I remember when I nervously asked the cinematic designers to have someone hanging from a cliff while talking to someone above them they were like "oh yeah no problem" but when I asked to have characters exchange objects? Hell no! ...and I realized I know nothing about what's easy and what's not.
Was that the Mark of the Assassin cliff scene with the Duke?
Makes me think of when Brad Bird joined Pixar to make The Incredibles - coming from 2D animation, he figured animating someone putting on a shirt would be easy & a building collapsing would be hard; turns out it was the opposite. Ended up being the 1st Pixar film with a cloth sim to get that shot.
I went to school for animation, doing both 2D and 3D, and I play and watch a fair amount of games. And still STILL! I'm floored by what is and isn't possible.
Same - and I'd like to think it makes us more sympathetic to animators/tech artists when we're writing our scenes. :)
personally i feel the sort of quirks like embracing dumb handover animations are what make games good instead of the constant drive for photorealism. accepting the awkwardness of the medium is fun