Custom MetaHuman Hair: Ornatrix App to Unreal Engine 5.8

How to Create a Custom MetaHuman Groom in Ornatrix App for Unreal Engine 5.8

MetaHuman Creator gives you a solid set of stock hairstyles, but sooner or later every character artist wants hair that is truly their own. Episode 6 of the Ornatrix App series walks through the full round trip: exporting a MetaHuman from Unreal Engine 5.8, grooming it in the Ornatrix App and bringing the finished groom back into Unreal, bound to the character's face mesh.


What You Need

  • Unreal Engine 5.8 with the MetaHuman Creator plugin enabled
  • The Ornatrix App
  • The Groom and Alembic Groom Importer plugins in Unreal Engine

Step 1: Prepare and Export the MetaHuman

Start with a new blank project or your existing one. Enable the MetaHuman Creator plugin, restart the editor and create a new MetaHuman character in your content folder. Edit the head as much as you like, then build the full rig and download the texture sources.

When the character is ready, open the export options, keep DCC Export selected, set an external path and export the DCC package. Save the project. From here on, everything the Ornatrix App needs is already on disk.

Step 2: Load the MetaHuman in the Ornatrix App

In the Ornatrix App, choose MetaHuman from the toolbar or go to Create, then Create MetaHuman. The app lists MetaHuman characters it finds in well-known locations, such as the archetype character in the Unreal Engine install. Since the export went to a custom folder, use the Browse button to point to it and load the head DNA file. The body can be imported as a separate object if needed, but a head groom only needs the head.

Step 3: Graft and Customize the Groom

With the character loaded, press Graft Groom. The Ornatrix App ships with grooms that are already fitted to MetaHuman characters, so there is no manual fitting step. You can also groom from scratch directly on the character.

The tutorial uses a Mohawk preset as a starting point. It already carries color information, with different colors at the roots and tips. From there, the preset parameters control length, shape and other parts of the groom.

Step 4: Export an Alembic Groom for Unreal Engine

With the groom selected, go to File, then Export, and save it as an Alembic file. In the Export Data category, set the target host to Unreal Engine. This saves the groom in the format Unreal expects, preserving information like strand thickness and color.

Step 5: Import the Groom into Unreal Engine

Back in Unreal, make sure the Groom plugin is enabled and enable the Alembic Groom Importer plugin, then restart the editor. Drag the exported groom.abc file into the Content Browser. The Groom Import Options dialog confirms that Unreal detected a groom with root and width information. Keep the default settings and import.

Step 6: Assemble the Character and Bind the Groom

Open the MetaHuman editor again, go to the Assembly tab and assemble the character with the default options. Then right-click the imported groom, choose Create Binding Asset and select the character's face skeletal mesh as the target.

In the character's Details panel, filter by "groom" and assign both the groom asset and the new binding asset.

Common Pitfall: Fix the Rotation Before Binding

In the tutorial, the groom first appeared misoriented on the character. The fix was to clear the groom and binding assets, delete the groom, re-import it with an adjusted rotation in the import settings and then create a new binding asset.

Binding asset creation time depends on the complexity of the groom. In this case, the first binding took hours to finish, while the rebuilt one was close to instant. The practical lesson: set the import rotation before you create the binding asset, so you only have to build it once.

Key Moments in the Video

  • 0:46 - New blank project in Unreal Engine
  • 2:49 - DCC Export of the MetaHuman
  • 3:17 - Create MetaHuman in the Ornatrix App
  • 4:16 - Graft Groom and pre-fitted grooms
  • 5:08 - Alembic export with Unreal Engine as target host
  • 6:21 - Import the groom into Unreal
  • 7:15 - Create the groom binding asset
  • 8:47 - Fix orientation: re-import with rotation
  • 9:22 - Rebuild the binding and final result

Final Thoughts

This workflow keeps the creative part of hair work in the Ornatrix App and hands Unreal Engine a groom it already understands. Whether you start from a preset or build a hairstyle from scratch, the same export and binding steps apply, and once the rotation is right, the groom sits correctly on your MetaHuman.

Watch Episode 6 of the Ornatrix App series



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