How to make a movie with Metahumans in Unreal Engine 5.1

DISCLAIMER: In this course you will learn how to make a short animation using Unreal Engine 5.1 This is not a full explainer video, I WILL NOT go over every settings in Unreal Engine 5.1. Additionally, some of the plugins I used are still in beta/experimental so things might changed. Please see below for what you can expect to learn and what this course comes with.

*WINDOWS 10 ONLY* *NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR GPU GETS FRIED FOLLOWING THIS TUTORIAL BE CAREFUL*

Recommended Hardware Specs: Windows 10 64 Bit, 12-core CPU at 3.4 GHz, with an NVIDIA RTX 2080 or AMD Radeon 5700 XT graphics card or higher, and 64 GB of system RAM,atleast 500GB of hard drive space. If you own an Apple computer I am sorry but I am not familiar with Mac computers so I do not know if it works with Unreal. Additionally, I will be using Davinci Resolve to view the final movie but any NLE will work. Lastly to follow along with the facial motion capture portion of the course will require you to have an Iphone device that has true depth technology which I believe Iphone X and up (although not required since I will provide the facial animation data in the project files). You will also need winrar software to unpack course materials.

What to expect to learn:

-Capture and retarget motion capture data using Professional Motion capture Xsens Hardware, software and Iclone 8 software to Unreal Engine Metahumans (You will not need a mocap suit nor Iclone 8 to follow along for I will provide the mocap data in the project files)

-Introduction to Cinematic Sequencer

-Applying body motion capture data to Metahuman characters (METAHUMANS ARE FREE FOR UNREAL ENGINE)

-Combining facial and body motion capture to Metahuman characters (using new Unreal Engine 5.1 livelink plugin) (You will not need an iphone to follow along for I will provide the facial mocap data in the project files)

-Using custom clothes for Metahumans (Clothes provided by VR4D)

-Creating masks for metahumans using Adobe After Effects (You will not need After effects since I will provide you with the mask in the project files)

-Editing motion capture data non-destructively using the metahuman control rig

-Using iphone as virtual camera (this is optional not required)

-Creating and working with lights

-Creating & working with cameras

-Using Lumen Illumination and Reflection system (with new update for 5.1)

-Introduction to post process volume

-Rendering using Movie Render queue using included preset (with new update for 5.1)

-Editing footage in Davinci Resolve (You can use other NLE to edit final footage)

Files Included: The instructional video (MP4) (10GB). Supporting files (10GB) will be in a .winrar file so you will need to download winrar and know how to extract (not copy and paste) the files.

– Apartment Environment (Commissioned Eduard Tucaković)

– 2 Custom Metahuman outfits (Provided by VR4D)

– Body and Facial Animation (FBX and .CSV) Raw and Edited versions

– Dialogue Files

– Body masked created in the course

-Entire finished Project File

Timestamp

00:00 – 11:33 Motion Capture

11:34-14:08 Processing Xsens Motion capture data

14:09-25:19 Adding/Editing animations in Reallusion Iclone8

25:20-29:42 FIRING UP UNREAL ENGINE 5/Setting up project

29:43-38:40 METAHUMANS

38:41-53:22 Retargeting animation to Metahuman (NEW METHOD)

53:23-56:54 Using Custom Metahuman Clothes

56:55-1:03 Creating body mask for Metahumans

1:04-1:18 Importing livelink face mocap (UE5.1 New Plugin)

1:19-1:33 Working with Metahuman Control Rig for animation clean up

1:34-1:42 Using iphone as virtual camera (Updated UE5.1)

1:43-2:01 Working with Cameras/ New Anamorphic Camera

2:02-2:24 Lumen/Lighting the Scene

2:25-2:31 Final tweaks

2:32-2:35 Movie Render Queue (Preset included)

2:37-2:46 Cutting footage in Davinci Resolve

Actress (PIA) Ashley Valigura

Actress (Rosemary) Melissa Brown

BTS for mocap portion: Rob Ponte

Studio used: Abbeyrey Studio Las Vegas

*YOU WILL NOT NEED A MOCAP SUIT TO FOLLOW ALONG SINCE I WILL BE GIVING YOU THE MOCAP FILES IF YOU DONT HAVE A SUIT*

Like always thank you for your support and please send me your final movie that you made following this course!! Make sure to leave me a review on here if you learned something!

“PROVIDED ASSETS CAN BE USED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY”

Rating Distribution

• 1 stars: 1 votes
• 2 stars: 1 votes
• 3 stars: 2 votes
• 4 stars: 2 votes
• 5 stars: 17 votes

Frequently Asked Questions

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