How to Create an Animated Red Hair Character Using Unreal Engine

Introduction

Hello, I am Taehoon Kim, a Character Artist. I did an interview for 80 Level about my Druid project before. And I am delighted to greet you again after a year. During this time, I have consistently pursued personal projects alongside my company work. The goal during this period was to address and improve the technical areas where I felt I was lacking.

The Red Hair project, the topic of this interview, was undertaken to gain a deeper understanding of hair card creation. Before that, the Warhammer project was focused on studying Hard-Surface modeling. I am happy to present these two projects to the readers this year, 2025.

Red Hair Project

The primary goal of the Red Hair project was to significantly increase my proficiency in hair card creation. I specifically aimed to choose the most challenging style, one with a lot of curls. I determined that a short haircut with many curls would present the greatest difficulty, so I centered my work around this particular reference.

While focusing on the hair, the thought of also integrating the MetaHuman features introduced in UE 5.6 arose, naturally expanding the project to include head work. As a result, the project evolved into enhancing the completeness of the facial sculpt and fine facial details.

The production of the head maintained a workflow similar to my previous projects:

• Base Sculpt: I start with a sculptural bust.
• Adding Detail: I blend scan data to enhance realism and supplement any necessary details with additional sculpting.
• Color: The overall base color work is finalized in ZBrush or Substance 3D Painter.

The project was ultimately finalized within Unreal Engine. For the MetaHuman Integration: I imported the MetaHuman body mesh into Unreal Engine and used ZWrap to convert it into a low-poly mesh. This was then imported using the MetaHuman Creator, newly introduced in Unreal Engine 5.6.

For the hair cloth, I created a dummy mesh tailored to the hair. This dummy mesh is imported alongside the hair mesh as a Skeletal Mesh. I applied Cloth Painting to define the movement. During the final render, the dummy mesh is hidden, resulting in natural-looking hair movement.

Hair Structure & Animation

I strived to approach the hair from the perspective of an actual hairstylist. I believed it was decisive to understand the hair's structure and flow before handling 3D tools. My primary modeling approach was as follows:

• Layer Separation: I approached the hair structurally by dividing it into Top Layer, Mid Layer, and Bottom Layer.
• Dummy Work Order: I started the dummy work with the Top Layer, which is the most exposed. I then proceeded to the Mid Layer and Bottom Layer to establish the overall volume and shape.
• Detailing: I separated the dummy meshes for each layer to work on the details. I constantly explored references to understand the layering, overlap, and flow (structure) of the hair.

The most challenging aspect, and the resulting lesson learned, was the importance of structural understanding. While fundamental to all 3D modeling, I realized that for complex, curly hair, understanding the layering and structure determines the success of the work, reinforcing the importance of basic principles.

Initially, I felt overwhelmed by the vast number of facial keys in MetaHuman. I first attempted to use the iPhone app's facial capture feature, but found it difficult to achieve the specific emotional performance I wanted. Furthermore, I decided it was not straightforward to make direct adjustments after baking the animation.

Therefore, I switched to manually manipulating each key to learn the underlying principles. The main workflow was as follows:

• Foundation Study: I analyzed how the facial keys were used by loading the base MetaHuman facial animation into Sequencer.
• Anatomy-Based Learning: I referenced the book Anatomy for Artists 2 to observe the actual muscle movements corresponding to different expressions. I practiced setting keys based on this anatomical understanding.
• Characterization: Based on this practice, I created several core expressions that suited the character's personality.
• Final Touches: I used these finished expression keys to handle the timing, delicately correcting any unnatural movements that occurred along the way to finalize the animation.
• Body Animation: For the body movements, I utilized the Idle animation included in the MetaHuman default assets.

For the presentation, I started with the MetaHuman Default Scene environment but modified the lighting setup to be optimized for the character. I focused on using the power of the lighting itself to compose the image, keeping post-processing and other settings at their default values.

My Lighting Setup was:

• Key Light: I placed a front light to serve as the main light, capturing the character's primary form and contrast.
• Rim Light: I set up a back light as a rim light to emphasize the character's silhouette and separate them from the background.
• Overall Brightness Adjustment: I placed a Rect Light on the ceiling to control the overall environment brightness.
• Shadow Area Fill: I subtly placed another Rect Light in the front lower area to gently fill the shadows.

Conclusion

I finalized the images using Unreal Engine's default rendering settings without adding extra post-effects or complex rendering configurations. This project took a total of 3 to 4 months to complete. This duration reflects my consistent work schedule of about two hours per day after company hours.

Projects involving learning new techniques often bring much thought and difficulty. However, I derive the greatest enjoyment and sense of achievement when I feel the process is gradually bringing me closer to the high expectations I set for myself. These experiences are the driving force that allows me to continue personal work and fill in my knowledge gaps.

For those seeking useful resources, I recommend checking out the 'MoonUijoo (문의주)' YouTube channel. I personally received a lot of help from it during my work.

I thank the readers for staying with the interview until the end. I hope everyone has had a successful 2025 and finishes the year well. I wish everyone happiness and success in the coming year, 2026. Thank you.

TaeHun Kim, Character Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford