Good stuff all.
The vertex solution is similar to panini projection essentially.
If there’s a problem with shadow casting I would just work around it…
Make a character with 2 meshes.
An invisible mesh for casting shadows, and one for displaying.
The cost of rendering just a shadow shouldn’t affect things too much - then again on this engine even breathing the wrong way can be problematic right now, so take that with a grain of salt.
I don’t think it would cast on the gun though. Would have to try it figure it out.
Regardless I have to say this isn’t “the” solution.
Particulalty extending into 2d as well… where rendering something “only on top” is much more common place.
And for 3rd person stuff it wouldn’t necessarily help wuth keeping swords on top of other meshes would it? Never actually tried panini style stuff on 3rd person…