Unreal Engine 5.8 Production Pipeline

AMAP-Studio

High-fidelity PMX asset import, VMD motion/camera sequencing, real-time SDEF GPU deformation, Bullet physics simulation, and live motion capture in Unreal Engine 5.8.

Quick Start Guide View on GitHub

System Requirements

AMAP-Studio is architected natively for Unreal Engine 5.8 64-bit Windows environments.

Engine Version	Unreal Engine 5.8
Operating System	Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit)
Target Platforms	Win64 (Editor tools and runtime nodes)
Mac / Linux Support	Not supported (Win64 native optimized)

Installation & Setup

Plugin Deployment
Install AMAP-Studio directly via the Fab Marketplace library, or copy the AMAP-Studio directory into your project's Plugins/ folder.
Plugin Activation
Launch your Unreal Engine 5.8 project, navigate to Edit > Plugins, find AMAP Studio under the Animation category, and ensure it is enabled.
Editor Restart
Restart the editor when prompted. The dedicated AMAP top-level menu will appear in the main editor toolbar.

Seamless Integration: AMAP-Studio is fully embedded into Unreal Engine Slate menus and the asset import pipeline. No external companion executables or background services are required.

Feature Overview

PMX Model Ingestion

Complete skeleton, material mapping, morph target synthesis, rigid body setup, and display frame reconstruction.

SDEF GPU Deformer

Real-time spherical deformation algorithm executed via the Deformer Graph compute framework for skinning integrity.

VMD Sequencing

High-precision import of motion and camera animations directly into Level Sequences with curve fidelity.

Bullet Physics Integration

Dedicated rigid body, constraint joint, and soft body dynamics simulation with in-editor visualizers.

Parent Constraint

Production actor component providing Target Actor, Target Bone, procedural weight interpolation, and offset preservation.

Live Capture & Input

Integrated VMC protocol receiver, XR pose ingest, and markerless MetaHuman Animator video pipeline.

Model & Motion Pipeline

PMX Bone Solver & Correction

The built-in PMX Bone Solver manages Inverse Kinematics (IK), append transform grants, and twist bone stabilization. Twist Position Correction automatically realigns twist bones along the trajectory between upper and lower joint nodes.

VMD Camera Sequencing

VMD camera trajectories are converted into cinematic Level Sequences, binding focal lengths, field-of-view keys, and target track points in Unreal Engine coordinates.

Physics & SDEF Deformation

AMAP-Studio bundles prebuilt static binaries of the Bullet Physics SDK, enabling rigid body collision and soft body cloth/hair simulations alongside standard Chaos physics.

Deformer Graph Prerequisite: SDEF deformation utilizes the engine Compute Framework and Deformer Graph plugins included with Unreal Engine 5.8.

Live & Network Input

Network receiver sockets are instantiated strictly when live capture sessions are initialized:

Protocol / Workflow	Default Endpoint	Description
Face Mesh Receiver	UDP port 39541	High-rate facial blendshape streaming
VMC Motion Receiver	Configurable UDP port	Real-time full-body tracking synchronization

Editor Menu & Tools

AMAP-Studio integrates dedicated diagnostic and utility commands under the AMAP editor menu:

Command	Purpose
Twist Position Correction	Recalculates and aligns twist bones between adjacent skeletal joints.
Reapply PMX SDEF	Reinitializes and binds SDEF deformation assets to imported meshes.
PMX Post-Import Settings	Configures material binding presets, normal generation, and asset hierarchy.
PMX Rig Import Settings	Adjusts IK solving tolerances and Control Rig parameter mappings.

Plugin Dependencies

Required Engine Plugins (Shipped with UE 5.8)

Plugin	Functionality
`IKRig`, `ControlRig`	Animation graph rigging and IK resolution.
`ComputeFramework`, `DeformerGraph`	GPU execution of SDEF deformation shaders.
`ElectraCodecs`, `AV1DecoderElectra`, `VPxDecoderElectra`, `OpusDecoderElectra`	Hardware video decoding for motion ingest.

Optional Integrations

Plugin	Usage
`MetaHuman`, `ImgMedia`	Markerless performance video capture pipeline.
`VRM4U`	Optional toon shader and specialized material routing.

Technical Specifications

Network Replicated	No
Supported Development Platforms	Windows: Yes, Mac: No
Supported Target Build Platforms	Win64
Number of Blueprints	0 (Pure C++ Architecture)
C++ Classes & Types	28 UCLASS, 27 USTRUCT, 8 UENUM, Native helpers

Code Modules

Module Name	Module Type	Loading Phase
`AMAP_Runtime`	Runtime	Default
`AMAP_BulletRuntime`	Runtime	Default
`AMAP_Editor`	UncookedOnly	PreDefault
`AMAP_BulletEditor`	UncookedOnly	Default
`AMAP_Importer`	Editor	PostEngineInit
`AMAP_Deform`	Editor	PostEngineInit
`AMAP_VmdCamera`	Editor	Default
`AMAP_MetaHumanMocap`	Editor	None

Third-Party Notices

AMAP-Studio utilizes the Bullet Physics 3 SDK under the zlib license for collision and dynamics simulation.

Support & Community

For questions, feature feedback, and issue tracking, please visit the official repository:

Open Issue on GitHub