Tutorial 6: Adding MetaHuman

Adding MetaHumans to Bitpart NPCs is currently available in Private Beta. If you're interested in the feature, contact us at [e-mail]..

In the previous tutorials you've built a small scene with a variety of archetypes and tasks playing out. Up until now each of the characters in the level looks the same (and decidedly not-human). We're going to walk through the process of adding MetaHumans to your project and connecting them to our existing Bitapart NPC blueprints. If you do not use MetaHumans then you can skip this tutorial!

We'll walk through the process of installing the MetaHuman plugin to the most version of Unreal, adding it to your project, and then, finally, adding it to your NPC blueprints.

Resources you might need for this tutorial:

1. Debugging Common Issues

If you have questions that are not answered by our documentation, join our Discord server and post in #support.

Installing MetaHuman to the Editor

If you already have MetaHuman installed, you can skip this section.

1. Open the Epic Games Launcher and navigate to Unreal Engine → Library.

2. Under your Engine Version, click the down arrow to the right of Launch and select Options.

1. Toggle on MetaHuman Creator Core Data and click Apply. Wait for installation to finish and reopen the editor.

2. Navigate to Edit → Plugins. Search for Metahuman and check on the follow plugins: MetaHuman Animator, MetaHuman Core Tech, MetaHuman Creator, MetaHuman SDK. Restart the editor when prompted.

Adding a MetaHuman

1. Open your Unreal Project. Under Bitpart Archetypes → Tutorial, create a new folder named MetaHumans and open the folder.

2. Right click in the content browser and select MetaHuman → MetaHuman Character. If you don't see Metahuman as an option when you right click you may need to go back to step one of this tutorial sequence and make sure that you are using Unreal Engine 5.6 or later, that Metahuman is installed to your editor and that you have the correct plugins enabled.

3. Name the asset MH_Male1

4. Double click on the new asset and open the preset library from the menu on the left-hand side of the window. Find Cameron and double click on his MetaHuman.

   1. Click Create Full Rig

You may have to log in to your Epic account before the rigging will proceed.

1. Once that process is complete navigate to Assembly on the left-hand menu. Under Assembly Selection set Assebly to UE_Optimize and Quality to Medium or Low.

   1. Under the Targets section adjust the Root Directory to the MetaHuman folder you created with the Tutorial folder structure.

1. Download Texture Sources

2. Once the texture sources have finished downloading, click out of Assembly and then back into it (this is a quirk with MetaHuman). Then click Assemble

3. Save once more when it finishes and exit out of the window.

4. If you go to the MetaHuman folder you created, you should see a new folder for your new MetaHuman.

5. Follow steps 2-8 again, but this time name the asset MH_Male2.

   1. We'll be using Orlando for the second MetaHuman.

Setting Up a Bitpart NPC with MetaHuman

To use MetaHuman body parts with Bitpart animations we need to update the skeletons to better match each other. Bitpart uses the mannequins weapon joints for attaching props to the NPC hands. We also use the mannequin's IK joints to traverse uneven ground. We'll need to add both of these to the MetaHuman body skeleton.

1. In the Content Browser search for SKM_Manny and open the asset. Make sure you are in Edit Skeleton Mode.

1. In the Skeleton Tree panel scroll until you find ik_foot_root . Copy all the IK joints, including interaction and center_of_mass .

1. Under Content → BitpartArchetypes → Tutorial → MetaHumans → MH_Male1 → Body and open the body mesh you find there. Make sure it's set to Edit Skeleton Mode

   1. Select the root joint and paste. The IK joint are now children of the root.

1. Switch back to the Manny skeleton and search for the weapon joints

   1. Select weapon_l and copy it. Switch to the MetaHuman, click on the left hand, and paste. hand_l should now be the parent of weapon_l.

   2. Select weapon_r and copy it. Switch to the MetaHuman, click on the right hand, and paste. hand_r should now be the parent of weapon_r

2. Hit Apply to Asset at the bottom of the window. Save the Metahuman and close out of both skeletons.

3. Go to BitpartArchetypes → Archetypes → Bitpart-BarPatron → Archetype. There you should see the two Bar Patron NPC blueprints from our earlier tutorials.

   1. Open BP_NPC_Patron

4. Be sure the Full Editor is open. Under the Details panel find Mesh → Skeletal Mesh Asset. Choose the new skeletal mesh we just saved (likely named SKM_MH_Male1_BodyMesh).

1. Go to Tutorial → MetaHuman → MH_Male1, and open the MetaHuman blueprint. Under the component section in the blueprint select and then copy the face, it's children, LODSync, and MetaHuman (exclude body and root).

1. Switch back to BP_NPC_Patron , select the top node (shown above) and paste.

1. Make sure the parenting matches the MetaHuman's blueprint. In this case we'll move the face (and it's children) and the skeletal mesh under the mesh component. Keeping the face and the skeletal mesh selected, zero out their transforms under the Details panel.

1. The last part of this process is ensuring the rest of the body follows the lead of the mesh. Open Construction Script and delete Parent Construction Script.

1. Right click and add Set Leader Pose Component (Skeletal Mesh).

1. Connect the Execution of the Construction Script to the Set Leader component.

1. Drag Mesh into the blueprint and attach it to the New Leader Bone Component.

2. Switch back to the Viewport. Compile, save, and exit out of the asset.

3. Hit play in the editor. You should see the first Bar Patron skinned.

4. We're not done yet! Follow steps 1-13 using MH_Male2 and BP_NPC_Patron2 .

5. Once you finish, you should now see your two Bar Patrons follow their planned tasks, except now they look human!

Adding Lip Syncing to Your MetaHuman

Now that you have your MetaHumans attached to a Bitpart Archetypes NPC, we're going to implement facial animation.

1. Open BP_NPC_Patron, and select BP_BitpartCharacterComponent . Under Details → Bitpart → Character change the Face Anim Class to Face_AnimBP.

   1. For the Face Mesh Component Name use Face . This is case sensitive, so be sure you're capitalizing the f.

2. Compile, save, and exit out of the asset.

3. Earlier in the Voices tutorial, we created audio files for each of the bar patrons. Open Tutorial folder and click into the BarPatron1 audio folder. Select all audio files.

1. Right click on one of the audio assets and select the following: MetaHuman Performance → Process and Export to Anim Sequences.

1. For ease let's create the lip sync animation in the same folder as the audio files, i.e. choose BarPatron1. Add _MHA to the Suffix field. Click Export.

1. In the Process Audio to Animation window that appears, turn off Enable Head Movement under the Export Settings section and make sure Target Skeleton or Skeletal Mesh is set to Face_Archetype_Skeleton. Then hit Create.

   1. If Target Skeleton or Skeletal Mesh is not filled out, you may see several Face_Archetype_Skeleton options. If you hover over each, choose the one that has Game/MetaHumans/Common/Face/SKM_Face.SKM_Face in Preview Skeletal Mesh.

This is where you'll apply the lip sync animations.

1. Once all the lip sync animations are added to the folder open up DA_BarPatron1 . This is where we'll associate the lip sync files to the dialogue. Currently, the process is manual, and you'll have to assign the lip sync animations by hand. You can search for the correct lip sync animation using the last 3-4 letters/numbers of the audio asset. This will soon be an automated part of the utterance export step.

2. This is where using the same name with a suffix comes in handy. It will make the lip sync assignment a lot easier.

3. Once you've finished assigning, save and close out of the utterance data asset. If you hit play you should see the bar patron speak his lines with more human animation.

If you happen to get a compiler error for Face_AnimBP...

When you hit play, if you happen to get a pop-up telling you there's a compiler error for Face_AnimBP go to Content → BitpartArchetypes → Tutorial → CompletedTutorialReferenceMap → Metahumans → Bitpart_Face and open each of the assets found there: Face_AnimBP and Face_Talking_Clip .

When you double click on each of the assets, it should ask you to assign a skeleton. There will be three that appear. Choose the second. This applies for both assets. Once completed the compiler error should be resolved.

*We're working on resolving this with a longerterm solution!

1. Follow steps 1 through 7 to set up lip syncing for BP_NPC_Patron2 .