Art Pipeline & Equipment - FatherNoTimeGames/JRPG-Classless GitHub Wiki

Art Pipeline & Equipment

Art Tool

Character and equipment models will be created in Blockbench.

Export will likely use .glb / .glTF, which Godot 4 supports well.

Skeleton Strategy

All playable characters will share a base character model and skeleton for now.

This is the recommended approach because it keeps equipment compatibility manageable.

Important rule:

  • Equipment must be authored against the same skeleton hierarchy.
  • Bone names must remain consistent.
  • Adding bones should be avoided unless necessary.
  • If new bones are added, they must be integrated carefully into the master rig.

Future body types, races, or different skeletons may be considered later if scope expands.

Equipment Presentation Method

We will use skinned meshes for equipment that deforms with the body and bone attachments for rigid objects.

Skinned Equipment

Used for:

  • Chest armor.
  • Pants.
  • Boots.
  • Gloves.
  • Helmets.
  • Cloaks if they deform.

These are separate meshes skinned to the same skeleton as the base character.

Bone-Attached Equipment

Used for:

  • Weapons.
  • Shields.
  • Back-mounted items.
  • Trinkets.
  • Rigid accessories.

These attach to named bones using Godot’s BoneAttachment3D.

Equipment Slots

Slot list is not yet finalized.

Potential slots:

  • Main Hand
  • Off Hand
  • Head
  • Chest
  • Hands
  • Legs
  • Feet
  • Back
  • Ring
  • Amulet

Current starting equipment direction:

  • Accessories, cloak, helmet, and gloves start empty.

Body Part Hiding

When equipping certain items, parts of the base body may need to be hidden.

Example:

  • Heavy chest armor may hide the base torso.
  • Boots may hide base feet.
  • Helmet may hide hair or head.

This avoids clipping and reduces mesh overlap.

Open questions:

  • Should each equipment item define which body parts it hides?
  • Should body hiding be per-slot or per-item?
  • Should hair be an equipment slot or cosmetic layer?

Enemy Visuals

Current direction:

  • Enemy visuals are hand-made model pools.
  • Procedural generation focuses on enemy stats, skills, affixes, and composition.

Possible enemy visual variation methods:

  • Different base models.
  • Material swaps.
  • Texture variations.
  • Color ramps.
  • Scale variation.
  • Particle/glow affix indicators.
  • Bone attachment variants.

Related pages: