Install the plugin

Prebuilt binaries, Blueprint-only friendly, Unreal Engine 5.3 – 5.8.

IAMX ships as a single self-contained Unreal plugin. Drop it into your project's Plugins/ folder, open the editor, and the full conversational-character pipeline — speech in, live lip-synced answer out — is available to Blueprint and C++ alike. There is no separate SDK to install, no engine rebuild, and no external service you have to stand up before the plugin will load. This page walks through picking the right package, adding it to a project, and verifying it loaded cleanly.

Download

Head to the GitHub releases page and download the package whose name matches your engine version exactly. Each release attaches one zip per supported Unreal version; they are identical in features and differ only in the engine ABI they were compiled against.

Verify the download

Each release lists a file size and, where published, a checksum next to the asset. If your organization mirrors downloads internally, keep the original zip name intact — the version suffix in the filename is how the loader is matched to the engine, and renaming it makes later upgrades harder to track.

Add it to your project

The plugin is installed per-project by extracting one folder. You do not need to touch your engine installation.

1. Close the editor — if the target project is open in Unreal, close it first so the plugin is discovered on the next launch.
2. Create the Plugins folder — in your project root (the folder containing the .uproject), create a Plugins/ directory if one does not already exist.
3. Extract IAMX — unzip the package and copy the IAMX folder into Plugins/. The folder — not a nested copy of it — must sit directly under Plugins/.
4. Open the project — launch the .uproject. Unreal detects the new plugin, loads its prebuilt binaries, and IAMX is ready.

After extraction your layout should look exactly like this:

YourProject/
├── YourProject.uproject
├── Content/
└── Plugins/
    └── IAMX/
        ├── IAMX.uplugin        # plugin descriptor (Unreal reads this)
        ├── Binaries/           # prebuilt Win64 — no compiler required
        │   └── Win64/
        ├── Source/             # full C++ source, included
        │   ├── IAMX/
        │   └── IAMXEditor/
        ├── Content/            # bundled assets & sample graphs
        └── Resources/          # icons

When the editor finishes loading, confirm the plugin is active under Edit → Plugins. Search for IAMX and check that it appears enabled. If it is present but disabled, tick the checkbox and restart the editor once.

Blueprint-only projects

Because the packages ship prebuilt Win64 binaries, a project with no C++ code and no compiler installed will load IAMX without any build step. You never open Visual Studio, never generate project files, and never see a "missing modules — rebuild?" prompt. The full C++ source is still included in the Source/ folder for teams who want to inspect or extend it, but reading it is entirely optional.

Troubleshooting a failed load

Also on Fab

IAMX is also distributed on Fab, Epic's content marketplace. Installing from Fab adds the plugin to your engine through the Epic Games Launcher's install flow, which is convenient if you prefer marketplace-managed updates or want the plugin available to every project on your machine rather than dropping it into a single project's Plugins/ folder. The feature set is identical to the GitHub packages — pick whichever distribution fits how you manage dependencies.

What's next

With the plugin loaded, the next step is to add the IAMX character component to an actor and point it at your MetaHuman (or custom-rigged) character. That is where you enable speech, lip sync, and the conversational pipeline.

Prefer a running example first? Try the live demo and control panel, ask questions on the community forum, or read build notes and deep-dives on the blog.