Virtual Horses – Flats Racing Simulation

Extended the real-time race engine developed for greyhounds in Unreal Engine with horse racing specific additions.
Added artist configurable time and weather scenarios within a single race track map.
Created chase style camera for simulating dynamic vehicle and aerial footage, inheriting existing tracking imperfection simulations.
Implemented configurable animation request system to add the appearance of random yet controlled runner actions, such as; jockey movements, whips, horse head shakes.
Added variable runner support, with production runs from 6 runners (120 events) through 14 runners (2184 events). Capable of handling up to 24 runners with existing art assets, but limited by available hardware and audio assets.

Technologies: C++, Unreal Engine, Visual Studio, Windows

Reduced animation complexity, timescales and potential QA issues with the action request system while maintaining artist control over the results.
Zero issues raised from all production runs, even for runner counts that require thousands of event combinations and tens of hours of real-time video capture.
Continued to maintain the core “race engine” as an extensible system, keeping horse racing specific implementations to a minimum, allowing for future reuse.