Character Creator 4 has once again added an easy-to-use, but very powerful Mesh head-to-character feature as well as their already popular image-to-head tool that was the main focus of Headshot Version One. I’m not sure if the image-based tool was improved as I’m still caught up in using the new mesh tool.

I have to admit to being a bit skeptical about its advertised ability to attach a mesh head to a fully rigged CC4 character with a working mouth, teeth, and so forth. My mind quickly wondered about scenarios like long-necked or extreme face-forward creature types and what about snouts. Would it just work on humanoid heads, or could creature or stylized heads be thrown into the mix?

To this point, I’m very pleased to say that the plug-in works as advertised on the test creatures that I have conjured up in ZBrush. Once you figure out how to use the simple mapping system you define those long necks and forward faces or even large, long snouts like lizards.

Just to clear things up a bit you don’t have to transfer a character over for scale, you can just start by importing an existing head mesh instead of creating one. As I wanted to give this a thorough test, I created several meshes to work through the pipeline and had no problems. 

Even extended eyes and long snouts could be tamed by tweaking the eyes, teeth positions, and scale, albeit some major tweaking. You are not limited to 100 percent on the CC4 morph sliders so you can input 200 or -200 percent and on up (then press enter) to ridiculous amounts. I routinely go over 100 percent on the negative and positive side depending on the slider so long snouts, and widely spaced eyes are no problem as the sliders or slider input box can move them into place once you are back in the main CC4 workspace. 

Stylized cartoon caricatures are no problem either. Tall foreheads, big ears, and humongous noses are no obstacle for version two.