Red Mage Focus

[Rongway]

I'm not seeing the connection there. If "rapier and focus are a single model" for a single character to equip, that is unrelated to different characters needing different sizes of the rapier-and-focus model.

Not the scaling of the rapier, but the relative position of the rapier and focus in animations of characters whose arms, torsos, and hips are not the same proportions. Differences in relative ranges of motion due to character size differences can't easily be handled with a single rapier+focus model.

[Iscah]

Not the scaling of the rapier, but the relative position of the rapier and focus in animations of characters whose arms, torsos, and hips are not the same proportions. Differences in relative ranges of motion due to character size differences can't easily be handled with a single rapier+focus model.

But still, for each single character, their rapier and focus is (apparently) a single weapon model and not two independent mix-and-matchable ones.

[Rongway]

But still, for each single character, their rapier and focus is (apparently) a single weapon model and not two independent mix-and-matchable ones.

I don't know what else to say except, "That's just not how things are done."

The amount of freedom the focus has to move independently of the rapier in animations (see especially Contre Sixte and Manafication) would not be served by making the rapier and focus a single model because you would have to perform multiple transformations within the single weapon model itself, making sure the weapon transformations fit each individual character, as you animate the character action. Far simpler would be to make them two separate models so that you don't have to do any maths on the weapon models and you can just let the character animation handle all the movements.

Making a weapon a single animated model is really only something you do when you want the weapon not to care about the rest of the universe. It's animated only to care about itself and how the weapon's pieces move within that weapon's personal space. You don't animate a weapon and have it also care about how it needs to move about a character's personal space; that's what character animations are for.