Hi, I’m Rafi, a beginner building AlphaTiger in Blender and UE 5.8 for Live Link Face. The goal is one continuous asymmetric half-human/half-tiger head: a projecting feline muzzle, whisker-pad mass, and tiger orbit on one side, while the other side remains human. For the first usable beta, reliable blinking and talking matter more than polish.
Our topology-compatible base passed From Template and full-rig generation, but remained visually too human. That proves import/rig generation, not successful deformation of the intended creature anatomy. I’m looking for workflow guidance, not free modeling or unpaid implementation.
Main question: What is the supported UE 5.8 path from a substantially non-human neutral head to usable MetaHuman facial deformation, and where does custom calibration become necessary?
The specific decisions we need help with are:
- Starting carrier: Should we sculpt/warp Epic’s UE 5.8 conform-mesh FBX itself, rather than reshape an FBX exported from an already generated MetaHuman? Which exact template/export should we use, and what topology, vertex-order, UV, and component requirements must remain unchanged?
- Before From Template: How should the head, eyeballs, eyelid margins, teeth, and mouth interior be prepared for a projecting muzzle and asymmetric orbit? Which placements should be finalized before conforming, and which should be handled later?
- After conforming: What does From Template/full-rig generation handle automatically for facial joints, eye pivots, skin weights, and expression shapes—and what must be corrected explicitly? What order prevents one correction from invalidating another?
- Smallest diagnostic test: For neutral, half-blink, full blink, and a simple jaw-open test, what evidence distinguishes a neutral-shape problem from conforming, globe/joint-placement, skin-weight, or expression-calibration problems? Which inspection tools or views would you use?
- Practical limits and tools: With a strongly projecting animal muzzle and one human half, when is native conforming insufficient? If a Maya/DNA or third-party calibration step is required beyond Blender, which specific step and current UE 5.8-compatible tool would you recommend before final Live Link Face validation?
A response to even one of these points would help. Firsthand non-human MetaHuman examples, exact tool/version details, and current documentation are especially welcome. We want to validate one small reversible experiment before making broader changes.