Clothing being separate objects/meshes

Preface: It’s typical of me to overthink these things so I do acknowledge I may appear to be daft.

I’m in middle of working out how to approach modelling a character model.

The model’s purpose is to be rigged and used as a playable character for a video game.

My goal is to sculpt a realistic character, retopologise it (so it has nice clean topology), bake it and create texture for it.

The problem I’m concerned about is the retoplogy process because my character is wearing a thin cloth vest.

Taking into account the model’s purpose should I make the vest a separate object? Or a separate mesh over the same object?

The image (model by vikramvr) below is an example of of what I’m trying to achieve… I can’t tell if the retoplogised model’s vest is a separate mesh (or not) or a completely separate mesh of a new object.


source: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/printthread.php?t=79552&pp=15&page=4

for modeling: multiple objects
for retopo: single object (for every equipable object)