Welcome to GroomForge

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Update News

🚀 Version 1.4.0 Update

New Features & Improvements

  • 🆕 Send to Unreal Engine (Beta)
    A brand-new one-click bridge between Blender and a running Unreal Engine Editor. Instead of manually exporting an Alembic file and importing it in UE by hand, just click Send to Unreal Engine — GroomForge exports your hair and automatically creates the Groom asset inside UE for you, no file dialogs or manual import steps required.

    • Works when Blender and Unreal Engine are running on the same computer.
    • Requires a one-time setup in UE: enable the Python Editor Script Plugin and turn on Enable Remote Execution in Editor Preferences (see the User Guide for the exact steps).
    • You can choose the UE Folder and Asset Name directly from the Blender panel, so the imported Groom asset lands exactly where — and named however — you want.
    • After the first successful send, repeated sends to the same UE session are much faster, since GroomForge remembers the connection for the rest of your Blender session.

  • 🆕 Smarter, More Natural Clump Grouping
    The auto-generated “clumpid” attribute (created by Fix & Output Connect) now groups strands by their actual 3D position instead of just their internal list order, so strands that are physically close together now share the same clump ID — giving a much more natural, bundled look. A new Clump Scale slider next to the Fix & Output Connect button lets you control how large or small the clumps are.

  • 🆕 Richer Unreal Groom Data on Export
    Groom Export now includes extra guide-interpolation data (groom_closest_guides / groom_guide_weights) and standard Groom version info, giving Unreal Engine more information to interpolate your strands from the guides more accurately.

  • 🆕 Force UE Scale Option
    A new Force UE Scale (100x) checkbox in Hair Rig Prop Creator lets you manually force the correct scale compensation for Unreal-style (centimeter) armatures, in case it isn't detected automatically.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed: Hair bones could be generated in the reversed direction when using Guide Curves in Hair Rig Prop Creator.
  • Fixed: Generated hair meshes/tubes could come out 100x too large when targeting an Unreal-scaled (centimeter) Armature.
  • Fixed: The auto-generated “roughness” attribute could end up as a single identical value across the whole hair system instead of varying naturally per strand.
  • Fixed: Groom Export could fail unexpectedly in certain setups — export is now more robust and reliable.
  • Cleaned up a couple of unused leftover buttons in the UV Color Packer panel for a tidier UI.
  • General performance improvement for the Wiggle Hair Sync bridge in scenes with many objects.

🚀 GroomForge PRO v1.3 Release Notes

[Bug Fix] Fixed 'Fix & Output Connect' Automation and Clump ID Issues

  • Issue: Previously, when using the 'Fix' function to automatically generate the node setup, the clumpid attribute failed to calculate or apply correctly to the strands.
  • Fix: Improved the internal logic of the Fix & Output Connect feature. The automatically generated Store Named Attribute (clumpid) node now properly fetches the Random Value data across the Spline domain and maintains a stable connection directly to the Group Output. Hair clumping effects will now display accurately per strand. v1.3.0 Update node

💡 Advanced Styling Tips & Use Cases

Procedural Clumping via Voronoi Texture Masking

For advanced styling, explore creative setups beyond the default node setup—such as layering multiple clump attributes for complex braids, realistic flyaways, or stylized layering. * Procedural Clumping: Instead of simple random values, try using a Voronoi Texture mapped to the strand positions to generate spatially clustered clump IDs. * Realistic Clustering: By passing the texture color through a Separate Color node and scaling it with a Multiply math node, you can procedurally group hair strands based on their physical proximity. This creates much more realistic, natural-looking hair clumps and partings.

v1.3.0 Update custom

🎬 Showcase: Procedural Clumping in Action

Procedural Clumping via Voronoi Texture allows you to easily achieve realistic, engine-ready hair clustering. * Advanced Spatial Clustering: By driving the clumpid attribute with a procedural Voronoi Texture, hair strands are automatically clustered based on their 3D proximity rather than simple random generation. * Flawless Engine Integration: As shown in the Unreal Engine viewport debug mode, each distinct color seamlessly visualizes a procedural clump unit. This data-driven approach yields incredibly natural hair breaks, realistic partings, and high-fidelity clumping behavior without any manual grooming overhead. * Production-Ready Efficiency: This setup bridges the gap between Blender's procedural generation and real-time engine shading, giving you complete pipeline control over complex hairstyles. v1.3.0 Update UE5

🚀 Version 1.2.0 Update

New Features & Improvements

  • 🆕 Edge-to-Rig Generation
    You can now generate professional rig structures directly from selected edges in Object Edit Mode. This allows for more flexible and custom skeleton layouts beyond standard curves.

  • ⚡ Enhanced Color UV Packing
    The Color UV Pack engine has been overhauled for better precision and faster processing. It ensures UV islands are snapped to color blocks more accurately with significantly reduced calculation time.

  • 🎮 Unreal Engine Pipeline Optimization
    Automatically generates UE-compatible attributes (UV Maps, Color Attributes, and Vertex Data) during hair card creation. This ensures a seamless transition to Unreal's hair shaders with pre-configured data such as Flow maps, Gradient groups, and Occlusion variations.

Bug Fixes & Optimization

  • Improved internal logic for UV tile group distribution.
  • Minor UI/UX refinements for the property panels.

🔄 Advanced Binding System

  • 🆕 Hair Curve-to-Mesh Bind
    A specialized solution to bind Hair Curves to mesh data. This ensures hair follows complex character movements perfectly, overcoming the native limitation where curves cannot be directly influenced by an Armature.

  • 🆕 Mesh-to-Rig Bind
    Streamlined workflow to bind meshes to rigs (armatures). This feature optimizes the connection between your generated props and the skeletal system for stable animation.