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Next up... let's see....

Two-handed poses today. (If I'm a little scattered here, I'm quite frazzled today...)

We have three main two-handed poses in game at the moment - Spears, Staves and Greatswords (versatile swords use this). For human-sized models, these mostly line up and work well enough. The only criticisms I'd levy would be that the human female model gets some neck distension on the staff ready pose and the spear recovery pose, and also, the model's holding of long weapons in the two-handed sword recovery pose, naturally means most weapons will clip into the ground. Other than that, they all look fine and animate fine; no statics, no notable alignment issues. Males and females use different poses for these weapons - though some are clearly very similar. Here they are quickly; each image pair is the 'ready' pose, alongside the 'recovery pose' for each weapon.



The greatsword has a very different recovery pose between the two models, while the ready pose is only very slightly different - close enough that the difference may be anomalies in applying the same pose data to different models, maybe. For Staves, the poses are quite clearly different. the recovery poses are very similar to the ready poses, but are tangibly different all the same; notably, the recovery poses are more relaxed, and lacking the tension of the ready poses. the spear poses are similar enough that they might possibly be using the same pose data, with anomalies between the different models; they're close enough that I *think* they're using the same pose data, despite minor shifts and differences.

When we look to small-sized models, however:





Male and Female halflings are clearly using the exact same pose data, all the way through. This may be intentional, or it may not be - we can't actually be certain, sine it might have been decided that small size overruled the need for sex-distinct poses. However, what is clear is that the pose data does not line up properly for female hallfings - it was clearly designed for the males, and then translated over to them, but it doesn't fit. Now, that said - I DO want to take a moment to say that the staff and spear poses look absolutely smashing for male halflings! They're dynamic, solid, and look like they mean business - they're great! It would only take a small tweak to take the weapons line up properly on the female models, without needing to change the pose, if they intend for them to use the same poses.

Where the spear and staff poses are excellent, however, the greatsword pose.... leaves a lot to be desired. At best it looks ungainly and overbalanced... but more than that, the leading arm seems to forget what it's doing and just drifts up and away from the body, crating this visible stretch and tear away - that arm has completely unanchored itself from the torso. On females, it also leads to a misaligned grip and clipping through the head.

The recovery poses also use the same poses and animations for male and female, and as before, this leads to unattached weapons, misalignment and clipping:




Most notably, the hands are misplaced on the sword pose, and the weapon is prone to clipping through the head, while the weapons are completely skewed for both staff and spear. Beyond this, once again, the staff and spear poses look good, but the greatsword pose, while it looks good from *Some* angles, looks badly overbalanced fro others, and could do with a reassessment.

A last note to say again, good work on those satisfying poses for male halflings, for spear and staff... and much humour at the fact that it looks like they were 'checked' from that most satisfying angle on the female model (the upper right shot in each), and thus the misalignment missed...