Stage 2 — Likeness and Body Skills
Expanded skill set for Stage 2 (likeness and body) of the Pipeline Map: turning portraits and descriptions of a historical person into a rigged, dressed, groomed MetaHuman that survives a 4-second orbit on a life-size kiosk and still runs on a Quest.
The Stage 2 chain
flowchart LR
R[Reference board
historian-approved] --> Z[ZBrush sculpt
neutral head + A-pose body]
Z --> M2M[Mesh to MetaHuman
Identity + solve + auto-rig]
Z --> FCM[MetaHuman Creator
From Custom Mesh 5.8
head + body]
M2M --> MHC[MetaHuman Creator
skin, eyes, teeth, body params]
FCM --> MHC
MHC --> DCC[DCC Export]
DCC --> MFM[MetaHuman for Maya
Character Assembler
Expression Editor]
MFM --> MHC
MHC --> G[Grooms
XGen / Blender / Houdini → Alembic
strands + generated cards]
MHC --> MD[Marvelous Designer 2025.2+
USD → Cloth Asset → Outfit]
G --> A[Assemblies
Cine + Optimized]
MD --> A
Detailed guides: ZBrush — Sculpting for MetaHuman · Mesh to MetaHuman — Considerations · MetaHuman Creator — Considerations · MetaHuman for Maya — Considerations · Grooms for MetaHuman — Considerations · Marvelous Designer to MetaHuman — Considerations
Skill areas
Levels: Core = must have on hire; Grow = can be trained in the first production.
1. Likeness research and reference
| Skill | Level | What it looks like on the job |
| Building a reference board from photographs, portraits and written descriptions | Core | Separates primary photos from later engravings and romantic portraits; notes the date and age of each source |
| Reading historical photographs (lens distortion, daguerreotype mirroring, retouching) | Grow | Knows early daguerreotypes are often laterally reversed and that retouched cabinet cards soften features |
| Age progression / regression | Core | Can sculpt the figure at the program's dated age (e.g. Mitchell at 29 in 1847 vs her 1880s photographs) |
| Documenting uncertainty | Core | Keeps a likeness log: what is evidenced, what is inferred, what is invented; feeds the splash-screen label |
2. Sculpting (ZBrush / Maya)
| Skill | Level | What it looks like |
| Anatomical portrait sculpting | Core | Skull, fat pads, ageing; likeness from 2D sources without a scan |
| Sculpting to MetaHuman input rules | Core | Neutral, symmetrical, lips sealed, eyes open with visible sclera, correct scale and orientation |
| Clean geometry | Core | No holes, non-manifold edges or self-intersections; retopology or decimation for export |
| Working on MetaHuman topology without breaking it | Core | Sculpts on the DCC-exported head with vertex order preserved (layers, no DynaMesh/ZRemesher) |
| Expression sculpting | Grow | Sculpts corrective or likeness expressions for Expression Editor calibration |
| Polypaint / albedo | Core | Flat, unlit albedo; clearly separated sclera and skin |
| Skill | Level | What it looks like |
| MetaHuman Identity and Mesh to MetaHuman | Core | Promotes frames, fixes trackers, runs Identity Solve and Auto-Rig |
| From Custom Mesh (head and body, arbitrary topology) | Core | Auto Solve, keypoint refinement, judging when the body fit follows clothing instead of anatomy |
| MetaHuman Creator | Core | Parametric body, face blending, skin and eye look-dev, unbaked texture control, custom lighting scenarios |
| LODs and assemblies | Core | Cine for kiosk; Optimized for Quest and phones; checks performance on device |
| DNA and RigLogic basics | Grow | Understands what DNA stores and why vertex semantics matter |
| Skill | Level | What it looks like |
| DCC Export → Character Assembler | Core | Assembles head, body and textures in Maya |
| Expression Editor | Grow | Neutral Pose editing; calibration at MH1 or MH12 likeness level; exports calibrated DNA |
| Pose Editor | Grow | Secondary body deformations (RBF, SwingTwist) for period costume areas (shoulders, elbows) |
| Groom Exporter | Grow | XGen grooms to Alembic with MetaHuman-required attributes |
5. Grooms
| Skill | Level | What it looks like |
| Strand grooms in XGen, Blender or Houdini | Core (groom artist) | Guides, density, clumping, frizz; period hairstyles |
| Unreal groom attributes and binding | Core | groom_width, groom_rootuv, groom_group_id, groom_id, groom_guides; Groom Binding to the MetaHuman |
| Hair cards and LODs | Core | Hair Card Generator (including in Dataflow) for Optimized/Quest; textures baked for cards |
| Eyebrows, eyelashes, peach fuzz, facial hair | Core | Period-appropriate, often under-groomed rather than modern-styled |
6. Costume and cloth
| Skill | Level | What it looks like |
| Period pattern drafting | Core (costume designer) | Builds 1830s–1880s garments from real patterns and museum examples |
| Marvelous Designer 2025.2+ | Core (cloth artist) | Simulation on the MetaHuman avatar; fabric physical properties; USD export |
| Unreal Cloth Asset in Dataflow → Outfit Asset | Core | Transfer Skin Weights, Remesh, Resizable Outfit Template, LODs |
| Chaos Cloth tuning | Grow | Skirts and shawls that move without clipping at kiosk distance |
7. Look-development and review
| Skill | Level | What it looks like |
| Skin, eye and teeth shading | Core | Period complexion and dental condition; no modern whitening |
| Lighting for review | Core | Tests in kiosk, VR room and daylight scenarios |
| Orbit and close-up review | Core | Runs the 4-second orbit test; spots uncanny areas (eyes, mouth corners, hairline) |
Interview tasks
- Likeness test (4 hours): from three supplied 19th-century photographs, sculpt a neutral head that passes Mesh to MetaHuman; submit the likeness log.
- Topology discipline: take a DCC-exported MetaHuman head, add an asymmetric feature in ZBrush, and return it with vertex order intact.
- Groom test: a center-parted 1840s bun with cards for Quest.
- Cloth test: an 1840s bodice and skirt from a supplied pattern, through Marvelous Designer to a resizable Outfit Asset.
Who holds these skills
| Role (Roles and Hiring Plan) | Skill areas |
| Character artist | 1, 2, 3, 4 (Character Assembler), 7 |
| Technical animator | 3 (DNA), 4 (Expression and Pose Editors) |
| Groom artist | 5 |
| Costume designer + cloth artist | 6 |
| Historian of record | Sign-off on 1 and 6 |
Tutorials for each skill area are linked from the tool notes above and from MetaHuman — Tutorials, Maya — Tutorials, ZBrush — Tutorials, Grooms — Tutorials and Marvelous Designer — Tutorials.
Likeness and age rules: ZBrush — Likeness and Age Research.
Local tutorials, in Stage 2 order:
- Tutorial — Starting a Head and Base Body in ZBrush
- Tutorial — Obtaining Initial Head DNA
- Tutorial — Expression Editor Fundamentals
- Tutorial — ZBrush No-Topology-Change Round Trip
- Tutorial — Sculpting Expression Targets for the Expression Editor
- Tutorial — Flat Albedo from Polypaint → Tutorial — Baking Detail Maps for MetaHuman
- Tutorial — Skinning Garments and Props to a MetaHuman → Tutorial — Pose Editor Correctives for Period Tailoring
- Costume: Tutorial — Getting Started with Marvelous Designer → Tutorial — MetaHuman Avatar into Marvelous Designer → Tutorial — Drafting a Period Garment from a Historical Pattern → Tutorial — Period Layers, Hoops and Skirts → Tutorial — Marvelous Designer Garment to MetaHuman Outfit
Sources: Sources — 2026-09-19