Sculpt Link — MetaHuman to DCC bridge

Send your MetaHuman to ZBrush or Blender, sculpt it the way you sculpt everything else, and bring the shape back onto the rigged character in one step. Or wrap the MetaHuman head and body onto a sculpt you already have.

Send. Sculpt. GoZ it back. MetaHuman Creator still does the eyes, teeth, LODs and rig.

Hero clip — send to ZBrush, sculpt, GoZ back, character updates in Creator
(/media/mhw/hero.mp4 — not recorded yet)

Coming to FabBETA Ask about the beta

Unreal Engine 5.8 · Windows editor · editor-only, zero runtime footprint · compatible with ZBrush 2022+ and Blender 4.2+

See it in action

zbrush-roundtrip.mp4

ZBrush round trip — Send, sculpt on subdivision levels, GoZ from the base level. The shape lands on the character, one undo step.

blender-roundtrip.mp4

Blender round trip — the bundled add-on receives the character on its own, with a ground disc where the floor is. Send to MetaHuman when you're done.

combined-mesh.mp4

Combined Mesh — head and body arrive welded, as two polygroups. Sculpt straight across the neck; it splits itself on the way back.

split-view-points.mp4

Wrap From Sculpt — split view with synced cameras. Click the head, click the sculpt: that's pair 1. Symmetry places the twin.

grooms.mp4

Grooms to Blender BETA — hair, brows, beard, mustache and lashes as editable hair curves. Comb them, send them back, keep tuning the same asset.

normal-map.mp4

Detail comes home BETA — pores and wrinkles sculpted above the base mesh return as the character's normal map.

Two tools in the Import palette

Both sit where MetaHuman Creator's own Import From Custom Mesh and Import From Template sit. Nothing new to learn about where things are.

The round trip

Sculpt Link

Turn on Listen Mode, pick ZBrush or Blender, press Send. Sculpt. Send it back. The MetaHuman takes the new shape as one undo step, and Creator carries on producing eyes, teeth, internals, LODs and the rig from it.

Same vertices, same faces. Sculpt on subdivision levels and the link holds.
Creator edits survive. Blend a body in Creator after a send and the return lands as a change on top, not a replacement.
Head stays on the body. Resize and blend after a return; the head follows.
Masks become locks. What you masked in the sculpt app stays put on return.
Eyes and teeth go along and come back. Normal maps, base color and grooms are in beta.

Your sculpt, MetaHuman's topology

Wrap From Sculpt

Already have a head, or a full figure? Place numbered point pairs and splines on your sculpt and on the MetaHuman in a split view with synced cameras, press Apply, and the MetaHuman head (and body) wraps onto it. Free-form: it follows your shape, not the identity model.

Numbered pairs. Click the head, click the sculpt. Symmetry mirrors the twin for you.
Splines for the edges that matter. Lip lines, eyelid edges, the jaw. Shift-click grabs an edge loop.
Auto-place projects the template curves onto the sculpt once three of yours are drawn.
Suspicious pairs turn magenta with the reason in their row. Usually two numbers swapped.
Body points conform the MetaHuman body to a full-body sculpt in the same Apply.

How the round trip works

SendOpen the character, Import palette, Sculpt Link. Listen Mode on, pick the app, press Send. ZBrush gets SubTools through GoZ; Blender gets objects through the bundled add-on.
SculptHead and body arrive as one welded Combined Mesh. Subdivide, sculpt across the neck, mask what should stay. Keep the topology; everything else is fair game.
ReturnGoZ from the base level, or Send to MetaHuman in Blender. Unreal applies the shape, reports the seam, and Creator carries on as if you'd sculpted there.

Your GoZ setup is never touched: Sculpt Link reads ZBrush's shared GoZ folders and never registers itself as the GoZ target, so the bridge you already use keeps working.

Features

ZBrush round tripSend the MetaHuman as SubTools through GoZ and hand it back with GoZ. Compatible with ZBrush 2022 and newer. No ZBrush-side script to install.

Blender round tripA bundled MIT add-on for Blender 4.2+ receives the character on its own, draws a ground disc at the floor, and sends it back with one button.

Combined MeshHead and body go out welded as one mesh with head and body polygroups, UVs kept, and split themselves on return. Separate head, body, eyes and teeth are the opt-out.

One undo stepA return lands as shape on the open character. Ctrl+Z puts the previous shape back.

Apply as changesEdited the character in Creator while it was out? The return is applied as the difference you sculpted, on top of what Creator has now. Replace is the option.

Head follows bodyReturns keep the head attached, so parametric height and body blends in Creator keep working afterwards.

Masks as locksOptional: whatever you masked in ZBrush or Blender stays exactly where the character has it now.

Eyes and teethSend them alongside the head and they come back in the same fit. Sculpt Link reports the eye pivot offset so animation stays right.

Normal map BETAFine detail sculpted above the base mesh returns as the character's normal map: ZBrush's Normal Map through GoZ, or a Multires bake in Blender.

Base color and painting BETASend the character's skin as a painting base, polypaint or texture-paint, and bring it back as a base color override. Clear puts Creator's sliders back in charge.

Grooms to Blender BETAHair, brows, beard, mustache and lashes arrive as editable hair curves on the head. The return makes your own groom asset in the slot; every later return tunes that same asset in place. Epic's original is never modified.

Split view with synced camerasWrap From Sculpt shows the MetaHuman and your sculpt side by side, or overlaid, with both cameras locked together.

Numbered points and splinesPairs are numbered so correspondence is visible at a glance. Symmetry, edge-loop grab, Auto-place, and a magenta flag on pairs that look swapped.

Full-body sculptsPoint pairs on the body conform the MetaHuman body to your figure in the same Apply as the head.

It stays out of the wayEditor-only. Nothing ships in a packaged game. Your GoZ target and your existing Blender bridge are untouched.

Requirements

Unreal Engine	5.8, Windows editor, with the MetaHuman Creator plugins enabled in the project (MetaHumanCharacter; the engine plugins it needs are turned on for you).
ZBrush	ZBrush 2022 or newer with GoZ installed and used once. Sculpt Link is compatible with ZBrush; it is not made or endorsed by Maxon.
Blender	Blender 4.2 or newer with the bundled add-on installed from the plugin folder. No other add-ons needed.
Either or both	The round trip needs one of the two. Wrap From Sculpt needs neither: any OBJ or FBX head or figure works.

Documentation

Install, the three workflows step by step, and the known limitations: hauntedostrich.com/sculptlink/docs

Known limitations (0.3 beta)

The topology must not change. DynaMesh, ZRemesher, decimation, deleting subdivision levels or merging by hand all break the link. A changed mesh is refused with a sentence saying why, and taken in as a plain sculpt asset instead.
Feet stay on the floor. MetaHuman always re-grounds the body, so sculpt shape, not placement.
A sent MetaHuman sits a few centimeters lower than your original ZTool by its own floor offset. Expected; the shape that comes back is unaffected.
Form returns as shape; fine detail returns as a normal map. GoZ hands back the base level, so pores and wrinkles travel through the (beta) normal map path rather than the mesh.
Eyes move a little, teeth move a lot. The eye pivot stays where Creator's face model puts it; Sculpt Link warns above half a centimeter.
Grooms are strands only. No hair cards or helmet meshes yet; "Always use hair cards" shows nothing for a returned groom.
Material features (normal map, base color, painting) and grooms are beta, calibrated on one machine.

Support

Bugs, questions, feature requests: support@hauntedostrich.com

Include your engine version, the build stamp from the Sculpt Link panel's last line, and for bugs a short clip or the steps you took. The project log (LogMetaHumanWrap) and the exchange files from that hand-off make fixes dramatically faster. Please don't send .mhg or .blend files: they contain Epic's groom content.