¶ Introduction
[V8] The content explained below is available since the V8 Groom Update (work-in-progress in V7 Customer Update).
This tutorial requires Quixel Bridge to be installed on your computer and basic knowledge about MetaHumans.
This tutorial also requires an imported MetaHuman (see tutorial Third Party Integration: MetaHumans).
¶ Video Tutorial
The following video shows you the following contents:
- From 00:22: Groom introduction
- From 01:28: Digression on how to integrate MetaHumans first
(See dedicated tutorial Third Party Integration: MetaHumans for further details.) - From 04:24: Proceed with Groom
[YouTube 8QggjuVMMqc?start=23]
¶ FAQ / Common Issues
¶ Adding Character Editor to my project throws Groom errors [V7]
Since V7 Customer Update for Unreal Engine 5.0 and above, you have to enable the Hair Rendering features in your project settings to support Groom, since some of our Blueprints rely on the Groom asset type.
If you see a bunch of Groom errors like below, you cannot recompile those Blueprints.
Let's fix this issue.
Please, verify in BP_Character > Interfaces > Character Editor > Character > Add Groom Component, that the node Add Component shows an error.
If yes, the Hair Rendering features are indeed disabled. If no, please contact us.
Enable the Hair Rendering features, as mentioned in this Unreal Engine documentation.
- Enable Project Setting: Support Compute Skin Cache
- Enable Plugin: Groom
Restart your engine afterwards.
If you did not save any of the Character Editor Blueprints in their broken state before enabling the features, you are good to go. The engine restart should have recompiled the Blueprints automatically and you should be able to continue with the Character Editor as desired.
Please, verify again that the Add Component node from above has now been renamed to Add Groom Component and no longer shows an error.
Though, if you did save any of the Character Editor Blueprints in their broken state by any chance and still receive errors, we recommend you to add a fresh copy of the Character Editor content to your project.
¶ Unusual visuals under certain circumstances [V7]
Unreal Engine 5.0 might still have some issues with Groom. E.g., Groom assets get somewhat "shiny" when point the player camera to areas where no mesh geometry or sky sphere is (i.e. our atmospheric fog in the showcase map). Another thing is, that it is fiddly to setup Groom physics properly, so the hairs do not stretch like crazy, when we spin our character inside the in-game editor. It looks like Unreal Engine has to further evolve Groom on its own. This is nothing we can improve.
¶ Groom ignores LODSync ForcedLOD value [V8]
Currently, we have an open Unreal Engine Bug Ticket, since we noticed that Groom CDAs, that we have tested, ignore ForcedLOD = 0 and still keep changing their LODs when zooming the camera in the Character Editor. We could reproduce this in UE 5.0 and 5.1 and think this might be a bug with Blueprint-created Groom components. We keep you informed about any updates on this.
¶ Binding Asset errors when changing LODs [V8]
We faced the issue with some Groom Assets, that the strands LOD 1 is breaking when you zoom out which switches to LOD 2 and shows the Groom cards. If you zoom back in to LOD 1 again, the strand break, like shown in the screenshots below. If you re-apply the Groom CDA, the component is re-created and the strands are working again.
