Poly Hammer has introduced Character Control Rig, a Blender add-on that automates the creation of control rigs for Unreal Engine MetaHuman characters. The tool generates a native Rigify rig adapted to the proportions of each imported model, allowing facial and body animations from Unreal Engine to be reoriented. Additionally, it facilitates export back to the game engine, streamlining the workflow between both programs. The add-on requires Character DNA to handle MetaHuman .dna files.
How the automatic rig for MetaHuman works 🛠️
Character Control Rig analyzes the bone structure of the imported MetaHuman and creates a control rig based on Rigify, Blender's native rigging system. This allows animators to work with familiar controls without having to manually configure each bone. The tool automatically reorients animations exported from Unreal Engine, maintaining consistency between the coordinate systems of both programs. It also handles the export of facial and body animations, using Character DNA as a basis to read and write .dna data, a format that stores the character's geometry and deformations.
Because yes, you need another Blender add-on 😅
Because the 3D world didn't have enough tools to link Blender with Unreal Engine, now Character Control Rig arrives to join the list. Because yes, because manually rigging each MetaHuman was too much fun and you wanted something to save you time so you could focus on what's important: arguing in forums whether Rigify is better than paid add-ons. The best part is that now you can blame the add-on if your facial animations look like a meme, not your lack of patience.