I’m having trouble with getting objects from the Metahumans Maya 2020 scene auto-created by Quixel Bridge to line up properly with my Metahuman in UE5:
Both of these objects are at world 0,0,0 in Unreal. As you can see, the box I exported that’s the exact height of the Metahuman in Maya appears be a fair bit taller in UE5.
This is using a new, clean Maya scene created for me by exporting the Metahuman from Bridge. No extra transforms have been applied, no changes to the Metahuman model or rig.
Is it possible the metahuman scene generated by Bridge is offsetting the models somehow? Or is there something on the Unreal side that is scaling or offsetting the Metahuman somehow? I’m trying to make custom grooms and clothing for Metahuman models, and they need to line up pretty precisely for the Maya workflow to be of any use.
You are correct: the two images are ortho vs. perspective, so I’m sorry for that being misleading, but I can assure you that the box mesh imports approximately with about a 2cm gap between the top of it and the very top of the skull, whereas in Maya the two are lined up perfectly.
I liked your suggestion of exporting the UE5 mesh into Maya and seeing if the two are any different in the scene. This was what I got:
The dark grey mesh is the metahuman skeletal mesh exported from the engine (asset actions > export). Looks like it transfers back to Maya with the expected offset.
It’s enough to work with to make custom clothing and grooms for the metahuman that line up with the model, but I’d really like to figure out what’s happening with the original scene and why this offset is happening so I don’t have to export things back and forth in the future just to get them to line up.
Oh I wasn’t trying to imply you were misleading with the ortho/persp viewports. I just know that it can cause distortion to a certain degree.
Looks like you’re correct though in the discrepancy between the two models. So it would appear that the in engine metahuman is sitting below the gridline?
My first thought would be that I remember some Epic Paragon assets having slight offsets in their character blueprints. But then, that shouldn’t be translated when exporting a skeletal mesh from the engine as that’s local to the BP.
I’d probably go with the engine version of the character though for the time being as that’s what most people would be using. There seems to be some weird issues with the bridge export process, not just with this but even with certain attributes of the metahuman not being exported properly (the teeth are default when exported, no matter how you modify them).
Unfortunately there hasn’t been much public acknowledgement of these issues but I hope the team is at least reading these so we can get some fixes down the line. =)
Yeah, over the last couple of days my workaround has essentially been to export skeletal mesh content directly from the engine, and work on top of that for anything that needs to actually line up precisely to the character. There’s a convenient head-to-toe preview mesh in the Common Metahuman folders that has the full skeleton that’s useful for skin-wrapping clothes, and the second export from the engine in my last post was useful for making sure hair groom content is perfectly aligned.
I scrubbed through the engine content, the skeletal mesh assets, metahuman BPs, etc. trying to look for any offsets, but couldn’t see anything that should be affecting the models in that way. Maybe something in the rigging/default pose shifts slightly? A bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Really hope the MH team can look into getting the maya source file generated by bridge to be useful as a modelling source file. It would be a fantastic workflow enhancer to be able to work on top of a metahuman and have everything all matched up perfectly for export in the engine. I understand its primary function at the moment is creating animations with the control rig shapes, but I’d love it if everything in the scene (bone heirarchy, transforms, etc) matched up so you could do stuff like create custom blendshapes for the metas.
Thank you for this info! I encountered the same issues with exporting animation from Maya to UE4/5 the animation makes the Metahuman even taller with a noticeable longer neck. right now I’m just remapping animation from a skeleton exported from Maya into the metahumans skeleton that is generated by bridge to fix the issue. I hope they fix it soon.
Also if you notice in Maya, the body pivot is at 0,0,0 but the head is at 0,0,2 yet they connect perfectly at the neck. If The slipper is 2cm thick, why would the body not also be at 0,0,2. I also have issues with UE5 not translating this offset as well as UE4 has been. Changing to UE5 at this early point might be problematic, I am seeing strange issues that I am trying to fix too.
Also the DNA asset no longer predicts the skeletal asset and I have to find it… so is that also working or broken for anyone? Especially now that I need to use the built-in Bridge via UE5, I cannot find the DNA asset via that folder, it is in the other one exported via the standalone bridge. This part for me is new and confusing and I guess we need time for the information to develop and any bugs to be ironed out.
Trying to catch up here. A floating head is just that, a floating head, not a MetaHuman. All bodies have a 2cm shoe sole height, when the head is snapped on to the body, it’s raised 2cm. That transform is reflected in the Maya source files. The Maya source files have always been focused towards animation, not reimport. Are you trying to resculpt a metahuman head in Maya and reimport the mesh? How can I help?
The MetaHuman head has never been ‘imported’, it’s generated from C++ code on the back end. Are you trying to use the maya files to resculpt the face and reimport it?
Hi!
That’s what a lot of people try to do - use Maya files to modify MH look.
I have brought attention to Quixel team, but there still are not fixes.
Issue is MH source files and MH that is getting exported from UE5 Bride feet are at ground level so any shoes will be under ground.
Metahuman that is created using maya plugin (standalone Bridge to Maya) Metahuman is above ground, so shoes are at ground level, but if you remove shoes, MH is flying 2cm above floor.
We all know that Maya files are there for animation purposes, but there is so much more community can to with files if MH that is created trough Maya plugin would match rest of MH.
Bridge To Maya MetaHuman_Name_full_rig.mb file comes with a 2cm offset after the plugin combines head and body together. (t also adds correct material names etc.)
Standalone Bridge m_tal_nrw_body_rig.ma don’t have a 2cm offset and match UE5 Metahuman that is downloaded from Bridge.
Standalone Bridge DNA face file also don’t have 2cm offset.
Downloading MH from UE5 bridge don’t have a 2cm offset.
