Character Control Rig generates rigs for MetaHumans in Blender
Poly Hammer has released Character Control Rig, a new add-on for generating control rigs for Unreal Engine MetaHuman characters inside Blender.
The tool auto-generates a native Rigify rig matching the proportions of an imported MetaHuman character, and retargets MetaHuman animations imported from Unreal Engine to it.
Users can export both facial and full-body animations directly back to Unreal Engine.
Character Control Rig is built on top of Poly Hammer’s existing Character DNA add-on, for importing and editing MetaHuman DNA files inside Blender, which is required to use it.
Character DNA: edit Unreal Engine MetaHumans inside Blender
Released last year, and originally called Meta-Human DNA add-on, Character DNA enables users to import MetaHuman .dna files into Blender, and edit characters’ rigs.
In the original release, it was also only possible to edit a MetaHuman character’s facial rig, but subsequent updates have added initial support for editing body rigs as well.
Character Control Rig: generate Rigify rigs for MetaHumans inside Blender
To that, Character Control Rig adds the option to generate a native Blender control rig for an imported MetaHuman character – albeit as a separate paid add-on.
It uses Blender’s Rigify framework to automatically generate a meta-rig matching the proportions of an imported MetaHuman character.
Users can then adjust bone positions manually before creating the final rig.
MetaHuman animations imported from Unreal Engine are automatically retargeted onto the new FK rig, and users can export changes they make directly back to Blender.
It is also possible to import and export facial animations created using the MetaHuman face board.
Other key features include a built-in browser for managing multi-character scenes.
Potential future features
The video at the top of the story shows how the new add-on can be used to import animations from the Mixamo online library retargeted to MetaHumans inside Unreal Engine.
According to Poly Hammer’s product webpage, the option to automatically retarget animations from online marketplaces directly inside the Character Control Rig add-on is “coming soon”.
The FAQs also hint that the add-on may support other Blender rig frameworks in future – an obvious one would be Auto Rig Pro – although that isn’t definite.
Character DNA 0.7 also available
In related news, Poly Hammer has also released Character DNA 0.7.
The main change is to rewrite the Hammer Build Tool – due to licensing restrictions, you have to compile the add-on from source – to support building for multiple versions of Python.
The add-on is also now compatible with Blender 5.1, the current stable release.
Price and system requirements
Character Control Rig is compatible with Blender 4.5+. An individual perpetual license costs $29.99; team licenses start at $99.99.
To use it, you also need Poly Hammer’s Character DNA add-on. Version 0.7 is compatible with MetaHuman DNA files created in Unreal Engine 5.6 and 5.7, and Blender 4.5 and 5.1.
An individual Character DNA perpetual license costs $79; team licenses start at $259.
Read more about the Character Control Rig add-on for Blender in the online documentation
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