Installation

Three ways to get the plugin into your project. The Epic Games Launcher and the manual zip drop both use precompiled binaries and need no compiler. Build from source only to modify the plugin or target a specific engine build.

Operating system Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) Editor-only plugin — no runtime, Mac, or Linux target

Unreal Engine 5.7 - 5.8 Match the binary build to your engine version, or build from source

RAM 16 GB minimum The queue solves one take at a time

GPU Discrete GPU required The MetaHuman solver needs real hardware, so headless -nullrhi is unsupported

Disk SSD, take-dependent Stereo depth EXR sequences run tens to hundreds of MB per take

Network Only for Identity Create The cloud AutoRig login runs in an interactive editor session (see Job Types)

Recommended for most users. No compiler or Visual Studio needed.

Open the Epic Games Launcher

Launch the Epic Games Launcher and sign in. Navigate to Unreal Engine → Library using the left sidebar.

Find the plugin in your Vault

Scroll down past your engine installations to the Fab Library section. Find MHA Manager — use the search bar if you have many items. If it isn't in your library yet, purchase or claim it on Fab first.

Choose how to install it

You have two options on the plugin card:

Install to Engine

Installs the plugin engine-wide for a specific UE version. Available in every project using that engine — but must be enabled per project via Edit → Plugins.

Engine/Plugins/Marketplace/MHAManager/

Add to Project

Copies the plugin directly into a single project's Plugins/ folder. Only available in that project, but auto-enabled on install. Best if you only need it for one project.

YourProject/Plugins/MHAManager/

Let the editor enable the dependency plugins

The engine plugins MHA Manager requires are declared as dependencies — when you enable MHA Manager, the editor offers to enable them for you. Accept the prompt and restart when asked. These are the auto-enabled dependencies:

MetaHuman Engine All job types — the MetaHuman Animator pipeline

CaptureData Engine All job types — footage import assets

ImgMedia Engine Image and depth sequence loading

Two more Epic plugins come from Fab for free — install them to the engine via the Epic Games Launcher, or into your project's Plugins/ folder. Mono (face) and Audio jobs need neither.

MetaHumanDepthProcessing MetaHuman Animator Depth Processing Required by Stereo and Identity Create jobs — depth generation is their first stage

MetaHumanBodyTracker MetaHuman Animator Markerless Motion Capture Optional — body tracking and the framing probe (UE 5.8)

Depth Processing is the one plugin the editor will not enable for you. MHA Manager declares it, but the engine copy has no default-enable flag, so a brand-new project needs it ticked once in Edit → Plugins. Without it, every Stereo and Identity Create job fails at its first stage with "Unable to generate depth images. Please make sure Depth Processing plugin is enabled."

Capture Manager: the engine's CaptureManagerEditor plugin produces the Footage Capture Data assets the watcher picks up, and on UE 5.8 runs the in-editor ingest behind Add Jobs -> External Footage.

Verify the plugin is active

Search for MHA Manager in the Plugins browser — it should show as enabled. Then open Tools → MHA Manager from the menu bar. The queue panel should appear. You're ready.

The same precompiled binaries, dropped in by hand. No compiler or Visual Studio needed.

Download the plugin archive

Grab the latest release from the GitHub Releases page. Download MHAManager-v2.12.0.zip (or the latest version available).

Copy to your project's Plugins folder

Extract the archive. Inside you'll find a single folder named MHAManager. Copy it into your project's Plugins/ directory, creating it if it doesn't exist:

YourProject/
└── Plugins/
  └── MHAManager/       ← paste here
      ├── MHAManager.uplugin
      └── Binaries/

Open your project

Double-click your .uproject to open Unreal Editor. If prompted that modules need to be rebuilt, click No — the precompiled binaries should load without recompiling. If this prompt repeats every launch, use the From Source path instead.

Enable required engine plugins

Go to Edit → Plugins and verify all dependencies are enabled. The dependency table in the Epic Games Launcher tab applies here too.

Verify the plugin is active

Search for MHA Manager in the Plugins browser — it should show as enabled. Then open Tools → MHA Manager. The queue panel should appear.

Prerequisites: Visual Studio 2022 with the Game development with C++ workload and .NET desktop development workload installed.

Get the source

Clone the repository or download the source archive from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/Hawaiianspawn/mha-manager.git

Alternatively, download the Source code (zip) from the Releases page and extract it.

Copy to your project's Plugins folder

Copy the MHAManager folder into your project's Plugins/ directory:

YourProject/
└── Plugins/
    └── MHAManager/       ← paste here
        ├── MHAManager.uplugin
        └── Source/
            └── MHAManagerEditor/

Enable required engine plugins

The build needs the MetaHuman and CaptureData headers present. Make sure the MetaHuman, CaptureData, and ImgMedia plugins are enabled in your .uproject (they are declared as dependencies, so the editor offers to enable them when you enable MHA Manager). All three ship with the engine.

From Fab: Stereo and Identity Create jobs require Epic's free MetaHuman Animator Depth Processing plugin, which you must tick in Edit → Plugins yourself; body tracking (UE 5.8) needs MetaHuman Animator Markerless Motion Capture. Mono (face) and Audio jobs need neither.

Generate Visual Studio project files

Right-click your .uproject file in Windows Explorer and choose Generate Visual Studio project files. This produces a .sln solution file in the same directory.

If you don't see this context menu option, open the Unreal Editor first (it will prompt to rebuild), or run UnrealBuildTool manually via the Engine's Build/BatchFiles/ directory.

Build in Visual Studio

Open the generated .sln in Visual Studio 2022. Set the build configuration to Development Editor and the platform to Win64, then build:

Configuration: Development Editor
Platform:      Win64
Build:         Build → Build Solution  (or Ctrl+Shift+B)

A full build typically takes 5-15 minutes depending on hardware. Subsequent incremental builds are much faster.

Open the editor and verify

Launch the editor by double-clicking your .uproject. Search for MHA Manager in Edit → Plugins — it should show as enabled. Open Tools → MHA Manager to confirm the panel loads.

Live Link Hub

Optional. Raw footage already on disk is ingested inside the editor (UE 5.8, see Ingest & Add Jobs). Live Link Hub is Epic's free capture app for recording from devices; takes it ingests into the project are queued like any other.

Open in Epic Games Launcher Live Link Hub on the Epic Games Store

Also available from the launcher's Unreal Engine → Library tab, or Tools → Live Link Hub inside the editor. Device setup and recording are covered in Epic's Live Link Hub documentation; how takes reach the queue is on the Ingest & Add Jobs page.