As my first step of coming back to this project, I've refactored Puppeteer so it's a lot easier to use.
There are way fewer steps for setting things up.
In summary:
1. Download the plugin from github.com/ViktroNZ/Puppeteer
2. Extract it into [YourProject]/Plugins/ folder
3. Add the PuppeteerManager Actor into the level (can be placed anywhere)
4. Add a reference to the MetaHuman within the PuppeteerManager
5. On the MetaHuman Actor in the level, set the Face Component's AnimBP to be Puppeteer_AnimBP
6. Connect your iPhone to LiveLink (you'll need to set the IP address in your LiveLink iPhone App to the IP address of your computer)
7. Set the LiveLink Subject in the PuppeteerManager to your iPhone
I did a brief try of using the Take Recorder with this setup, but adding the MetaHuman to the tracks caused some conflict with the AnimBP or something - because the LiveLink stopped driving the rig. Something to debug later. Open to suggestions if anybody knows what might be happening.
The tracking was pretty poor, but I was doing this in the evening with low light.
On another note, I'm thinking about how this fits in with MetaHuman Animator. I haven't had a chance to have a play with that yet - but will have a better idea once I've had a play.
I expect Puppeteer might be best used in real time situations where you're doing a live stream or perhaps in virtual production/pre-vis? Curious to know what people think - as it doesn't feel like offline animation work is a good use of Puppeteer.
Thanks for your support :)