Advice for tools for beginner doing 3d face animation

Hi all,

I am new to unreal engine, and any sort of 3d animation.
I am a good developer, in particular, I am comfortable with C++. I have no animation or design skills.

My goal is to create an app with an animated human talking (we’ll see only the upper body). This digital human needs to be able to talk in real time (the text will not be available in advance, so I can do a simple video). I want the face to be reasonably realistic, with facial expressions.

I read a few documents on the internet, but I feel there are a lot of tools and services available, and I am not sure what I should learn to achieve my goal.

I have a few specific questions:

  • for this specific goal of a single 2d face animation, does blueprint have a good enough performance, compared to c++?
  • if yes, is it worth using blueprint even if I have c++ skills?
  • should I use the website metahuman?
  • are there some decent face model (mesh, skeleton, animation, etc) available on the internet that I can use, instead of recording my own face?

I guess the real underlying question is : can anyone knowledgeable on these subjects tell me what is the right tech stack in my use case, and what I should start looking into?

Thanks a lot!