Hi guys,
I want to export both metahuman´s mesh and animation (Unreal 5) to Marvelous Designer. It´s been really hard to find any information about that, so I´m trying to find a way to export in FBX or Alembic to open in any third software.
I have the animation in Sequencer.
What´s the best workflow for that, please?
Thanks in advance.
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Once you’ve got it in the engine, just right click on any asset and you’ll find and export option which will let you export to it’s native file format. All animations can be exported as fbs files. I’d suggest download the MetaHuman example on the marketplace and export from there. Not sure if it includes the animations that you see in the MH editor though… like the facial rig test or what have you.
@TorQueMoD thank you for your reply. I know that it is possible to export an asset through “Asset Actions”, but I have to export the animation too. I tried from Sequencer, but some bones were exported with no animations.
I want to export to Blender to edit keyframes because the animation is from Mixamo. In Blender, I´ll set up the animation in two keyframes: A Pose and another desired pose. So, I can export to Marvelous and work on clothes. At the end, I´ll import this cloth back to Unreal to make a still render.
@TorQueMoD I found a tutorial from yours: How To Combine Multiple FBX Animations into a single file in 3D Studio Max - YouTube
That Werewolf animation was made in 3Dsmax or did you export it from Unreal?
Yeah, the animations are saved as separate files. Just locate the animation in the content browser and export that. Sequencer is just an editing timeline where you can put things together, but it’s only referencing the source files. The Werewolf animation was originally from an Unreal Marketplace Asset. Exported from the engine, to Max and then back to the engine.
@TorQueMoD Thank you, man! The Metahuman´s body was exported (body + animated skeleton). But I couldn´t export the head, yet. The head animation was made using Live Link app. To save the animation, I had to record it from Sequencer. After saving, I used the same way as the body: right-click on animation > Asset Actions > Export. But, after clicking Export, nothing happened…
Right. So, a metahuman’s facial animation is just saving the numerical values for the face morph that is associated with the character. So it’s not really animating the face as much as it’s remembering the 0 - 1 value for each of the morphs. I’m not sure there’s any way to export this. I’m curious though, what’s your end goal? I would imagine if you’re trying to use Marvelous designer to make some clothes, the easier method would be to export the skeletal mesh, design your clothes, then bring them back into Unreal and create a cloth simulation for them, then render everything out inside unreal. Unless you’re hoping to do the full cloth simulation inside MD? And if that’s the case, doesn’t MD have some basic characters you can work with instead of Meta Human? Seems like what you want to do is more trouble than it’s worth.
@TorQueMoD I´ll clarify my final goal:
I want to make some still renders and animations using Metahumans and cloth.
I tested uDraper, but it doesn´t have Self Collision. And, even if it worked, the workflow to export complex cloth from Marvelous to Unreal is very tedious…
So, I decided to export the animated Metahuman to Marvelous. Not directly. I import into Blender to edit the keyframes, add a rest pose, and export to Alembic, which seems to be the best file format to import animation in Marvelous.
After the simulation, I want to send animated cloth to Unreal.
I managed to export the animated body and I used it in Marvelous. But I wanted to export the head as well, because some clothes cover the head…
Okay, I understand what you’re trying to do now. To be honest, I think maybe you’d be better off with a program like Daz studio for your character, instead of Metahuman. I know the Metahuman characters look awesome, especially for free, but they weren’t really built to get out of the engine. I’m almost certain you can get the head out in a still pose, but not with the face morphs animations intact (there is an option to export the morphs themselves, so you can probably manipulate them manually in blender).
Another method I use for exporting sometimes is exporting an entire scene from the engine instead of individual assets. Sometimes this gets more content that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to export. If you open up the example metahuman rendering scene from the marketplace (or really any level you want) and drop your character in there, then go to File - Export All, you might get the character and head out as one file.
I see… I have to use Metahumans, and I want to use them inside Unreal. The reason I want to export them animated is just to get animated cloth from MD back to Unreal. I managed to export just the body. In fact, now I have another problem: I´d like to export an entire animation made of two blended animations inside Sequencer. As I can export one animation at a time, because I have to export from the Animation Asset, I can´t take these two animations blended in Marvelous… Well, I still seeking this information. And I appreciate your time trying to help me.
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Sorry I couldn’t think of a solution. Good luck in your search.
@TorQueMoD No problem. Thanks for your attention. In fact, I found a solution in a video from virTjil: HOW TO import Marvelous Designer clothes for a MetaHuman (UE5 SOLUTION) - YouTube
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Oh that’s awesome. Glad you came back to post the solution here 
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I had the same problem, thanks for sharing this video!
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Anyway, guys! About the metahuman´s body, I noted that using the full bodies from Daniel Newman is causing overlapping in clothes. Even using his solution (see the video). So, I exported the body and head, opened them in Blender, joined both and imported this new full body, and used it in Marvelous.
Did you face any issues when joining? I’m going through the same process right now and when I tried to join the body and the head I get somehing like this in Blender - the top portion of the head gets stretched for some reason - not sure if I did something wrong on my end though!
Posted this in a similar thread here but thought of deleting it since this current thread seems more relevant.
@bootkernel Ah yes… I faced this, but once I needed just the body, I transferred all weights from the head to one bone in the head.
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Ah I see, Okay I’ll try that!
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Hello, Leandro_O! If I understand correctly you want two frames in your animation. A static A-pose and an action pose. This way you can design the clothes in MD on the static pose, then load the second pose in order for the clothes to simulate to the action pose.
I don’t think I can help you with the animation. But if you just want to render a still image of the action pose with the simulated clothes on in UE5, this is how I do it, because I was looking for the same solution:
In UE5 left click the A-posed Metahuman, then go to Actor > Convert BP_ to static mesh. You will find the mesh in the Content Drawer under Meshes.
Then, pose the Metahuman (or search for the desired keyframe in the sequencer) and do the same thing.
You will now have two static meshes(A-pose and Action pose) that you can export as FBX.
In Marvelous load the A-pose Fbx as an avatar and design your clothes. Then load the action pose Fbx as a morph target to simulate the clothes into the action pose.
Export the simulated clothes as OBJ and import them into UE5 to the correct frame and do the still image render.
As I mentioned before it doesn’t work if you want to animate the clothes in UE but for a static image I think it works.
Hi, @IonKreion. I already solved it, but you showed me a valuable tool I didn´t know> convert a blueprint in Static Mesh. Thank you! It is very handy.