Overview

The Megascans Plugin for Blender allows you to connect Quixel Bridge and Blender, giving you a one-click solution for importing your Megascans, Mixer and custom assets straight into Blender within seconds.

This tool relies on Bridge’s robust architecture to give you the best asset management experience, and Blender’s python implementation to create materials and import textures and geometry automatically, giving you extremely fast imports on the go.

Installation

Plugin installation is part of Bridge Export Settings. These settings are global and once set up, will not need to be changed too often.

You can install the plugin using any one of these methods:

1. You can set up the plugin when you launch Bridge after installing it for the first time on your machine.
2. Through Export Settings.
3. Through the Manage Plugins option in the Edit menu.

Installation during initial setup

1. When you launch Bridge after installing it for the first time on your machine, you will see initial setup options. Click the Library Path to choose the folder on disk where you would like your asset library to be.

The Library Path is important because this is where Bridge will store your assets and plugins. If you don’t already have a folder for this purpose Bridge will create it for you.

2. Click Next.
3. From the Export Target drop-down, select Blender.

4. Click Download Plugin to begin downloading the plugin.

Once the download is done you’ll see a confirmation message in Bridge.

5. Click Install Plugin to install the plugin in Blender.
6. Once the plugin is installed you should see the Installed status on the pop-up. Click Done to complete the set up.

7. Start up Blender and the plugin will automatically start up as well. 

Installation via Export Settings

1. To access the settings, click the gear icon on the bottom left corner of the asset’s right panel or go to Edit > Export Settings.

2. Click Export Settings in the pop-up menu to view all the export options. You can tweak your settings, like texture format, LODs, mesh format (FBX or OBJ), etc.

Exporting Assets

1. In Bridge, go to the Local filter in the left panel to export a downloaded asset. Make sure Blender is running.
2. Click the Quick Export icon or hit the Export button.

As soon as you click on Export in Bridge your asset should pop up in your Blender scene.

Utilization with Cycles

By default, Blender 3D does not set Cycles as the primary renderer. Follow this guide to correctly export from Bridge to Blender Cycles:

1. Set Blender 3D to Cycles as the render engine and Experimental as the feature set.

2. For 2D Surfaces on a simple plane, add a Subdivision modifier with adaptive enabled, set to simple subdivision algorithm - with more than 1 level of subdivision.

3. Set the Shader editor to visualize your imported textures, automatically assigned to a material by the plugin:

4. After you have exported your 2D surface or decal, you will be able to see it listed as shown on the screenshot below:

5. Select your plane then click on the listed Megascans assets you have just imported to assign it to your plane and voilà!

Exporting Alembics to Blender

In order to import Alembic files to Blender you will need to do an additional step after exporting that Alembic asset from Bridge.

This is due to the way Blender’s Python API works. 

After exporting an alembic asset from Bridge simply follow this step:

1. Go to “File > Import > Megascan: Import Alembic Files” to start the plugin.

The plugin will import the alembic files that were exported from Bridge as well as assign the right material to it.

Custom Installation

If the current installation process in Bridge isn’t suitable for your pipeline, you can download the plugin manually as follows.

1. Download the plugin for your OS from the below links:
   WINDOWS | MAC | LINUX
   
2. Extract the plugin from the .zip file to a location of your choice and copy the extracted folder.
   
3. Go the following path on your machine based on your OS:
   • Windows: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.8X\scripts\startup\
   • Mac OS: /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Blender/2.8X/scripts/startup/Depending on your OS, go to the “startup” folder using the paths given below:
   • Linux: /home/username/.config/blender/2.8X/scripts/startup
4. Paste the MSPlugin folder (copied Step 2) in the startup folder.
   Now the Megascans plugin will startup when you launch Blender.
   
5. Open Bridge, and in the Local filter click on the asset you want to export. 

6. Go to the asset’s Export Settings, select Custom Socket Export from the Export Target drop-down.
7. Set the Socket Port field to 28888.
8. Go back to the asset details panel, click Export and your asset should appear in Blender.