I reverse-engineered the full pipeline, and built a working prototype:
ARKitRemap on GitHub
Epic already ships the forward path: ARKit → MetaHuman.
What’s missing: MetaHuman Animator → ARKit. This tool allows us to take advantage of MHA (mono-video/no iphone, offline solve, higher quality animations) for creatures and characters that are much easier to rig for ArKit than converting to Metahumans.
Why It Matters
MetaHuman Animator produces excellent facial solves from monocular video — but today that quality is locked to the MetaHuman facial rig format.
Many characters and creatures are faster and easier to rig with FaceIt or other ARKit morph target setups. Converting to a Metahuman is very difficult and requires learning specialized tools, and for some creatures it may be impossible.
What I Built
Working prototype that converts MHA AnimSequences into standard ARKit 52 blendshape curves, runnable inside Unreal Engine.
The repo includes:
- Working Python tool — select an AnimSequence, run it, get ARKit output in under 1 second
- Full reverse-engineering of
PA_MetaHuman_ARKit_Mapping— Epic’s own PoseAsset used as the basis for the weight extraction - Documented forward pipeline (
ABP_MH_LiveLink) — mapped and written up as an 800+ line technical reference - The math — weighted least-squares synthesis, coupled solves, MouthClose/JawOpen unified model, calibrated against real iPhone ARKit ground truth
- Calibration parameters — tunable via JSON, not hardcoded
This is not a quick hack. It is a fully documented reverse engineering of Epic’s own pipeline.
The Ask
Please consider an official, supported MHA → ARKit remap workflow in Unreal Engine or MetaHuman Animator — whether as an editor tool, AnimSequence utility, or plugin.
The team already made the ArKit → MHA pipeline. Having the reverse could really help indies do more awesome facial animations for creatures and weird characters.
I hope my prototype proves the demand and technical feasibility.
Thank you! Have a good one 