A Quick Tip for Artists (Character Art for Live2D)

I've noticed some artists have a habit, when splitting up their art, of separating out even the tiny shadow details —

things like the shadow inside a sleeve fold, for example.

That level of detail is great in principle,

but Live2D actually has a cap on how many masks you can use in a single model (see image),

and once you go over 65, you start running into problems.

Every separated shadow layer potentially needs its own mask,

so if every little shadow gets split out individually,

you'll hit that cap way faster than you'd expect.

My recommendation is to skip splitting out shadows in the small, less important spots,

and instead focus on separating the visually important areas — the head, the larger surfaces —

since the effect actually shows up much better there.

Using a mask on a tiny detail barely shows any visible difference anyway, so it ends up being a bit of a waste 😏