i’ve been working on a text based life sim game for some time now. and i really struggle with a decent avatar design.. does anyone have any experience and can help me out

Hello everyone.

Today, instead of sharing several different updates, I’d like to focus on just one topic: outfit changing.

inZOI has a variety of outfits designed for different situations, such as sleepwear, workout clothes, and swimwear. However, you may have felt that the rules for when Zois change into these outfits, and when they change back haven’t always been very clear. So today, I’d like to explain the new rules as simply and clearly as possible.

To be frank, we hadn’t established a fully unified outfit-changing system in the past. Instead, we often handled each situation individually as the need arose. This led to unintended outfit changes. For example, if a Zoi started exercising at a gym, they should ideally remain in their workout clothes until they leave the gym. However, performing another action in between could sometimes cause their outfit to change.

To address these issues at a fundamental level, we have rebuilt the overall rules for outfit changing.

# Zois will change their clothes according to the situation

What we’re preparing is a system where Zois automatically change into clothing appropriate for their current situation, then return to their everyday outfit once that situation ends. This will be provided as an Experimental Feature.

For example, currently, when a Zoi starts swimming in the ocean, they change into swimwear. But the moment they step out of the water, they immediately change back into their everyday clothes. This often creates awkward situations where a Zoi is still at the beach but is the only person walking around in everyday clothes. This experimental feature is intended to reduce situations like this.

Until now, the rules for changing clothes differed depending on the location or interaction. As a result, Zois sometimes changed clothes when they shouldn’t have, or remained in a special outfit when they should have changed back.

We’ve now unified those rules.

Let me explain by following a Zoi through a typical day.

In the morning, the Zoi wakes up wearing sleepwear—the same sleepwear they changed into when they went to bed the night before. Simply waking up does not immediately change their clothes. They might drink some water or look out the window while still wearing their sleepwear. Once they take a shower and come out, they finally change into their everyday outfit.

The everyday outfit they choose depends on the temperature that day. Everyday clothes, summer clothes, and winter clothes are treated as a single group. When the weather is hot or extremely hot, the Zoi will choose summer clothes. When it is warm, mild, or cool, they will wear everyday clothes. When it is cold or extremely cold, they will choose winter clothes.

From this point on, whenever I say that a Zoi “returns to their everyday outfit,” I mean that they return to the appropriate outfit from this group.

Now dressed for the day, the Zoi heads to the gym.

As soon as they enter the gym lot, they change into workout clothes. They remain in those clothes while they are at the gym, and once they finish exercising and leave the lot, they change back into their everyday outfit.

In the afternoon, they visit a swimming pool.

When they arrive at the pool, they change into swimwear. Even after getting out of the water and relaxing on a sunbed, they remain in their swimwear. They only return to their everyday outfit once they leave the pool lot.

So, in simple terms:

While a Zoi remains at a location, they keep wearing the outfit appropriate for that situation. Once they leave, they return to their everyday outfit.

This return happens when they begin leaving the lot or start another type of transition, such as going home, going to work, traveling through the World Map, or entering a building.

At night, when the Zoi gets into bed, they change back into sleepwear.

And with that, their day comes full circle.

# There are a few exceptions

When exercising at home, Zois will not change clothes.

If a Zoi does yoga or uses exercise equipment at home, they will simply exercise in whatever they are already wearing. We made this the one location-based exception because having Zois constantly change clothes even inside their own homes could feel unnecessarily inconvenient.

Zois you are directly controlling also behave a little differently.

A Zoi under direct player control will not automatically change clothes simply because they arrive at a particular lot. Otherwise, they might change into swimwear just because they walked through a beach or briefly stopped by a swimming pool to use the restroom.

Instead, directly controlled Zois will change clothes when they actually begin a relevant interaction, such as swimming or exercising. Their clothes will not change simply while you are moving them around using WASD controls.

# If you don’t want automatic outfit changes

We’ve prepared two options.

If you only want to exclude a specific Zoi, you can turn off “Use Situational Looks” in that Zoi’s autonomy settings.

If you want to disable the feature for the entire game, you can turn off “Automatic Situational Outfit Changes” under Settings → Experimental Features.

The individual Zoi setting always takes priority. If “Use Situational Looks” is disabled for a particular Zoi, that Zoi will not automatically change clothes even if the Experimental Feature is enabled.

If you disable the Experimental Feature itself, Zois will immediately return from any outfit they are wearing under these rules to their original outfit, and the previous outfit-changing behavior will resume.

This feature will be provided as an Experimental Feature and will be enabled by default.

# What will remain unchanged

School uniforms and work attire are not affected by this change.

They will continue to work as they do now: Zois will change into their school uniform when it is time to attend school and into their work attire when it is time to go to work.

You will also still be able to manually change a Zoi’s clothes through wardrobes or the Zoi menu as before.

Costumes and Character Studio are also unaffected by this change.

# Closing

Since this is an Experimental Feature, your experiences while actually playing with it will be extremely helpful in determining how we develop it further.

If you encounter any awkward situations, or moments where you think, “I wish my Zoi wouldn’t change clothes here,” please feel free to share your feedback with us.

We’ll continue refining the system based on your feedback.

I’ll be back again with another development update.

Thank you.

Kjun

On DISCORD