Build an Avatar

MetaHuman avatars

Turn an assembled MetaHuman into a Workshop avatar with one button. The face talks, blinks and follows face tracking, and the outfit, the hair and a cape become pieces a player can change.

New in Creator Kit 0.4.30. You can make, build and upload a MetaHuman avatar today. In the current game the face of such an avatar does not move yet and a sleeve can show spikes at the wrist. Both are right from the next VR Realms update, so publish yours once that update is out.

What you need

Creator Kit 0.4.30 or newer.
Epic’s MetaHuman tool. It comes with Unreal Engine 5.8. The data it makes skin and faces from is an option of the engine install: in the Epic Games Launcher, open the options of Unreal Engine 5.8 and add the MetaHuman data.
A graphics card that runs DirectX 12.
An Epic Games account. The rig step of Epic’s tool uses Epic’s own service.

Step by step

Open Tools → VR Realms Workshop → Avatars and open Optional: MetaHuman → Avatar.
Press Start MetaHuman mode. The kit restarts for one session in Shader Model 6 with Epic’s MetaHuman tool switched on. The first start compiles shaders for a few minutes.
Make your MetaHuman in Epic’s tool and assemble it as UE Optimized. The first time, the rig step opens an Epic sign in page in your browser and waits for it. Until you finish there the tool looks stuck.
Back on the avatar page, pick the Blueprint of your MetaHuman (BP_<Name>) in MetaHuman BP and press Make modular avatar. It takes a few minutes.
A green line says what was made, and the Parts box opens with the pieces. Look at the avatar in its 3D view.
Press Build Avatar Pak, then Upload, as for any avatar. Build works in both modes, so you can press Back to normal first.

Your MetaHuman is not changed. The avatar is a copy in Content/VRRealms/Community/Avatars/<Name>.

What you get

Part of the MetaHuman	In the avatar
Body	The avatar’s own mesh. Everything else follows it.
Face	A piece with 51 named shapes, baked from the face rig. The game moves them for talking, blinking, gaze and face tracking.
Outfit	A piece in the Parts box.
Hair, brows, beard	Hair cards on the face piece. A stylized MetaHuman that has a hair mesh gets that mesh as a piece.
A cape or another cloth asset	A piece with cloth the game simulates.
Materials	Every material is drawn into plain textures the game can show.

The pieces are ordinary parts: you can add your own, save outfits and choose what a new player starts with.

Hair

The game cannot draw hair strands, so the avatar wears the card version of the hair: flat pieces with a picture of strands. That is why the hair looks a little simpler than in Epic’s pictures. UE Optimized is the assembly that gives a MetaHuman its hair cards. A MetaHuman with strands only gets no hair, and the log says so.

Three settings under Advanced change the hair. They apply the next time you press Make modular avatar.

Setting	What it does
Hair detail	How many triangles one hairstyle may use up close. It starts at 16000. About 27000 takes the finest hair a stock MetaHuman has. More is finer and costs more to draw.
Hair fullness	How strong a strand must be in the hair texture to be drawn in full. Lower is fuller and harder, higher is thinner and softer. It starts at 0.45.
Soft edges	Smooths the edge of every strand. On unless you untick it.

Changing it later

Change the MetaHuman or a hair setting, then press Make modular avatar again. The kit asks Make it again? and replaces the avatar it made before. Everything in that avatar’s folder is deleted first, the looks, outfits and pieces you added there included, so think of those before you say yes.

Bake face shapes under Advanced does only the face step, for a face mesh you pick yourself.

If something looks wrong

What you see	What to do
The head in Epic’s tool is grey	The kit normally draws like the game, in Shader Model 5, and Epic’s tool needs Shader Model 6. Press Start MetaHuman mode.
The face or the skin of the avatar came out grey	It was made outside MetaHuman mode. Start MetaHuman mode and press Make modular avatar again.
Epic’s tool seems stuck at its rig step	It is waiting for the Epic sign in page in your browser.
Start MetaHuman mode says the MetaHuman data is not installed	Add it in the Epic Games Launcher, in the options of Unreal Engine 5.8.
The avatar has no hair	Assemble the MetaHuman as UE Optimized and make the avatar again.
The face does not move in game, or a sleeve shows spikes at the wrist	Both are right from the next VR Realms update.

MetaHumans are heavy. Build holds every texture of an avatar to 2048 px, and an avatar with parts may be up to 800 MB.

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