Character Creator 5 (CC5) officially arrived on 27 August 2025, and this time Reallusion is putting the HD badge front and centre. Gone are the days when your assets lived somewhere between “game-ready” and “film-aspiring.” With a new HD Character Base (official page), CC5 can now scale from lightweight assets to subdivision-heavy models that survive close-up shots.
Subdivision is not just a toggle here: CC5 pushes mesh detail up to 16× denser than CC4, supporting 4K and 8K skin textures, displacement mapping, and an upgraded shader pipeline. You can freely switch between a game-ready mesh and a film-quality mesh without losing rigging, morphs, or animation compatibility.
“HD character bases bridge the gap between cinematic quality and real-time performance,” says Reallusion’s launch note. Translation: you don’t have to keep two separate character libraries anymore.
Facial Animation Gets a Brain Transplant
With CC5, facial animation is no longer an afterthought. The new HD Animation system (official page) introduces micro-expressions, corrective morphs, and constraint-based deformations, which together prevent the dreaded “clay-face” look.
Each facial expression now drives a deeper set of blendshapes, which can layer details like cheek tension, eyelid flutter, or asymmetric lip pulls. Corrective systems kick in automatically when you start stacking expressions. The result: characters can now smile without breaking their jawline.
To fully unlock this, iClone users need the latest Motion LIVE for iPhone and AccuFACE updates. Together, they stream high-fidelity facial mocap directly into CC5 rigs.
Beyond mocap, the HD Expression Profile adds a redesigned library of emotion presets, built to scale from subtle social cues to dramatic theatrical expressions. Artists can blend or customise them at sub-expression levels—controlling everything from nostril flares to jaw clench intensity. Importantly, these are layered on top of anatomical corrections, so stacking them will not collapse the mesh into noise.
CC5 also includes a new Sticky Lips System and Eyelid Constraint Engine, making phoneme-driven speech far more realistic. Lip movements now feature adhesion during closed-mouth consonants, while the eyelid system calculates squints and blinks based on eyeball rotation rather than simple linear morphs. Together with wrinkle-based displacement maps, these additions finally bring facial realism in line with the upgraded HD base mesh.
MetaHuman Compatibility: CC5 Learns the Language
One of the bigger headline changes: CC5 characters now share the same facial control structure and skeleton as MetaHuman. This means mocap data, animations, and expressions can be exchanged between MetaHumans and CC5 assets without retargeting hacks.
If your pipeline involves Unreal’s MetaHumans, you can now drop a CC5 character in, hand them the same mocap or audio-to-face data, and expect them to move in sync. CC5 even includes an HD Face Board, which mirrors MetaHuman’s control system, for one-to-one editing.
Meet ActorMIXER: DNA Splicing for CG-Characters
Reallusion calls it “next-gen character generation.” The rest of us can call it what it is: Frankenstein’s lab, but with sliders. ActorMIXER (official page) lets you non-destructively mix entire bodies, heads, or individual features from multiple characters.
Drag two characters into ActorMIXER, spin the Mixer Wheel, and you can blend their DNA into something new. ActorMIXER Pro unlocks even more: it can convert any character into a mixable source, generate randomised characters at scale, and export custom mixer assets for collaboration or reuse.
The Deluxe Bundle: Everything and the Kitchen Sink
CC5 is available standalone, but Reallusion also rolled out the CC5 Deluxe Bundle (official page), priced at $499. The bundle includes:
- Character Creator 5
- ActorMIXER Pro with Core Library (44 HD scanned heads across four ethnicities)
- HD Ultimate Morphs pack (fine-tuned morph sliders for body and face)
- HD Human Anatomy Set (12 full avatars with anatomical diversity, ready for ActorMIXER)
The key value here is the Core Library: scanning 44 heads independently would cost thousands. Bundled, they become mixable DNA inside ActorMIXER. The HD Ultimate Morphs add sub-surface detail like crow’s feet, lip asymmetry, and muscular tension—all slider-driven, and bakeable into normal maps for low-poly assets.
Pipeline Expansions: Maya, Marmoset, ZBrush, Blender, Unreal
No release is complete without pipeline updates. CC5 expands Auto Setup to cover Maya, Arnold and Marmoset Toolbag, joining the existing Blender, Unreal, and Unity bridges. That means shaders and rigs arrive pre-configured, saving the joyless task of re-wiring materials.
The Maya bridge in particular is a major milestone. Characters exported from CC5 arrive in Maya with Arnold-ready materials, subdivision levels intact, and displacement maps already hooked into the shader graph. For artists who prefer Arnold for cinematic rendering, this eliminates hours of manual material rebuilding. Reallusion states that skin shading, subsurface scattering, and even tearline and eye reflections are mapped correctly on export. For production pipelines already invested in Arnold, this makes CC5 a far more attractive option for film and episodic work.
What’s notable is that CC5 also passes on animation rigs without requiring conversion, meaning facial animation data and ActorMIXER variants can move directly into Maya. This is a shift from previous CC workflows, where much of the rigging had to be revalidated or rebuilt for Maya compatibility. Now, the bridge promises near one-to-one parity with what you see in CC5, making it viable as a character front-end for high-end rendering pipelines.
ZBrush support via GoZ continues, now with higher subdivision detail and wrinkle-to-displacement baking. Blender Auto Setup was updated to handle HD meshes in both Eevee and Cycles, complete with displacement and facial animation support. For Unreal, CC5 characters can now export with UE skeletons aligned to MetaHumans, making them immediately usable in UEFN projects. Live Link for iClone has been updated for UE 5.5/5.6, and includes a free HD Face Control panel for direct editing in-engine.
CC4 vs CC5: What Actually Changed?
Mesh & Detail
- CC4: Mid-poly base mesh, normal-map driven detail.
- CC5: HD base mesh, subdividable up to 16×, displacement and microdetail supported.
Facial Animation
- CC4: Basic blendshapes with limited corrective morphs.
- CC5: HD Expression Profile, Sticky Lips, Eyelid Constraints, displacement-based wrinkles.
Pipeline to Maya
- CC4: Manual material rebuilds in Maya, no Arnold-ready shaders.
- CC5: Arnold-ready shader graphs, displacement mapped, subsurface scattering intact.
MetaHuman Sync
- CC4: Retargeting required for animations.
- CC5: Skeleton and controls identical to MetaHuman, direct animation sharing.
Content Expansion
- CC4: Marketplace content, Ultimate Morphs pack.
- CC5: ActorMIXER + Core Library, HD Ultimate Morphs, HD Anatomy Set.
Final Verdict
Character Creator has always been a flexible mid-tier character tool. With CC5, it now has the foundations to sit comfortably alongside MetaHuman while still being production-friendly. ActorMIXER adds a dash of creative chaos, the Deluxe bundle fills the content pipeline, and the Auto Setup bridges remove friction. As always: test new workflows in production before committing.
And, while you are thinking about that: Here is a Playlist with tutorials to all the new features: Character Creator 5 Tutorials, so you have something to watch tonight. Enjoy!
