Video summary

New Unreal Engine 5.8 Metahuman Crowd Plugin

Main summary

Key takeaways

Technology

New Unreal Engine 5.8 Feature / Plugin

Epic released the MetaHuman Crowd Plugin (experimental).

Core Capability

The plugin lets you build large MetaHuman crowds by assembling optimized instances of MetaHumans, scaling from tens up to thousands of characters.

Distance-Based Streaming (High/Low Fidelity)

It provides an assembly pipeline with seamless transitions based on camera distance:

  • High-fidelity MetaHumans near the camera
  • Low-fidelity instance skeletal meshes farther away (distance-driven)

Massive Crowd Demo (Sample Project)

The sample project showcases:

  • Spawning ~1,000 MetaHumans in a level
  • Reported performance around ~50–60 FPS
    • Note: performance can vary due to editor overhead and recording/Chrome tabs
  • Culling behavior
    • Not all 1,000 are rendered at once
    • Only the characters within the on-screen subset are drawn (shown via an FPS/people-count HUD)
  • LOD / mesh swap timing
    • When the camera zooms closer, high-fidelity meshes stream in
    • The author notes only a few high-detail actors are active when very close

Crowd Movement and Navigation

Crowd logic uses Mass AI / Mass Entity systems (similar to City Sample), including:

  • Randomized navigation paths
  • Crowd avoidance between agents

Outfit Modularity and Randomization

Crowd characters support:

  • Modular components (e.g., head, hair, clothing like boots/shoes, pants, etc.)
  • Randomized outfits for variety
  • The demo highlights unique outfits across the crowd

Nanite Notes

The author checks r.nanite.visualize.triangles, implying:

  • Nanite is enabled on many/most MetaHuman character parts
  • Some parts may not show expected Nanite behavior during visualization

Crowd Collection Asset (Setup / Editing Tool)

A MetaHuman collection asset provides presets for modular parts, including:

  • Heads, shoes, pants, hair, and more

It also supports parameter tweaks, such as:

  • Color changes (e.g., jeans stitch color, shirt color)
  • An apply/save workflow

The setup implies you can:

  • Add custom outfits
  • Use them through the collection

In-Editor Simulation Controls

Pressing “O” brings up a widget to adjust time/simulation speed, allowing you to:

  • Slow down the simulation
  • Freeze it for closer inspection

Geometry / Optimization Commentary

The reviewer compares the crowd-friendly geometry to more cinematic MetaHuman base models, concluding the demo appears more game-optimized.

Where to Get It (Tutorial / Guide)

Download the MetaHuman Crowd sample project from Fab (described as free to download in the video).

Install / Use in Unreal Engine 5.8

  1. Add/claim the sample from Fab
  2. Install/import it into UE 5.8
  3. In a new project, go to Plugins
  4. Enable MetaHuman Crowd plugin (experimental)
  5. Enable MetaHuman Crowd content (the sample content from Fab)

Overall Takeaway

The reviewer describes the plugin as promising for simulating 1000+ characters with crowd interaction around 50–60 FPS in the editor, with the warning that results depend on the project and editor conditions.

Main Speakers / Sources

  • Primary speaker/reviewer: The YouTube creator narrating the demo and setup steps
  • Source: Epic Games (Unreal Engine 5.8 release and MetaHuman Crowd Plugin announcement)

Original video