Super Smash Bros. 4 Model Project

[TGE]

Ah, I see. So if I'm understanding you correctly, its sort of like with figures, where rather than there being a single "hand model" that is manipulated into different poses, the 3DS will use multiple hand models, each with a static pose (i.e. clenched fist for holding a weapon is swapped out with an open hand when picking up an item with that hand)? I'm guessing this is less exhaustive on the hardware, which is why it's used for 3DS and 8-player Smash?

The process is called morphing. 2 models with an equal amount of vertices are interpolated to change shape from one to another. It's less costly than processing vertex skinning (rigging, basically), so it does make for a bit of extra performance especially when you have a lot of models on screen that need to be processed.