Character Control Rig targets a very specific pain point: imported MetaHuman bodies inside Blender look like a rig, feel like a rig, and still do not behave like an animator-friendly rig. The add-on generates a Rigify control rig for an existing MetaHuman skeleton in Blender. The workflow starts with a generated metarig that snaps to the source skeleton using an automatic matching process, then moves to a one-click control rig generation step that binds the controls to the original skeleton and hooks into the existing MetaHuman evaluation stack. In other words, it tries to turn a MetaHuman import into something you can actually pose without getting another carpal tunnel.
Requirements
There are three requirements: Blender 4.5.0 or later (tested through 5.1), the Character DNA add on installed and enabled, and Rigify enabled in Blender preferences. If your studio-standard build is earlier than Blender 4.5, that becomes the first pipeline discussion. If Rigify stays disabled in your templates, the add on does not magically enable it for you.
The UE 5.7 detour is the retargeting trick
The workflow takes motion-capture-style animation from Mixamo, retargets it onto MetaHumans in Unreal Engine 5.7, then moves the results into Blender to animate on top of FK controls. Unreal Engine 5.7 matters here because the workflow uses retargeting features new to 5.7, including templates for popular skeletons. Unreal is basically selecting a Mixamo template for the source skeleton by reading bone names and matching them to the template, then retargeting it to each MetaHuman body.
The tutorial creates two MetaHuman characters with slightly different skeletal proportions, retargets the same animations onto each, and exports per character animation assets. This is the part where you should assume nothing and verify everything, especially if your show already standardized on a different Unreal point release.
Blender side, you get a metarig first and control rig second
Once the MetaHuman DNA files exist, the tutorial imports the characters into Blender via the Character DNA add on, then uses Character Control Rig to generate Rigify rigs per character. The add on exposes view options that let you turn off rig logic evaluation on head and body components and toggle related elements like RBFs, texture masks, shape keys, and bone transforms. It then lets you choose a rig framework. The tutorial states that it currently supports Rigify only, while the design leaves room for other rig frameworks later.
From there, the add on generates a metarig on the selected rig instance. It is snapped into position and fitted to the bones, with manual adjustment available before committing. After that, generate control rig produces a functioning control rig that updates while RigLogic evaluation runs. That is the core pitch: two clicks and you are ready to animate. Yes, that is a marketing claim, and you should still budget time for checking deformation, constraints, and naming collisions.
The multi-character part matters too. The developer says each rig is namespaced to avoid collisions, and the tutorial demonstrates generating separate rigs for two characters with different proportions using an auto snapping algorithm. Somewhere around here, your anmiation lead will ask if the rig behaves predictably under shot specific scale hacks. The only honest answer is to test your own worst habits.
Getting motion onto the FK controls
The tutorial imports body animations from Unreal into Blender and bakes them onto FK controls for the Rigify rig, using the Rigify tools for FK IK switching and baking from FK to IK in actions.
Animation support includes face board import from Unreal to Blender, face board export from Blender to Unreal, and body FK import and export in both directions. It also lists body FK auto retargeting from animation marketplaces, but that feature does not appear in the material we could find.
The add on also positions face board animation export as a direct path from Blender to the MetaHuman Control Rig in Unreal Engine. If you live in Sequencer, this is the part you will care about: you can keep your final runtime character in Unreal while still doing keyframing and clean-up work in Blender, then round-trip the result.
Pricing
An individual perpetual license is at $29.99 and team licenses starting at $99.99. The Character DNA Addon page does provide specific pricing. Since you also need the Blender Character DNA Addon, you’ll also need an Individual license at $79 one time and an Indie Dev Team license at $259 one time, with platform support for Windows, ARM MacOS, and Linux. The code for the addon is available on GitHub, while separately describing a purchasable build tool workflow and a compiled module related to the bone auto fitting algorithm. Depending on how you want to add all of it to your specific pipeline.
So plan for two purchases if you start from zero, and confirm licensing terms in your legal review before you roll it into a studio wide tools image.
What to test before you trust it on a deadline
Rig generation pipelines fail in predictable ways, and none of them care about your delivery date. Test how the generated Rigify controls behave under layered animation, constraints, and shot specific offsets. Test export and re import with your exact Unreal project settings. Test a multi character scene with your usual naming conventions and collection layout. Test any facial workflow claims with your real range of motion, not a polite demo clip.
