pepitomendieto
Newbie
- Sep 11, 2021
- 19
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I used to think Metahumans weren’t that great either, but if you look at their current facial animation system—especially the latest versions—it’s honestly the best we’ve seen so far. The facial folds and shapes are incredibly well done, dramatically surpassing both Daz3D and iClone.Have you tried using them?
They are great if you need mass population of generic NPCs in a normal video game. Or if you are a high level production studio with full capture of actors. Current level customization to them is pretty low if you just pull one into the engine (That's why you don't see a hundred "I made x famous person in Unreal!" examples) and if you are thinking about them in terms of something like VaM, they aren't built to be soft, bouncy, human flesh or meant to be customized in the way DAZ or VaM are. That's the entire problem people have with trying to replace it. There is no Daz-level customization with pretty nice physics and high level interactions. Simply looking good staticly isn't the hard part.
From what I understood from Meshed, the character import system could support a variety of FBX character formats with mesh and polygon topologies different from Daz3D Genesis. That means Metahumans could be brought into VAM. But honestly, the most sensible move would be to fully integrate Metahumans into VAM and make them the main platform, taking full advantage of their strengths.
Facial animation is by far the most important and difficult part of character realism and animation—and this is where Metahuman massively and substantially outperforms Daz3D. Body morphs and shape creation could still be done easily and quickly by the community, following workflows like this one:
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—but directly inside VAM. The only thing that would need to be recalculated are the physics (jiggles, collisions, skin, etc.), and according to Meshed, that’s already been incorporated into the tool for bringing different characters into VAM.At this point, there’s really no comparison. Daz3D is outdated, overrated, and lagging behind—especially in terms of body and facial morph realism. Their characters all look the same in the Daz Store, with little to no visible progress in realism. It’s like they’re stuck in time. They haven’t evolved.
But with the announcement of UE5.6 (see:
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), Metahuman can now be used freely in any game engine, including Unity—and therefore in VAM as well. There would be no legal issues using Metahuman in VAM, whereas Daz3D does come with licensing problems when used outside its own environment, like in UE5.With the current Metahuman 5.6 (which is also free), the characters from Daz3D and iClone just don’t stand a chance anymore.
Plus, creating and customizing characters with Metahuman is becoming easier and easier, with morph workflows being supported from tools like ZBrush and Blender—the only thing missing is genitalia.
For all these reasons (and more), if VAM doesn’t speed things up and publish their work soon, it’s very likely that Unreal Engine will see a highly competitive alternative come out soon—one where Metahuman facial animation simply has no rival.