What are some options for adding customized characters for someone new to it?

[TechLord]

@jwatte

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some kind of standard for character clothing/parts, similar to the Unreal Skeleton? So I could buy a chain mail, or flak vest, or maid apron, or whatever, and it would fit?
Most of the “customizable” systems on the marketplace have too few parts that work with them – there’s no way to mix-and-match with additional content. And most of the characters are hyper-stylized custom rigs that may work well for a level boss or a “single character game” but doesn’t work for item-based RPGs, sandboxes, and such.
Similarly, painting in skin tight clothing in known UV locations, and knocking out hidden skin segments when covered by bulkier clothing (not just for performance, but to avoid clipping-through) would be helpful.
Something like the Daz3D Genesis series, except for Unreal, and focus on game based characters, would be pretty great!
Make the base mesh source files public, so it’s easy to build new parts that fit, and see if we can’t get a marketplace of separately provided, pluggable items, going…

Back in the UDK days I attempted to develop a Standardized Customization system called Universal Modular Entity Construction Hierarchical Sets (UMECHS).I believe Epic intended to build a standard with the UE4 Mannequin, however, retargeting negates it. I believe that a group of Marketplace Publisher could collaborate to build a standard character and parts catalog.