Someone pointed out that being against these walk animations is being anti-feminine. Er, no. In the game, I don't want to look like I just got off a mechanical bull (my first impression of the lady Inquisitor with that walk,) nor do I wish Cassandra to have that "sexy" strut. Anyone actually tried to walk like that? It feels really awkward. For fun, man or woman, try it sometime. I showed that to my husband and he couldn't stop laughing. He asked me if it hurt.
I want my warriors to walk like, well, Aveline. Strong, purposeful, without an exaggerated sashay, and without looking like a damned gorilla (I was never able to finish my maleShep because of the gorilla stomp.) Really, the better ways for me for my lady Inquisitor to express her femininity would be through things like fancy scrollwork or orientation on my armor; makeup and hair; different causal clothes. The last of which the devs have stated they are looking into.
Let me show femininity/personal style in my Inquisitor's dress and clothing. That stupid model strut looks out of place. It's not impossible. As one of the other posters pointed out (I think I tossed you a like,) plate armor was actually meant to be flexible and lighter weight as time went on. It still wouldn't allow for that much freedom of hip movement. In any case, it looks stupid.
Vivienne and Isabela having model struts made sense for their characters, not to mention wearing light chain/clothing (a lot of mage robes I've seen have got at least light chain mail under it) can allow for more freedom of movement. In Vivienne's case, this is the one time where the model strut really suits the character. Among other things, Life for her is a giant runway. You only have one chance to make it look good.
Otherwise, such an animation looks just bad, silly and out of place. I really hope those damned idle movements haven't returned. Here's another experiment: Fire up DA2. Roll a female character. Then fire up youtube and check out the video where they put female Hawke's animations on a male Hawke. To me, it doesn't matter the gender, they look equally stupid. Then fire up youtube again and check out the video where they put male Hawke's animations on a female Hawke. It looked a lot more natural, and the way a rather seasoned and (understandably) paranoid warrior should move.
I am a female who works in video game animation. I know from experience, that when male animators are given the task of animating female walks, they almost always emphasize hip sway, more than I ever would. I think what it comes down to is a lot of men like swaying hips, so when they're making a walk for a woman, they're creating what they think "looks good." Which to them is swaying hips. It's not consciously a sexist thing (I mean, I can't speak for all video game animations, just the people I work with), its just something that happens in their attempt to make a good female walk.
I can also say from experience that it generally works out a lot better to put male animations on female characters than the other way around. It tends to make the female character feel "tough," which for warriors in RPGS, is probably a better way to go, than making male characters feel feminine. That said, I do almost always have to update male animations to bring the knees in, to make the women not walk like they've been riding horses.
All that said, it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility for a game to be set up so that in cutscenes, depending on character gender, it determines which animation to use, but there's also plenty of reasons to not set a game up to do that (frame rate, programming time, animation time, etc).
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