What is the Auto Assembler?
The Auto Assembler automates the full MetaHuman rig-and-assembly sequence for one or more characters from a single click. Instead of manually opening the MetaHuman Character Editor, waiting for it to initialize, clicking Rig, waiting, downloading textures, and clicking Build for each character one by one, you add them to a queue, configure your settings once, and let the plugin handle the rest.
The pipeline runs asynchronously: the editor stays fully responsive throughout. The progress bar updates in real time, status messages tell you exactly what is happening, and the Cancel button is always clickable.
What It Does Per Character
For each character in the queue, the assembler runs these steps automatically:
- Prepares the editor (flushes texture streaming, runs a full memory cleanup)
- Opens the MetaHuman Character Editor window and waits for it to fully initialize
- Rigs the character with your chosen rig type (skipped automatically if already rigged)
- Downloads the texture sources at your chosen resolution
- Assembles the character with your chosen pipeline and quality level
- Optional Clean Up: Extracts the face mesh only to your output folder and deletes the rest (textures, materials, body, grooms)
- Closes the editor and runs another memory cleanup before moving to the next character
The full sequence takes roughly 3 to 6 minutes per character depending on machine specs, texture download speed and pipeline quality.
Supported Pipeline Types
| Pipeline | Description | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Cinematic | Full Unreal Engine pipeline, live materials, full texture resolution | Cinematics, high-fidelity renders |
| Optimized | Baked textures, practical LOD structure for real-time use | Games, real-time projects |
| UEFN | Fortnite-compatible export format | UEFN/Fortnite projects |
| DCC | Exports DNA and texture files directly to disk rather than the Content Browser | Blender, Maya, or other DCC applications |
Tip
For the Face Optimizer and ARKit 52 workflow, we recommend using the Optimized pipeline with High quality and Joints Only rig type. This produces a ~6870 triangles face mesh at LOD1 that is a sweet spot for runtime performance. See MetaHuman Settings for the full breakdown settings breakdown.
Test Before You Batch
We strongly recommend getting familiar with the manual assembly process and doing a lot of testing with different settings on a single character to find the sweet spot for your game, before processing a large batch. Assembly takes several minutes per character and the editor is mostly unresponsive during that time, so discovering the wrong quality level after processing 20 characters could be frustrating.
Before processing your full character roster, validate your settings end-to-end on a single character:
- Assemble one character with your chosen settings
- Open the face mesh and check the vertex count and texture quality
- Run the Face Optimizer or ARKit exporter on it and verify the output
- Test the result in-game (framerate, visual quality, Live Link performance)
- If everything looks right, proceed to batch the rest
Tip
You can assemble the same character multiple times with different settings and compare them side by side in the Skeletal Mesh Editor before committing to a configuration for your whole roster.