Dynamic Accessory: Animated Pet + Custom Rig

[kanapuro]

Is it possible to make an animated pet that can follow the player and perch on the player’s shoulder? When I think of this mechanic I’m most reminded of games like Dragon Adventures.

I use a custom rig already, alongside a custom movement system my co-developer wrote.
In my game Felinehunt, players will have access to additional accessories and prizes for engaging in certain activities - in this discussion focusing primarily on hunting minigames where you can collect different types of animals. When you catch for example a squirrel, it will be added to your ingame collection. You can then access your collection and enable it as an interactive accessory/pet that follows you around and climbs onto your shoulder or head. At least, this was the idea.
Functionally static accessories are just welded to the rig and set visible/invisible on selection. However I do not know how to design something more dynamic - like an animated squirrel perching on your shoulder, back, or head.

I could likely ask my codeveloper how to approach this, but he has much to handle and I don’t want to come to him with a half-baked idea. How would something like this be scripted? How would it be connected to the rig?

[Downrest (Down)]

An idea that comes into mind is to add an attachment to your player as to where the pet should start it’s animation (AKA, just the position of where the pet is on your mounting animation relative to the player).

And then whenever the pet gets close enough, add a WeldConstraint on the player with Part0 = partOfPlayer and Part1 = partOfPet to lock it in place and play the mounting animation.

Here’s a video showcasing what I mean:

testfile.rbxm (20.4 KB) – you can mess around with this to see how it works.

[kanapuro]

Honored to have THE Downrest give me a push in the right direction, thanks so much!