Is there a reason Character's Heads jerk around when talking?

[YukikoKurosawa]

This has been a thing since ARR. Whenever a character talks in a cutscene, there heads will bob around wierdly and janky and I don't understand why, but it's bothered me since forever. I've never seen this in any 3D video game before. And what's even more odd is that they are more than capable of controlling head movements, yet always when character's talk and only when they talk do their heads jerk around like this. It's just wierd and unnatural. People IRL ofc motion their heads occassionally when talking, but nothing like this.

There are plenty of scenes where characters don't do this and increasingly so but it still happens for the most part. Like I'm sure 99% of you know what I'm referring to here. What I suspect is that, probably related to the spaghetti code, character model's opening their mouths to speak is somehow tied to the entire head movement, and talking triggers the wierd jerking around of the head, and they have to manually animate a scene to prevent this.

I dunno it's just wierd, and I've wondered since forever why it happens. Anyone have any idea?

[MiaShino]

Myself and friends call this "chicken pecking" and find it most amusing.

[Droxybrobotnik]

Not going to give a forum troll the honor of a measured response. Good day.

[Doc_Seraph]

Kupo, don't judge lol because if we had to do all the things our toons do...I am sure we would have some CNS issues kupo <3 loool

[Wilford111]

lol I've noticed this, but it's never bothered me too much. I think it's funny now that it's being brought up in the OF cuz I think everyone's noticed it to some extent. Yeah it is awkward, idk why they're animated like that.

[VictorSpoils]

It's noticeable with male Hyurs. They're also prone to putting one hand on their hip and rocking back and forth while standing during a cutscene that has Machinations playing in the background for the thousandth time.

[Klytania]

I just consider it a relic of the game being developed like 15 years ago. I imagine a lot of this jank will start to get smoothed over with the visual TLC patches that are coming in the future. We already saw the end of dungeon weapon sheathing animations get a bit of a once over with Endwalker.

[Tetsujin]

Japanese cultural thing. Something something, it's considered showing interest and blahblah. Watch the girls head and enjoy a good clip. They're always nodding and so on, affirming what they say, etc.

https://youtu.be/eXpyr0aVkHM

[SeverianLyonesse]

ITT: OP has never seen an anime.

[SenorPatty]

This man shares your pain: https://youtube.com/shorts/xIANCyXGN5I?feature=share