Downloading a MetaHuman’s Assets from Quixel Bridge is a two-part process.
First, the MetaHuman’s Assets (Static Meshes, Textures, Materials, etc.) need to be generated. This process happens in the cloud and it can take a long time, depending on the texture resolution you selected and how many Asset generation requests are in the Quixel Bridge queue.
After generation completes, Asset download begins automatically. You can generate and download multiple MetaHumans at the same time.
This page covers the Quixel Bridge plugin for Unreal Engine 5. The Bridge plugin can only access MetaHumans created with the latest MetaHuman Creator.
If you work with legacy MetaHumans in Unreal Engine 4, refer to the guides in the Legacy Documentation section. For Maya-specific instructions, refer to the Exporting to Maya page.
Generating MetaHuman Assets
You can generate MetaHuman Assets (and start the two-part download process outlined above) in one of two ways:
Hover over the MetaHuman’s tile in Bridge, then click the Download button.
Click the MetaHuman to open their information panel, then click the Download button.
Download buttons for a MetaHuman in Bridge.
You can select the quality level of the Assets to be generated and downloaded from the MetaHuman’s information panel. MetaHuman Assets have three quality levels; the higher the quality, the longer it will take to generate and download the Assets.
After Asset generation starts, you will see the progress displayed as a percentage on the MetaHuman’s tile.
Downloading MetaHuman Assets
Asset download begins automatically as soon as their generation is complete.
Like Asset generation, download progress displays on the MetaHuman’s tile. You can also click the Downloads button in the top bar to see the progress of all of your current downloads.
Download progress indicators for a MetaHuman in Bridge.
Updating MetaHumans
If you’ve made changes to a custom MetaHuman that was previously downloaded to your machine, Bridge will display an Update button instead of the Download button in that MetaHuman’s information panel.
Update button for a custom MetaHuman in Bridge.
If you already use a MetaHuman in an Unreal Engine project, downloading their updated Assets through Bridge will not update their Assets in the Unreal project automatically. Refer to the Re-Exporting a MetaHuman page to learn how to update a MetaHuman in this case.