[Gardon]

I'm working in 3D with DirectX 9. Here's my predicament:

I'm looking for a way to animate my characters in the game, while being able to change armor, weapons, and items visible on that character.

For example: The character has two types of armor in his inventory: Chain Mail Armor and Full Plate Mail Armor. He currently has on the Chain Mail Armor, which has a particular mesh associated with it that is drawn on the screen. If the character attacks, the arms will move with the attack to simulate animation, and because the arms have armor attached to them, the armor mesh will conform to the arms and move with them.

Now imagine that the same character wants to change to Full Plate Mail Armor. The mesh will need to be updated and changed in the game to reflect the new look of the character. Also, when the character swings his weapon, the armor will have to follow the attack and move in the same way the other armor did to simulate the character's movement.

How do I go about doing this when I have to save my animations to a .X file with their pre-mapped animations, meshes, textures, and materials? I would like to be able to load all armor, weapon, item, and character meshes at start up, and just instance them as needed for the renderer to save on memory/processing time.

Thank you for your time.

-Gardon