### Summary

When using **Modify → Material → Merge Material (UV)** on certain wearable items attached to a CC3+ or CC5 character, the merged clothing becomes deformed. After the merge operation completes, the character is placed into a T-pose, but some clothing items remain in an intermediate pose between an A-pose and T-pose. Applying a pose or animation causes severe mesh deformation.

Examples include:
* Gloves
* Wrist guards / arm braces
* Elbow guards
* Some shoulder guards

The deformation appears to be related to skinning or weight transfer rather than materials or textures.

### Steps to Reproduce

1. Start Character Creator 5.
2. Load a clothed CC3+ or CC5 character from the Content Manager that has items on wrists, hands, or is wearing gloves. (In the example I provided via Screenshots, I used "Archer" outfit.)
3. Select the character.
4. Open **Modify → Material**.
5. Select **Merge Material (UV)**.
6. Select a wearable item attached to the wrist, hand, forearm, or shoulder (for example gloves or arm braces).
7. Click **Apply**.

### Expected Result

The selected clothing materials are merged and re-baked successfully while preserving the clothing's skinning and deformation behavior.

### Actual Result

The merge operation completes, but the affected clothing becomes deformed. The character returns to a T-pose while the clothing remains in an incorrect pose. Applying any pose or animation causes severe distortion of the clothing mesh. Gloves may exhibit elongated or distorted fingers.

### Additional Testing Performed

The following observations were made:

**Operations that consistently succeed**

* Merging pants by themselves
* Merging boots by themselves
* Merging shirts by themselves
* Merging hoods by themselves
* Merging other clothing items not associated with the arm/hand region

**Operations that consistently fail**

* Merging gloves by themselves
* Merging arm braces by themselves
* Merging any combinations containing certain arm/wrist/shoulder wearable items

Polygon reduction and texture reduction beforehand do not appear to affect the issue.

### Important Observation

Converting the character to **Game Base** before performing Merge Material (UV) appears to avoid the problem.

The following workflow succeeds:

1. Load CC3+/CC5 character
2. Convert character to Game Base
3. Run Merge Material (UV) on the same clothing items
4. Merge completes successfully without deformation

This suggests the issue may be related to the Merge Material (UV) process operating on CC3+/CC5 conforming clothing and skinning data rather than on the clothing assets themselves.

### Notes

The issue has been reproduced multiple times on different characters and with different clothing combinations. The problem appears to be deterministic once specific wearable items are involved on CC3+/CC5 characters (NOT GameBase).