First-person height perception?
I'll start by saying this is not unique to FC5, but as a life-long first-person game fan, it is something that has fascinated me for a long time.
Does anyone else have moments in these games, especially those of you who enjoy some peaceful wanderings, when you feel as though your character is about three-feet tall?
I know the basic reason for this, and that is that as a flat image (the 3D being an illusion) we have no true sense of depth, meaning that the floor can often appear much closer than it does in real life. But quite often this happens when I approach an object (a tree, a wall, a spread of flowers) that from a distance appear to be a couple of feet high, and yet when you get up close they're often nearer chest-height.
The effect is most noticeable when walking through the undergrowth, where shrubs, bushes and flowers that would be no higher than your knees in real life, are actually at eye-level when you get up close.
I did read a very fascinating article once about first-person perspective in games, in which it was revealed that the camera (which acts as your eyes in first-person games) is in fact positioned on the chest of the third-person model. This had something to do with research showing that players of first-person shooters expect to be able to 'see' their weapon at all times, and that if the camera was positioned on the head of the third-person model, this would not be the case.
It's a real shame in my opinion, that no developers on the console market have been brave enough to go down the first-person simulation route. I think Arma was probably the first game to do this (in Arma, looking down allows you to see your whole body, from chest to feet, rather than just your feet as in FC5).
Also the stock 'walking / running with weapon' animation is rather nonsensical in these games, as the same view in the real world would require we hold the gun up across our face when running, when in truth we would hold it around our midriff. But of course this would mean the weapon would fall out of view, which clearly confuses the hard of understanding.