Popular Animated Horse Asset Pack Horse Animset Pro by Malbers Animations has become a bit of a thorn in my side, as someone who always keeps an eye out for new games that include horses. Game creators often don’t consider custom horse animations a big enough priority to allocate the budget for them and instead use the existing asset pack. Much to the dismay of those of us who look for well-made horse animation: from its initially completely wrong walk animation to its current issues with wobbly bendy forelegs, the suboptimal asset pack is the direct cause for many game horses looking sort of wrong

With the release of Horse Herd by 3D Bear on the Unreal Engine Marketplace last month, it looks like HAP is getting some much-needed competition in the animated horse asset market. Thanks to community member Roiuky for bringing it to my attention!

Previously in Horse Asset Packs

Horse Herd and HAP are not the only options out there: Searching the Unity and Unreal Engine Asset Stores for horses yields numerous results. But even though I have not gotten around to a thorough review of all the available animated horse packs, a glance at their demo videos quickly reveals some common problems: Cheap animation often misunderstands the physics behind horse movement, and as a result, weight distribution during movement is completely out of whack more often than not. Even where the basic walk, trot and canter movements are roughly accurate (not always a given), many animators get things like rearing, grazing, jumping or bucking completely wrong.

All animations of Horse Animset Pro can be seen in the Sketchfab model above. I find the flaws particularly noticeable in the Idle Hop, Idle Look and Neigh (rear) animations.

Horse Herd: Asset Breakdown

With Horse Herd by 3D Bear arrives a new contender for “best animated horse asset”. Naturally, The Mane Quest has to have a look at what it offers.

Let’s start with the good news: I have very little to complain about where the basic walk, trot, canter and gallop animations are concerned: the footfall patterns are correct, the joints bend in the proper directions and the legs stay straight when they have to. If that sounds like a low bar to pass, you haven’t seen the state of most horse animation.

There is a tiny bit of stiffness here or there in the movement, and it looks like the legs might be a bit far apart when seen from the front, but those are nitpicks that I really have to go looking for.

The jump animation looks a bit floaty where the hind legs are concerned: those move stiffly through the air for a bit longer than looks natural, instead of evoking the real weight of such a big animal. For game assets, the crucial animation principle of “anticipation” is always a bit hard to apply, since we often expect game animations to happen instantly, without room for those important anticipation frames.

That the fetlocks are lowered appropriately in the rearing animation is balm on my soul – as a result I can forgive that the forelegs move a bit awkwardly. The demo reel moves on to showing off its ear and eye rigging, which I assume is meant to entice developers to create additional animations using these bones. Since the ears are an incredibly important part of horse expressions such as interest, relaxation and anger, there’s a lot of potential in this – we see this put to good use in the kicking animation already!.

The video also features a logically sound Western saddle and bridle as well as a few blanket variations, all of which look realistic and well made. The coat textures and color variations also make a very high quality impression on me, showing off Bay, Chestnut, Black, Dun, Cremello and Grulla options including two good-looking Overo variations.

The one coat color that raises some eyebrows is this (right) combination of a metallic grey coat with extensive white patterning but two dark legs and a reverse blaze. While I can’t say for certain that this coat would be completely impossible in real life, it seems extremely unlikely at best, especially since we have a dark mane sprouting from white body parts – realistically, white markings continue across coat and mane hair. If you’re going by “rule of cool” or aiming for a fantasy setting, this might not be a problem for you as a user though.

Other Considerations

For game developers looking to use these assets in their games, equine accuracy isn’t always the primary concern however (I know, weird, right), even though Horse Herd is the clear winner here on that front.

One of Horse Animset Pro’s selling points is the sheer number of different animations it has for various game situations, including falling, attacking, swimming, dying, getting hit and more. Not all of these animations are particularly well done in terms of horse locomotion, but they might explain why some developers will keep opting for HAP over Horse Herd, depending on their specific needs.

So far, Horse Herd is only out for Unreal Engine, with releases on the Unity Asset Store and CGTrader marketplace “coming soon”.

*I couldn’t find a link to this tweet anymore but* *here’s Kells on Twitter*

Considering this one comment (left) on Horse Herd’s demo video, perhaps this is also the right opportunity to go on a tangent about how animal animation asset packs always have death and attack animations but none of them have cuddling, petting, getting fed, rolling on the ground, or any other such wholesome behavior. That’s not my hot take but I saw Kells from Calico point it out years ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Seriously, the easy availability of such animations would directly influence their inclusion in games and the fact that some people can’t even imagine an animal’s animation being useful in game development without the animal’s death being a possibility is just so telling and emblematic of how limited some creators’ horizons are in terms of how you want to let the player interact with the wolds that you build. No, video games don’t cause violence but maybe let’s rethink just how ubiquitous combat and violence are in our video games. Tangent over, thank you.

To get back on point: I can’t judge the actual practicality and suitability of the assets in question – for one, I’m not familiar enough with Unreal Engine to really try them. On the other hand, the actual needs that every project has for a horse animation asset will differ greatly depending on planned gameplay, target platform and overall project goal.

Horse Herd is currently more affordable than Horse Animset Pro, and the animation quality so far speaks in the former’s favor, especially since the latter has not been significantly updated again since Spring 2019 despite some glaring issues.

In conclusion: For anyone familiar with how horses move and invested in realistic movement, there’s a clear answer to “what is the best animated horse asset pack” and it’s the brand new Horse Herd by 3D Bear. Whether or not the new pack will end up outperforming and replacing the established Horse Animset Pro remains to be seen, and will most likely depend on factors other than how good the individual animations look – but as someone very invested in game horses realism, I sure hope it will become popular, or at the very least motivate Malbers Animation to fix the numerous flaws in HAP.

If you’re a developer working with one or both of these asset packs, please feel free to reach out and offer your perspective.

New Animated Horse Asset: Does Horse Herd by 3D Bear beat Horse Animset Pro in Anatomical Accuracy?

Previously in Horse Asset Packs

Horse Herd: Asset Breakdown

Other Considerations