Epic Video games launched Unreal Engine 5.6 earlier this month, and tucked inside all of the shiny upgrades is MetaHuman 5.6—a toolkit that’s turning the best way creators construct digital characters the other way up. With this launch, Epic’s baked their character creation system proper into Unreal Engine itself.
Plugging into Unreal Engine 5.6 is a game-changer. MetaHuman Creator, as soon as a standalone cloud instrument, now lives cozy contained in the engine’s editor, letting artists whip up and tweak characters with out bouncing between apps. “MetaHuman Creator is now totally embedded in Unreal Engine with UE 5.6, and it’s filled with upgrades,” Epic introduced throughout the State of Unreal 2025 keynote.
Physique tweaking will get an enormous enhance with the Parametric Physique System. Now you may play with the whole lot from top to muscle bulk, and the garments regulate on their very own to match. Epic calls it a strategy to make “higher-fidelity, production-ready MetaHumans,” stating the way it churns out characters primed for video games or cutscenes.
Animation’s gotten a significant facelift too, with MetaHuman Animator now letting you animate in actual time utilizing only a primary webcam or smartphone. “Animate MetaHumans in actual time utilizing performances captured from most webcams and a variety of smartphones,” Epic shared. Even cooler, it could actually whip up animations straight from audio, choosing up the emotional vibes in somebody’s voice.
The licensing shake-up is stealing the present. MetaHumans aren’t tied to Unreal Engine anymore—Epic dubs this a “dramatic extension” of their attain. The brand new Finish Person License Settlement lets creators toss MetaHuman characters and animations into any engine or instrument—Unity, Blender, Houdini, you choose. This open-door coverage opens it as much as extra of us, letting a wider crowd faucet into Epic’s super-realistic tech. “These highly effective creator instruments are actually out there to all,” Epic emphasised, hinting at a push for a extra inclusive inventive scene.
Artists can now sculpt morph targets proper within the editor, rushing up tweaks to facial expressions or physique shapes. Tying into Epic’s Fab Market provides a enjoyable twist, with a devoted MetaHuman part the place individuals can swap customized fashions, garments, and hair. This market, paired with new plugins, builds a energetic hub the place creators can bounce concepts off one another, cranking up manufacturing with out reducing corners on high quality.
Unreal Engine 5.6’s greater upgrades, like beefed-up {hardware} ray tracing and snappier geometry streaming, be certain that MetaHuman characters pop in big open worlds at 60 FPS. The ML Deformer, teased in CD Projekt Pink’s The Witcher 4 tech demo, cuts down the grunt work for tough stuff like muscle flexing, making top-notch characters doable on immediately’s gear. Epic’s launch notes hit the nail on the top: “These low-level optimizations guarantee sooner, extra environment friendly rendering, bringing high-end visible constancy and scalability.”
