ZenBlink Changelog

3.0.2

Prevented sudden head movement when a Face animation section ends before the Sequencer timeline.
Improved standalone facial animation and reliability when using ZenBlink alongside ZenDyn.
Improved Live Link compatibility with ARKit and MetaHuman Animator, preserving incoming lip-sync and head animation.
Fixed Sequencer playback suppressing procedural facial animation, including micro-saccades.
Improved animation Blueprint loading at project startup, including C++ projects.
Corrected Global Strength blending, post-process restoration, and mesh changes at runtime.
Improved tagged-target fallback and target updates while baking animation.

ZenBlink 3.0.1 focuses on smoother movement, stronger compatibility, and production-ready packaging.

Smoothed procedural head activation and deactivation so toggling Use Head Movement blends between generated and incoming poses.
Coordinated Random head and eye movement by making the eyes follow the same generated target.
Improved transitions between Random, Follow Target, and Follow Tag movement.
Corrected gaze and exclusion behavior for rotated characters and difficult close-range targets.
Improved Target Component reliability in crowded scenes and during character initialization, with stable eye-level targeting and compatibility for existing setups.
Corrected temporary target fallback behavior so characters retain a natural gaze point instead of looking above the intended target.
Improved ZenDyn 2.0.0 integration in preparation for the ZenDyn 2.0.0 release.

ZenBlink 3 is a major update focused on natural MetaHuman animation, easier setup, and better Sequencer control.

ZenBlink is now an Actor Component. The toolbar can add it permanently to a MetaHuman Blueprint or only to the selected actor.
New procedural facial idle, breathing, eye movement, blinking, emotion, and head-tracking systems.
Random, Follow Target, and Follow Tag modes with smooth transitions, range limits, rear exclusion, and automatic reacquisition.
New ZenBlink Target component for following another character’s eyes, head, socket, or tagged component.
More natural eyes with attention shifts, micro-saccades, convergence, smoothing, and gaze-shift blinks.
Improved head and neck movement with rotation limits, override control, and smoother settling.
Face Override now cleanly replaces incoming facial expression animation while preserving the character’s underlying animation.
51 supplied Control Rig Pose emotions, direct pose selection, and support for custom Control Rig Pose assets.
ZenBlink Preset assets for saving and loading user-facing animation settings in familiar Details panel categories.
Live editor preview without entering Play or Simulate.
Sequencer-ready controls and Bake ZenBlink Animations, which creates synchronized face and body animations.
Cine Camera focus tools and support for working alongside ZenDyn 2.0 or newer.

Smoother emotion changes without briefly returning to neutral.
Better protection for speech, lip sync, mouth, and jaw animation.
Eyes continue tracking when the head reaches its rotation limit.
Random and target-following modes switch without sudden snapping.
Random movement uses independent, center-weighted fixations with distance-aware travel and a visible hold at each target.
Disabling, deactivating, unregistering, or removing ZenBlink restores the face mesh’s original post-process Anim Blueprint.
Cleaner controls and more natural default presets.