Ornatrix App Tutorial: One Groom on Different Heads and a Custom MetaHuman

A new Ornatrix App tutorial by Andrew Krivulya shows how to reuse one hairstyle across many different heads, and how to turn a custom head into a MetaHuman and groom it with the same preset.

Different heads, same groom

Ornatrix App includes a Human operator that creates a head directly in the viewport. In the Identity section you set gender, ethnicity, seed and variation, and every change produces a new head. A hair preset applied through Graft Groom adapts to each new head shape, and the scalp aligns to the head automatically, with no manual fitting.

To fix places where hair cuts into the head, Push Away From Surface is added above the groom. It keeps working when the head changes, so there is no need to re-tune it for every variation.

From Ornatrix App head to MetaHuman

• Export the head from Ornatrix App as Alembic, with Unreal Engine as the target host.
• In Maya, import the MetaHuman conform topology head and align the Alembic head to it. Freeze and reset transforms, delete history and export as FBX.
• In Unreal Engine, import the FBX and create a MetaHuman Character.
• In MetaHuman Creator, open Import, choose From Custom Mesh (Head and Body), select the head mesh and run Auto Solve.
• Enable Create Full Rig, then use DCC Export to get head DNA and body DNA.

Back to Ornatrix App

The MetaHuman import in Ornatrix App finds your Unreal projects, so the new head can be loaded directly. Note that the head is placed at its real height, roughly 150 cm or more depending on the MetaHuman, not at the origin. Graft Groom then works the same way as before, and the scalp aligns to the MetaHuman head automatically.

Before you start

The MetaHuman project setup and groom export are covered in Marsel Khadiyev's previous tutorial. If you haven't set up a MetaHuman project yet, watch it first.