Custom Wardrobe Items not appearing despite configuring Wardrobe Default Asset Paths

Development Character & Animation
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1

I’m working in Unreal Engine 5.7 with a collection of finalized custom MetaHuman Wardrobe Items that I’d like to make available globally across all MetaHuman Characters in my project.

Currently, I can manually drag individual MetaHumanWardrobeItem assets into the Hair & Clothing → Outfit Clothing panel inside MetaHuman Character editor, and they work as expected.

However, I want these items to automatically populate the available wardrobe selections whenever an artist opens an existing or newly created MetaHuman Character, similar to how Epic’s WI_DefaultGarment is always available.

What’s I’ve found through Epic’s documentation:

There appears to be native functionality intended for discovering custom wardrobe assets under

Project Settings → Plugins → MetaHuman Character → Wardrobe.

Here, you can specify New Wardrobe Asset Paths for the engine to monitor.

My current configuration for the setting mentioned above:

Content Directory to Monitor:

/Game/Master/Clothing

Slot Name:
Outfits

Classes to Filter:
MetaHumanWardrobeItem

I’d like to note that the Clothingfolder contains subfolders that further organize the WI assets further, but I’ve already tested pointing the directory directly to a subfolder and there was no change.

For example:

/Game/Master/Clothing/Boots/(WI assets live here)

Troubleshooting I’ve already done:

  1. Initially monitored the parent Clothing folder, which contained Wardrobe Items in subfolders.

  2. Changed the directory to the specific Boots subfolder containing the assets directly, in case scanning wasn’t recursive.

  3. Tested both Outfit Clothing and Outfits as the slot name, along with other names that were listed directly in Epic’s documentations.

  4. Tried multiple class filters just to see if anything gets grabbed.

  5. Restarted Unreal Engine after making any configuration changes.

  6. Created entirely new MetaHuman Character assets after updating Project Settings.

  7. Confirmed that the custom Wardrobe Items work when manually dragged into the Outfit Clothing panel.

  8. Located Epic’s default Wardrobe Item at: /MetaHumanCharacter/Optional/Clothing/WI_DefaultGarment This default item appears automatically in newly created MetaHumans

Python diagnostics:

I verified that the Unreal Asset Registry can find and load all items in the configured directory.

All six returned the class:

MetaHumanWardrobeItem

So as far as I’m aware, the engine is reading these assets correctly at least.

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Has anyone successfully used New Wardrobe Assets Paths in UE 5.7?

Am I missing a specific internal slot name for the outfit clothing section? I’ve also experimented with skeletal mesh assets and different class filters, but haven’t had any success.

Is there an additional step required to register or refresh the wardrobe asset directories after configuring them?

How does Epic automatically register the WI_DefaultGarment, and would that same workflow work for custom items?

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I’m not extremely well versed in UE5 but I’ve tried most of what I can think of at the moment.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated! (Also posted on reddit forums as well)

2

The path list is not “show every MetaHumanWardrobeItem under this folder.” Each row is a filter: folder + exact slot name + class. Drag-and-drop into Outfit Clothing skips that filter, which is why manual add works while the palette stays empty. Asset Registry finding the class only proves the first part.

WI_DefaultGarment shows up because the MetaHuman Character plugin ships a config row pointed at /MetaHumanCharacter/Optional/Clothing with the slot name stored on that asset. Your row has to match your assets the same way, not the panel title.

  1. Open one of your WI assets and open WI_DefaultGarment, and compare the Slot property in Details. The panel is called Outfit Clothing; the FName is often Outfit or Outfits, and a footwear item is a different slot again. The Slot Name in Project Settings must be that FName, case sensitive. One settings row per slot. A Boots item will never list under the outfit section if its own slot is footwear, even if you type Outfits on the path.

  2. Your Python check did not print the slot tag. This is the comparison that matters:

import unreal
ar = unreal.AssetRegistryHelpers.get_asset_registry()
for path in (“/MetaHumanCharacter/Optional/Clothing/WI_DefaultGarment.WI_DefaultGarment”,):
pass

Then for each of your six assets print get_tag_value for the slot tag (try SlotName and WardrobeSlot) next to the same call on WI_DefaultGarment. If the tag is empty or None, the editor filter drops them. Fix the Slot on the asset, save, and restart. The class filter is exact: a Blueprint child of MetaHumanWardrobeItem will not match a filter set to the native class. You already confirmed the native class, so this is only a problem if some of the six differ.

  1. Confirm the row was written to config, not just shown in the UI. Search Config and Saved/Config for WardrobePaths (Editor.ini / DefaultEditor.ini, script section MetaHumanCharacterEditorSettings or similar). If the array is missing on disk, the character editor is still using the plugin default only.

  2. Restart after a slot change, and create the character only after that. The palette is cached per editor session.

If the slot tag matches the default garment and the ini row is present, then 5.7 is not picking the project path up at all, and the reliable workaround is the same one drag-drop is already using: add the items to the character’s wardrobe collection (or duplicate the plugin palette and append yours) instead of waiting on New Wardrobe Asset Paths.