Building and Animating Realistic Virtual Humans for Game Integration in Unreal Engine

The Digital Human Creation and Functionality project was a collaborative initiative between Boom Gaming and Sheridan’s SIRT Centre, aimed at developing realistic, interactive Metahuman characters for real-time game integration. A critical second milestone involved the evaluation and successful testing of communication protocols between Boom Gaming’s software infrastructure and Unreal Engine. This integration lays the foundation for interactive applications where digital humans can respond dynamically to real-time inputs. The project outcomes equip Boom Gaming with a flexible, scalable approach to building and deploying expressive virtual characters in their products.

Why Lifelike Digital Humans?

In the rapidly evolving landscape of virtual experiences, creating and integrating lifelike digital characters is crucial for immersive and engaging content. Boom Gaming, a collaborative organization, sought to advance their capabilities in this area. Their primary objectives included developing methods for creating, animating, and enabling seamless communication with highly realistic digital characters. A key challenge was to identify cost-effective motion capture solutions that would deliver high-quality animation suitable for their needs. Furthermore, there was a specific requirement to establish robust communication protocols, allowing Boom Gaming’s existing software infrastructure to efficiently exchange information with Unreal Engine, thus enhancing their interactive digital environments.

How We Brought Digital Humans to Life

The research was conducted in two primary milestones:

• Digital Human Creation

The team developed four Metahuman avatars (two generic, two custom), experimenting with enhanced fidelity techniques such as detailed facial sculpting, custom skin textures, and hair. They also conducted a comparative study of motion capture techniques, testing their retargeting quality when applied to Metahuman rigs. This provided Boom Gaming with a clear evaluation of which solution best matched their performance and budget requirements.

• Functional Integration

The team explored and validated communication protocols to enable data exchange between Boom Gaming’s software and Unreal Engine. The successful identification and test of a working protocol provided the groundwork for incorporating digital humans into interactive systems controlled by existing backend infrastructure.

Realistic Metahuman Characters with Functional System Connectivity

The collaboration delivered four high-quality Metahuman prototypes customized for visual realism and animation readiness. These avatars were tested with multiple motion capture systems to identify the most suitable pipeline for Boom Gaming’s use case. Additionally, a working communication protocol was identified and validated, enabling backend systems to interact with Unreal Engine in real time. These outcomes offer Boom Gaming a modular framework for building lifelike characters and integrating them into future interactive products or game titles.