Hello everyone,
I’ve created a custom MetaHuman character of Judy Hopps from Zootopia using ZBrush for wrapping the model to the MetaHuman topology, and MetaPipe in Maya for processing. The character is working perfectly in Unreal Engine 5.3, including facial rig and ARKit Support.
Note - I am strictly working only in UE 5.3, as I have a few plugins that only support that version.
Now, I’m trying to create custom facial hair for this character. I want to use Blender’s hair curves system to create the groom. Here’s the workflow I’m following and the issue I keep running into:
Workflow:
- Exported the custom MetaHuman head mesh from Unreal Engine.
- Imported the mesh into Blender to begin hair curve creation.
- When I select the “Add Hair Curves” tool and click on the mesh, Blender throws this error: “Invalid UV map: UV islands must not overlap”
- To solve this, I unwrapped the mesh again with non-overlapping UVs, which then allows me to create the hair properly and export the groom as an Alembic file.
- I import the groom into Unreal, and it shows up fine when applied to the skeletal mesh.
- However, as soon as I apply the Groom Binding asset, the groom disappears.
What I’ve discovered:
- The groom binding in Unreal relies on the original UVs from the MetaHuman mesh.
- But Blender’s hair system requires non-overlapping UVs, meaning I have to alter the UVs to even begin hair creation.
- If I don’t change the UVs, I can’t create the hair in Blender.
- If I do change the UVs, Unreal can’t bind the groom correctly, and the hair disappears.
Question:
Is there a proper workflow or workaround that allows me to:
- Create hair curves in Blender using a head mesh with non-overlapping UVs,
- But still bind the groom successfully to my custom MetaHuman in Unreal Engine using the original UVs?
Any insight, especially from others who have used custom MetaHumans with Blender’s hair system or tackled UV issues in groom binding, would be greatly appreciated.