Why do weapons generally fit in characters' hands properly, but not shields ?

Beilin_Balreis_Colcan

I was looking at another player character today which had its sword and shield in its hands, and noticed that, while the sword fit quite well in the character's hand, the shield did not. There was a noticeable gap between the shield hand and the shield, and it looked really bad. Is there any good reason for this massive discrepancy between the holding of weapons and shields ?

alternatelder

You think that's bad, look at some of them hovering a foot behind your character. AC Valhalla has this even worse. I'm not sure any games can make it perfect, probably a few that look decent.

Snamyap

I just wonder why they bother to put straps on shields when they can't make characters actually hold those straps.

Syldras

Snamyap wrote: »

I just wonder why they bother to put straps on shields when they can't make characters actually hold those straps.

Probably only to make them look correct if they're lying around somewhere as objects.

zaria

Snamyap wrote: »

I just wonder why they bother to put straps on shields when they can't make characters actually hold those straps.

Shields have handles but they are to short to reach the hand.
I assume the reason for the long setoff distance is that bulky gauntlets don't clip trough the shield.
And to be sure they set the setoff distance to 10 cm or similar.
And I agree it looks very stupid.
Much the same issue with shields on the back,

Somber97866

Toons don't hold swords properly and some of the staves are either sideways or upside down?

Somber97866

When you hold a sword your hand is supposed to be up against the guard for the most part. Well especially one handed

Syldras

Somber97866 wrote: »

Toons don't hold swords properly and some of the staves are either sideways or upside down?

But they do grab them with their hands and they're not floating around somewhere.

Danikat

I think it probably is to accommodate bulkier gauntlets. I know it's much more common to have issues with floating pauldrons on my skinner characters using light or medium armour, on bigger characters and ones using heavy armour it seems rarer and I've even had some where they clip into the cuirass.

I've not paid as much attention to shields (only 3 of my characters use them, whereas they're all stuck with pauldrons) but it wouldn't surprise me if a big character wearing bulky gauntlets has much less of a gap between their arm and the shield.

Syldras wrote: »

Somber97866 wrote: »

Toons don't hold swords properly and some of the staves are either sideways or upside down?

But they do grab them with their hands and they're not floating around somewhere.

Exactly. The grip may not be exactly right, but at least the sword is in their hand. If they held weapons like they do shields it would be floating in front of their clenched fist.

ProudMary

Since day one shields have kinda floated a little bit away from the arm holding them. Not sure why, but that's how it's always been.

Varana

They don't properly align items to your character model.

The hands are in the same place every time, so the weapons are mostly right.

But your arm can be thicker or thinner, and you can wear all sorts of bulky outfits, and they don't adjust where the shield straps sit, they just assume an average (or the bulkiest option).