Using mGear with Metahumans

[alonza1]

@Miquel is a champ for allowing us to now build an mGear control rig that controls an existing modified Metahuman skeleton. The MH Snap Tool is sweet!

Today, I finally got it to work! My guide template will build all the controls and successfully connect and drive the existing MH driver (_drv) skeleton, without resetting it’s transforms. So building an mGear control rig on a Y-up Metahuman is finally possible! Thank you, Miquel!

Though my glee was quickly dimmed when I noticed an issue. My guide template includes extra controls for extra bones, some of which are included in the Metahuman shifter template - like the attach, ik_hand and ik_feet bones, that the Unreal Mannaquin skeleton includes, and we use in Engine.
These extra bones that don’t come included in the Quixel downloaded skeleton, get added as part of the build into the _drv skeleton. So, the problem now is that the driver skeleton has the extra bones, but it’s the DHIbody:root skeleton that is the one I’ll be exporting to create the skeletal mesh in Unreal.
Writing a postscript to re-parent and hook up these extra bones is not going to be possible, especially where space switches are involved.

Has anyone here been using mGear with Metahumans in Unreal? Please advise!

Edit: grammer

[chrislesage]

I don’t use it, but I just wanted to ask.

Do you need those extra bones? Is just ignoring or hiding them an option? Is it actually a problem that they are there?

Or do you want to find a way to connect the new joints to the old skeleton?

[alonza1]

Hey Chris,

I appreciate your question. The issue isn’t that the bones are added, it’s that they are getting added to the wrong skeleton.

mGear now has a feature that will create a control rig that attaches to existing joints. It’s enabled here:

When enabled it will use existing joints that match the joint naming rules on the Naming Rules tab.

The problem is that in the case of Unreal Metahumans, there are two skeletons. The root_drv and the
DHIbody:root hierarchies. The _drv skel is pre-setup to drive the other. The control rig successfully builds to control the driver skeleton, but what if we want to add new bones/controls that don’t exist yet? It currently only adds them to the skeleton named in the Naming Rules, the one it’s attaching a control rig to.
Adding a method that will duplicate a joint, parent it to the second skeleton and constrain it to the original, is an easy step to add.
Since I’m probably not the last person who will be using mGear with Metahumans, it might be a feature worth considering, @Miquel .