Tutorial — Single-Camera Body Capture

Augmented Traveler local tutorial. Back to Mocap — Tutorials · capture day: Tutorial — Running a Capture Day · cleanup: Tutorial — HumanIK Mocap Cleanup for MetaHuman

How to get body and finger animation from one ordinary video camera with Epic's MetaHuman Animator Markerless Motion Capture plugin (UE 5.8). We plan to use it for previs, the gesture library and idles, and to keep the suit or optical stage for hero monologues until the test in section 8 says otherwise.

Draft. Written from Epic's mono-video and video-capture guidance, the MetaHuman 5.8 release notes, CG Channel and Digital Production coverage, and user reports on Epic's forum. The feature is experimental: Epic says it is not production-ready and may change or be removed. The technical animator validates this page. Correct menu names here.

1. What it does (verified)

• Body, fingers and optionally face from the same footage, for one actor, from one camera (MetaHuman 5.8 release notes; CG Channel).
• Offline and local. Processing runs on the workstation; footage never leaves it (Digital Production).
• Free plugin on Fab, licensed for commercial use; released 18 June 2026 with UE 5.8 (CG Channel).
• Two paths (Epic):
  • single camera: face and body solved independently from the same video;
  • dual camera: head-mounted camera for face plus a reference camera for body, combined in a Level Sequence.
• Export: to an existing MetaHuman skeleton, or a Performer Skeleton built from the actor's proportions for retargeting to other characters.

2. Requirements

Our RTX 5090/5080 workstations exceed this (Hardware — Development Specifications).

Speed: about one second of 1080p footage processes in under a minute (CG Channel). A 60 s idle take is therefore up to an hour. Queue takes overnight.

3. Camera, lighting and clothing

From Epic's video capture guidelines:

1. Static camera on a tripod. Results fall off with a moving camera.
2. Resolution HD or 4K; 60 fps; H.264 at CRF 18 or better (about 25 Mbps for HD).
3. Framing: the whole body, head to feet, with clear margins on every side. Straight-on, neutral height.
   • Leave margin for arm extension on the telescope and pointing gestures.
4. Lighting: even, diffused, covering head to feet. No harsh key light, no strong shadows.
5. Background: high contrast with the performer.
6. Clothing: form-fitting or neutral fit, a different colour from background and floor.
   • This conflicts with period costume. Full skirts hide the legs. Capture in fitted rehearsal clothes plus a short proxy skirt, and record a second take in full costume only as reference.
7. Nothing occluding any body part. Keep props small and away from the torso where the blocking allows.

Our additions (not from Epic):

• Mark the floor with a visible tape cross at the actor's start mark. It helps judge foot contact later.
• One actor in frame. Crew stay out of shot. A forum user reports multi-person work needs sequential processing with others hidden in early frames.

4. Record

1. Set the camera and any phone to 60 fps. Forum users report problems with 29.97/30 fps; check the frame rate in the Capture Data settings after ingest.
2. Slate and jam timecode as in Tutorial — Running a Capture Day.
3. Start each take with the actor still, full body visible, arms slightly away from the body for 2 s (our convention).
4. Record. Keep the actor inside the framed area.

5. Process (steps as documented)

1. Enable plugins: MetaHuman Animator, Capture Manager, Markerless Motion Capture. Restart.
2. Ingest: open Live Link Hub → Capture Manager → add a mono video source (a walkthrough calls it Mono Video Ingest; check the exact name) → set the take folder → queue the take → start. This creates a Capture Data asset.
3. Create a MetaHuman Performance asset (Content Browser → right-click → MetaHuman → MetaHuman Performance).
4. Set it up (Epic, body only):
   • assign the Capture Data;
   • Facial Tracking off, Body Tracking on;
   • Head Movement Mode = Disable.
     For face and body from one take, leave Facial Tracking on.
5. Trim the timeline to the useful range.
6. Process. Users report five passes and long run times.
7. Export Animation → choose Existing Skeleton (our MetaHuman) or Performer Skeleton.
8. Apply to the MetaHuman in a Level Sequence and review against the reference video.

The plugin exposes Python and Blueprint automation (forum product page); batch processing is a later task for the technical animator.

6. Known weaknesses

7. Fixes for feet and contacts

No solve setting for ground contact is documented yet (check the Performance asset's details on first use). Fix in cleanup instead:

1. Maya route: HumanIK foot pinning and hip height, as in Tutorial — HumanIK Mocap Cleanup for MetaHuman.
2. Unreal route: a Control Rig with foot IK to the floor plane, baked in Sequencer. The Animation Mixer (5.8, experimental) can layer a foot-fix pass over the solve.
3. Standing idles: often the simplest fix is to lock both feet for the whole clip and let the pelvis carry the weight shift.
4. Seated takes: pin the pelvis to the chair seat as well as the feet.

8. Test against a suit on the same take

Run this once before we decide which route each asset type uses.

1. Same performer, same take, both systems: the inertial suit records while the static camera films. Jam both to one timecode.
   • The suit's straps change the silhouette slightly; note it.
2. Material: a 60 s standing idle, a 60 s seated idle, 10 gestures from Tutorial — Gesture Library and Tags, a 20 s walk and turn.
3. Process the video with the markerless plugin; retarget the suit data to the same MetaHuman.
4. Compare side by side in one Level Sequence with the reference video.

5. Decide per asset type: idles, gestures, monologues. Record the decision in Mocap — Process via the technical director.

9. Practice exercise

Film a 20 s clip of yourself on a phone at 60 fps against a plain wall, full body in frame. Process it, export to a test MetaHuman and list every frame where the feet float. Fix one foot contact with Control Rig.

10. Check before using it for a delivered asset

• Plugin version recorded; still marked experimental — re-read Epic's page
• Every take 60 fps, static camera, full body with margins
• Suit comparison test done and the decision recorded
• Feet fixed and checked life-size on the kiosk display
• The performer's contract covers video-derived animation

Sources

• Epic, MetaHuman Animation from Mono Video Capture: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/metahuman/metahuman-animation-from-mono-video-capture-in-unreal-engine
• Epic, MetaHuman Animator Video Capture Guidelines: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/metahuman/metahuman-animator-video-capture-guidelines-in-unreal-engine
• Epic, MetaHuman Animator 02 · Process and export your animation: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/metahuman/metahuman-animator-02-process-and-export-your-animation-in-unreal-engine
• Epic, MetaHuman 5.8 release notes: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/metahuman/metahuman-5-8-release-notes-in-unreal-engine
• Epic, Unreal Engine 5.8 release notes (Animation Mixer): https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/unreal-engine-5-8-release-notes
• CG Channel, Get the free MetaHuman Animator Markerless Motion Capture plugin: https://www.cgchannel.com/2026/06/get-the-free-metahuman-animator-markerless-mocap-plugin/
• Digital Production, MetaHuman gets markerless mocap: https://digitalproduction.com/2026/06/23/metahuman-gets-markerless-mocap/
• Epic Developer Community forum, Markerless Motion Capture plugin thread: https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/epic-games-metahuman-animator-markerless-motion-capture-plugin/2729293
• note.com (refsync), Steps to try markerless motion capture from video in UE5.8: https://note.com/refsync/n/n8c532fe5bcf0?hl=en
• Full list: Sources — 2026-09-20