Characters
The Character tab lets players pose the player character and nearby characters, turn their head and eyes toward the lens, give them an expression, turn them on the spot, and hide the player or everyone else.
Which characters are listed
Section titled “Which characters are listed”- The player, first, named “Player” (with the profile’s Include Player on).
- Nearby characters within Subject Search Radius (25 m), nearest first, named “Character 1”, “Character 2”… (with Include Nearby Characters on). Every pawn based on Character with a skeletal mesh counts.
- Actors with a Lensman Subject component, even if they aren’t Characters.
At most Max Subjects (8) are listed. Hidden characters are left out.
The Lensman Subject component
Section titled “The Lensman Subject component”Add a Lensman Subject component to a character to control how it appears in photo mode:
| Property | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Display Name | Empty | The name in the Character row. Empty: “Player” or “Character N”. |
| Exclude | Off | Leaves this character out of photo mode. |
| Mesh Component Name | Empty | The skeletal mesh to pose, by name. Empty: the character’s mesh, or the first skeletal mesh that doesn’t follow another one. |
| Use Profile Poses, Poses | On, empty | The profile’s poses, plus this character’s own. Turn Use Profile Poses off to offer only its own. |
| Use Profile Expressions, Expressions | On, empty | The same for expressions. |
| Look At Bones, Eye Bones | Empty | This character’s bones for looking at the camera. Empty: the profile’s. |
A pose is one of your animations, played on the character while photo mode is open, even when the game is paused. Lensman ships no animations; add Anim Sequences or Montages to the profile’s (or the Lensman Subject’s) Poses:
| Field | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Display Name | The name in the Pose row. | |
| Animation | An Anim Sequence or Montage: a single-frame pose or a loop. | |
| Loop | On | |
| Play Rate | 1 | |
| Lock Root | On | Keeps the character on the spot. |
A pose is offered for a character when it uses the same skeleton, or when at least 80 % of the animation’s bones exist on the character’s mesh. Own pose keeps the character as it was when photo mode opened. Changing the pose blends over Pose Blend Time (0.3 seconds).
How poses stay safe
Section titled “How poses stay safe”Poses run on a stand-in: the first time a character gets a pose, an expression, a look or a turn, Lensman hides its mesh and shows a copy in its place, with the same materials and lighting. Modular parts (head, body, outfit meshes that follow the main mesh) and attached things such as weapons and hair move to the stand-in.
Your Animation Blueprint, the real mesh and the character’s state are never touched. When photo mode closes, the stand-in is removed and everything is back exactly as it was. Pose settings last until photo mode closes.
Characters that were off screen are brought up to date when photo mode opens, including the parts of modular characters and their cloth, so nobody shows a stale pose. See Fresh poses.
Look at the camera
Section titled “Look at the camera”Look: At the camera turns the character’s head toward the lens and aims the eyes at it:
- The bones in Look At Bones (the UE5 mannequin’s spine, neck and head by default) share the turn, at most Look At Max Angle (75°) away from the way the body faces.
- The Eye Bones aim at the lens, up to 30°. Bone names of the UE mannequin, MetaHuman-style faces, Character Creator and VRoid are set up.
- If none of the configured bones exist, the first bone named like “head” is used.
The row is only offered for characters that have such bones.
Expressions
Section titled “Expressions”An expression sets morph targets on the character’s face by name. Eight are built in, written with ARKit names:
| Expression | Morph targets |
|---|---|
| Smile | mouthSmile, cheekSquint, eyeSquint (left and right) |
| Laugh | mouthSmile, jawOpen, cheekSquint, eyeSquint |
| Surprised | browInnerUp, browOuterUp, eyeWide, jawOpen |
| Angry | browDown, eyeSquint, noseSneer, mouthFrown |
| Sad | browInnerUp, mouthFrown, mouthLowerDown |
| Wink | eyeBlinkLeft, mouthSmile, cheekSquintLeft |
| Pout | mouthPucker, mouthFunnel |
| Eyes closed | eyeBlink (left and right) |
Names are matched loosely: only letters and digits count, case doesn’t matter, and a trailing “Left” or “Right” equals “L” or “R”. So mouthSmileLeft, Mouth_Smile_L and mouthSmile_L are the same, and ARKit, Character Creator and VRoid style blend shapes work with the built-in expressions.
An expression is offered when the character has at least one of its morph targets, on any of its meshes (a separate face mesh counts). Add your own in the profile’s Expressions: a Display Name and a map of morph target names to weights from 0 to 1.
Turn and hiding
Section titled “Turn and hiding”- Turn rotates the character on the spot, from −180° to 180°.
- Hide player hides the player character and what is attached to it.
- Hide other characters hides every character except the player and the selected one, plus the classes in the profile’s Hide Others Classes.
Everything hidden comes back when photo mode closes. To always hide actors such as markers, see Hiding things.
In multiplayer
Section titled “In multiplayer”Poses, expressions and hidden characters are local: only the player taking the photo sees them, and nothing is replicated.