Unfortunately, this never negates that there will be a subscription or cost.  It only states "Free for Use".   It still remains a 'hope' and not a definitive confirmation.
Notice they never say "Meta Human will be free", or "There is no subscription cost", etc.
"Free for use" does not mean that the app itself will be free, in an unlimited fashion, in an ongoing basis. 

Remember - CC3 characters are "Free for Use" in UE4, but you still had to buy CC in the first place to get the characters into UE.
CC3 is not Unreal Engine, just as Meta Human Creator is not Unreal Engine.
  

uhm no... they clearly stated that "MetaHuman CREATOR" will be free for use with Unreal Engine. they are following the exact same policy as with Quixel Megascans. There will be zero costs associated, none at all, as long as you are using Unreal Engine for your final games/renders. They are not referring to the character models created within the creator tool, they are referring to the "CREATOR" tool itself.

Let me ask you, is CC3 "free for use" with Unreal Engine?

I would also note that a Daz forum thread has referenced this thread as a source of the screenshot with the response from Epic.
So any potential reference later, made in this thread, to there being "confirmation in a Daz forum thread" is non-sequitur circular logic..

No, CC3 is not "free" for use in Unreal Engine. You have to pay for CC3, and probably iClone as well if you wish to usenthe Unreal link plugin. so only, after youchave actually paid fornthose tools, only then, can you use your CC3 characters inside of Unreal Engine.

TLDR; By owning the software (CC3), only thren do you have the right to use CC3 characters inside of UE. Metahuman Creator does not require any software purchases for you to be able to use the characters inside of UE.

Exactly right. You have to open your wallet only if you plan to use the tool outside of UE4. Megascans (that you already mentioned) uses the exact same model. This will be a very competitive solution especially for UE4 users. I'm also certain that there's some very powerful animation tools in the works as well....

In my opinion, or rather said, my hopes are that Reallusion put a little bit less effort on UE4 integration since UE has now an integrated tool for character creation and instead put more development time into characteristics like creating character hair inside CC, better export to other 3D software like Blender, Maya... the dynamic wrinkle system that was supposed to be there in 2020 but still isn't, creating customized facial expressions sets you can link to your characters (not everyone has the same smile or angry facial expression...)


The level of detail and customization in CC3 is really extensive and good and in my opinion those features are very welcome for users who want to make HQ animations in 3D software. MetaHuman looks very good but it doesn't have the deep level of customization to create really unique characters as CC3 has, at least not for now, but it already has dynamic wrinkle system and hair customization, which in my opinion are also a must for CC.

I agree. I've been anticipating CC3's wrinkle system for too long now, but once it has released, CC3 will be high on the hill again.

I am a UE4 user and at first I was worried that my investment in Reallusion have been wasted with the upcoming Metahuman, but I'm not concerned at all anymore. I will be able to utilise both tools effectively. Metahuman will be amazing for quickly getting realistic human characters very quickly, but perhaps with some customization limitations. CC3, especially with its ZBrush integration will remain to be hugely capable for non human characters, Headshot auto characters, and 3D scan processing. CC3 will require much more work to get close to matching metahuman's animation... I am looking forward to seeing which tool will fill thei gaps the soonest.

Nothing in short. CC3 just allows me to make a base that makes sculpting a lot faster by not requiring the early blocking out portion. Even that isn't the most time consuming. I would say that in all honesty that CC3 is really and expensive hobbyist or very inexpensive solution for small studios and nothing more. Headshot is a good move in the right direction, and meta human just means you won't have to work outside of Unreal (I believe) but until you can actually make something that doesn't require any fiddling then you're still going to need a character artist to actually make the thing you want and not an approximation. You're not replacing anything yet just bolstering your options.

Any update on roadmap. A plug-in to import metahuman , Edit then export back to unreal would be great.

Or a major uplift on skingen to give metahuman level skin quality.