What Project Violet is

Project Violet is a tutorial series made in Houdini 21, of the “Intermediate” Level, by Sam Taylor. The series shows new character features and workflows in Houdini 21 while combining the production readiness of Epic’s MetaHuman system with Houdini rigging and simulation workflows to build an approachable full human workflow.

That matters because it narrows the promise. This is not a inspiration reel, but a character pipeline exercise, with the character coming from MetaHuman and the heavy lifting happening in Houdini. If your day job sits anywhere near character setup, deformation, or character-adjacent sims, Project Violet wants to show you how to reuse, get a decent iteration speed, and getting a believable human through a procedural toolset without constantly falling back to manual rig babysitting.

The pipeline pitch: MetaHuman base, Houdini control

The main idea: take MetaHuman as the starting point and use Houdini for rigging and simulation versatility. It calls MetaHuman “production-ready” (we could discuss that, yet, the character is still in intensive care), and it presents that as the baseline you inherit rather than something you rebuild. Everything after that becomes a question of how far you can push Houdini’s character toolset once you stop spending weeks on initial asset authoring.

Houdini 21: Like good wine (Part1, VFX & Geo)

A separate SideFX-side (hehehe) for Project Violet describes it as an evolution of an earlier character-centric project, and it wants to focus on greater realism and expanded capability of the character, to showcase Houdini rigging and animation capabilities updated for new features and efficiencies in Houdini 21, and demonstrate a character pipeline that emphasises proceduralism while using MetaHumans as a base for the workflow.

That language is still a pitch, but it dosn’t widen the scope. The project is about a workflow, not a single solver trick. It aims to demonstrate procedural character work in Houdini 21 with a MetaHuman starting point.

One practical caveat: none of these claims your exact studio constraints, problems and idiosyncrasies of the colleagues get solved. Your skeleton naming rules, mesh structure, and export requirements still exist. Project Violet shows a route, not a universal treaty.

Houdini character tooling under the hood: APEX Autorig Builder

If Project Violet is the show, the APEX Autorig Builder is one of the stagehands. The APEX Autorig Builder SOP is a tool to interactively apply and configure pre-built and custom rig components through the viewport, which aims to make character setup more intuitive and lets you quickly build a complete rig.

SideFX draws a line between the APEX Autorig Builder SOP and the APEX Autorig Component SOP. The Builder can add multiple rig components, supports interactive viewport rigging, and allows modifying a limited set of component parameters in the viewport. The Component SOP adds one rig component at a time, can be used to create custom components, and exposes the full set of parameters in the parameter editor.

Back to Project Violet, because it glues the workflow in Houdini’s modular rig component approach rather than a one-off rig graph built for a single hero asset. Even if you do not adopt the exact tutorial approach, those constraints and mechanics tell you what Houdini 21 expects when you try to scale character setup.

Unreal and MetaHuman side of the bridge

Project Violet ties into Unreal. Epic’s MetaHuman are tools to assemble a MetaHuman character or create MetaHuman-compatible grooms in SideFX Houdini.

That tells you two things. First, the pipeline is not only about ex/im-porting Alembic and hoping for the best. It involves a toolset that lives in the Unreal ecosystem but targets Houdini as the working environment for certain tasks. Second, the workflow depends on version compatibility and installation details that can change across engine builds, pipeline images, and studio IT lockdowns.

This is where the series may appeal to teams that want to get to motion and deformation problems quickly, or to studios that already standardised on MetaHuman for certain classes of characters and now want deeper procedural control on top.

Either way, run a controlled wokrflow test before you bet a show schedule on it.

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/project-violet/

https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/character/kinefx/autorigbuilder.html

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/metahuman/metahuman-for-houdini

The post Project Violet links Houdini and MetaHuman first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

PCG Hits Production Readiness

Unreal Engine 5.7 Preview is now available free via the Epic Games Launcher, GitHub, and Linux.
The headline feature: the Procedural Content Generation Framework (PCG) is now officially marked Production-Ready. Epic reports that GPU and game-thread optimizations have pushed PCG to nearly twice the performance vs UE 5.5. Parameter overrides for GPU nodes allow dynamic tuning; scaling and improvements make the GPU Compute path (including FastGeo use) more viable across platforms.
A new PCG editor mode adds spline drawing, paint, and volume tools. PCG Graphs may now run as standalone flows. Epic emphasises, however, that PCG is still under active development (i.e. not final in every respect).

Procedural Vegetation: Grow Inside the Editor

An Experimental Procedural Vegetation Editor plugin arrives, built on PCG nodes. It lets users grow, sculpt, and vary Nanite-ready foliage in real time inside Unreal, without hopping to external tools. You can adjust tree structure under gravity, scale branches/leaves, swap models, and export as static or skeletal meshes.
Epic plans new Quixel Megaplants assets timed to the full 5.7 launch to support this workflow.

Nanite Foliage: Dense, Animated, and Experimental

Nanite Foliage is shipping as Experimental. It’s composed of three linked systems: Nanite Assemblies (for variation/instancing), Nanite Skinning (for animation like wind), and Nanite Voxel (for preserving detail at all distances).

Epic claims these allow rendering and animating dense foliage at 60 fps on current gen hardware, while managing memory, variation cost, and visual fidelity.

Lighting Revamp via MegaLights

MegaLights advances to Beta. It now supports directional lights, Niagara particle lighting, translucency lighting, and hair grooms.
New controls let devs tune resolution scale and update rates. Noise reduction is improved to reduce visual artifacts while keeping performance manageable.

Substrate Materials Graduate to Production

Substrate materials exit beta and enter full production-readiness. This modular system replaces legacy fixed shading models with layered, flexible materials.
Unreal now supports both Adaptive GBuffer (for complex, per-pixel topology and layered closures) and Blendable GBuffer (for broader platform coverage). Developers can combine layers like metal, cloth, clear coat, and skin with physically accurate blending under the same framework.

Animation & Rigging Enhancements

UE 5.7 continues and extends 5.6’s trajectory. New Selection Sets allow animators to define groups of controls easily and share them across teams—reducing dependence on bespoke GUI Pickers.
The Animation Mode UI has been refactored: tools may be minimized to free up viewport space. The Constraint UX window merges Space, Constraints, and Snapper tools under one symbol for unified access.

On the rigging side (Experimental), Unreal adds sculpting and blend shape editing in-engine. You can create or adjust morph targets, bones, and skin weights without leaving Unreal. Physics World Collisions strengthen real-world interactions, and a new Dependency View visualises how rig data flows, aiding debugging and optimization.

Epic Developer Assistant: UI, But Not Yet Active

The UI for the forthcoming Epic Developer Assistant is included in the preview, but functionality will only activate with the full 5.7 release. The planned assistant aims to deliver context-aware help, code generation (C++) and guidance within the editor.
While it’s not fully in the preview, the tool is operational on the Epic Developer Community for Unreal Engine 5.6 users.

MetaHuman 5.7: Cross-OS, Smarter, Fancier Hair

In 5.7 Preview, MetaHuman gains important upgrades. The MetaHuman Creator plugin now supports Linux and macOS, and almost all editing/assembly operations are exposed via Python and Blueprint APIs.
Body conforming becomes pose-agnostic, using UV-space vertex correspondence for consistent rig deformation. Improvements include better calibration for stereo-camera capture data and more expressive hair control (joint-based deformation, paint-based guide control). Additional mood overrides enhance audio-driven animations.
Epic cautions that some issues remain in Preview — crashes on reassembly, texture blackouts with Substrate, blending errors in body presets, and limitations in UEFN export support. Developers are encouraged to test in separate project copies.

When Will Full 5.7 Arrive?

Epic maintains a public Unreal Engine roadmap via ProductBoard. portal.productboard.com The roadmap includes a “Forward-Looking” section marked for UE 5.7 However, Epic has not publicly committed to a firm release date for 5.7 (or its full stability). The roadmap items transition to concrete features only as the version approaches launch. Until Epic issues a formal release schedule, we only know that 5.7 remains in active development.

Early Access Means Early Risk

Epic reminds users that Preview builds are not fully quality-tested and remain unstable. Projects should be duplicated before testing. Avoid converting production assets or codebases until the final release.

Availability: Unreal Engine 5.7 Preview is free. Download via the Epic Games Launcher, GitHub, or build for Linux.

Reminder: Always validate preview features in controlled tests before integrating into production pipelines.

Unreal Engine Forums – Unreal Engine 5.7 Preview
Unreal Engine Public Roadmap

The post Unreal 5.7 Preview: PCG Grows Up, Foliage Gets Fancy first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

After four years in the waiting room, Epic’s MetaHuman framework has dropped the “early access” tag and now ships directly inside Unreal Engine 5.6. Creator, Animator and Mesh to MetaHuman sit side by side in the engine, share one asset library, and even expose C++ source for studios that enjoy tinkering under the hood. Cloud services still shoulder autorigging and texture synthesis, so a decent broadband line remains your silent teammate.

Licensing – Free(ish) Love, But Read the Small Print

The toolkit now obeys the standard Unreal Engine EULA: under-$1 million outfits keep every cent, bigger studios need an $1,850 per-seat annual licence, and no 5 % revenue cut applies when you export characters to other engines. You may animate characters with AI, but feeding MetaHumans back into training data is off-limits – the digital doubles like their privacy.

Unity and Godot Get a Piece of the Pie

Thanks to the new licence, finished characters count as “non-engine products”, so they slip into Unity or Godot builds without Epic’s tollbooth ever noticing. For teams juggling multiple engines, that ends the engine-lock headache.

Bodies by Numbers – From Ankles to Ape-Index

Face sliders were yesterday’s party trick. A fresh parametric body system now unlocks height, chest, waist and leg length controls, driven by real-world scan data. Tailoring keeps pace: the new Outfit Asset fuses garments and accessories into one file and auto-resizes them to whichever superhero physique you dial in. Mesh-based clothes built in external DCCs slot straight in, turning wardrobe malfunctions into ancient history.

Animator Swaps Helmet-Cams for Webcams – And Even Hears You

MetaHuman Animator no longer insists on stereo HMC footage or iPhones. A humble webcam or Android handset plugged through LiveLink delivers real-time facial capture, while an audio-only option lipsyncs from a WAV and guesses emotional nuance in one pass. Manual keyframes stay available when the algorithm puts a grin on a funeral speech.

Live from space… Blu is Cory? Cory is Blu? MetaHuman Animator makes it all possible…in real time! But whatever you do – don’t let Blu do his standup.

Want to know what else is out of this world? MetaHumans are being added to the Unreal Engine License. You can use MetaHumans… pic.twitter.com/T7Rc0UB4nl

— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) June 3, 2025

Maya & Houdini Plug-Ins – Grooming Without the Grass-Fire

The free MetaHuman for Maya and MetaHuman for Houdini plug-ins expose meshes to native sculpt tools, let artists grow XGen or Houdini grooms, and export them as Alembic – sample starter kits included for quick follicle testing. Compatibility: Maya 2022-2025 and Houdini 20.5 with SideFX Labs.

Retail Therapy – Fab Marketplace Opens Its Doors

Characters, clothing and animations now qualify as saleable goods on Fab – Epic’s merged asset store – letting creators monetise every eyebrow and bootlace. Revenue share remains an asset-friendly 88 %, and the licence explicitly allows commercial resale.

System Specs and Reality Checks

The Unreal Editor runs on Windows 10+, macOS 14 and Rocky Linux 8, while Animator’s mono-camera route values frame-rate over exotic hardware. Before dropping MetaHumans into a live show, production artists should test local-cloud latency, verify seat-licence thresholds, and confirm Unity or Godot export paths in their current pipeline – stability beats novelty every day.

Final Frame – Digital Extras With a Side Hustle

MetaHuman’s graduation delivers one-stop character authoring, cross-engine freedom, and a built-in revenue plan. Tools remain free for indies, licensable for the big dogs, and cautious for AI. Whether you plan to dress a sci-fi epic or sell space-pirate beards on Fab, remember: verify latency, check version compatibility, and only trust new tech after a blunt in-house shakedown. Your digital actors – and your schedule – will thank you.

Get Meta Human here

The post MetaHumans Graduate: Ready for Unity, Godot, and the Fab Cash Register first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Already Covered: Virtual Production, 60 Hz Open Worlds & Wile E. Coyote

Before diving in: if you’re looking for details on enhanced virtual production tools, the new 60 Hz simulation capabilities, or how Wile E. Coyote now animates sans anvils in UE5.6, check our previous coverage. This article focuses on everything not already dissected there.

Performance Enhancements

Unreal Engine 5.6 introduces optimizations aimed at achieving stable 60 frames per second across modern platforms. Hardware Ray Tracing (HWRT) has been beefed up for faster Lumen Global Illumination and Reflection performance. CPU bottlenecks have been reduced, especially in scenes with high complexity. An experimental Fast Geometry Streaming Plugin handles large static geometry more efficiently. New device profiles help developers target performance baselines more easily.

Animation and Rigging Improvements

Control freaks rejoice: the in-editor animation toolset gets a polish. Motion Trails now offer arc editing, offset pinning, and custom visualization styles like Dashed, Heat/Speed, and Time-based overlays. The upgraded Tween Tools now support hotkeys for indirect control, Overshoot mode, and Time Offset sliders, turning keyframe fiddling into less of a mouse marathon. Control Rig Physics (experimental) introduces procedural physics into character rigs—turning bounce and sway from post-process cheat into actual rig behavior.

MetaHuman Creator Integration

The MetaHuman Creator is now integrated directly into Unreal Engine. Users can sculpt highly varied body shapes and assign complete outfits via the new Outfit asset type, which autoscales to fit any form. MetaHuman Animator now works with most webcams, smartphones, and even audio as input for real-time performance capture.

Sequencer and UI Enhancements

The Sequencer gets a usability upgrade, starting with a new Navigation Tool that untangles hierarchical chaos. Real-time Audio Scrubbing brings syncing dialogue and action closer to real-time accuracy. Meanwhile, the Viewport Toolbar gets new Quick Access Controls and Section Menus. The redesigned Content Browser makes finding and organizing assets marginally less painful. A Beta version of the Project Launcher UI rounds it out, with launch profile creation and management now less like an obscure mini-game.

PCG and Mocap Manager

Procedural Content Generation (PCG) tools now support inline constants in the Node Graph, enabling direct manipulation of values without detours. Multithreading support and GPU optimizations speed up execution. The PCG Biome Core v2 plugin accelerates biome creation workflows. For motion capture aficionados, the new Mocap Manager provides a fully integrated solution for recording, visualizing, and managing performance capture in-editor. Also new: Quick Render, which allows for one-click still or sequence rendering from the current viewport or camera.

Heads-up: Some features, especially those marked as experimental like Control Rig Physics and parts of the PCG workflow, should be carefully evaluated before integration into production pipelines. Stability isn’t implied – just hinted at with optimism. For full release notes and Epic’s official write-up, head to Unreal Engine 5.6 Release Notes.

The post Unreal Engine 5.6, Fully released. Still 60 FPS, still Smarter MetaHumans, and still possibly Fewer CPU Tantrums first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The preview release of Unreal Engine 5.6 introduces significant updates to its animation toolset and MetaHuman Creator. Stéphane Biava, founder of Proj Production and an Unreal Authorized Instructor at Epic Games, showcased these features in a recent video, using Wile E. Coyote as his test subject. Biava argues that animating directly within Unreal Engine is now a practical alternative to traditional software like Blender or Maya.

From Blender to Unreal: A Shift in Workflow

Biava’s demonstration highlights the enhanced capabilities of Unreal Engine 5.6, suggesting that the engine’s animation tools have matured to a point where they can handle complex tasks traditionally reserved for dedicated animation software. This development could streamline workflows for animators and VFX artists, reducing the need to switch between multiple programs.

Educational Resources for Aspiring Animators

Beyond his demonstration, Biava offers a range of educational content for those interested in mastering Unreal Engine’s animation tools. His tutorials, including guides on character rigging and grooming in Unreal Engine 5, are available as paid courses and free videos on his YouTube channel.

Conclusion

While Unreal Engine 5.6’s new animation features show promise, it’s advisable for professionals to thoroughly test these tools before integrating them into production pipelines. As with any new technology, ensuring stability and compatibility with existing workflows is crucial.

The post Wile E. Coyote Animates in UE5.6 – No Anvils Required first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.