Hello all! I've been thinking about how to improve my model releases and one of the major things is the file size.
Currently my models come with a number of clothing options (the Patreon versions having some exclusive extras) included. These contribute a lot towards the overall file size and are then repeated in each model file.
So I've been thinking of how I can go about removing them into separate files but still have it be user friendly to add them in.
I've been working on my first Blender add-on that should be able to do just that. So far everything is working perfectly in tests.
The idea is that I can have separate, individual clothing set files that you can download and import to use on any of my models. They'll come with all the modifiers and shapekeys they need. All the user will need to do is follow the steps in the add-on to automatically copy the shapekey drivers from the body mesh to the clothing and parent the clothing to the armature.
I've also scripted it to automatically add the armature object to the armature modifier, it will also handle setting the selected body as the target for shrinkwraps where needed.
This should all mean that you could download a much smaller model file that contains just what's needed for that character (base body, futa body, hair, etc) and their default clothing. Then you can download the clothing library files and just append the outfits you want.
All being well this will be a version 1.5 update, as it will strip out the unneeded elements into separate files. For version 2.0 I'm going to be looking at implementing the latest update for Auto Rig Pro. They've recently made some major changes to how the spine system works that will require me to redo certain elements of the rig.