Modular gear

How it is put together

Each class keeps its own equipment. A class's pieces come only from its own outfits: first job and second, both bodies. The Swordsman line has both Swordsmen, both Knights and both Crusaders; the Archer line has both Archers and both Hunters; the Mage line has both Mages, both Wizards and both Professors; the Acolyte line has both Acolytes and both Priests. Nothing crosses from one class to another. The first outfit of each class is the body the others are worn on: its skeleton and its animations. Every other piece is a skinned mesh that keeps its own bind pose and is bound to that body's bones by name, which carries it onto its joints. The armour and the pants meet at the same height on every body and each runs a few centimetres past the cut, so a bigger waist covers a smaller one.

The hands hold what they carry. Meshy's rigger stops at the wrist, so every hand was a paddle. Each body has been re-rigged in Blender (tools/hand_rig.py), adding:

• fifteen finger bones per hand, their joints measured from the skin;
• a grip pose closed into a fist;
• a grip socket on the axis of that fist, which records how thick a handle the fist holds.

Every weapon here is fixed to that socket and drawn with exactly that handle, and the hand closes on it with the body's own grip.

Staffs and bows are carried upright. Every take was made empty-handed, so the arms hang, and a staff held straight through a hanging fist pointed at the floor. While the body stands, walks or runs, the arm holding one bends at the elbow and turns the forearm until it stands. Swords stay as the take swings them.

What is still a test: the weapons are built in code, as in Verdant Clash, until the forged weapons are modelled. Cutting one-piece models into slots leaves a step where two bodies meet at the waist. Gear made for the game would be modelled as separate pieces over one plain body per class, so that every piece fits every other.