Hi everyone,
Today I want to share a showcase featuring two Advanced Term students from Think Tank Training Centre — Claudia Marcucci and Marco Meier — who folded Character Creator 5 into their high-end pipelines alongside ZBrush, Substance Painter, and Unreal Engine 5. Two very different briefs, but both characters landed in UE5 fully rigged and Auto-Setup-ready.
Who’s behind this?
Claudia Marcucci is a 3D character artist based in Milan, currently specializing in Character for Games at Think Tank Training Centre. After training as a 3D generalist in Italy, she studied figure work under Scott Eaton before joining Think Tank to deepen her character specialization. Her Advanced Term project Travelling Merchant was developed under the supervision of Saurabh Jethani, and marks her first full integration of CC5 into a sculpting-first pipeline.
Marco Meier is a 3D character artist focused on game-ready production pipelines. His Advanced Term project was built around a specific goal — a fully playable, MetaHuman-rigged character with working cloth simulation — and his workflow reflects a precision-first mindset that treats CC5 as a production anchor rather than a shortcut.
What’s the workflow about?
- Start from the Reallusion base mesh (or concept proportions) in CC5
- Sculpt body, armor, and skin detail in ZBrush via GoZ, with topology maps preserved
- Bake and texture assets in Substance Painter (Marmoset Toolbag for Marco’s bake)
- Round-trip back into CC5 for skin weighting, Transfer Skin Weight on garments, and rig validation
- Send to Unreal Engine 5 through the Auto Setup (All-in-One) plugin with MetaHuman Control Rig
- Drive animation via AccuRIG + CC5 retargeting, or proxy-mesh cloth sim for game-ready playback
Take a look at the full case study here — well worth the read: https://magazine.reallusion.com/2026/04/23/think-tank-artists-redefine-character-creation-with-character-creator-5/