Currently, the game allows modders to customise the mesh of the character using a “shirt” item, and while it is quite useful to make specific types of NPCs or custom models, I find that this feature wasn’t explored upon enough and lately, as I wanted to model custom pants item, I was told that it couldn’t be made due to the fact a character mesh replacement could only be done through a shirt item.
I would love to eventually be able to create a pant, or a shirt, or a mask item that would only change the corresponding body part (a “prosthesis” could replace the torso+arms part, a “kilt” could replace the legs part, a “coat” could replace both, etc…), so my suggestion is fairly straightforward: to allow for mask, pants and shirts character mesh replacement items to just change a select bodypart while still allowing other items to be worn visibly elsewhere.
Sweet stinkin’ dragon horns because I thought the cosmetic Dango horns in game were a little too small, quite silly and stubby looking. The horns themselves don’t even surpass the 300 vertex count, so pretty darn good in my opinion (compared to some excessive use of vertices on some workshop post).
I think the system that already exists is good enough for me, but that’s because the way I use it:
The shirt replaces the entire character’s mesh geometry regardless, and the pants act as an entire outfit that applies a new texture to the new replaced geometry of the player. In other words, the pants texture contains more image that can accommodate the shirt also, and is applied as such (I haven’t tried it in a while, but I believe the pants texture-work has priority over the mesh replace texture, unless stated otherwise in the shirt’s ‘file-name.dat’ configuration file. Clearly, the problem with this is I can’t ‘mix-and-match’.
I like the idea that Unturned could use ‘mesh replacers’ the way the industry does it, and that’s to simply replace the original legs model with another that fits the clothing that had been applied. Might as well hit several birds with one stone, and address the single-use, one-fits-all, mesh replacer currently in game.
Just an anecdote about a game called ‘Stalcraft’ (literally just a silly Minecraft/Stalker crossover). The models in game are oddly high-fidelity for bodily geometry so simplistic. Looking past the quite uncanny human models and excessive vertex count in the models, the clothing itself could (in my opinion) be applied similarly in Unturned if scaled down in vertex count. 3D clothing! So much for those silly apply-to model texture pants.
The original system does have its qualities indeed, I just did find it to be difficult to tinker with. Wanting to design a separate clothing item (for example a pant with a custom model) while allowing to wear any shirt item is something that would be quite nice for modding, I do find that stalcraft picture uncanny but interesting, I did want to make volumetric shoes and a dress at some point, it’s pretty close to things I envisioned.
