(2 hidden skinned meshes) or (1 extra draw call) for character props?

Questions & Answers
1

I have a character of 540 triangles and 3 different weapons for him, of 80 triangles each. They all share the same material, but there would be only one visible weapon at a time.

So would it be best to include in the .FBX file 3 skinned meshes with (character + weapon1), (character + weapon2) and (character + weapon3), or have one skinned mesh of the character and 3 weapon meshes?

If I'd be using 3 skinned meshes, I'm planning to make 2 of the skinned meshes game objects inactive. If I have separate weapon meshes, they won't batch (because I can't get the character to less than 300 vertices).

If the 2 unneeded skinned meshes (gameobjects) stay inactive, would they take any cpu power?

So what do you think would be best in terms of performance, and why?

Thanks!

3

Inactive gameobjects are really really cheap, very close to free. So in your case, it makes a lot of sense to have them as seperate gameobjects, since you'll only want to display only one at a time anyway.

2

Personally, I would probably try to make the character mesh separate from the three weapon meshes, and simply display the weapon that is currently in use.

As for performance, I don't think it will make a difference either way, as long as the meshes which aren't being displayed are inactive. I'd say go with whichever method you find easiest to implement.