One thing that always annoyed me about oblivion and morrowind was that the first person character view always showed me holding my weapon with the hilt right out in front of my face.

Who holds their weapon like that? Ridiculous.

Even when you switch to third person view you can see that the character has their arm down by their side, so why when you switch back to first person can you see the hilt and handle of your weapon?

No. The hand, handle, and hilt should be off the screen down to one side. If I can see the weapon at all, then I should only be able to see the part of the blade (or whatever it is) that is sticking up far enough to be at eye level.


Take a look at this http://beefjack.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/oblivion_lg.jpg for a comparison. The opponent is holding their weapon down by the waist, which appears normal. The player, on the other hand, is holding their weapon at eye level. It just seems goofy and unwieldy to me.

This never really bothered me that much. I think the reason they did it is to emphasize the fact that you had your weapon out? I'm not sure

It kinda seems as if the camera is in the characters chest or something in first person. I agree it needs fixed.

I want to see my sword when sprinting with it in my hand but when simply standing it could be seen just slightly and not really that close. In 3rd person this is fixed, it doesn't look like it would be a 3rd person view of the 1st person pose, it is completely different.

It's been like this with FPS games too and It's not changing anytime soon I reckon.

It is done this way so you can actually see the weapon you're equipped. There was a mod where it changed the first person animations to third person animations, the biggest problem was that you couldn't see if you've equipped your weapon or not, even during attacking you hardly saw anything.

This is the same in FPSs. You don't tend to hold your gun in eye height all the time.

This. At some point gameplay trumps "realism". (At most points, actually.....)

This issue is like the spears of the battlefield forums. I like seeing my weapons,they look cool.

What about showing just the tip of the bow/blade/spear/axe?

It just looks awkward seeing my hands out in front of me like that. If the hand and handle were off screen, it would seem more natural.

It honestly doesn't look bad to me. Just pick something up and hold it in front of you like you do in game. Doesn't seem all that bad to me.

Then you would not see how epic your weapon is all the time. Trust me there is a reason FPS games never did away with this and it is a good one. You interact with the world based on what your holding,it sounds strange but stick with me on this. If you can see your weapon transition from idle,to attacking and interacting with object and characters. Then you can make a connection that the weapon in fps mode is you. Its like a deadly little avatar. You see it all the time and thus it becomes an extension of you sort to speak.

Sorry man that doesn't quite gel with me. I think your psycho anolyzing this too much. The reasons your stated such as relating to it and seeing it moving wouldn't change if the weapon was lowered a tad. I never think my character is the weapon, he's just wielding it.

I think it should be lowered, it looks a bit dumb. Daggerfall had a lowered weapon (http://gamezone.nodblog.com/files/screenshots/daggerfall-1.jpg), you could just see the tip, why have we regressed to this raised stance.

No, right, I understand the need to see the weapon. There definitely needs to be some visual feedback to the player that they are holding something. THere also needs to be a mechanism for showing the player that they are currently in "fight mode" so to speak, and that the weapon is readied.

I get that.

What I'm asking is whether there would be any loss of this feedback if all we could see was the blade itself (for a sword) and not the hilt, handle, and fist of the player. For a dagger you could see the tip of the blade maybe up to about the mid point of your screen. For bows you could see the top edge where the cords fasten to the bow itself instead of the center area where you hold it.

Make sense? I'm saying keep the concept of visualization, just move the view-point.
Edit: Exactly like the guy above me just showed.

Why though? I get you want it to be more "realistic" but I like seeing the weapon in my hand.
Edit:at its current view point,what I would want is an animation like stalker when you have your knife out.

Because I ... don't like seeing the weapon in my hand. lol?

It just looks awkward.

COD(the billion dollar dough maker)BF3,home front , and every other game on the market pretty much has no issue with it. I could see Skyrim doing like you want but it would not become a mainstream thing. If I had a choice on how its held I would go more stylized then anything.

Doesn't bother met at all, in fact, I disagree, I think that's how it should be. I like it.

It's fine, doesn't need a fix.

If they'd remove more of the weapons it would create more ranting than solving them tbh.

I think it generally makes more sense for FPSs, being that in order to use most firearms effectively it's necessary to hold it up in front of you so as to look down the iron-sights/scope/et cetera.

I like it like that. It lets me know if I have my weapon out easily. Trust me, you'd hate it if the 3rd person and 1st person animations were the same (just from a different point of view). Try Darknut's 1st Person Enhanced for Morrowind. After 5 minutes, I felt :sick:

My actual point: Please move the weapon DOWN a little bit so that I don't see my own fist out in front of my eyeballs. Nobody holds a weapon up to their face like that.

What people think my point is: Take the weapon off the screen.


There's a huge difference here. I'm not advocating for getting rid of the weapon on the screen. I'm not advocating for using the 3d person animations either. I'm advocating for moving the weapon down just enough so that I don't see the hilt, handle, or my own fist.

... I don't think I can post it any more clearly than that. I hope some respond to the proper point now.

I never noticed and I never cared. It really doesn't matter in the slightest. It seems like they do that in most games...

My biggest issue is that 1st person and 3rd person view doesn't agree at all. Take anything aimed and observe that the fake 1st person view can't possibly hit where his crosshair is pointing. If I wanted to look at my weapon, sword or gun, I prefer using freelook and look in the direction where the weapon is. Perhaps do it exactly like Arma2 where you have a relaxed stance and a ready stance (weapon up or down).

I *think*! honestly I've never considered if seeing my weapon in 1st person mode is important or not. Need to chew on that a bit, since I tend to compare to Arma2 where we *do* get to see the gun for obvious reasons (when ready up). Do I prefer seeing weapon or have full body awareness? Maybe a poll (unbiased) is called for, explaining the pros and cons of both. Going to my thinkbox...

This will be fixed when we get monitors that match our line of sight.
While playing in 1st person our line of sight is obstructed, similary to wearing a helmet.
Showing only the tip of your sword is not realistic, but neither is showing your whole sword.
And since showing your whole sword feels to me more natural i would not change it.

Why would they focus on making the camera more reallistic when they've got dragons to worry about?!

Otherwise... i got 1 thing to say to you, 2 handed sword style (Dai-Katana sword-style for example), you are definetly holding your sword right in front of your face.

as for this camera thing. use the TFC console function to see, the reason why this happens is merely because in first person you don't use the same combat style. happy?

you said nobody would hold their sword like that, have you ever been to fencing? this is pretty close to that style. but i think the bethesda animators should really remember that in combat, wether your holding an axe, a sword, your hands, even a bow or crossbow. even if your holding a damned rifle. if you're going to do this right, everything has a basic stance. the footing for almost everything, most martial arts and most weapon fighting is the same. remember that!!! they have a martial artist who was i think the lead designer of their combat animations. he should know. theres 2 basic stances that i would mention, one is the same you would use while skateboarding, the other is with one leg (usually the left leg) in front and the other leg in the back with the foot slightly bent to the side. you can learn this from either going to a martial arts lesson or just playing tekken or soul calibur or even street fighter. different styles usually just change the distance between your legs but not how you actually stand. 1 centimeter can change everything. as for how you hold your sword wether you hold it close to your body (defensive style) away from your body (stupid style like in 3rd person in oblivion) or somewhere inbetween (basic style) is all up to you as long as you have the footing right i don't care about the rest, seeing as you can't see your legs in first person mode, why would i give a damn?