I’m working on a layered armor system for an isometric ARPG and I’m trying to determine the best Unreal Engine approach for mapping equipment geometry to a character’s canonical Skeletal Mesh (SKM).
The SKM acts as the canonical spatial reference for all armor, and each armor asset has its own pre-generated coverage data/mask. I need to determine where the armor geometry sits relative to the SKM and expose that spatial mapping so overlapping equipment can be resolved and used to drive a Dynamic Material Instance.
Basically, I’m creating a 3D version of a 2D sprite depth/occlusion system. I’m specifically trying to figure out how to detect where the armor sits relative to the SKM and expose that data to the rest of the system.
Any Unreal systems, APIs, or tutorials I should be looking at for this type of spatial mapping?
Similar systems that utilize this approach Project Zomboid’s Clothing system, and Exanima’s armor system. But a lot less variation, and strict structuring to mitigate Performance loss
(5 Layers total.)