Epic Games have revealed a new cloud-streamed app that enables users to design their own highly detailed “digital humans” in Unreal Engine.
“Bringing compelling real-time digital humans to life is incredibly challenging and time-consuming. It can take months of research, costly scanning equipment, and an army of tech artists. What if we could make the process radically simpler, faster, and more scalable—without compromising on quality?”
Their answer is what they’re calling MetaHuman Creator, which they promise will “empower anyone to create a bespoke photorealistic digital human, fully rigged and complete with hair and clothing, in a matter of minutes.”
While MetaHuman Creator isn’t available, yet, at the moment they’re offering a free sample to Unreal Engine users, which includes two characters.
Animations aren’t quite there yet, and the teeth need a bit of work, but you can’t argue with the quality if it really only takes minutes. The character creator in Elder Scrolls VII is gonna be nuts (yes, I know Bethesda doesn’t use Unreal, but I can dream).
This isn’t Epic’s first foray into the world of digital humans. You may remember their digital character Siren, which they revealed back in 2018. Rendered in real-time using Unreal Engine and based on the Chinese actress Bingjie Jiang, she was another example of a high-fidelity ‘digital human’ animated with live motion capture. I still find the arms a bit uncanny, though.
