Not all features and fixes are very exciting.... but nevertheless important!
The way that the character was rigged originally, his chestplate was weighted 100% to his Chest Bone. The Plate itself is a separate "island", as in the verts are not welded to the skin. This makes sense, and is realistic, but was causing an issue when he leans forward, the bottom of the chestplate would go into his abdomen.
My first attempt to solve this problem was blendshapes. I could program the blendshape to turn on when his spine rotation is within a certain range, so if he leans forward, it would swap to a blend shape where his belly was squeezed in. This might have worked, but I decided to abandon it. Partly because it was not just 1 bone causing the issue. It happens when his spine or his chest rotate, so knowing how to balance that would be tricky. And what if he twists his chest or spine? Then I'd need a separate blend shape for this.
Forget it, I decided. I just added two bones for the chestplate. One for the upper part of the chestplate and one for the lower. In reality, I'm not sure if these really bend. There's a black area in the middle of the two pieces that looks like it could flex. It would make sense, because the two pieces look like they are designed to move indepedently, but probably just a little bit. This would allow the actor to move more freely, so I think it was worth a go.
All in all, although this is a tedious fix, requiring me to go back and add the corrections to every animation clip, I think it's worth it in the long run. Now I can account for twisting motions, like the hips swaying as he walks, or the AIM Offsets as he turns his upper body. I've looked at some modern Next Gen game rigs and they seemed to have hundreds of bones, so I think it's fine to add some more!
The fix worked and looks much better. The Top of the bandolier is weighted to the Upper Armor bone, the bottom to the Bottom Armor Bone, and the Top Armor bone is parented to the chest bone. This means if I don't update any working animation clips, they'll work fine, since the armor will chest move along with the chest as it was doing before I applied any fixes.
I'm going to do the same with the shoulder pads now!
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