Clothing System -Notes on how it works!

Hello again everyone, I'm very happy from the influx of people interested in my code pack "THE CLOTHING SYSTEM!!". I just figured sense so many people asked me so many questions not just on my blog post but via e-mail and other medium I would post some of the functions and basicly what the "coders" will need to do to get there clothing in the game, and a small hint of what the artists will need to do as well.

First off the clothing DataBlock so simple..so easy to understand

datablock ClothingData(Sandles)
{
   category = "Clothing";
   className = "Sandles";
   shapeFile = "~/data/shapes/Clothing/Sandles.dts";
};

now you may be asking, how do I attach my new fancy sandles to my player?

very easily actually, this command was only just added today I've now started on my complete fourth pass on my code and real user ConsoleMethod's are being added

Player.EquipClothing(1, "Sandles");

Now right now you are wonder what that "1" is aren't you, or you have already jumped to the idea that I'm stealing your mount 1 point, don't worry I'm no thief! that point is an EQUIP_POINT a small new addition to the player class to track all the clothing, we cant loose track of whats equipped and where or we would never be able to find it again to remove it, or even change it! To start with the "Clothing System" will have 3 pre-build points, but adding more is as simple as changing a single number inside of C++ which will be blatantly tagged for easy changing.

Alright, now for me to show you the part about the clothing system that is most painful to use but not to bad. And even luckier for us programmer its the artists problem haha.

Each piece of clothing will need to be rigged like the player model this is how the clothing system insures that the clothing stays perfect on your player. This process might seem very painful even tiduse but it is the core of what makes the Clothing System useful.

What Makes the Clothing System Powerful?
- After having made your character completely Clothing can be create after the model has been completely implemented. This allows you to add clothing to your game as you produce it or even after its been released much like many MMO's on the market they easily add new clothing and equipment in single patches.

- Now that the system as been rebuild from the ground up from the early alpha it no longer needs to load in nearly as much data into torque. this makes the memory footprint amazingly smaller

-Due to how the system was first programmed network problems are nearly impossible due to how the clothing is attached to the player

-The system requires extremely little changes to only one pre-made torque class (player.cc/player.h)


Thanks for you time everyone there will be much more to come.


repost of videos
-Clothing Show off, equipping different clothing in the engine
-Far back view of player walking with clothing on
-*NEW* Close up of player walking showing off perfect sync with multipliable clothing