Tech budget requirement? Look at what Jagex is hiring, especially for RS3:
https://jobs.lever.co/jagex
They are hiring mostly artists and animators. That's where they are spending the budget.
Of course, there are many ways to do graphics and animation updates than just on the player model. For instance, they are turning the RS3 Gielinor into 3D model, as well as doing other graphics and animation projects with VFX and more. Rest assured, they aren't going to put all the artists and animators on Avatar Refresh, so it is not coming out this year.
07-Dec-2021 22:10:45