To use MetaHumans in Unreal Engine 5, you must first download all of the required files and Assets from Quixel Bridge.
This page describes:
How to open Bridge from Unreal Engine 5.
Where to find your MetaHumans in Bridge.
What the different icons on MetaHuman tiles mean.
This page uses the terms Bridge and Quixel Bridge interchangeably. They both refer to the same plugin.
Compatibility Notice
This page covers the Quixel Bridge plugin for Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). The UE5 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 UE4 Download and Export Settings (Legacy) page.
Opening Quixel Bridge from Unreal Engine 5
In Unreal Engine 5, Quixel Bridge is a plugin that is installed and activated by default. Open it from the Main Toolbar: click the Create button, then select Quixel Bridge.
After you open Bridge, sign in with your Epic Games account. Signing in again is required even if you are already signed in to the Epic Games Launcher.
Finding MetaHumans in Quixel Bridge
In Quixel Bridge, you can find two MetaHumans categories:
MetaHuman Presets, which contains all downloadable Presets.
My MetaHumans, which contains all custom MetaHumans you’ve created, as well as MetaHumans created with Mesh to MetaHuman.
The MetaHuman Presets category in Quixel Bridge.
With either of the two categories above selected, you can also search for MetaHumans by name in the Search bar.
In this example, we searched for the Hudson MetaHuman Preset.
MetaHuman Tile Icons
When clicked or hovered, MetaHuman tiles can display icons that indicate certain statuses or can be clicked to perform specific actions. Refer to the table below for an overview of these icons and their meanings.
Icon | Meaning | Notes |
---|---|---|
Download | Appears when you hover over a MetaHuman whose Assets have not been downloaded to your machine. Click this icon to immediately start generating and downloading the MetaHuman’s Assets. | |
Export | Appears when you hover over a MetaHuman whose Assets have already been downloaded to your machine. Click this icon to export the MetaHuman’s Assets to Unreal Engine 5. | |
Downloaded Successfully | Indicates that this MetaHuman’s Assets have been successfully downloaded. | |
LOD Warning | Indicates that this MetaHuman uses hair grooms that are only available at LODs 0 and 1. | |
Add to Favorites | Appears when you hover over any MetaHuman. Click this icon to add the MetaHuman to your favorites. You can access all content you’ve favorited in Quixel Bridge in the Favorites category. |
Accessing Downloaded MetaHuman Assets
By default, Bridge stores all downloaded (local) Assets in the C:\Users\(your-username)\Documents\Megascans Library\Downloaded\UAssets\
folder on your disk.
To access local Assets quickly, right-click any downloaded MetaHuman’s tile and, from the context menu, select Go to Files. This will open the location of your downloaded files in Windows Explorer (or another file explorer, depending on your operating system and your local settings).
Downloaded Assets are structured the same as any MetaHuman you’d import in your Unreal Engine project. If you download at least one MetaHuman, you will see:
A
Common
folder that contains Assets which are common to all MetaHumans.A folder named after your MetaHuman that contains all of their custom Assets.