The Unreal Live Link plug-in makes it possible to stream animation data from Autodesk® Maya® to Unreal in real-time. Whether you’re working between the two tools in a virtual production environment or building your next game, you can now work on character assets in Maya and see previews of your work reflected immediately in Unreal, as you make changes. 

Unreal® Live Link for Maya for UE 5.3 has been recompiled to work with Unreal Engine 5.3. It will NOT work with Unreal Engine 5.2 or earlier.

Version 2.4.1 includes the following changes:

• Introduces the option to choose between Baked or Unbaked for the representation of Blend Shape and Custom Attribute animation curves in Unreal, for Character Subjects.
• The option can be found in the "Link" column of the Unreal Live Link window in Maya.
• When set to Unbaked (red cross), Unreal Live Link will attempt to recreate the shape of the animation curves seen in Maya, in Unreal. This matches the behavior in v2.4.0 and earlier and remains the default setting. When set to Baked (green check), the animation curves will be sampled at each keyframe before being streamed to Unreal. Baked curves result in more data being streamed to Unreal, but support arbitrarily complex scene setups in Maya. This includes adding support for Envelopes and Group Values for Blend Shapes, from Maya's Shape Editor. Conversely, Unbaked curves result in less data being streamed to Unreal but only supports simpler setups, such as Blend Shape weights being directly animated by a curve in Maya, and where Envelopes and Group Values are all set to 1.
• Note that this setting only applies to Linked Assets.

Version 2.4 includes the following changes:

• Adds support for Unreal Engine 5.3.2. It will NOT work with Unreal Engine 5.2 or earlier.
• Adds support for Maya 2025. Maya 2022, 2023, and 2024 continue to be supported.
• Adds an option to toggle real-time synchronization of data. With this option enabled, changes in Maya are reflected immediately in Unreal. When the option is disabled, changes are reflected in Unreal when the mouse button is released. Real-time synchronization is limited to "unlinked" assets and Linked Joint Hierarchies (Characters).
• Performance Improvements when using linked assets.

Version 2.3 adds support for Unreal Engine 5.2. It will NOT work with Unreal Engine 5.1 or earlier.

Version 2.2 adds support for Unreal Engine 5.1. It will NOT work with Unreal Engine 5.0 or earlier.

Version 2.1 now includes features to help you be more efficient and work faster.

Features include:

• Asset Filtering - Easily find Unreal Engine assets and sequences with a new search and filter options.
• Animation Sequence Filtering - Only sequences related to selected skeletons in the Live Link UI are shown to help you make selections faster.
• Link Settings Saved -  Links set up in the Live Link UI are saved with your Maya scene and reloaded when you reopen the file saving you time by not having to redo all your links.
• Addtional Camera Attributes supported - Addtional camera attributes for Unreal Cinecamera Actors and Camera Actors are supported such as Aperture, Focal Length and more.
• Bug fixes.

Version 2.0

Features include:

• Dual installer - The Unreal Live Link for Maya installer installs both the Maya Live Link plugin as well as the Maya Unreal Live Link plugin in one single installer
• New UI Layout - The UI has been updated to include features like Sync Time, Pause Character Animation Streaming and the new Asset Linking functionality
• Asset Linking - Assets in Maya can be linked to assets in Unreal allowing animations to be pushed directly to the engine.
• Bi-Directional Playheads - Timelines in Maya and Unreal are synchronized and the playhead can be manipulated in Maya or Unreal
• Creation of Unreal assets directly in the Maya UI - Blueprint Instances, Lights, Cameras and Level or Animation sequences can be created directly through the Maya UI
• Character Streaming can be paused - Streaming character data can now be paused making it easier when working with long sequences or complex skeletons
• Bug Fixes

For customers still on Unreal 4.27, the plugins for v1.1.1 are available at the following links:

Linux: https://apps.autodesk.com/MAYA/en/Detail/Index?id=1997561394223886348&appLang=en&os=Linux

Windows:  https://apps.autodesk.com/MAYA/en/Detail/Index?id=1997561394223886348&appLang=en&os=Win64

For more details on how to connect Maya to Unreal, see Connecting Unreal Engine 4 to Maya with Live Link or How to use Unreal® Live Link for Autodesk® Maya® plug-in. To learn more about the plug-in features, see the videos on the Maya Learning channel.

Note: This app uses a custom installer (and not the standard App Store installer).