Epic Games has announced MetaHuman Creator, a new cloud-based extension of the Unreal Engine which will allow developers to design high-fidelity models faster than ever before. Think of it like the most advanced RPG character creator you could possibly ever imagine, and you’ll pretty much be on the right track.
The results are remarkable, as demonstrated in the trailer embedded below:
“MetaHuman Creator sets a new benchmark for both the believability of digital humans, and also for the ease of creating them,” reads the blurb on Epic Games’ website. “You can directly manipulate facial features, adjust skin complexion, and select from preset body types, hairstyles, clothing, and more. You can even edit your character’s teeth!”
The technology has been designed for both animated movies and video games, and you can get a little glimpse of its potential in the video below. In the clip, we see a person brought to life, with different skin shaders, nose shapes, and much more.
“MetaHuman Creator is a cloud-streamed app that takes real-time digital human creation from weeks or even months to less than an hour – at an unprecedented standard of quality, fidelity, and realism.” Truly incredible stuff, and hopefully it leads to some huge innovations in video game story-telling over the coming years.
[source unrealengine.com]
Comments 36
Wow. Ok, all RPGs need this as a character creator from now on xD
Nah, must try harder.
Crazy ***** o.o
And the gap between graphics and A.I. grows larger. Seriously, when are we gonna see some next gen AI? Realistic characters acting like idiots has been a thing for DECADES now! Hopefully tech like this frees up the manpower to make strides in a non-graphics department!
Wow but will be along time until we see this in our games.
With all this new tech I'm worried that only the top creators take advantage of it. A lot of the AA publishers graphics are way worse usually, looking at my PS4 library.
The gap between older games was insignificant really. Last gen there was a big difference between Sony's output compared to every other developer - the gap is only going to get bigger this gen.
With technology like this it could cut some serious time off of triple AAA game development. All those character models and animation saved would really be a breath of fresh air for game developers.
Don’t call them “metahumans” it weirds me out lol.
@themcnoisy
This, people seem to expect AAA quality out of AA developers for some reason and its simply not possible.
Detroit become humans 2 is that you🤔.word up son
@themcnoisy true point, but ultimately not a valid reason to stop progress. It’ll work out some other (presently unforeseen) way!
That’s both kinda creepy and really cool. Looking forward to seeing what people can do with the tech. And also the whole point is to make this tech as easy and cheap to use as possible, meaning AA devs probably could use this.
Wowza! The old folks are the most impressive - them wrinkles is amazing-sauce!
It's so creepy how the creations are selling their features to you in the video. I guess it's a testament to how realistic they look!
Lip sync is off
@stinkyx Yeah, that's the problem, no matter how good they look, as soon as they start walking against a wall or say the same sentence three times over, it takes you right out of the experience.
I don't know if I should be finding this mind-blowing or terrifying
Super cool but these things never truly materialize in our games.
Wow, that's really impressive. This plus the Unreal 5 tech. demo are going to lead to some beautiful next gen. games, probably within 2 years. If A.I. is still having characters bump stupidly face first into walls, at least they'll look good doing it!
@Gmork___ sure they do, not immediately but look up some 90’s/00’s tech demos and look where we are at now.
Amazing, can't wait to see what PS5 will be delivering in a few years with the new Unreal tech. Mind blown.
I’m a huge advocate for ultra realism in games and photo realistic graphics but this is just unsettling... can’t see myself playing a whole game whose characters look “real” - there’s a fine line between artistry & style and ironically these models would break my immersion
Anyway, why does Fortnite look like it does Epic!?! Y’all been holding out
@Kirkkh a bit of an exaggeration, most stuff nowadays is at least at the level of F.E.A.R which was revolutionary back in 2005. Could certainly do better, but the CPU budget that would be needed for improvement generally goes on having more characters in a scene at the same time.
Remember this video the next time someone preaches about the necessity of microtransactions because of rising development costs. Developers have been getting tech like this for trees, etc. for years, and it streamlines certain aspects of development and actually makes it cheaper.
Also, I've still yet to see a digital human smile in a way that didn't look slightly weird. Are animators aware of this? Why is this one facial expression so difficult to pull off?
Let’s be honest. We’re all waiting for the day we can use photo real versions of ourselves in our games to really freak us out!
@StonyKL that already exists. Check out Reality Fighters.
@KippDynamite nobody will remember then. Microtransactions - notably loot boxes and rubbish like dlc songs and on release day dlc characters. But hey ho. It is what it is.
Funnily since being more accepting of that nonesense Ive had fun with Rocket League season passes. Which are good fun tbh. But yeah the cost to produce versus retail price plus micros is ridiculous.
@themcnoisy the whole point of this is to let developers create realistic characters very quickly and easily, which actually should benefit smaller projects the most - or at least that's how I see it
Yo I didn't know David Cage made the character creator for Unreal Engine, that's sick!
Anyway, for some reason besides the mouth I wasn't all that impressed!
I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of monstrosities are creatable with all the sliders maxed.
This character creator would add at least an extra 5 hours to my games.
Okay, but can it create Nigel Thornberry?
@Icey664 Then i will never start the game please... 🤪
Even with MHW i was working on a character for 1,5 hours and after playing an hour i didnt like the face in the shadows and started over. 😅
@Flaming_Kaiser
Good think you can modify you're character's appearance in MHW without having to restart then!
@Icey664 Isnt that only once with a voucher or did that change?
@Flaming_Kaiser
That's the one. I think you can pay real money to do it again though.
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