator Core Data" must be enabled in the Launcher first.
🧬 MetaHuman Creator 🔄 Sean Nolan's Facial Transfer 🧩 MetaHuman for Maya 🎭 ZWrap 🔄 Mesh Transfer Addon 🎨 Substance Painter
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Skeleton Rigging
Advanced Skeleton for Maya body rigging, Offset Parent Matrix for faster evaluation, auto-rigging tools comparison, weight painting best practices, and IK/FK systems. MetaHuman body does NOT come with a rig in Maya — Advanced Skeleton fills this gap.
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Cascadeur Mocap Cleanup
Physics-based auto-posing, Gaussian/Butterworth filtering, IK/FK refinement, and export pipeline. Pipeline order matters: Auto-pose → Smooth → IK/FK Fix → Manual Refine.
Raw Mocap → Auto-Posing → Smoothing → IK/FK Fixes → Manual Refinement → Export
⚠️ Over-smoothing kills organic motion — use multiple light passes instead of one heavy pass. Always A/B compare with original.
🎭 Cascadeur 🎬 MotionBuilder 🔲 Blender 🦎 Maya
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Mocap Retargeting
Body vs face export pipeline, Maya→Unreal retargeting, noise filtering & jitter removal, footfall & contact correction, scale & skeleton matching.
⚠️ THE Critical Distinction: Body = ROOT JOINT (standard FBX), Face = CONTROLLERS (Control Rig FBX) — never mix these up!
🎬 MotionBuilder 🎭 Cascadeur 🎮 Unreal IK Retargeter 🎥 Rokoko Studio 📡 Live Link Hub
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Tools & References
All external tools organized by category — from MetaHuman pipeline to texturing & sculpting.

🧬 MetaHuman Pipeline

MetaHuman Creator Facial Transfer MetaHuman for Maya

🔄 Retopology

🦴 Rigging

🎥 Mocap & Animation

Cascadeur Rokoko MotionBuilder Live Link Hub

🎨 Texturing & Sculpting

Substance Painter ZBrush Blender Houdini Apprentice

📄 Reference Sites

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