How to make a SkeletalMeshActor based on a Skeletal Mesh Subclass

Hi Guys,

I’ve got a question regarding Skeletal Meshes or animations.

Here is the base Situation:

I’ve got a Plugin which is necessary in my Project. The main ActorComponent of that plugin has to be placed on a SkeletalMeshActor on which it automatically assigns some components to the bones of the root component which is in this case the SkeletalMesh Component.

My Problem is, that I have a component called CSkeletalHand which is a subclass of SkeletalMeshComponent.

Now I have use the plugin with the CSkeletalHand. I do not know how to change the rootcomponent of the SkeletalMeshActor which is a SkeletalMeshComponent. This may be possible since CSkeletalHand is a subclass of the SkeletalMeshComponent and thus provide the same base functionality.

An alternative I thought of could be to synchronize animations since that is important in my case.
I would let the inherit SkeletalMeshComponent and add a custom animation

I would also add the CSkeletalHandComponent with its animation.
When both components have the same skeletal meshes, it should be possible to synchronize animations or not?
Then I would programm the custom animation to mimic the animation on the inherit SkeletalMeshComponent.

However, I do not know how to implement any of these ideas. I’m also open to new approaches.
In the worst case, I have to change the the Code of the plugin, but I would like to avoid this if possible.

So any ideas?