Exports

A finished job is only as useful as what it leaves behind. This page covers every output the plugin can write — engine assets, FBX for a DCC, audio, Level Sequences — where each one lands, and how it is named.

What each job produces

Output Where Notes
Performance asset Content Browser The solve itself. Every footage and audio job produces one.
Face AnimSequence Content Browser The deliverable for most pipelines. On by default; turn it off for solve-only runs.
Body animation Content Browser Body-tracking jobs only, one AnimSequence per skeleton mode (see below).
Level Sequence Content Browser Optional. A playable cinematic of the take — see Level Sequence Preview.
FBX for DCC Disk Optional. One form per job, derived from the solve — never chosen by hand.
Take audio (WAV) Disk Written beside the FBX, trimmed and timecode-aligned to the same range the animation covers, so audio and animation line up at frame 0 in the DCC. Skipped when the take has no audio.
Every output is recorded as an artifact on the job, with a state of Complete, Partial, or Failed, and round-trips through the saved manifest. A job that reports Done with no artifacts is a red flag, not a success.

Where engine assets land

By default, generated assets are written next to the take they came from — the same content folder as the source Capture Data — so outputs stay with their footage and two takes can never collide.

Turning on a custom output path sends everything to one folder instead. That folder can be flat, or split per take: with flat export off, each take gets a subfolder named after its source Capture Data folder. Audio jobs have no capture data to derive a folder from, so they always land in the output path directly — Wwise-sourced jobs get their own Wwise subfolder underneath it, because a sound designer's take names can collide with a local WAV of the same name.

Re-running a take that already has an AnimSequence is skipped by default. Force the export to re-run when you need to re-cut an existing solve, and use overwrite to control whether an existing asset is replaced or a new one created.

The FBX form gate

There is one Export FBX for DCC toggle, not two. Which FBX form a job writes is derived from the solve, never picked by hand:

Job Form Why
Body tracking on _DCC.fbx Raw baked-joint skeleton. A full-body solve has no Control Rig to export.
Face solves
(Mono face-only, Stereo, Audio)
_CR.fbx The animator-editable Face Control Rig. A dense baked face FBX is intentionally never produced.

The type suffix is always appended, so the two forms can never collide as <Name>.fbx. Control Rig bakes write one key per frame on every channel and Epic's own FBX exporter has no key-reduction option, so there is a setting to thin the bake first — it drops keys that do not meaningfully change the curve and refits tangents, shrinking the file with minimal visual difference.

FBX folder layout

FBX files go to a folder on disk, not into the project. The default is <ProjectSaved>/MHAManager/Exports; Open Export Folder in the toolbar opens whatever it is currently set to. Three layouts:

Layout Structure Notes
Per Take <Take>/ Default. A subfolder named after the source Capture Data's folder.
Actor / Part <Actor>/Face|Body/ Actor parsed from the Imports/<Actor>/ path; falls back to the take folder when there is no actor segment, so takes still cannot overwrite each other.
Flat (no subfolders) Everything in one folder. Deliberately never the default — a multi-take batch dumping every FBX together is the worst surprise.
<ProjectSaved>/MHAManager/Exports/
  Aaron_Take01/
    Aaron_Take01_CR.fbx        face Control Rig
    Aaron_Take01.wav           take audio, one per job

  MonoBody_Take02/             body job, Both skeleton modes
    Performer/
      MonoBody_Take02_Performer_DCC.fbx
    Retarget/
      MonoBody_Take02_Retarget_DCC.fbx
    MonoBody_Take02.wav

The take audio carries no type suffix and no per-pass subfolder — one WAV serves every FBX in the job.

Body export skeleton modes

Body-tracking jobs choose which skeleton the body animation is delivered on:

Mode Output Notes
Performer Skeleton One pass The performer's own proportions, straight out of the engine's flow.
Existing Skeleton One pass Retargeted onto a skeleton you pick, via an IK retargeter. Pre-filled with the engine's own defaults; auto-created retargeter assets land in their own content folder.
Both Two passes Runs both in the same job and tolerates either pass failing alone. Outputs are labelled _Performer and _Retarget.

Body animation can also be registered as compatible with the MetaHuman base skeleton, so a body AnimSequence plays back on a MetaHuman rig without a manual compatibility step.

Where the settings live

All of the above is configured under Export and Output in Global Settings. Frame range, body tracking, and the other per-take choices are in Per-Job Options. Exported paths and states are recorded per job in the manifest.