Setup a MetaHuman character

Skeleton

The first step is to set up the skeleton. Atoms support only a main skeleton, so if your metahuman uses other skeletons other than the metahuman_base_skel you need to set up each skeleton.

Opne the skeleton editor. Make sure to have the Asset detail panel visible. Otherwise open it from the Window->Asset Detail menu.

Add a new “Atoms Skeleton User Data” object to the asset user data slot.

Add a new pelvis entry and set the bone name to “pelvis“.

Now add a leg entry for the right leg with these values:

• Foot Root: thigh_r

• Foot IK: foot_r

• Foot Tip: ball_r

• Pole Vector: X=-9.572069, Y=100.000000, Z=84.024796

Add another entry for the left leg:

• Foot Root: thigh_l

• Foot IK: foot_l

• Foot Tip: ball_l

• Pole Vector: X=9.572069, Y=100.000000, Z=84.024796

Agent Variation

Create a new “Atoms Agent Variation” asset. Add the body and clothes skeletal meshes you want to use for this variation to the skeletal meshes array.

Hairs

Unfortunally Atoms doesn’t support the groom asset. But you can use the cards mesh or the helmet mesh as an atoms attachment.

Add the hair mesh to the attachment section. Set the bone name to “head“ and use the offset property if you need to tweak the mesh transform.

If you are going to use those meshes you need to setup a specific material. The hair material used by those meshes uses specific mesh attributes that are not available when the skeletal meshes are used outside the groom asset. So you need to build a proper hair material, I recommend having a look at the Epic “City Sample Crowd“ package available from the marketplace. You can see there the hair material using a proper attributes texture to drive the crowd hair material.

Agent Type

Create a new atoms agent type asset. Add to the skeleton slot the metahuman skeleton asset. then add the agent variation you created to the skin asset slot.

Animation retarget

Atoms doesn’t retarget automatically animation sequences that use different skeleton from your skeletal meshes. You need to setup an atoms character asset, or you need to use proper anim sequence generated from the metahuman skeleton.