Bring large, natural-looking animal herds to Unreal Engine without building a complex AI system.

Massive Herd-Lite is a high-performance herd simulation and environment toolkit designed for cinematic, virtual production, visualization, and large-scale wildlife scenes in Unreal Engine 5.8.

Create herds of dozens or hundreds of independently animated animals using an optimized instanced skeletal mesh system. Animals naturally transition between Idle, Walking, and Grazing behaviors with individual animation variation, helping eliminate the synchronized “cloned crowd” appearance common in large populations.

Massive Herd - Lite includes a complete, ready-to-use animated Bison along with a customizable HerdDirector for using your own compatible skeletal animals and animations.

Promo Video - https://youtu.be/Za6jUqOXSCw

Installation & Basic Functions Video - https://youtu.be/rjGUQzikKRw

Herd Features

• Large-scale animated animal herds

• Optimized instanced skeletal mesh rendering

• Autonomous Idle, Walk, and Graze behavior

• Individual animal animation variation

• Multiple animations per behavior

• Terrain-following herd movement

• Herd population and behavior controls

• Exclusion volumes for restricting herd movement

• Reusable herd tuning preset system

• Built-in Bison preset

• Custom animal and animation support

Included Bison

• Ready-to-use Bison skeletal mesh

• 3 Idle animations

• 2 Walk animations

• 2 Graze/Eat animations

• Materials, textures, skeleton, and supporting assets

Landscape & Environment

• Complete procedural Prairie landscape system

• Automatic green/dry prairie variation

• Procedural green and dry grass vegetation

• Paintable Green Grass, Dry Grass, Soil, Mud, and Vegetation Removal layers

• Included Landscape LayerInfo assets

• Automatic wet-area soil and mud transitions

• Vegetation suppression around exposed soil and mud

• Nanite landscape mud displacement

• Slope-based rock surfaces

• Distance-optimized landscape and mountain treatment

• Unreal Water integration

• Preconfigured watering-hole WaterBodyLake Blueprint & WaterBodyRiver Blueprint

• Custom water and underwater materials

• Bonus Winter Landscape Preview Material Instance with snowy distant mountains

Massive Herd - Lite was developed primarily for cinematic and Sequencer-based wildlife environments, while its underlying herd system can also be incorporated into other Unreal Engine projects.

Designed and tested for Unreal Engine 5.8.

A Quick Start tutorial demonstrates installation, landscape setup, LayerInfo assignment, and creation of your first herd.

AI Disclosure: Generative AI was used in the creation of the included Bison base 3D mesh and UV layout. Rigging, skinning, and all included Bison animations were created manually by the developer.

©2026 Red Sea Visuals LLC