Best way to make charactercustomization?
Hello my name is Pontus "Pavington" Engberg and I'm currently the lead designer of our game. I have a question when it comes to character customization. So currently we have a scene set up for it with all the parts and a save system, the problem with the way we are doing it is to load the character in game.
So how are we doing right now? Well we have 6 different characters for the different nations then we have parts that replaces the for example head with another head from a list, then we have 3 standard materials that change RGB depending on the value the player enters so he/she can change the hair or eyecolour.
So is there a better way to do it that can easier load the characters in game later since otherwise we need like 48 lists to put in all items to just replace a hat.
Edit: Side question how would one make a global animation for running example that works with all models later? Everything is placed identical to each other.
Thanks for all help :3
Answer by cjdev · Jan 18, 2016 at 12:53 AM
One of the best ways I've seen to implement a customizable character system is to put every model in place on the character, layered over the top of each other, and all in the same file. Then in-game you disable all of the meshes you aren't currently displaying as the current configuration and then switch them out by enabling and disabling a pair of the layered components. This way you're guaranteed to get seamless connections since all the meshes are already connected and you don't need to worry about juggling a ton of individual transforms.
As for the animation, I'm not entirely sure if I've understood you correctly, but you can make an avatar that represents a skeletal and muscle configuration and which can be applied to any model you choose. Then you can make an animation for the avatar and apply it to any other characters you need.
Ah ok, So you would basically add all arms under a empty gameobject for the arms then? Didn't know you could have a avatar that worked with any model, thanks for telling me that :D
Yeah, I would add all the arms models to the character as if it were currently using them. Then you can switch them on and off individually as mesh components when needed.