So umm...let's talk about being a Lalafell for a second

[Melichoir]

Do you think that the Lalas design is a reason why there aren't too many used in msq cutscenes or just cutscenes in general?Cuz the only Lalafells that has any involvement in the story beside the player's are Papalymo,Tataru,Pipin,Nanamo,Lolorito and Teledji.And you only see Papalymo and Pipin fighting and even then it's only for small scale fights or stuff that involves magic ala the end of Heavensward.But you never see a Lalafell being involved in choreographed fight scenes that involves clashing as those would either involve a Hyur,a miqote or the other similarly proportioned race.

And while I agree with you on waist propotions,those never bothered me much compared to the lack of Lalafell usage in cutscenes

Its probably a factor in how often tehy are used in a variety of stuff. People have to consider a few things. When setting up a 'cutscene', the devs need to detemine where the camera is, how its going to move, and so forth. Now they either do one of two things: 1) they make the camera placement and movements broad and general within a wider environment, or 2) They tailor the camera movement to the character race specifically.

I mention that aspect because since LaLas are drastically shorter than all other races, it can create issues in cutscenes where the camera might clip through a wall where it may not with a taller character. As an example, in a cutscene I watched in Doman Enclave, the camera clipped through the bench and I was staring at wood texture for a good 20 seconds. A probably oversight but it does happen. This brings up the wider issue with character models. How characters are designed can have an impact on how things are shown/played out in cutscenes, animations, and the like. In this case, Lalafells' height may affect how the camera can be used, particularly in smaller or cramped environments. Of course, that also works in reverse for super tall characters, but since the differences between the 'average' character model is more extreme between lalas and (lets say) elezen, youre probably going to get more issues with the shorter characters.

As I said earlier with modeling, yeah, how the model is made can also affect which animations are used. Its not 100% the case, but if you want to prevent weird distortions and clipping, models like the lalafells might be animated in a less nuanced way than Hyur or other races. Its a build in limitation of the player character model being used. You can actually see this play itself out in things like walk/run cycles. Because all characters need to be able to cover the exact same amount of ground in a duration (lets say 10 Meters a second for argument), to achieve that distance, youre going to have to do a lot more for a shorter characters. In this case, if you actually watch Lalafell character walk cycles carefully, they 'slide' a bit (You can see this most easily on any floor with a grid like pattern and from a profile view of your character walking). This is likely due to the model proportions, where with a run cycle, they can push the limbs to more extreme poses as well as have teh character remain more 'airborne' for slightly longer and it looks alright. None of these things are super ground breaking. A lot of people dont even notice it, because good animators can work around said limitations, but I do hazard that things like this do affect how cutscenes, animations, and the like play out. Heck, it might even be that certain dances and emotes are slightly tweaked and modified based on the race simply because of the aforementioned limitations, but Ive never specifically looked into it.