Groom Export to Alembic or FBX file format

Hello, I imported a character from Metahumans through Bridge. Everything shows up and is working perfectly, but I was wondering if there was any way to export the Hair/Groom data set as another file type (alembic/fbx/obj)
I’m new to Unreal Engine so sorry if this is an obvious one.
Thanks in advance.

There is no way to export grooms to packages other than UE at the moment.

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I was curious if there any changes to that?
Truth be told - all I want is to have the ability to cache the groom.
Unreal features multiple caching solution for various features but not for the grooms.
Without caching it doesnt work nicely with Sequencer’s Anti-Aliasing :confused:

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Actually, you can export Grooms from UE using Ornatrix, (Helps to to go out of UE to make Cards in Blender or 3ds Max, or like me using the temporary 4.26 Automatic Cards Generation Plugin :wink: Then migrate back into 5.2 OH BAAABY! :slight_smile: ,. :~)\

Here is a way you can export GROOMS from Unreal to other tools.
Ornatrix UE: Procedural groom export in UE5 - YouTube] Ornatrix UE: Procedural groom export in UE5 - YouTube

My suggestions is to get 4.26 installed, it came wth a Experimental Cards Generation Tool Plugin :slight_smile: Then migrate Groom with Cards back ito 5,2! :

Hey but can it be done with the free version? 50usd a month only to export some grooms…

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No. There is no other way at this time, I was surprised to even find this. I would in your case, make screen caps at special informative angles then recreate the Hair in your 3D Program using that info as guides…

For Anyone Reading this now :

Niagara Groom Simulations have been recently patched by the devs.
Check out this recent tutorial released by Epic Games:


Old answer:
I think this answer might be a bit misleading?
(I might be saying that cause I just wasted 50$ on Ornatrix…)
Ornatrix doesn’t export animated .abc, so the groom will still need to be simulated either in Blender, Maya, 3ds or c4d.

From Ornatrix’s Discord Server:

since Ornatrix is an editor only plugin, it doesn’t implements a feature to simulate hair or to cache simulations. This would have to be done on UE side.

The author of the plugin recommends using their supported versions of Maya, 3ds or c4d. Blender is not supported yet.

From Ornatrix’s Discord Server:

That being said, Strand channels are exported with the hair when exported as Ornatrix Alembic or USD(as you can see in the video, you have the checkbox to export this type of data), but because Ornatrix doesn’t exist in Blender, you will NOT be able to use this data there. This needs to be supported by Blender developers somehow.

So you’d need to purchase both the UE version of Ornatrix and any of the other DCC ones… that’s just to import the groom correctly.
After that, you’ll need to simulate the fur/hair and then reimport it in Unreal Engine as Groom Cache : Using Groom Caches with Hair in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.3 Documentation

“A Groom Cache is an extension of a Groom Asset that allows playback of groom animations that are simulated in other digital content creation (DCC) applications and exported to Unreal Engine using Alembic.”

This method will work to fix the AA issue using TSR, hair physics/simulation and Motion Blur below 0.5 since the Hair will be cached and the TSR won’t need to calculate its interpolation frame to frame anymore. But you’ll still need to simulate the hair in a different DCC.
As of now, 09/2023 there is no other option to have: AA, TSR, Mo-Blur >0.5 and have good hair simulation using MRQ.
Please don’t waste 50$ on a tool that won’t serve your cause since Ornatrix has a no-refund policy.

Other solutions will include stepping away from the Temporal Sampling (TSR) Anti-Aliasing and using a Space Anti Aliasing but that won’t help the quality of your motion-blur.

If you lower the Motion-Blur Amount to 0 and plan on using post-processing DCCs like Nuke to implement it. Stop, this won’t work.
Unreal Engine supports rendering a velocity pass Cinematic Render Passes in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.0 Documentation but grooms are not supported.

@Dig_Squid @mneely3d @Lucky_Monk57 @comlys @Guillaume.Abadie
Please let me know if I missed something.

How can you help? :heart:
Vote to get these issues with MRQ fixed!
Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-193082)
Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-175577)


References:
Render(render queue) simulated hair etc.
Clothes,Hair Rendering issue. motion blur1 is not enough
Metahuman Hair Render
Ghosting/ Output Velocities
How to add the Groom system to Stencil Layers?
Hair & Stencil Layers
This solution doesn’t work:
Incorrect Groom Physics when rendering with anti aliasing option using Movie Render Queue - #22 by MagicNono
https://x.com/TheZInteractive/status/1667340235875786758?s=20
https://x.com/ArtDisorder_NFT/status/1545082113912971266?s=20
https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine/comments/13opbgy/antialiasing_problems/
https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine/comments/vilvae/rendering_antialiasing_issues/
https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine/comments/yi1a7f/antialiasing_issue_with_ue5/

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Add it, Groom Export Plugin

Export metahuman groom assets to blender for editing and export back to the engine hope this tutorial will help you