Custom Clothes to Characters/MetaHumans in Unreal Engine: A Comprehensive Guide

Creating immersive and realistic characters in Unreal Engine often involves adding clothing. This can range from simple accessories like scarves to complex, custom-designed outfits.
In this thread, I’ll guide you through various methods to dress your characters, whether they are basic UE models or detailed MetaHumans.

Chaos Panel Cloth Editor Foundation (Experimental) — Unreal Engine Roadmap

1. (Easy) Simple Clothing Additions: Scarves, Ties, and Capes

For those new to Unreal Engine or preferring a straightforward approach, adding simple items like scarves, ties, or capes is ideal. These items can be effectively simulated with Cloth simulation for a realistic appearance.

The Content Example — Sample Project has a Cloth Simulation Map where you can take a closer look at Windwalker Echo, main character in the Valley of the Acient and Slay, and her scarf simulation in the back.

Resources:
- Cloth Simulation Map in the Content Example Sample Project
- Chaos Character Physics Learning Path — Epic Games Dev Community
- The Gritty Reality of Real-Time Cloth and Rigid-Body Character Physics | Unreal Fest 2022

2. (Easy) Utilizing Pre-Made Outfits for MetaHumans

If you’re working with MetaHumans and need quick results, using pre-made outfits from the City Sample Project is a time-efficient option. These clothes are designed to be compatible with MetaHumans, allowing for seamless integration.

You can still customize these outfits and add cloth simulation to them.

3. (Advanced) Creating Custom Outfits: A Detailed Approach

Sculpting Your Own Clothes:
For a fully custom look, designing your own clothing is the way to go, but is going to take a while…

Chaos Cloth (Beta) — Unreal Engine Public Roadmap | Product Roadmap

This process involves sculpting clothes, potentially using resources like Sketchfab as a starting point. However, be prepared for a learning curve.
No matter your starting point, this process will still need you to be fully invested in it.

This is an excellent series on creating character clothes in Blender:

I followed the entire series and I can tell you it’s totally worth it — BUT it’s still not going to end up exactly like you want it simply because cloth sculpting is a full-on job and it requires experience.

An alternative tool for it, for those who can invest, is Marvelous Designer. Powerful and widely used software for cloth making, albeit costly.

Once your clothes are modeled, they need to be skinned to your character to ensure they move naturally. The clothes need to follow the character movement and bone manipulation.

The way I approach this is by skinning the full outfit in Blender, then adding cloth simulation to some parts of it in Unreal Engine to increase it realism.

The entire workflow is carefully described here:

Style3D Real-Time Cloth Simulation Plugin for Unreal

Conclusion:

Whether you’re adding a simple scarf or designing a full outfit, Unreal Engine offers various paths to achieve your goals.
For beginners or those under time constraints, utilizing simple cloth simulations or pre-made outfits is advisable. If you’re up for a challenge and wish to fully customize your character, creating and skinning custom clothes is a rewarding, though time-intensive, process.

Remember, the complexity of your project and your proficiency with Unreal Engine should guide your approach.

Keep an eye out for any new features added to Unreal Engine — https://portal.productboard.com/epicgames/1-unreal-engine-public-roadmap/c/1144-chaos-panel-cloth-editor-foundation-experimental?utm_medium=social&utm_source=portal_share

Additional Tutorials & Tools:
- Metahuman and Custom Clothing — Epic Developer Community Forums
- Custom Clothes for Metahuman in Unreal Engine — BEGINNER TUTORIAL
- Real-Time Clothing Simulations Set Up With Vsim
- Free Cloth Simulation Add-on for Blender
- 📢 Public Release Alert! 🎉 style3d’s unreal engine plugin is available now.
- The most complicated cloth simulation for a metahuman with Meta plug-in in Unreal Engine.
- HOW TO import Marvelous Designer clothes for a MetaHuman (UE5 & MD10)
- Best Custom Clothing system for Metahumans (Udrapper)
- Marvelous Designer Clothes to Unreal Engine for Real-Time Cloth Simulation — Major Update
- Create Cloth simulation for Metahuman with out skining — 5 minute Draper
- How to Quickly Create Clothing using Blender and Marvelous Designer
- How to create a ( Warrior ) robe in Marvelous Designer 7.0
- Marvelous Designer | Wind Controller
- Marvelous Designer 10 — How To Create A Scarf And Tie A Knot
- Learn-How-to-Do-Amazing-Cloth-Animation-in-Unreal-Engine-4
- My MetaHuman Virtual Clothing Workflow

Purchasable Outfits:
- Modular Meta Cyberpunk Character
- 8 Cape MODELS for female and male / Marvelous Designer / CLO 3D

I’d love to hear about your experiences with character design in Unreal Engine or any additional tips you might have. Feel free to share your thoughts or questions below!