Originally Posted by
TheDustyOne
Our characters in-game are separated into several segments. When we put on say, a pair of boots, it replaces the foot model with those boots, and depending on the size of the boots, may also replace parts of the leg model. Because of this, the game never has to render anything "underneath" the clothing, the model is just outright replaced and Square never has to worry about our characters clipping through our clothes or calculating model data underneath. Some gear does have priority over others if they're fighting for the same character segment, so bulky gloves and bulky sleeves that make use of the same wrist segment on our character are determined mostly by whether or not the chest piece "allows" the glove to overwrite the sleeve.
As for the topic at hand (heh), it takes very little now to render a few extra polygons on hands and feet, so while it may've been a concern in the PS3 and 32 bit days, we're long past that and I think we can handle having toes and rounded fingers, I'm sure a dedicated 3D artist or 2 can handle the necessary glove/shoe models over the next 8 or so months.