Common issues
| Symptom | Check |
|---|---|
| Sculpt shows through the groom | Cull Hidden Surfaces on; raise Strand Count until Report > Strands Per Square Cm is around 120+; do not thicken Root Width to hide holes. |
| Looks fine from the front, bald from above | Roots Penetrate Band. Thickening Root Band Thickness without penetration makes the bald disc bigger. |
| Ponytail or bun comes out bald | Root Detached Shells. Check Hair Shell Count vs Rooted Shell Count in the report. |
| Braids or buns lose their turns | Check Follow Surface Grain, keep Flow Smooth Iterations low, and raise Points Per Strand for tight turns. Compare the final groom with the source geometry from several angles. |
| Neon yellow or black roots | Saturation back to 1.0. Do not assign the mesh material to the groom. |
| Hair never moves on the character | Enable Simulation on the saved groom. Binding must exist and the Groom Component must use it. |
| Re-groom did nothing | The character is still pointing at an old _BindingN. This tool rebuilds in place; confirm the component references the recipe's binding. |
| Brush appears to do nothing | The overlay is what you should see during the stroke. Status line reports strands caught; zero means the cursor is over empty space. Wheel grows the brush. |
Known limitations
- Win64 only. Mac and Linux have not been tested.
- Hair Card Generator is an experimental engine plugin. Strand conversion and binding do not need it.
- Surface Flow wants a coherent hair surface. Isolated shells with no roots produce no strands.
- A solid sculpt does not specify every strand or the hidden over-under connections inside a braid or bun. Conversion estimates those paths; an exact reconstruction is not guaranteed. Hair detail painted into colour or normal textures is not reconstructed as strand geometry.
- Strand Count is a target; strands below Min Strand Length are dropped.
- Card Centerline ignores Strand Count and does not sample vertex colours.
- The final groom import runs on the game thread, so a very high strand count still hitches once per Convert/Save.
- The plugin ships no sample content. An Example Project zip is still TODO.
Getting help
If your issue is not covered above, open a support ticket or reach us on Discord. Include Unreal Engine 5.8, plugin version, conversion method, and the Report values.