Barefoot player characters

[Absurdity]

This doesn't shorten the legs, nor does it change the position (that's based on the object origin); it just makes the whole character taller by however much you translated the "hara" bone upwards.

Rotating the bones does not shorten your leg, the model itself already does.
As Valence has already said, every shoe is it's own separate model that entirely replaces your "bare" feet in sandals and just connects to your leg. Try overlaying something like the Summer Sunset Sandals over what you've imported there and you will quickly see what I mean.

You can do very much the same in the opposite direction too.

The only remaining question is if the engine supports translating individual bones. Many early and even current simple ones only allow for rotation.

That's actually a good question. The only instances of individual bones moving up or down that we can currently find are all tied to animations (mount riding, facial expressions or "Joyous Leaping" emotes for example), not dynamically depending on footwear.

You can rotate the foot at the ankle but it wouldn't change anything about your position on the z-axis, your foot would simply clip into the ground undless you moved the entire rest of the "skeleton" up. The game also unfortunately doesn't have inverse kinematics, when standing on a slope you don't see one leg raised and one going straight down with the feet rotated to keep balance. You just stand as you always do, but part of you seemingly floating or clipping into the slope.

[LeCorbeaux]

Rotating the bones does not shorten your leg, the model itself already does.

Well, yes. And my point is: you wouldn't need to change the leg models to shorten (or lengthen, as the case with bare feet might be) them if the metadata on the shoes would have rotation and translation offsets for the relevant bones.

[Absurdity]

Well, yes. And my point is: you wouldn't need to change the leg models to shorten (or lengthen, as the case with bare feet might be) them if the metadata on the shoes would have rotation and translation offsets for the relevant bones.

True, but for that they would first need to be able to attach the metadata to shoes in the first place. I have no idea if they can.

When I said a barefoot model would either look goofy, because they need to make the ankles longer, or float it is with the current system (or lack thereof) in mind.
We currently have no indication that they can save bone rotation and offsets in the metadata for shoes, so I was working under that assumption.

If they have the ability to do so however they wouldn't even need multiple bones. Since every shoe is it's own model they could already bake the rotation of the ankle and toes into the mesh itself, so all they would need to save in the metadata is the offset for n_hara.

[Valence]

Well, yes. And my point is: you wouldn't need to change the leg models to shorten (or lengthen, as the case with bare feet might be) them if the metadata on the shoes would have rotation and translation offsets for the relevant bones.

What you're showing is twisting and changing the position of the "attach point" of the foot to the lower leg (located at the top of the foot). Rotating as you did changes the position of the kinetics of the skeleton, and for this to work you need to use said point of attach as the base unchanging reference around which you do any operation (rotation, etc). That attach point CANNOT be altered or moved around, else your feet suddenly detaches from the leg. In more technical terms you're thinking in normal kinematics instead of inverse kinematics.

The only way to ensure that the character sticks to the ground is for the devs to stop using the same fixed Y position (altitude), and attach a new variable to foot gear that would adjust the altitude of the entire character model to fit with the boots or lack of boots you do use - like in reality, shorter shoes, your body will stand lower in relation to the ground than on higher heels. It's not something you can fix by adjusting bones.

Because if you want to truly laugh, just compare some foot gear models with super thick soles and suddenly the feet are located way higher than barefoot which means a part of your ankles were actually cut off just to fit the model. There is zero consistency between foot gear models, which includes the barefoot one.

[MayuAmakura]

It would be an extremely easy job for them if we consider that modders executed this perfectly without mistakes. Including heights and so on.

[Ath192]

The game also unfortunately doesn't have inverse kinematics, when standing on a slope you don't see one leg raised and one going straight down with the feet rotated to keep balance. You just stand as you always do, but part of you seemingly floating or clipping into the slope.

Yeah, I mean I agree with most of this thread, I highly advocated for them to upgrade the poly count on both the hands and the feet for the graphics update. Kinematics would be cool if they can do something like that on slopes. There's also some cool gear that could be introduced with this like the gaiters that Mithra wore in the starter gear in FFXI.

A lot of sandals and low profile shoes would look great too along with some more feral looking gear.

But yeah I sense they don't want to, even though they should. Also what doesn't help is that there is so much weirdness around feet, and people just like to exacerbate it by mentioning it in every single thread that discusses the topic that there's basically a stigma around it now. So no, talking about feet shouldn't induce this mentality of hey lets make it awkward so no one wants to mention or touch the subject. It only makes people not want to be involved in any of it because of those people.