Since my new character models have a lot of new features compared to my old ones:
>new character models with separate heads and bodies that can be dynamically assembled onto a common skeleton during runtime to allow for any character/class combination
>Custom shader that allows me to apply a color palette to any generic class outfit so characters have a consistent look regardless of what class they're in
>animation layering to handle held equipment instead of having it all on one layer with all weapons just having their own full body animations
I can't simply plug my new models into my game the way I had my old ones, there's a lot of additional code to get them fully functional. I have the beginning of the process started, they can be assembled & deployed to the map during runtime with the correct models, color palette, equipment, and playing the correct animations for the equipment.
I'm also taking this as an opportunity to do a big refactor of my code related to the units themselves because a lot of it is really old and has gone through a bunch of jank half-revisions and a lot of disparate functionality is consolidated into one class so as I'm re-implementing old systems to work with the new character's I'm also splitting up my main "Unit" class into a bunch of more manageable classes with clearer roles/responsibilities.
I'm also fixing some of my Data structures that were just bad. For example, before I wasn't making a very clear distinction between a Unit's Immutable "Base Stats" that they will always have when first recruited and their "Current stats" after they've been deployed as an actual character on the map, which had caused some debugging headaches in the past.
One of the fruits of this is the "Debug Roster" I show off in this webm. It allows me to easily configure the stats, class, inventory, etc. of a roster of units I can use when testing levels from the editor. I had a system for this before but it was way more jank.