Facial Animation & More In Unreal Engine! | 3D Animation

IMPORTANT:  Everything you’ll learn in this course can be applied to the new release of Unreal Engine 5. The new features of UE5 such as LUMEN and NANITE are not covered in this course yet, however.  You can even switch the layout of UE5 back to classic UE4 if you’d like to make it easier to follow along.  (I prefer the slick new layout of UE5 myself)

LEARN FACIAL ANIMATION & MORE WITH UNREAL ENGINE 4 & DAZ STUDIO!

Both of these outstanding animation programs are FREE and will allow you to create stunning and highly professional character animations. In this course we will go over the simple techniques that unlock the little known animation powers inside of Unreal Engine.  By using the high quality DAZ 3D characters, you will learn how to export any morph targets you’d like from DAZ Studio and then utilize them inside of Unreal Engine.  (Note: Even though there is a DAZ to Unreal Bridge their are some issues with it and its good to learn how to do this manually as discussed in this course)

REAL TIME ANIMATION RENDERING

By far one of the most powerful features of Unreal Engine is the ability to see your animations playing in real time as you work.  No more slow, sluggish systems that cramp your style and hinder your animation creativity.  Unreal Engine is a breeze to use, and best of all … it’s FUN! When your ready to export your animation to an image sequence for later compositing or to a video file, you will be able to render your animation out in near real time!  

IN THIS COURSE YOU WILL LEARN:

• How to prepare your DAZ 3D character for export to Unreal Engine 4 with all the morph targets and expressions you wish

• How to use the PUPPETEER tool in DAZ as a way to export morphs and animations

• How to properly import your DAZ3D character with it’s skeleton, rigging, morph targets, materials and textures

• Learn where the morph sliders are in Unreal Engine and how to use them

• Create a realistic blink animation for your character

• Create side to side and up & down eye movements for your character

• Animate mouth movements for speech as well as expressions

• Animate your characters head movements

• Create and animate believable expressions

• Learn about amazing new tools that work in conjunction with Unreal Engine 4 such as Allright Rig & Akeytsu

• Plus much, much more!

Included In The Course Are Five (5) Fully Rigged Characters

• Super Dude – this character is an original creation by Michael Ricks sculpted in ZBrush.  Inspired by the characters from the hit film ‘The Incredibles,’ Super Dude comes fully rigged with a ton of facial morphs.  You’ll have an absolute blast right away when you start sliding around the controls and see what hilarious expressions you can make with him.  He also comes with the phoneme mouth shapes for accurate lip sync punctuation. Super Dude is based on the DAZ3D Genesis 8 character. 

• Wendy – this cute Toon girl character is also an original creation by Michael Ricks and was sculpted in ZBrush, based on the DAZ3D Genesis 3 character.  She also comes with many facial morph and expression controls and will immediately come alive for you in Unreal Engine 4.  With her big expressive eyes, you will have her emoting in no time at all!

• Lil’ Frankenstein – this Toon character was also created by Michael Ricks in ZBrush and is based on the DAZ3D Genesis 3 character.  Frankie comes with a wide array facial morphs and can create many emotions.  You’ll have tons of fun with Lil’ Frankenstein all year around, not just on Halloween!

• Billy – also created and sculpted in ZBrush by Michael Ricks, this Toon boy character is based on the DAZ3D Genesis character and comes with a wide variety of facial morphs.  You’ll have a blast animating Billy!

• Epic Robot – this way cool robot character is created by Epic Games for the hit VR game Robot Recall.  He’s a stunning 3d character asset and really fun to animate.  He comes with an included animation and sound wave ‘roar’ so you’ll have him up and running right away.

NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO LEARN ANIMATION!  SO GO AHEAD AND CLICK THE ENROLL NOW BUTTON AND LET’S BEGIN!

                                                                                  I’LL SEE YOU ON THE INSIDE!

All these characters are included in the course and are for your use both personal and professional for cinematics and film/video use.  If you desire to use the characters in an actual game as a playable character you will need to purchase an interactive license from DAZ3D as these characters are based on the Genesis models.  At this time, game licenses are running approximately $30-$50 per character for a published game. Please go to the DAZ3D website for more information. 

Rating Distribution

• 1 stars: 2 votes
• 2 stars: 3 votes
• 3 stars: 13 votes
• 4 stars: 59 votes
• 5 stars: 165 votes

Frequently Asked Questions

How long do I have access to the course materials?

You can view and review the lecture materials indefinitely, like an on-demand channel.

Can I take my courses with me wherever I go?

Definitely! If you have an internet connection, courses on Udemy are available on any device at any time. If you don’t have an internet connection, some instructors also let their students download course lectures. That’s up to the instructor though, so make sure you get on their good side!