Stage 6 writes the assets your engine consumes. The two things worth getting right first time are scale units and which UV channel your material samples.
Configure the export
Open Export Options from the viewport toolbar. Pick an output directory, choose the texture formats and channels you want, then set the mesh mode, coordinate space and scale units.
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Choose the destination
Pick a writable output directory. A read-only target is the most common cause of a partial export.
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Select maps and formats
Choose which baked channels to write, and whether they go out as PNG, TGA or JPEG.
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Pack channels if your shader expects it
Combine separate grayscale maps into the RGBA slots of one texture, so the engine samples fewer textures per pixel.
A packed texture slot with independent red, green, blue and alpha sources — set these to match what your shader reads. · select to enlarge -
Set the mesh mode and units
Choose the mesh output and its scale units. Centimetres for Unreal Engine 5, metres for Blender and glTF pipelines.
Mesh export options. Format and unit selectors apply to whichever mesh output you have chosen. · select to enlarge
Mesh & texture settings
Scroll horizontally to view all columns.
| Setting / Option | Available Choices | Format / Units | Technical Behavior & Pipeline Guidance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mesh Export Mode | 3D World Space Mesh vs. UV View Space Canvas Mesh | Autodesk FBX (.fbx) / Wavefront OBJ (.obj) | 3D World Space Mesh exports physical 3D groom-card strips shaped on the scalp surface. UV View Space Canvas Mesh exports flattened 2D card topology. |
| Canvas Coordinate Space | Normalized UV Space vs. Data Canvas Space | [0, 1] UV Bounds / Absolute Units | Controls 2D canvas mesh vertex coordinates. Normalized UV maps vertices directly to [0, 1] UV space. |
| Mesh Scale Units | Meters (m), Centimeters (cm), Millimeters (mm) | 1× (m), 100× (cm), 1000× (mm) | Applies uniform vertex scaling on mesh export. Use Centimeters for Unreal Engine 5 or Meters for Blender/glTF pipelines. |
| Texture Export Formats | PNG (8-bit RGBA), TGA (Uncompressed), JPEG (High Quality) | .png / .tga / .jpg | Writes baked texture channels to disk. Resolution is capped by your active plan tier (2K Trial, 4K Personal/Pro, 8K Studio). |
Engine integration
Unreal Engine 5
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Import the mesh
Import the
.fbxinto UE5 with Import Uniform Scale matching your exported units — 1.0 if you exported in centimetres. -
Configure the material
Set Material Domain to Surface, Blend Mode to Masked or Dithered Opacity Mask, Shading Model to Hair, and enable Two Sided.
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Wire the channels
Connect TexCoord[0] or TexCoord[1] to your texture nodes, matching the atlas layout you exported, then:
- Albedo to Base Color, multiplied by a tint parameter if you need one.
- Alpha straight to Opacity Mask.
- Normal to Normal.
- Direction to the Material Tangent input, which is what gives you anisotropic highlights.
- Roughness to Roughness and AO to Ambient Occlusion.
- RootTip to drive root darkening and tip specular shifts.
Blender and Maya
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Export from HairStorm
Press Ctrl+E, choose the folder, format and resolution, then click Export Asset.
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Import and check the UV sets
HairStorm writes dual UV channels:
UV0for card geometry,UV1for exact atlas sub-rectangle sampling. Confirm both survived the import. -
Build the material
Assign a Principled BSDF in Blender or a Standard Surface in Maya. Add a UV Map node set to UV0 for base colour and alpha, connect Albedo to Base Color and Alpha to Alpha or Cutout, and enable two-sided rendering.
What each plan can write
Texture export is available on every plan up to its resolution cap. Mesh export depends on tier.
Scroll horizontally to view all columns.
| Output Deliverable | Required Source Data | Entitlement Tier Access | Feature Capability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baked Texture Maps | Baked map binary source | All Plans (2K Trial, 4K Personal/Pro, 8K Studio) | Max Texture Resolution (2K - 8K) |
| UV Card Mesh (.fbx / .obj) | Generated UV Card Topology | Personal, Professional, Studio | Full UV Card Mesh Export |
| 3D Groom Mesh (.fbx / .obj) | Edited 3D Groom geometry | Professional, Studio | Full 3D Groom Mesh Export |
Troubleshooting
When an export comes out incomplete, check three things in order: the destination directory is writable, the hair layers you expected were visible during the bake, and the head surface cache had finished building before you exported a groom mesh. Re-bake if the source binaries are missing.