Virtual Grand National is exactly what it sounds like, a virtual "prediction" of the 2017 Grand National horse race. It was aired on ITV4 on Friday 7th April, the evening before the actual Grand National took place. My role as 3D animator was to create realistic animations for the horse and jockey, and to blend animations together using Maya's TimeEditor. All animation was done in Maya using a custom rig and Maya's HIK rig. I created several variations on a "setting off" animation, which involves the horses going from a standing start to a full gallop; the gallop animations were created by somebody else and I blended them into my setting off animation. I made one base animation and altered it to create a collection of variations, to make the pack of horses at the beginning of the race look more interesting and realistic. I was also tasked with making an animation of a horse standing back up after falling. I began with an animation created by someone else, which involved the horse jumping over a fence with and then falling (the fall was made dynamically with Miarmy), and then animating the horse standing back up. 

The above video is the full episode that was shown on ITV4. It may still be available to view at: 

http://www.itv.com/hub/the-virtual-grand-national-2017/2a5102

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There are other horse racing products that have been produced by Inspired that have used the same animations as the Virtual Grand National, as well as other animations I have created. These products can be found at:  https://www.inseinc.com/

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I take no credit for animation that isn't my own. I take no credit for any modelling, rigging, texturing, lighting, preamble/2D graphics, audio, or crowd work in this product. (But just like Mike Tyson Virtual Boxing, I was the actor for the crowd mo-cap. There's an army for me this time.