Modify Meta Human DNA Bone Expressions with Mesh Morpher

MetaHuman facial expressions are mostly bone-driven: the DNA file defines how nearly a thousand bones move for every smile, squint and jaw drop, with morph targets reserved for fine correctives. Most customization tools only layer corrective morphs on top. Mesh Morpher goes deeper - it edits the expression bone movement itself and bakes the changes back into the DNA file, inside Unreal Engine.

Why edit the bones instead of adding morphs

Corrective morphs fight the rig: the bones move wrong, then a morph patches the surface back. That costs memory per expression, breaks under retargeting, and never quite fixes the silhouette. Editing the DNA bone transforms fixes the expression at its source - the corrected motion works everywhere the DNA works, including UEFN, where morph-based approaches are not available.

The workflow

1. Open your MetaHuman in the Poser in Mesh Morpher Classic.
2. Select a DNA expression. Bones that belong to the expression are marked with a selection color, and the Show DNA Expression Bones option isolates exactly what the expression moves - no guessing which of the thousand bones matter.
3. Adjust the bone transforms until the expression reads the way your character needs.
4. Bake into the DNA. The modified expression becomes part of the character.

▶ Watch the video on YouTube

▶ Watch the video on YouTube

Round-trip with Maya

Baked expressions can be exported to a .dna file and opened in Maya or any other DNA-aware tool - your in-engine edits are not locked in. The export walkthrough:

▶ Watch the video on YouTube

Common uses

• Fixing expressions on customized faces - the classic case is repairing blinks after a face sculpt.
• Character-specific acting - a crooked smile or heavy-lidded look baked into the DNA rather than faked per animation.
• Creature adaptation - expressions retuned for non-human proportions, paired with extreme deformations.

Going further

If you would rather sculpt the target expression as a shape and let Mesh Morpher work out the bones, it can generate bone-driven expressions from morph targets automatically - correctives included. All of this also works outside the engine in Mesh Morpher Studio.