Rig absolutely any clothing to the Metahuman | Blender + Unreal 5

I have tried every method to get Metahuman to behave correctly and this is the easiest, quickest and most bug free way to rig any article of clothing to the metahuman. It requires very little skill as well. Anyone can do it!

[@DeclanLangenfeld-zu5hc]

Another reason you could be having the merge bone problem: Blender renamed your "root" bone. If its not "root" and instead "root.08" or whatever (maybe you made 8 copies of the scene like I did), then unreal will not recognize the metahuman rig when you try to bring it back from Blender into UE. Rename it to just Root.

[@glitchedlogic]

Good catch! I never had an issue but It could do that. Especially with multiple tries with copies in the same file.

[@kainebraveheart8090]

Thank you so much. Everything you mentioned at the beginning happened to me. I worked really hard on a custom metahuman project for a client and when I turned it in for them to animate the head kept snapping towards the sky and neither of us couldn't figure out why. You saved my project and definitely my job. My company almost had to issue a big refund. If I could donate to your channel I would. Liked and Subbed. Hope your channel grows quickly. You really know your stuff!

[@aguajang4329]

Commenting to ensure the viewers that this process 100% works. I have explored the process a couple of times where now this is my current subconscious workflow - to apply a data transfer of the vertex groups and their weight data, then apply the armature of the desired skeleton. Additionally, I found that sometimes my meshes need a little more touch up in the weight painting which is extremely easy. If you find you cannot add or subtract weight to your mesh, I had to apply the data transfer modifier to the mesh so that it is one with the mesh. My understanding is that if you attempt to adjust the weight data without applying the set modifier to the mesh, the mesh hasn't yet been set with the vertex data, so it will not know what you are adjusting until you apply it in the modifier section. I also found that in this section, before generating the layers, selecting the vertex data from the nearest face interpolated instead of the nearest vertex helped smooth out the data from my mesh, which was initially a little sharp on the edges. A lot of words to simply let you guys know this has been a life saver of a workflow for me, and it really gets easier to work around as you learn the subtle nuances of Blender. 10/10 to the uploader!

[@aguajang4329]

Oh, also! I have combined the face mesh and the body mesh as one object, retargeted to the root of the metahuman body. There are some assets I have created that have shoulder pieces, and these pieces are not completely covered in the data transfer of the body, because the body only goes up the clavicle. By combining the face and the body, you will have all of the weight data you may need for shoulder/neck pieces if you so choose. This was done by removing the two meshes from their respective armatures and then combining the meshes together as one object. I then retargeted the one mesh to the armature of the body, since that is the armature I am using to transfer my data into. It is that model I transfer my data from, onto the desired clothing.

[@harrykurakula6390]

So, you unparented the body and face mesh from their respective Armature and combined them for the weight paint data which can be used to transfer onto the clothes and accessories. I get it. Thank you.. But the above mentioned process was all done inside Blender only right? Or you are supposed to unparent face and body, and retarget to the root of body in UE..?

[@aguajang4329]

@@harrykurakula6390 I did all of this in Blender. It is essentially the same process as this video with a few added steps for extra data. If you are at a road block and need some help, let me know.

[@harrykurakula6390]

@@aguajang4329 sure, I will reach out. Thank you

[@mitchrussianimmersionchann63]

Wow, this video was detailed but concise at the same time, and there aren't many videos that cover metahumans and clothes. Thanks for your help! I hope you keep making videos. Keep up the nice work :)

[@DeanYurke]

Thank you so much for making this video! Unbelievable, you've just sped up the process for me by days! I was rigging clothes to the metahuman in 3dsmax, and manually assigning bone weights there, so thank you so much for sharing this! I have no idea how it's transferring the data as i thought that the bone weight was stuck to the vertex, so I guess when blender copies it, it's looking at the point's position in world space and transferring. Magic. Thank you again, Glitched Logic : )

[@vincelund7203]

Thank you. As a (primarily) blender user coming to learn unreal, this was probably one of the best laid out tutorials I've come across. Good pace, very clear, and concise. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@glitchedlogic]

You're very welcome. I try to make videos whenver I run into an issue and fix it. There are hundreds of basic tutorials out there, but when new users run into an issue, they give up when they don't know how to solve it. I am happy you found my content helpful and this motivates me to make more.

[@rejepyusupov9854]

Same here

[@MingHsiung]

This is gold. Thank you for taking the time to make this vid! 🙏

[@glitchedlogic]

Thank you!

[@markcheng1819]

you do a great job of explaining things! thank you and i hope you produce more of these!

[@glitchedlogic]

Thank you for the kind words. If you have any thing you wish to learn, let me know and I will make more videos. Right now I make them based on issues I run into and was able to troubleshoot.

[@SKIROW]

Very well explained. Thank you for sharing.

[@PhilipLemon]

Super useful and easy to follow. Good on you for making this tute. :)

[@Thomas-qx1tl]

Useful video, very helpful!

[@RazKoller]

Thank you! Just what I was looking for!

[@user-lr1yh7fk4x]

Thank you so much ! The only tutorial which works for me ! So happy to make my own metahumans

[@glitchedlogic]

I am so glad I could help. I'm trying to build my channel. What else are you struggling with? Please refer a friend.

[@cristobalink2413]

Really helpful, thank you!

[@MotuDaaduBhai]

You got a new sub! Awesome tutorial! :D

[@glitchedlogic]

Thank you and happy to have you. I hope you make great things.

[@minhtri4881]

Amazing tutorial, thank you so much

[@glitchedlogic]

So very welcome. I do live game dev often. Check it out sometime and they are typically Ask Me Anything sessions.

[@user-pl5gw3wd2f]

Thanks for adding that bit about the construction script. Super helpful! How does this work with LODs for metahumans if you have only one clothing mesh, but 4+ metahuman skeletal meshes? Noticing some crazy artifacts where a custom vest we made is going all over the place when we back away from the character, but they look fine up close.

[@psychoticgiraffe]

still checking to see if this method works for me, but, this video is probably what I was waiting for, and I think your style of teaching is better than other videos I've stumbled upon; nobody has any good tutorials on making clothing in blender work in unreal, and the ones I tried before were not working properly, if possible, you should try making one on how to make different types of clothing, like multiple-piece clothing sets work, show the full process from modelling clothing to using substance painter/designer to putting it into unreal; I might make this video if I ever figure out how to make it stop having issues, will report back if your video is the solution to my issues with metahuman clothing; but regardless, if you get to do a full workflow video that goes through creating clothing, texturing it etc and putting it on a metahuman while not using anything other than blender and unreal(no marvellous designer, no maya, no udraper) that works on cloaks and drooping fabrics/multiple piece cloth sets, I'll be very happy. For whatever reason, I can't even find a single masterclass on such a thing, it seems as if nobody knows a good workflow, other than maybe you, since this method seems simpler than the others I've tried.

[@glitchedlogic]

As long as you get the clothing/objects close enough to the original body, there's no reason data transfer won't work. I Appreciate the comment. I struggled to find a suitable way to do this for months and I am happy to share what is the quickest way I have found with no errors. Multiple piece clothing would work the same way. Your clothing does not have to be all in one unit. You would have to data transfer each piece separately though. Unfortunately I stopped using Substance suite after adobe bought it and refused to include it in the "all apps" subscription I already pay them. My workflow typically includes base modelling in MD, importing to Zbrush, texturing and rigging in Blender and importing into unreal. However the clothing I used in the tutorial was purchased from Marketplace simply because fantasy things take way too long to make. I Will see what I can put together based on your suggestions.

[@psychoticgiraffe]

@@glitchedlogic the method in video seems to work for me but the clothing like goes through the character’s body slightly unless I make it thick or oversized, not sure why that is; Ah that’s useful to know, so individual clothing pieces can just be mapped to the same skeleton separately; As for Adobe, I personally don’t advise even paying for the subscription, it’s a literal scam; I’m still using cs6 of all their stuff from ages back, I evaded the subscription nonsense. As for substance, to get it back you don’t even need to buy it, you just need to hex edit the amtlib.dll file in each substance program and block network access to the program, it’ll then work as it did when they weren’t being scum to creators. I’m not a fan of Adobe making stuff impossible to own nowadays. Either way, my main annoyance with the metahuman clothing is basically that I have to use so many programs, I’m sure there must be a faster from scratch workflow out there, maybe utilizing some sort of AI tools it could be done, if you find a method that is purely blender, unreal and some specific ai tool for cloth/brushes I bet it would be a lot faster than the traditional workflow A video that goes through the whole process from scratch without those extra steps and isn’t insanely difficult would be a godsend;

[@glitchedlogic]

@@psychoticgiraffe I am glad it worked for you! for fluid cloth, I would add additional bones. I don't advocate for theft. I simply find other products to use. Clothing can be built solely in blender, but I would say it takes longer. Marvelous designer drapes clothing near instantly and zbrush has faster sculpting workflow tools. I have been using blender for over 12 years and even with higher spec machines, sculpting to the level of detail that zbrush allows has always been laggy in blender. whether it's because i load in too many custom brushes or some other reason, it's more of a hassle than zbrush which just works. AI is coming along for 2d images but is still a bit of a ways off for 3d models. even still the cleanup process would be tedious.

[@psychoticgiraffe]

@@glitchedlogic interesting, so it sounds like zbrush is the move and that adobe is a company to boycott, I'll need to look into zbrush, I'll have to try marvellous designer too, I just really prefer when a program can do it all and fast; doesn't seem like a program exists that does that, outside of if you utilize a lot of ai tools with blender; I still have to try the neural cloth sims and nvidia ai brushes, might be worth looking into trying all the ai tools to see if any of them can make a logical workflow that actually saves a lot of time in blender.

[@mightyzeebs5987]

Hey this was a great quick and easy to follow tutorial. I would love to see a little more in depth on double custom things with clothing. For example a cloak over a tshirt and pants. I have tried a few things but I run into a lot of clipping issues and the bottom of any robe/cloaks etc tend to follow the legs to much and im thinking I need to adjust the weights some how. If you end up making something like that I would definitely watch a workflow even if its not a tutorial. Keep making content its awesome to watch!

[@glitchedlogic]

Generally in gaming, there is a rule of thumb. If it isn't going to be visible, then it is a waste of resources. doubling polygons is a no no. If things aren't going to be visible to the player, those polygons are cut or hidden. Otherwise what you will get when animating is the back face or front face of one item merging through the other. For a cloak, I would create a material that hid the parts of the undergarment that wasn't showing if it was a flowy cloak. If it is a static over garment, then the under polygons should be deleted all together. For robes not to follow the legs, there are several ways to do it. Get very good at weight painting dresses and skirts so that the knee bones aren't responsible as much for shifting the cloak, or make your own skeleton in which the cloak has it's own bones and animates separately. Bones are probably the most practical and you have finite control over its movement.

[@144digital]

You could also use a little chaos cloth simulation on the bottom of the robe. Maybe.

[@glitchedlogic]

There are new cloth things coming out. I will give it a try and make something good before making another video on it. @@144digital

[@144digital]

@@glitchedlogic fantastic

[@ADoyleAnimation]

Heck yea, Very Helpful

[@Phyzx420]

This was very helpful. The one con with metahumans, I felt was how not so easy creating clothing is. Im thinking of using this tutorial and use marvelous designer, mixamo(to tpose the skeleton) and blender and see if it works.

[@glitchedlogic]

Let me know how it turns out.

[@Phyzx420]

@@glitchedlogic Yeah I will👍

[@mioszkaszynski1457]

Ok, this is really usefull tutorial :)

[@rogerbrowne8423]

Nice tutorial. Do you have an example workflow for clothes that do NOT have a skeletal rig, say something from sketchfab, for example?

[@glitchedlogic]

The clothing themselves don't need a skeletal rig. Data transfer means you are copying the weights from the body. As long as the clothes fit the model closely, they will rig to the body with this process. As you can see in the video, I only used the rig of the clothing to adjust the position, then I deleted it. Not needed.

[@user-zc2to5bb2q]

If the clothes I want to apply are not rigged, how can I adjust the sleeves so they match the position of the metahuman?

[@aguajang4329]

Has the skeletal mesh for metahumans changed to visually represent the torso, legs and arms? My skeletal mesh from metahuman is not the hands and feet like yours. It is everything but the head. I will double check the directory when I have time if maybe I am overlooking something! Thank you for your time and this tutorial!

[@glitchedlogic]

I know there are several pieces perhaps you are looking at a different part of the mesh? What version are you using? Where are you looking that you only see certain parts. What I mean by this question is are you scanning through a dropdown menu and the option isn't showing up or are you looking through the meta human folder and not seeing the correct skeletal mesh. Your very first step would be to log into your bridge and redownload your metahuman as nothing has changed on my end with metahumans. It is possible something is missing. But if you still have the same issue, I need a bit more information of where you are looking.

[@zenparvez]

Can Daz3d clothing be possible with metahuman as the same method ? They have some great collection of armor and clothing. Would love to see another demonstration video for daz3d in the future if you are interested and can spare some time.

[@glitchedlogic]

Yes. When I do data transfer, the clothing is essentially a static mesh. I could rig a box using this method and it would still work. Doesn't matter if the clothing come from daz or sketchfab or wherever. Hope that's what you meant.

[@abhishekpro1]

in case the character has articles like bracelet, ot pieces of armour, which shouldnt deform, how to include those in the rig

[@javebjorkman]

How did you bring in the skeleton with the clothing?

[@sunny99179]

Hello, could it be possible to import cloth to unreal and weight paint it inside the unreal (the new feature) ? did you tested?

[@glitchedlogic]

I have not tried the new feature yet. I have seen others try and fuss with it. I don't believe it is ready yet. Even upon release, it may not match what you can do currently in maya and blender.

[@mansfault3734]

I am using a FBx clothing item without bones. Following all the steps and everything works until I import in UE. Content drawer only shows Physics Asset and does not create a Skeletal Mesh or BP. Am I missing something?

[@glitchedlogic]

It looks like you aren't exporting the skeletal mesh. Make sure you did the end step where I dragged the objects together in the outliner. Also make sure everything is selected when exporting and try again. Sorry for the late response. This comment got moved down and lost for some reason.

[@AnimusOG]

Thank you dude... why did this have to be so hard for everyone else? lol

[@glitchedlogic]

Glad you could get something from my videos

[@UnrealNoob]

so if u have multiple layers of clothing you have to repeat the proces for each individual piece?

[@glitchedlogic]

With multiple layers of clothing, you would need to do more work. Firstly, if a layer is not going to be seen, it should not be created. This is wasted data, and polygons will conflict with each other during animation. Animation isn't like the real world so under layers will phase through the top layer. It's best under layers weren't there, but yes. the process will be the same.

[@beyawnko290]

Can you do it the other way around, like I trying to do a stylized character, but fit metahuman clothing on them using the built in UE tools. Would love to do a simulation for draping and then send that out.

[@glitchedlogic]

Yes. While I was dressing a metahuman, this same workflow can be done for any character. Keep in mind that in order to not have to paint weights in Blender, the character bodies are going to need to be close together. Once imported into UE5, you can follow all the same steps. Metahuman is just another body based around a skeleton in Unreal.

[@ninomancuso7021]

I've followed this tutorial and similar ones trying to attach a cape. I'm not getting god results though, the cape is completely distorted, as well as using the Master Pose Component instead of the Set Lead Pose Component. The cape is justa jumbled mess on the back of the MH though. Any ideas where I'm going wrong?

[@MortalShores]

this is not the right method for a cape. you should simply use chaos cloth with two attachment points for a cape. couldnt be easier.

[@ninomancuso7021]

Yeah that’s what I had thought. I found that it was importing into blender facing the wrong axis and so when I exported it back to unreal all the axes were thrown off, turned it into a massive cluster. Thanks for reply

[@glitchedlogic]

There are some cool cloth things coming to UE5. But there are several ways to go. If you are doing something like virtual production, I would give the cape it's own bones and animate it the way you would do flowing hair. This is time consuming but gives you finite control over it. That means no clipping through the body. If you are doing something like a video game, there are clothe simulations like chaos cloth and MetaTailor(comingSoon) I am not sure about capes for either of these as I don't work with them. Keep in mind that with simulations, you have less control. Clothing through the megs if animations are exagerated is a problem. I am sure you could do some math to prevent this from happening. Hope this helps.

[@storiedknowledge]

Any idea what could be happening if the clothes disappear after adding in the set leader pose? Also, my clothes don't have a root modifer.

[@glitchedlogic]

There could be many reasons. Once I got disappearing things when UE ran out of allotted memory. Setting leader pose essentially tells one object to "follow the leader" for lack of a better term. If that leader is perhaps not situated correctly, the object following could be thrown off. Not sure what you mean by not having a root modifier. Those are for use of animating while doing root motion. Are your animations in place or do they use root motion? it is possible that things aren't disappearing, simply moving to where you cannot see them as well. I would love to try to recreate this and solve it for you. Send more info if none of my suggestions worked.

[@storiedknowledge]

@@glitchedlogic In blender, you applied a modifer named "root" at 3:58.

[@beyondcinema]

Wait...no more weight painting required??

[@glitchedlogic]

Have you had a chance to check it out? Sorry I haven't had time to make a video on it.

[@beyondcinema]

@@glitchedlogic no I haven't. I was going to use Metahuman Animator for my project but it's been so finicky with the weird head popping off thing and also I need to fully customize the Metahuman including textures. I think I'm going to go with Character Creator pipeline instead.

[@glitchedlogic]

@@beyondcinema I can fix the head popping off thing. I have a second video with the a similar thumbnail that talks about just that. Hope it helps.

[@MortalShores]

do not have any illusions that this will work on anything. there is no replacement for weight painting. i tried this method on 3 different outfits, all 3 that conform tightly to body, and got weird distortion everytime when any decent range of motion was attempted

[@glitchedlogic]

If you are copying weights from the body and the new clothing is close enough to the body, there shouldn't be any distortions. Distortions could happen if weights weren't cleared correctly, your outfit could be using the wrong weights. I would like to help you solve this. May I see the clothing objects you are looking to rig?

[@peppe_uri]

IT DOESN'T WORK. I DID EXACTLY AS YOU SAID AND TRIE SOME PERMUTATIONS BY MYSELF, BUT THIS STILL DOESN'T WORK!!! I WROTE EVERY STEP DOWN ON PAPER, DONE IT MULTIPLE TIMES, I EVEN STARTED FROM SCRATH AGAIN AND AGAIN IT DOESN'T WORK IT'S ABSOLUTELY FRUSTRATING. PLS HELP ME!

[@glitchedlogic]

I am sorry you are having trouble with this. It works for me and I showed in the video and it has worked for many others. Let's find a way to get this working for you. What version of UE and Blender are you using? Which Metahuman body and clothing are you using? At what point in the process do things go wrong? Simply saying "doesn't work" Doesn't help me help you. I look forward to your response. In lowercase letters would be fine.

[@peppe_uri]

@@glitchedlogic I am using UE 5.1.0 and Blender 3.4. What should I say about the metahuman body and clothing? The process goes wrong right after I apply the modifiers of the armature, then automatically the meshes of the clothing seem to be reflected on the Z axys, the upper body clothing flips backwards you know? like what's in front it's behind; while the pants are more close to each other in a way that the feet collide with each other and it results in a mess.

[@jomaxz89]

This sounds like a nightmare workflow. I just use METATAILOR to put any clothes I want onto a MetaHuman in a few seconds.

[@hindipoem-]

Title is super misleading…

[@user-mg2ik6qx3p]

very bad tutorial. as a beginner i understand nothing.

[@harrykurakula6390]

No where, he said that this was a beginner tutorial.. Adding to that, he clearly mentioned in the tutorial that some prior basic understanding of software is recommended.. So, why are you complaining.?

[@user-mg2ik6qx3p]

@@harrykurakula6390 cause i can

[@user-mg2ik6qx3p]

@@harrykurakula6390 cause i can

[@user-mg2ik6qx3p]

@@harrykurakula6390 cause i can

[@matbeedotcom]

I've been struggling for weeks to find a non-maya, non-character creator, non-bs way to achieve this. I'm going to attempt this with my 3d scan and an auto-rigged body in blender!

[@rayne9323]

Did it work? I have never used Maya