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I keep seeing similar questions, so here's a centralized answer.
Is it hard to change a character's outfit? Not at all — it's just a couple of clicks.
So why do I rarely do it?
First of all — because I'm a talentless slacker But there's a second reason.
I love making art, I love making games - but it's not always fun. It's 15% creativity and 85% routine.
Any routine work eventually turns into something mechanical:
I can talk on the phone and make art, write text and make art, be sleepy, in a bad mood, in a hurry, or even... well, you get the idea - and still make art. Because it's always needed, and there's never enough of it. But it's not my only job, so I often work on autopilot, especially when the scene is just filler for a dialogue block.
And here's what happens: I get distracted, forget I changed the outfit for a scene. I come back after a couple of days, load my standard preset out of habit, render — and realize everything I just made is scrap. Same with Justin's tattoo, which at some point mysteriously “vanished” from the textures. I had to spend a lot of time fixing it, and on some animations it's still missing.
The more presets there are, the more chances something will break. On one side of the scale — more content, on the other — this kind of “realism.”
It's a different story with 2D games, where art is made from layers, and outfits can be changed without risk. In 3D, outfit changes not only eat up time but also prevent you from reusing art if the character's model is in the same clothes.
So there are many reasons not to do it, and the reason to do it isn't that significant. Often, if something isn't implemented, it's not because we don't know about it — but because, after weighing all the pros and cons and estimating the resources, we decided to skip it.
I see messages like this all the time, so I decided to answer centrally.
Is it hard to change a character's clothes? No, it's not. It's a matter of a couple of clicks.
Why do I do this rarely?
Firstly, because I am a talentless lazy person
But there is a second reason.
I love making art, I love making games, but it is not always a fun job. It is a routine, in which 15% creativity and 85% mechanics.
Any routine work eventually becomes mechanical:
I can talk on the phone and make art, write text and make art, be sleepy, in a bad mood, in a hurry or even... well, you get the idea — and still make art. Because it is always needed, and there is never enough of it. But this is not my only task, so I often work automatically, especially if the scene is transitory and is only needed to fill the dialogue block.
And just imagine: I was distracted, I forgot that I had changed clothes in the scene. I come back a couple of days later, out of habit I load a standard preset, render - and I understand that everything I did is a defect. The same thing happened with Justin's tattoo, which one day "disappeared" from the textures. I had to spend a lot of time redrawing, and in some animations it is still missing.
The more such presets, the greater the chance that something will break. On one side of the scale is content, on the other - such "realism".
It's a completely different story with 2D games, where the art consists of layers, and you can easily change clothes without risk. In 3D, changing clothes not only eats up time, but also deprives you of the opportunity to reuse the art if the model is wearing the same clothes.
So there are many reasons not to do it, and the reason to do it is not so weighty. Often, if something is not implemented, it is not because we do not know about it, but because, having weighed all the pros and cons and estimated the resources, we simply abandoned the idea.