I am very proud to announce the release of the Horse Starter Kit.
The Horse Starter Kit is the perfect solution for anyone looking to add horses to their game. This game ready kit is animated using the Unreal Character Skeleton for the Horse Rider. So if you have a character that uses the Unreal Skeleton, you can have your character riding around on horses in minutes. Included in the “Extras” folder are the ZBrush file, the Maya export file with LODs, and the Maya animation rig file. With these included files you can customize your Horses as much or as little as you wish, and with the Animation Rig you can create additional animations for your game in a snap. Hit the ground running with the Horse Starter Kit.
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Included in the Horse Starter Kit v2.0:**
Fully rigged and animated Horse skeletal mesh with reins, and saddle pieces
Animations (69 total) for both the Horse (Custom Skeleton) and Rider (Unreal Skeleton)
2 Animation Blueprints for both the Horse and Rider
2 Character Blueprints for both Rideable Horse Characters and NPC Horse Characters
1 Level Blueprint with Horse Possession and patrol routes
2D Movement Blendspaces for both the Horse and Rider
A sample map with 2 Rideable Horses and one NPC Horse
As you can see i have the mounting and dismounting working on the left side of the horse. Next up I’ll be doing the same for the right side.
I’m also showing how this horse looks on uneven terrain, this will also get some more attention for the next update.
I like what is there overall, but for the high price of > 100 € I would expect everything to be top-notch, the turning animation alone currently just not warrants this price.
Turning right now just seems to be a yaw rotation, whereas a real horse’s body rotates from the front part first, after which the rest follows, kind of like a spline.
I know there’s techniques for this (but I cannot name them unfortunatley).
This is a tremendous foundation. I never see horse system templates.
Would it be very complex to implement separate human actions while riding? For example, button press for sword swing attack, another button for shooting arrows, do a handstand, whatever. It can get complex depending on the designer’s wishes. I’m curious how hard it is to separate the rider’s actions from the horse while still actually riding/controlling the horse. A system within a system. That’s my ultimate wish list #1.
Also, how is the spawn point for calling the horse determined? Want to avoid visibly spawning in front of camera. Have to be sure it is always off camera.
To add sword swings you will need to make the animations, and add a state to the animation blueprints, and define your new input keys in the project settings. There are many tutorials for making attack animations and damage dealing in Unreal, Google is your friend
as for spawning- the horse is already in the level from the beginning, running its own patrol loop.
He meant , like in Witcher 3 or phantom pain , when the user is very far away from the horse , the horse definitely does not travel that much distance, instead it is spawned at a nearby area that is not visible to the user(because the user is turning to the other side, or maybe an obstacle is blocking the visibility) , and moves to the user from that area.
What a bit hurts my eyes is the tail and it looks a bit “static”.
I miss the “flow” of the horse, the feeling you have when riding with fullspeed and sync your bodymovement.
Horses are very complicated, with every walk, the rider behavior changes too.
Riding sharp corners at high speed on sand is so interesting to see how the horse controls his body.
I like horses, for me they are powered perfect machine of nature.
Using a custom character with the Horse Starter Kit.
In this video I am swapping out the default Unreal Mannequin with some characters from Infinity Blade. You can do the same with your own custom characters.
First of all, your character must use the default Unreal Skeleton so that all the horse riding animations will work.
Open the Horse Starter Kit and import your custom character using the “UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton” You can always right click your Skeletal Mesh and select Skeleton> Assign Skeleton and use “UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton”
Next open up the ThirdPersonCharacter Blueprint (Content> ThirdPersonBP> Blueprints)- select the viewport tab and select the Mesh- on the right in the Details panel you can swap out the Skeletal Mesh in the Mesh section. Select the Skeletal Mesh you just imported from the dropdown, also set the Anim Blueprint to “ThirdPersonAnimBlueprint”- and save the blueprint.
Finally open the Horse Blueprints (Content> HorseStarterKit> Blueprints)- select the viewport tab and select the “Horse_Rider” mesh- on the right in the Details panel you can swap out the Skeletal Mesh in the Mesh section. also set the Anim Blueprint to “Horse_Rider_Animation_Blueprint”- and save the blueprint.
Thats it, now your custom character has a horse to get around
This looks awesome, except for the tail hair. The tail hair just whips too abruptly, this becomes very visible in the side view.
If you would make the tail like the neck hair for instance, i would probably buy this pack since the horse animations and the model look very realistic.
…but the overall thing is really great, nice work !
, respect for aiming realism.
