Tutorial — Marvelous Designer Garment to MetaHuman Outfit

Augmented Traveler local tutorial. Back to Marvelous Designer — Tutorials · previous: Tutorial — Period Layers, Hoops and Skirts · how MetaHumans work in Unreal: Tutorial — MetaHumans in Unreal

How to take a finished MD garment into Unreal 5.8 and make it a MetaHuman outfit that the character wears in MetaHuman Creator and in every build.

Draft. Written from the Marvelous Designer support article and Epic's Chaos Cloth tutorials for 5.6–5.7. Epic's 5.8 outfit pages could not be read in full. Validate on the first garment and correct menu names here.

1. How the pieces fit together

MD garment ──USD──▶ Static Mesh (import)
                     └─▶ Cloth Asset (Chaos Cloth, built in the Dataflow editor)
                           └─▶ Outfit Asset (Resizable Outfit Template: fits and resizes to bodies)
                                 └─▶ Wardrobe Item (WI_) ──▶ MetaHuman Creator → Hair and Clothing → Outfit Clothing
                                                              └─▶ Assemble (Cine / Optimized) ──▶ the character Blueprint

2. Versions

3. Export from MD

  1. Hide the avatar and any frozen understructure that should not be simulated (export that separately; Tutorial — Period Layers, Hoops and Skirts).
  2. File → Export → USD:
    • units cm;
    • Include Garment Simulation Data: on;
    • thickness on if the garment needs visible edges;
    • single-layer or thick geometry as the look requires.
  3. Save as AT_<Figure>_<Garment>_v###.usd.

4. Build the Cloth Asset in Unreal

  1. Import the USD into Characters/<Figure>/Costume/<Garment>/.
  2. Get the body for skin weights: in the MetaHuman Creator editor, Export Combined Skel Mesh, if you haven't already (Tutorial — MetaHuman Avatar into Marvelous Designer).
  3. Make the Cloth Asset: right-click the imported static mesh → Physics → Cloth Asset. Open it in the Dataflow editor.
  4. Build the graph:
    • Static Mesh Import (the garment) → Transfer Skin Weights → Cloth Asset Terminal;
    • set Transfer Skin Weights' source to the Combined Skeletal Mesh, with Transform Method Closest Point on Surface;
    • add a Remesh node only if the simulation mesh is too dense for the target surface.
  5. Paint and tune the simulation (weight maps, stiffness, damping, collision) as in Tutorial — Period Layers, Hoops and Skirts. Preview it in the Dataflow editor's simulation view.

5. Make the Outfit Asset

  1. Create an Outfit Asset from the Resizable Outfit Template.
  2. Set Evaluate Dataflow Graph to Manual. Add the Cloth Asset as a source and tick Sized Outfit. Then set evaluation back to Automatic.
  3. Test resizing on two or three body sizes. Creator picks the best-fitting source size; a Source Size Override exists if it picks wrongly.
  4. Make the Wardrobe Item (WI_) for the outfit as Creator requires (5.8). Check the name and the command on the first garment.

6. Dress the character

  1. Open the figure in MetaHuman Creator → Hair and Clothing → Outfit Clothing. Add the Wardrobe Item or Outfit.
  2. Check the fit in the figure's poses and gestures, at kiosk distance.
  3. Assemble the character:
    • Cine for the kiosk;
    • Optimized (with a lower-LOD or skinned-only variant) for headsets and phones.
  4. Test in the actual program level with the monologue sequence playing (Tutorial — Sequencer for Monologues).

7. Faster iteration: LiveSync (optional)

8. Check before hand-off

Sources