What is the optimum method of reusing animation, rigs and controllers in a posh setup with a number of characters in Unity?

What is the optimum method of reusing animation, rigs and controllers in a posh setup with a number of characters in Unity 2022.3?

I’ve acquired a considerably advanced state of affairs:

1. One character that has 20 skins, and whereas skins share a whole lot of animation and rigging construction fundamentals, there are variations between them:

   1.1. Some (not all) skins have a Stroll loop clip that has the identical identify and serves the identical goal however have a unique gait.

   1.2. Some skins have appendages like a tail, wings, and many others, that mirror of their rigging construction.

   1.3. Some skins have further actions/clips, like Fly or Dive.

2. The character is non-humanoid: it is truly two characters, one using one other. I’ve seen that, by not sticking to humanoid, some options appear to be unavailable on Mechanim. But, separating the rig in two humanoids ain’t sensible in any respect for animating.

3. Every skins is at present exported with mannequin/rig/anim to FBX from Blender.

4. Inside Unity, skins can have constraints/behaviors inserted into the rig construction to make characters have a look at instructions or procedurally animate tails, as an example.

5. I’ve created a controller with a state machine that has Mix States so the character will idle/stroll/run/dash (totally different clips) relying on its velocity and I would wish to maintain this.

Now I am dealing with some onerous to reply questions earlier than shifting forward:

a) How you can reuse an Animation Controller between a number of anim variations? Can I make one thing like a “prefab variation” to a Controller?

b) Is it ever attainable to reuse the Anim Controller in any respect or will I’ve to setup a complete state machine for every character?

c) How you can arrange constraints and behaviors throughout all 20 some skins in I method so to maintain okay upkeep?