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Setting Up Custom MetaHuman Armor & Accessories
Learn how to integrate modular cosmetic products with your MetaHuman characters.
Preparing Your MetaHuman
Preparing Your MetaHuman
1. Modular Soldier uses the Tall/Feminine/Normal weight. For your character to work properly you will need to use this body type.
2. Make sure you use the exact same boots, pants and shirt when creating your MetaHuman for use with Modular Soldier. These options create a unique variation of the underlying body that keeps only the hands and ankles intact while removing unnecessary portions.
3. Export your MetaHuman character to your desired 4.26 or above project using Quixel Bridge.
4. Add Modular Soldier: Jaeger Female to your project through the UE4 Launcher and open your project.
Setting Up The Character Blueprint
Setting Up The Character Blueprint
Now we need to integrate the Modular Soldier assets with your MetaHuman. Open you MetaHuman's character blueprint to begin.
1. Delete the Torso, Legs and Feet skeletal meshes in the Component Tab.
2. In the Construction Script tab, delete the nodes shown below.
Note: For 5.1 and above make sure to use Get Skeletal Mesh Asset instead of Get Skeletal Mesh which is being depreciated
3. Go into the content browser and find SKM_Jumpsuit_Bloused.
It's located under ModularSciFiSoldier > F_SciFiSoldier > SkeletalMeshes > Jumpsuit
4. With the skeletal mesh selected in the content browser, return to your MetaHuman character blueprint and click on the Body skeletal mesh in the component tab.
Click Add Component, and add the skeletal mesh we just selected in the content browser. You can keep the name or rename it to Jumpsuit.
5. Now we need to setup the clothing so it follows the character animation. Go back into Construction Script and drag the Jumpsuit skeletal mesh component from the component tab into the Construction Script viewport.
6. Right click and type in "set master" to find Set Master Pose Component (Body) in the blueprint node finder.
(Note: When working in 5.1 and above use Set Leader Pose Component.)
7. Hook up the Body and Jumpsuit skeletal mesh component nodes as shown in the figure above. Connect the Construction Script node to Set Master Pose Component, and connect Set Master Pose Component to the ? Is Valid node. Compile your blueprint.
8. Follow this workflow for the rest of your character armor as shown. Ensure that every time you add a new piece, you first select Body in the component tab before adding a new component.
Hook up each additional piece to the Target input of the Set Master Pose Component.
8. Follow this workflow for the rest of your character armor as shown. Ensure that every time you add a new piece, you first select Body in the component tab before adding a new component.
Hook up each additional piece to the Target input of the Set Master Pose Component.
Setting Up Animations
Setting Up Animations
Because of the way MetaHuman alters the scale of the character through the skeleton's retarget source, we have to ensure a certain option is used in custom animations whether made in sequencer, or imported from an external package such as maya.
1. Download the free FemaleSoldier_IdlePose_A animation HERE and import it into the desired directory of your project.
2. Make sure you select metahuman_base_skel as the skeleton on import, and NOT metahuman_base_skel_FSoldier that comes with the project.
3. After importing successfully, open up the new animation and choose f_tal_nrw_body_skmesh from the Retarget Source dropdown. This will adjust the scale of the animation to prevent issues with size or clipping.
*Note: Creating new animations from existing animation sequences within UE4 seems to cause a bug that expands the skeletal mesh each time. For example, if you were to rotate a bone in an existing animation, save it as a newly created animation - it will cause issues. This seems to be confined to this process. If you need to modify an animation it is best to do it through sequencer or your modeling package before baking it out again to prevent potential issues. This behavior was noticed in both 4.26 and 4.27
4. Now you can add the animation to your character. Click Body in the component tab, and select the newly imported animation for use. This will use the animation for the entirety of the character.
If you wish to use the character in sequencer to make custom animations, simply remove the animation asset from the Body skeletal mesh and compile the blueprint before adding it to your sequencer for animating. Every animation made through sequencer or imported from external modeling programs will need to have the Retarget Source set to f_tal_nrw_body_skmesh to scale properly.
Setting Up Attachments
Setting Up Attachments
Because the UE4 Marketplace prevents the inclusion of any Meta Human body/face mesh I was unable to provide the f_tal_nrw_body_skmesh in the product. As a result the skeleton will not scale properly to MetaHumans using the metahuman_base_skel_FSoldier that is included. This is why this documentation exists to showcase how to integrate with your MetaHuman characters.
The included product example characters still function to demonstrate how to use the assets, however the metahuman_base_skel that is imported with your MetaHuman character does not contain the socket data attached to skeleton included in the product. As such you will need to re add the socket data manually to your metahuman skeleton.
Adding Sockets
I have provided a document providing the socket name, relative location and rotation as well as the bone it needs to be attached to for your convenience. Simply adding the socket, naming it and pasting these values will allow you to use the sockets for attachment as intended.
Get Modular Soldier: Jaeger Female Sockets HERE
Once you've added the sockets to the bones outlined in the document provided, you are now ready to add attachments to your character. Be sure to check out the included example blueprints for references to get an idea of what attachments correspond to what socket. For now, lets return to our MetaHuman character blueprint and using the same method as with the armor/clothing add our first attachment.
1. In the content browser, select SM_KnifeSheathed under ModulerSciFiSoldier > F_SciFiSoldier > Meshes > Weapons.
2. Back in the character blueprint, click on Body in the component tab and add component > static mesh.
3. In the Details tab on the right, under Sockets click the magnifying glass to open up the available options. Select Knife_Left from the dropdown and as you see the attachment will snap to the correct position on the character.
Documentation will be updated as more Modular Soldier and other MetaHuman customization content releases.
Still have questions? Stuck? Join the official Support Discord channel and I'd be happy to help!
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