Today we’re releasing a new version of MetaHuman for Maya that includes Pose Editor. MetaHuman for Maya enables you to assemble and customize your MetaHuman characters in Autodesk Maya.
Using Pose Editor, rigging artists working in Maya are able to modify the body of a MetaHuman character created in Unreal Engine using MetaHuman Creator to apply technical fixes or create new kinds of human, humanoid, or fantasy characters.
With the release of MetaHuman Creator in Unreal Engine 5.6 we introduced a new parametric body system evaluated at runtime using Rig Logic. This made it easier than ever before to create a wide range of more performant human bodies for your MetaHuman character.
Alternatively, for characters that require more extreme customization, the RBF and SwingTwist solvers provided by Pose Editor can be used with custom skeletons and mesh topology to create custom skeletal meshes. While not compatible with MetaHuman Creator, these changes are still saved in the DNA format to be used with RigLogic in Unreal Engine so your rig still benefits from the significant performance improvements introduced by RigLogic in 5.6.
Combined with the already released Expression Editor, MetaHuman for Maya can now be used to create characters that were previously not possible with MetaHuman Creator alone.
We have also made a number of improvements to the existing tools in MetaHuman for Maya;
We’ve added the option to create separate head and body skeletons in Character Assembler,
Character Assembler will no longer create empty head groups in the Outliner when importing only the body,
Fixed locking of normals when using Character Assembler to import only the head,
We’ve improved the ML model used for ML joints matching in Expression Editor to deliver better results,
Correctly align the contents of the optional FBX files exported by Expression Editor with the related assets in Unreal Engine, including the shader name.
Is there any documentation to what are the limits (or how to find the limits) of metahuman creator when rigging? If you change the distance of the limbs seems like that breaks the rig sometimes but sometimes it doesnt
@MR3D_Dev there is no documentation that would help in this case unfortunately. The further from a human you are pushing those limits, the more likely you will get undesirable results. That said, we have seen some creators pushing those boundaries with good results, creating a gorilla for example.
@Den_Saboteur I don’t have a firm date I can share on that right now.
Hi James, many people are having issues with Maya 22 and 23. The plugin either crashes Maya on load or when any of the submenus are clicked on. Windows points at C:\WINDOWS\System32\ucrtbase.dll as possible pittfall.
We have found a crash that could occur on unloading some dependant plugins, this may be the issue you are seeing @grossimatte. There is a new version available to download which has a fix.
Thanks for the update James, documentation says to just rerun the installer, however, how do we update the installer? Will it automatically connect to internet and fetch the latest update?
Is it still necessary to uninstall the old plugin (bridge’s one) for this one to run?
You will see an update in your Epic Games Launcher, once updated you will need to rerun the installer as you did on first install of MetaHuman for Maya.
Yes, the old Bridge Plugin still needs to be removed. The update we released yesterday no longer crashes at this step of unloading and will guide you with what manual action needs to be taken.
When launching METAHUMAN FOR MAYA from within Maya, it says there is an update. It leads to the FAB web page, and when you click add to my library (or update), it opens the local launcher.
From there, there’s no way to update the plugin. The “update available” icon appeared, but once you click on it, it just disappears and the installer is the same from a few days ago.
I tried this both on my computer and a computer with a fresh installation of the plugin. Same issue.
You should see latest version, 1.1.14, in the plugin folder within UE. You will need to launch the latest installer from there (~/Epic Games\UE_5.6\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\MetaHumanForMaya_5.6\Content):
Unfortunately there could be something wrong with the launcher, as it won’t let me uninstall the old plugin. There’s no “remove local content” option. This only happens with the metahuman for maya plugin.
Right, it turns out it was a combination of things. MANY, things.
For anyone having troubles installing this update:
As James said, uninstall the plugin from the submenu “Installed Plugins” under the ENGINE VERSION TILE (top of the launcher)
Remove Metahuman for Maya plugin through Windows “ADD OR REMOVE PROGRAMS”
Go on the hunt for any residual files that are being left behind, especially in maya\modules and maya\modules\plugin
Delete Maya prefs folder (the plugin wouldn’t work unless i did this, but i also had to reinstall every single plugin and shelf)
Now reinstall the plugin:
Go to FAB webpage and add METAHUMAN FOR MAYA to your library
Open the launcher, go to library, search the plugin and install it to your engine version
Go to the installation folder (as per documentation, EpicGames\UE_5.6\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\MetaHumanForMaya_5.6) and launch the installer
Make sure you have set the correct plugin installation folder path (C:\Program Files\Epic Games\MetaHumanForMaya) to WINDOWS ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES / USER or SYSTEM
Launch Maya and enable the plugin through Windows>Settings/Preferences>PluginsManager
Juggling with multiple different installs because of compatability reasons is such a pita^^
