Yes, of course, I understand all that too. 99% of players just play and record individual moments “as is”, so built-in animation is much more in demand. And I completely agree about video capture — it’s very problematic to implement these days. Although not impossible, it seems to me: webcam capture and optimization using AI would make it possible. After all, just the other day there was news that AI, after some training, is capable of identifying all the muscles in your arm and shoulder that you engage just by moving your finger across a smartphone! So determining human body movement and interpreting it into character pose changes is absolutely doable even with DIY tools. But for that they’d first need to develop such an AI, or establish a partnership with someone, so discussing this prematurely.
As for photos — I created a thread where I gave an example from a very old game. Even back then there was a puppet deformation feature — [04.02.26] Возможность вручную ставить Zoi в любую позу
That is, you literally drag a slider — and the arm or leg follows it, the head turns following the virtual gaze direction object, and with the light source taken into account, the lighting change is quite reflected on the skin. And the panel at the bottom lets you select a facial expression and save any pose as a ready-made template to easily use it further in the narrative. And if this was possible over 20 years ago, then I’m completely and utterly confident it’s possible now. Even if it requires substantial refinement.
So if not animation, then at least static poses we could definitely create at an absolutely professional level if we were given control of each finger in a simple and natural way, practically like in CAZ.