It's better to think of the number of customization slots on a character model as the total number of seats in a car. Each seat can take one passenger. If I want to add more, I can't just stack multiple people in the same seat, I'd need to completely redesign the car to have additional seats.
Thus, as with every aspect of a video game, it's not actually "clothing" that's "on" the character. It's an illusion. It's individual data packages that are assigned to a finite number of slots. A "hat" is not a hat -- it's a 3D texture and mesh that replaces the "upper head" portion of the character model. So, as a simple example, it may not be possible to wear both a hat and sunglasses at the same time...but I could create a single "upper head" model that includes a mesh that covers the eyes like sunglasses, granting the illusion of the character wearing both a hat and sunglasses. But it's not. It's just a single "upper head" model.
The car seat analogy might give the wrong impression. I'll try to explain. The inventory slot and the mesh (the 3d model and its skeleton) are entirely separate things.
In Cyberpunk, meshes are loaded via entity files (.ent) and there are entities in the game that can load a lot of garment meshes. The NCPD police belt for example can load 15 garment meshes. NCPD garment meshes are categorised like this:
The police belt loads a bunch of ncpd themed accessories like flashlights, sidearm holsters, handcuffs and its all worn around the waist. So I can sort of see an argument for having a hand slot and an item slot for wearable gizmos but when you get into meshes in the "item" category, you quickly find there is not much of a pattern in terms of size and shape of the mesh and where the item is on the body.
There is a valentino necklace entity that can load 9 meshes and a 3ds rig + animgraph (for dangle physics). These are all classed as "items" and they are worn all over the body - necklaces, bracelets, rings. Here is what the valentino necklace entity looks like in 010:
Buuut we can modify it to load 9 custom meshes. Nim had all of this figured out in January/February and what I'm showing you now is a repeat of her original research from 9 months ago. Ordinarily we would say the feet item slot allows you to equip an item in the database record that is associated with a sneaker entity which loads a sneaker mesh.
However we can modify the valentino necklace entity so it points to file paths we create, leading to any mesh we want. We can then rename this entity so it has the same name as a sneaker entity. Now we can load any 9 meshes we want by equipping sneakers in the inventory slot.
Here is the modified entity:
And here is the entity buffer pointing to its associated component bindings, animgraph and 3ds rig:
And heres a picture of Nim's first proof of concept way back in February 2021:
Behold! This is what V looks like when you equip 6 items of clothing on every inventory slot, for a total of 30 garments.
Wearing 30 garment meshes looks like a clipping mess. Imagine making hundreds of garment meshes and hundreds of accessories and then trying to make them all compatible for mixing and matching anywhere on the body? Its really impossible. You have to localize garments to parts of the body and control when and how they overlap.
The meshes we load via custom entities can be anything. If you want them to be sunglasses, bandanas, jackets, accessories, they can be any of those. They don't even need to be garments. You can load face/body cyberware or any decal mesh.
You can wear 15 pairs of glasses at the same time on your trouser inventory slot. Will this look good? Probably not. There is also the problem of use meshes rigged to head bones since they will not deform correctly above the collar bone in FPP. This is because the player head (and all of its associated bones) are displaced by the FPP viewport.
Ok so what does a practical example of this look like? Heres what I did with my V:
I'm using 3x modified player garment entities:
s1_068_pwa_shoe__sneakers.ent (feet slot)
t1_089_pwa_tank__short_torn.ent (inner torso slot)
h1_015_pwa_specs__visor_holo.ent (face slot)
to load all of these meshes:
Doll Chrome Bra
Doll Body Cyberware (lines only)
Alt's Tank Top (Glass)
Blue Moon Face Cyberware
Sandra Dorsett's Face Cyberware
Sandra Dorsett's Body Cyberware
Alt's Necklace (Bullet only)
Alt's Necklace (Samurai only)
River's Necklace
Valentino Bracelet
Valentino Belt
Alt's Cyberdeck and Belt
Short Plaid Skirt
Evelyn stockings
Bovver Boots
Bovver Boot Laces
Citizen Formal Bolero
So I can add a lot more but its already getting difficult to pile more clothing items/accessories on.
The skirt and Alt's Cyberdeck is rigged to the player body. The Valentino Belt is rigged to the Plaid Skirt. I had to edit Blue Moon's face cyberware so it didn't clash with Sandra's face cyberware. Neither of them use a player wearable decal mesh so they do not track head morphs. This means it is sculpted to fit only the basehead with eye 14/nose 12/mouth 18/jaw 3/ear 9 and it will probably clip with any other facegen options.
I had to edit Alt's tank top so the Doll Chrome Bra doesn't clip through it. I had to edit the Formal Bolero so Alt's tank top doesn't clip through it. I had to edit the Bovver Boots to obscure the fact that the stockings have high heels (the heels are inside the bovver boots mesh so you don't see them). High heels are problematic because they would ordinarily make V taller. In reality, V stays the same height, with or without high heels. Her shins just get shorter and her feet will clip through the shoes.
It gets to the point where you want to add another object but its going to clip or interfere with another garment you are wearing, if not in idle pose then in action poses. I check all garment mods in all standard photomode idle and action poses for bad rigging and clipping. If it doesn't have correct anatomical deformation, I must change the shape of the garment, which means changing the way its vertex groups are weighted. It may mean I need to change the shape and weight of every other garment that is fitted and rigged to it.
The player body is split up into 7 or 8 submeshes. The arms are also split up into many subs although I forget how many off the top of my head. In some ways it does leave open the possibility of highly modular cyberware/garment customisation i.e. wearables localised to hands, forearms, upper arms, shoulders, head, upper torso, waist, hips, thighs, knees, shins and feet. Perhaps this was a design goal at an earlier stage in the game? Who knows.
But if you want to tend towards that level of modularity in clothing, you have to get into 3DS Max/Blender anyway. Its going to be a clipping, rigging nightmare. In 3DS Max/Blender you can make 15 garments fit perfectly together on one body provided you have the time and patience.
But in doing so you have created a single perfect "costume" for your character. So why do you need 15 slots for it?