Ideally, my critter-count MIGHT get up to 50’s or so? Think DarkSouls, the latest Zelda, and other openworld(ish) RPGs the like. There might be packs of critters, and some that can then be summoned, etc, but critter-counts will be lower than 100 at the very least. Some critters are very…creative in the way I made them and don’t even have an anim-bp, maybe a material, collision and few other things to interact with the player. Something like a Wisp or a flying-skull is fairly simple and w/o anim-bp. I am angling for an area/battle mode but that might have 50-100 at best, and it will be majority the same core anim-bp for each player, plus whatever is native to the map or can be summoned.
So, for the most part, yes, the core anim-bp I am working on will be shared. At least across all player-characters. The duplication-of-animation/effort is really only around a core set of locomotion, and only so it matches the players current equip/weapon; what I call ‘fudge-work’ . Anything outside moving around, so attacks and anything special like a spell/item are called via montage (and work well) per weapon/item.
Many of the humanoid critters will also share this core anim-bp but there will indeed also be others (quadrupeds/fliers) that will have their own unique anim-bp’s.
I early decided I’d need to use external assets so I get I won’t get THE most optimal ‘machine’, but at least I can set my course towards a better heading. All this input is appreciated, thank you. Once I get this all sorted along fastpath, and working with a few weapons I plan to share a video on what hopefully is a dev-log, I’ll be sure to update the thread.