Clothing and Accessory thoughts

Clothing/costume.   

Form follows function.  Character have a specific function or a job,

What is the environment- hot/cold, wet, high pressure, low oxygen, irradiated, amount of light /visibilty- affects clothing. How do they get in and out of clothing themselves- are they assisted., do they use gloves- ergonomic considerations of the clothing,

Do they need to blend in to the environment or stand out. If they need to stand out- if they are on different environments/backgrounds- do they get colour costume change or do you need to pick colours that sit well on different environments.

Flowing robes and capes  and dresses can present problems when they are realised in a game environment- mainly in the interaction or collisio with the body of the character and in obtaining a believable deformation or cloth effect. Often it's a visual compromise that must be reached.

ornamentation/decorations,

Accessories or tools or weapon. Signature accessories.

When a character has tools or weapons they carry its important to place them in areas for ease of access and so they don't interfere with the characters movements, or potentially create difficulties for characters next to them, or create difficulties when the character falls under procedural control(like physics). There's a whole field of ergonomics you could study- but basically if you imagine its you carrying whatever it is and then think of the easiest place to grab something from- like your chest- upper arms- outside your thighs- your waist. In games its easiest if things are attached to one rigid part only and not spanning across two parts.  The bulk of things at the tops of thighs near where they join the hips are a particular area to allow free movement for.  The arrangement and articulation of armour particularly at the shoulders needs careful attention to ensure it allows the movement the character needs- or that the animation setup will allow for any specialised movement.

When a character is carrying something heavy it is natural for them to adjust their posture to maintain balance. Having a character demonstrate the weight of objects like this is great for making world believable. Often though characters have giant swords that they wave about which seemingly weigh nothing which is fine in a cartoony game but not so good for a realistic type game. Large swords and guns look cool but can be a problem to animate and can limit the range of movement of characters- in particular hold it so it does not poke through the ground or themselves or their neighbour, or get in the way of an Oscar winning performance  when they are falling dead.

In a realistic game the answer for large weapons or objects is to wield them with two hands- however this can reduce the reach of the player or his weapon if he is to keep both hands on the sword or object.

The advantage  if large swords or guns and the like is they look good and imply the character is heroically strong to wield them, and allow the character to strike opponent at a greater distance- which can speed up combat and make it easier to target many enemies or large enemies.

A consideration for characters with guns or weapons potentially is how they might restrict the pivoting movement or rotations the character uses to target baddies(or goodies)- particularly if the animation control for the pivot is programmatic. Of course there could be specific key poses or blends the programming might use to avoid these issues but its safest to minimise them i the first place.