Prototype, Test
What are Metahumans?
How it works
Use cases
Setbacks
Alternatives
1. What are Metahumans?
Metahumans are an innovative tool made specifically for creating humanoid 3D models. At its core, the tool is a library of characters that are game ready and can be immediately put to use. For a character to be game ready there are a few capabilities it must have, and these qualities are what makes metahumans powerful compared to normal 3D character models.
The main difference is that metahumans provides a completely new workflow from before. The traditional way to create a character is to start from a basic shape and sculpt it much like sculpting in real life. Then once the sculpt is done comes the time-consuming work of making that sculpture useful for an engine. A different approach is starting from a default character that is used as a preset. This character already has all the functionalities added to it and from there the character is adjusted using sliders to alter its appearance to the users' needs.
Metahumans is only the most well-known tool but there are others that have different advantages for this research I will be focusing on the specific tool.
2. How it works
I have experience with different character creation tools, so I had basic idea of what to expect from the interface. The first interesting thing was that metahumans editor is not an add-on to Unreal engine or a separate software. To edit a metahuman you open the app online and it is being streamed to you real time as you edit. Once you are the final product is saved and it can be downloaded and imported into Ureal engine.
The editing workflow itself is unique and it was interesting to learn. The UI is simple and intuitive. It seems like there aren't many options for editing, but it is designed so the user can easily create a unique human face with correct anatomy even if they don't understand face structure that well. You start with choosing a face from the presets that are close to your needs and combining them. You can add more faces later that have feature that you might want and achieve your specific use case.
Many AAA games scan the face of the actor they have hired and use it as the face for the in-game character. This technology is also included in the Metahumans tool. Instead of using the presets to combine and build he face you need you can scan a real-life person use that instead.
3. Use cases
Game characters
Since the tool is meant to be used with Unreal engine it is expected for gaming to be the main use case. In games there are many different uses for characters depending on the scope of the project and the company.
For a big game with a realistic style the technology can save a lot of time. The metahuman once imported in the scene comes with a working skinned rig, facial blendshapes for lipsync and emotions, hair and eye shaders, automatic LODs and highly detailed skin textures. This combined with the lighting in Unreal engine makes creating humanoid characters extremely easy. The tool would be especially useful for populating a scene with background characters or creating variations of characters for multiplayer. Making a variety of similar characters is one of the best uses for the tool.
Animation
The interesting thing about animation with metahumans is that the tool includes face capturing which works across devices. That means that not only do the characters have ready blendshapes the user can also record animations in real time directly onto the model. This could also be used in gaming, but it is especially useful for video recording.
4. Setbacks
Metahumans are incredibly good at creating a variety of human characters in a short time however if the use case deviates from the presets it is not a practical tool to use. For example, if the goal is to create game with a different artstyle than the realistic it is likely to encounter a lot of problems with the blendshapes. Exaggerating the facial structure beyond the core character set is not supported.
The same problem comes with the body. If the character is a human, it will be perfectly rigged but more complex rigs like a humanoid with a tail or 4 arms will not be so easily rigged. A more common example for complex rigs is adding bones for clothe parts or weapons that are hanging from the outfit of the character.
The biggest setback is that Metahumans are only meant to be used inside Unreal engine. This brings a lot of complications because the file format is not common, and it is impossible to export the character in another program for editing. This means that all the editing must be done in the Metahumans editor which is extremely limited.
Another problem is adding accessories to the character. If you want to add custom clothes to the character and still be able to have the hight quality skinning and rig you must upload the item to the Unreal store and then add them from there. This seems like a needlessly tedious process.
For PC builds the final import of the characters looks good but it is heavy on performance and other platforms like mobile, VR or even big scale online shooters.
5. Alternatives
The program that I have experience so far is Character creator. It is not connected to any other engine which immediately makes it useful in many more cases. The characters have an equally good quality to metahumans and come with all the useful properties like hair shaders, blendshapes, rig and LODs. The main difference is that the tool is designed for professional 3D artists and allows for a lot more freedom in creating characters. There is a system that allows you to edit the final rig before exporting, a high-quality detailed texture editor, the possibility to add your own clothe and accessory assets directly on the model.
In conclusion the tool is definitely useful for many cases in gaming it is easy to use and saves a lot of time, but it does not cover more specific use case and it can only work inside Unreal Engine. As a professional Character artist, I would use Character creator instead for the freedom in editing and the compatibility across all engines but Metahumans learning Metahumans is a useful skill.
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