When you say shield swapping, first let me explain how the shields are actually done :)

Each shield is basically a flat ( or slightly shaped ) object. Just a square in fact.

The 'shape' that you see is done through the use of an alpha texture. This is a clever method of making certain selected areas of a texture completely see-through.

So, to make a circular shield, you can either use hundreds of polygons to try and make it nearly round, or use hardly any polygons at all and draw a perfectly round shield. The alpha method is the one CA have used for RTW.

So... to make a shield, or to swap a shield, you are going to have to make changes to the texture. You would only need to change the physical mesh of the model if the polygons you had really didn't fit the effect you wanted.

If you need to put a shield on a model that doesn't have one, that can be done as well. Let me know what you want to swap from where to where...and I will see what I can do.

I plan to put together a set of tutorials just as soon as I manage to get done with working out how to make and modify the skeletal animation sets :)