MorphCue
Morph targets played straight from your animation tracks

Overview

Morph targets (also called blend shapes or shape keys) are usually driven by curves baked into the animation or by gameplay code. MorphCue lets animators drive them right on the notify track of the animation editor, with no code and no curve authoring, and lets programmers drive the same morphs from Blueprint or C++.

• Morph Cue notify state: place it on a sequence, montage or composite; its length is the playback length.
• Layered morphs: one notify drives any number of morph targets, each with its own values and timing.
• Easing library: Linear, Sine, Quad, Cubic, Expo, Smooth Step, or your own Curve Float.
• Loops and windows: repeat a layer N times and play it over only part of the notify.
• Blend modes: Override, Additive or Multiply against the weight the morph had when the cue began.
• End actions: keep the final value, restore the previous value or reset to zero - also when the animation is interrupted.
• Morph presets: data assets of named weights (expressions, visemes, body shapes) played by a notify, the component or the library.
• Modular characters: also drive attached skeletal meshes or every mesh on the actor, filtered by component tag.
• Random variation: random end value and random delay on every play, so repeated blinks never look identical.
• Mirroring: swap _L/_R (or any token pair) in morph names for mirrored animations.
• Morph Cue Player component: play, blend, preset and stop morphs at runtime with a finished event.
• Searchable morph picker in the details panel, filled from the preview mesh, with free typing and unknown-name highlighting.
• Safe on many characters at once: every mesh running the same animation keeps its own cue state.

Requirements

Installation

1. Install MorphCue from Fab into your engine, or copy the MorphCue folder into your project's Plugins folder.
2. Enable MorphCue in Edit > Plugins and restart the editor.
3. C++ only: add PublicDependencyModuleNames.Add("MorphCue"); to your Build.cs.

Quick start

1. Open an animation sequence or montage of a mesh that has morph targets.
2. Right-click a notify track and choose Add Notify State > Morph Cue. Drag its ends to the frames where the morph should play.
3. Select the notify. In Layers, expand element 0 and click Pick next to Morph, then choose a morph target.
4. Keep Playback on A to B to A, set End (B) to 1 and scrub or play: the morph rises and falls over the notify.
5. Add more layers for more morphs, or set a Preset to play a whole expression.

The Morph Cue notify

Notify State UMorphCueNotifyState — displayed as Morph Cue.

Blueprint children of the notify can implement event On Cue Begin (mesh, total duration) and event On Cue End (mesh). pure Get Resolved Layers returns the layers that will play (preset expanded, names mirrored) and Get Active Instance Count the number of meshes running the cue.

Layers

struct FMorphCueLayer — one morph target over a window of the cue.

Playback, easing & loops

At each frame a layer computes its progress through its window (0 to 1), splits it into Loops cycles and turns each cycle into a shape between A (0) and B (1):

Easings: Linear, Sine In, Sine Out, Sine In Out, Quad In, Quad Out, Quad In Out, Cubic In Out, Expo In Out, Smooth Step and Custom Curve. When the notify ends, the layer is snapped to its exact final value (with Keep Final Value) even if the last frame stopped short of it.

Blend modes & end actions

When a cue begins, MorphCue reads the current weight of each of its morphs on each target mesh (the starting weight).

Presets

Data Asset UMorphCuePreset — create one with Add > Miscellaneous > Data Asset > Morph Cue Preset.

Play a preset from a notify (Preset), from the component (Play Preset / Clear Preset) or instantly with Apply Preset. Get Value and Has Morph read a preset. Capture Morph Targets returns the current weights of a mesh, ready to store in a preset.

Modular characters

When Mesh Tag is set, the extra meshes must carry that component tag; the playing mesh is always included. Meshes without the morph simply ignore it.

Mirroring

With Mirror on, the first Mirror Pair found in each morph name is swapped: Brow_L becomes Brow_R and MouthRight becomes MouthLeft. Use it on a mirrored copy of an animation, or to reuse one notify setup for both sides. Matching is case-sensitive. Mirror Morph Name does the same in Blueprint.

Morph Cue Player component

Component UMorphCueComponent — displayed as Morph Cue Player. Add it to any actor with a skeletal mesh. It ticks only while something is playing.

Properties: Target Mesh Reference (component picker), Mesh Targets and Mesh Tag (as on the notify). Playing a morph that is already playing replaces it and continues from its current weight.

Blueprint library

Function Library UMorphCueLibrary — category MorphCue.

Morph picker

Every Morph field (FMorphCueName) is shown as a text box plus a Pick button. The list is searchable and is filled from:

• the preview mesh of the animation being edited (sequence, montage or composite), or its skeleton's preview mesh;
• a preset's Preview Mesh;
• the owning actor's skeletal mesh for components placed in a level.

You can always type a name. When a mesh is known, a name it does not have is shown in orange and the tooltip says so.

Debugging

Console variable MorphCue.Debug 1 prints every weight MorphCue writes on screen, tagged with its source (Notify, End, Player, Set), in development builds. It does nothing in shipping builds.

C++

#include "MorphCueComponent.h"
#include "MorphCueLibrary.h"

// Blink with the runtime player
if (UMorphCueComponent* Morphs = FindComponentByClass<UMorphCueComponent>())
{
    FMorphCueLayer Blink;
    Blink.Morph = FMorphCueName(TEXT("EyeBlink_L"));
    Blink.Playback = EMorphCuePlayback::PingPong;
    Blink.Easing = EMorphCueEasing::SineInOut;
    Blink.RandomEndOffset = 0.05f;
    Morphs->PlayLayer(Blink, 0.18f);
    Morphs->PlayPreset(SmilePreset, 0.4f);
}

// Read and write weights directly
TArray<FMorphCueValue> Current = UMorphCueLibrary::CaptureMorphTargets(GetMesh());
UMorphCueLibrary::SetMorphTargets(GetMesh(), Current, EMorphCueMeshTargets::ThisAndAttached);

The evaluation helpers are available to C++ as FMorphCueMath (Ease, Shape, Evaluate, FinalValue, Blend, Mirror, WithVariation).

Troubleshooting

Credits

© 2026 Alpha XP — alphaxp.net · Support: support@alphaxp.net. Built for Unreal Engine 4.27 and 5.8.