Interaction

[Cypherious]

From what i have seen.
1st Penumbra can't have hands.
2nd if Penumbra will have hands,hands animations will be scripted to escape the awkwardness.
3rd perfect solution is to use scripted animations synchronized with mouse controls.
Thus making the reach pretty short(hands length),hands should have block points - You can move player's arm at it's limits.Hands could be controlled with left and right mouse buttons(left,right hand) pick the object with right mouse button(right hand), + add left hand if the object is too heavy to carry.
Small objects could be inspected when they are holded - press use button or 3rd mouse button(scroll button),then player will be able to see object with scrolling,or holding use button and interacting with it even further.
Well,should make use button and scroll button,it would be quite essential.
Animations:
CoC made a nice of them,in cutscenes,real time,etc.When player clicks on door's knob real time animation starts and proceeds when mouse is holded and pulled.
One should be able to interact with items and doors with both hands.

In the end,the whole thing with hands should consist of animations,hands with block points and joints(hand can't go through things,it should block),animations synchronized with mouse controls.

For such a pretty cosmetic effect,its costs a lot more.
In advertisment it should say:
WE HAVE REAL HANDS IN DIS GAME!

[Penumbra]

hmm....Being able to pick up anything like that would be pretty cool. But I think it would be better to not have to actually have to controll the entire arm. Maybe for every item you pick up, it can be carried as a weapon would be carried. It would be pretty awsome if you could interact with everything possible, other than just being able to pick it up and set it down.

[Gyne]

...i have yet to see a game that can pick up an object and hold it on the fly with out have to have it already made up with object in the hand (like most FPS a gun with a hand made attached to give the illusion the you are holding it.)

Trespasser did just that, but sometimes it felt really awkward. Check this vid to see what I mean.

And even with that, I wonder how many people can pick up a metal barrel with one hand.

It reminds me a bit of what Cyan said about Myst. They only wanted the enviroment on the screen; no menus or inventories on-screen, so it would not distract from becoming immersed in the game. But as soon as you want to save, that drop-down menu pops into reality. lol

I think you can only push realism so far until it begins to look BAD. Personally, I like the controls, hand-wise and so on.

The other thing I don't like about using a hand is that it takes up a lot of room on the screen.

[Paulaner]

I think you can only push realism so far until it begins to look BAD. Personally, I like the controls, hand-wise and so on.

Totally agreed. It's called "suspension of disbelief" and is the heart of good fiction.

[Kedjane]

I don't like any of the suggestions too much. I really don't think anyone should have a problem holding a mouse button in to hold an object - if they have that problem they definately need a new mouse, that just sounds silly.
And for adding arms... I guess someone already showed the Trespasser vid

[eliasfrost]

There is a way to decrease the reach distance in the game.cfg file.

Spoiler below!

MaxGrabDist = "1.9"

MaxMoveDist = "1.4"

MaxPushDist = "1.4"
MaxPushSpeed = "2.0"

MaxUseItemDist = "1.7"

Correct me if I'm wrong though. I haven't tried this yet...