Animal Behavior Blueprint

The Animal Behavior Blueprint is a custom, parameterized Unreal Engine Blueprint (AnimalAI) that populates a world with wildlife — kangaroos, deer, and other animals — that roam and react at runtime. This page covers how to download it and use it in your own Unreal project.

Download

Package being finalized

The Animal Behavior Blueprint will be published as a Blueprint package on the HERCULES releases page. Until the zip lands, this page already documents the requirements, install procedure, and sensor integration.

The package contains the HERCULES-authored behavior Blueprints (spawner, AnimalAI logic, animation Blueprints where self-made) only. The animal meshes, skeletons, and animation packs are third-party marketplace content — linked, not shipped — see Using Blueprint Packages.

Requirements

Requirement	Notes
Unreal Engine 5.2.1	Version HERCULES is built against
HERCULES AirSim plugin	For sensing integration (install)
Animal asset pack(s)	Per species — e.g. the Animal Variety Pack (deer) and a kangaroo model pack are used in the HERCULES AustraliaLandscape world. Assign the skeletal mesh / AnimBP per species via the Blueprint's exposed slots.
NavMesh in your level	Animals navigate with Unreal's navigation system — add a NavMeshBoundsVolume covering the roam area

Install into your Unreal project

Follow the general steps in Using Blueprint Packages:

1. Download and unzip the Blueprint package, and copy the contained folder into your project's Content/.
2. Install the animal asset pack(s) for the species you want from their store links.
3. Restart the Unreal Editor, open the species Blueprints, and assign the skeletal mesh and animation Blueprint slots.
4. Make sure your level has a NavMesh covering the intended roam area.

Usage

1. Place the animal spawner / behavior Blueprint into your level.
2. Choose the species and configure herd size, roam area, and behavior.
3. Play / run the simulation — the animals move through the world and are observable by all robots' sensors.

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Default
Species	Which animal(s) to spawn	—
Count / density	How many animals	—
Roam area	Region the animals wander	—

Sensor integration

Animals are the flagship targets for the synthetic thermal camera:

• Spawned animals must be registered with instance segmentation (AddNewActorToSegmentation on spawn — see Using Blueprint Packages); only skeletal/static meshes are supported.
• Mesh naming matters: names containing kangaroo, deer, or animal are classified as warm bodies (315 K, brightness-floored) by the LWIR camera; kangaroos additionally get the orange highlight recolor. Name your spawned instances accordingly (e.g. BP_Kangaroo23).
• Other species need only an override — no renaming:

"SyntheticCameraSettings": {
  "ThermalIR": { "Overrides": [ { "Match": "elephant", "TempK": 309.0, "Emissivity": 0.98, "IsAnimal": true } ] }
}

See the Dynamic Environmental Phenomena overview and the Environments for these agents in context.