Horse detecting riding arena perimeters (Patreon)

One thing I've always found it unrealistic about horse games is that they let you ride a horse straight into a wall, without it reacting in any way. Here's some behind the scenes of a feature that makes the horse detect solid walls in front of it and turn away from them automatically. In the video I'm not turning the horse at all except when I switched directions. Trees are also detected and the horse will automatically try to dodge them.

I left the developer visualization on in case you are curious of how it works. Essentially the horse sends an invisible ball-shaped object forward multiple times a second, and whatever the ball hits first is what the horse is seeing. This is an extension of the same feature that makes the horse detect jumpable fences.

I haven't yet tried how this feature works with dressage, but I have a feeling I will likely make it so that the feature gets overridden when the horse is "on the bit", as it could cause issues when riding dressage paths. Or an alternative solution is that the dressage arena fencing would not be detected.

The arena in the video is a test arena only and won't be there in game.

Comment below whether you are interested in seeing more behind the scenes videos including the debug visualizations or would you prefer normal gameplay videos.