Creating a Real-Time Horse Groom for Games by Guillermo Cortés

This workshop is a straight shot into the real-time grooming pipeline. Over 2.5 hours, Guillermo Cortés walks you through the entire process of building a realistic horse groom for games, from the first XGen guide to the final Unreal Engine presentation. You’ll learn how to manage density, bake textures, and create hair cards that look great and run fast.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Plan and reference realistic horse anatomy for accurate grooming.
• Create efficient mane and tail grooms using XGen and Maya’s grooming tools.
• Generate optimized hair cards and manage density for real-time performance.
• Bake textures effectively using Marmoset Toolbag and Substance 3D Painter.
• Achieve believable hair directionality, flow, and volume while maintaining technical constraints.
• Export and implement grooms in Unreal Engine for game production pipelines.

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Intermediate knowledge of Maya and a basic understanding of real-time rendering pipelines.
• Tools: Maya, Marmoset Toolbag, Substance 3D Painter, ZBrush, Unreal Engine, FiberShop, GS CurveTools.
• Hardware: A PC capable of running Unreal Engine and Marmoset Toolbag smoothly.

📝 Description

This isn’t a theory lecture. Guillermo Cortés, a Groom and CFX Supervisor, gets straight to the practical stuff. He starts by showing you how to read reference images—not just look at them—to understand hair flow, clumping, and silhouette. That foundation is key before you even open XGen.

From there, it’s a hands-on walkthrough. You’ll set up guides, apply modifiers for natural variation, and then hit the critical step: baking that high-density groom into usable textures with Marmoset Toolbag. Guillermo then shows you how to build efficient hair cards using FiberShop and GS CurveTools, a workflow that saves you from drowning in polygons.

The final act is all about the engine. You’ll set up a proper hair shader in Unreal Engine, dial in the lighting, and do a final polish pass. The goal is a groom that looks believable in a game, not just a still render. You’ll walk away with a repeatable pipeline for any creature or character.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Intermediate to advanced 3D artists specializing in character and creature grooming for video games.
• Groom artists, CFX specialists, and character artists working in real-time environments.
• Lookdev and technical artists who need to understand the practical constraints of game-ready hair.

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Guillermo Cortés is a Grooming and CFX Supervisor at 3Doubles. He has worked on projects for major brands like Meta/Facebook, Netflix, Sony Entertainment, and Electronic Arts, contributing to commercials, visual effects, and video games. His focus is on pushing the boundaries of digital hair and fur creation, constantly developing new workflows to stay at the forefront of the industry.

🏁 Final Result

• A fully realized, real-time horse groom asset, complete with optimized hair cards, baked textures, and a polished presentation in Unreal Engine.