So it turns out my solution I showcased earlier in the week for Character customization only works OFFLINE.
Technically, it COULD work online, but it’d require a WHOLE LOT MORE of network updates. So that’s a scrap.
I have two other solutions...
One could be tricky, OR time-consuming. This method would be submeshes that I would swap in-out. This means adding all the mesh/textures stuff to the character, and having the different segments render or de-render through scripts. Of course, that also means I’d be having the whole set of information for equipment loaded at all times. Potentially could get messy with memory requirements.
The OTHER method would DEFINITELY be tricky. Mesh Combination. It would involve something similar to the above solution, but it means somehow combining the impartial armature of the equipment piece with the full armature of the character model. It would be giving the base skeleton the ability to affect the parts that the impartial skeleton could. This one would be much less performance heavy, since there’d only be that one little ‘hiccup’ as it sets up the equipment.
It’s times like these that I wish I knew of another dev going through this same implementation problem. (or at least knew of a developer that documented their implementation... Something like Rust or 7DTD devs. Ah well, that’ll never happen)