I'm conceptualizing a 2D action/adventure game, which of course means the characters will be represented as animated sprites. I'm considering a game mechanic where your character changes appearance depending on which of a number of powers you have selected. So you choose an active power and your character switches into the costume associated with that power. The character has a number of moves including walking/running, jumping, climbing, and several types of attacks. These remain the same irrespective of costume. EDIT - [The selected power affects the character's super move, and might perhaps affect damage properties of your attacks (f.ex. switch to fire costume against an ice-based enemy).] It seems to me that creating all those animations x4 (proposed number of powers) in 2D would be a significant amount of work... but I'm no animator! So two questions, then: 1. If you were my animator, and I said I wanted you to animate what I've described (in admittedly basic terms) above, would you be like, "Ok, no problem?" or, "WTH are you insane?!" 2. If this mechanic does make it into the final design, do you have any suggestions for creating the above-mentioned content in a more efficient way? -Josh

Try something like this
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=392721

You can also try something similar to the above system, using a bone system in a 3d program (there are also links to similar sprite programs in a sticky in this forum IIRC), and swapping out the images and re-rendering.

Hmm.. I think it would largely depend on the artist.

Provided your character's animation would remain constant no matter what clothing he's wearing, then you could probably make a template sprite (IE: with base/no clothing), and use that to create the outfits more easily. That way all you have to do it create one set of animations and draw over them, as opposed to making 5 sets of individual animations.

Some artists though may choose to draw them all individually, like in ragnarok Online (or at least thats how i assume they did it?). Some games can also get away with a few cosmetic changes to a costume with some different shades of color.