Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

I do see the differences and also for me, my character I had created 11 years ago, was not the Keeper she was before. I felt like, Keepers have "cataract" now, as I also mentioned in one thread, and this is a pity, for I especially loved Keeper's eyes.

I have to admit - I used one Fantasia ... (I took me 1,5 weeks of reading here, creating and deleting new characters, thinking and finally deciding)

I tried other races and had a white haired midlander preset, which I found nice - but within Dawntrail, something in her face also bugged me.

As Seeker I am quite happy - she has nicer / brighter eye colors, which are not so "greyish" and I can keep playing now (don't get me wrong, I do see and understand the complaints Seekers also have, but for ME, it was an improvement to what my poor Keeper looked like at current state and thus the best solution)

At least my heart was able to re-start - but I also do understand everyone, who would like to remain "themselves" - and/or rather quit

But yes, even though she is a "new girl" - within cutscenes sometimes I am sitting here like :confused: because her facial expression and reactions - her face sometimes looks kind of weird for some reason.

There's so much constructive feedback here - Some posts are really heartbreaking

I really hope that the “right people” also read along here from time to time. Maybe they can change something / something back

<3

https://i.imgur.com/2Kxygw1.png

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

Thanks for leaving your feedback despite the language barrier. I can really see how much you love your character and I’m sorry she was changed.

I want to highlight this because there’s a point I want to make. Something that’s frustrating me is seeing so much hostility toward people sad about character changes from those who like the updated graphics. Take a look at this lovely edit above. This person has made just a few subtle changes and the face completely regains the spirit of the original character. More importantly, what those minor edits don’t do is make the character look lower quality or worse. The faces can be edited to preserve the original style without reverting back to old graphics! Everyone can get what they want! I don’t understand why those who like the graphics update are acting like the game has to be made ugly to satisfy us. The proof is right above showing that’s not at all the case. We can have our cake and eat it too and yet I keep seeing so much rudeness and hostility for those sad about their new appearances. We should all be coming together to ask for both a beautiful graphics update and the preservation of our characters looks! We pay monthly for this game, why shouldn’t we be allowed to hold higher standards?

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Have experienced the same sadly. Both me and friends who didn't luck out on the update lottery with our characters got absolutely shat on by friends that did and they genuinely couldn't care less about it whilst frolicking happy with their characters haha. Its unfortunate but yeah a lot of them don't really show much sympathy about the issue and if anything Square so far has shown that they feel about the same which sucks. Some of us have had these characters for basically a decade. :') We've found ourselves wishing we didn't have a house on the game for years now so we could just let go more easily but we have so many memories there its just hard to let go..

Really sour about the whole situation. Putting on glasses and a mask can only alleviate so much when in the past we'd explicitly avoid any facial covers for cutscenes too... Sigh.

I made a forum account for the first time to also voice my opinion after following these feedback threads for a while. I like several others here am not particularly happy with how the update treated midlander face 1. Now aside from things others have mentioned, one thing that has been bothering me a lot is how much more triangular and younger the face looks currently. At first I thought that they may have changed the jaw shape entirely, but after giving it some time it looks like the new lighting is doing weird things with the face shape that I'm not entirely sure is intentional.

https://i.imgur.com/y7k2WWG.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/Qp0PR7D.png

As you can see in the pictures I linked certain lighting will really harshly affect the cheeks in a way that it never did before, which drastically changes the shape of the face. I have no idea if this is just something that is deemed an unavoidable issue with the new lighting or not, but the first picture in particular just looks completely wrong to me like there is a bug with the way the light interacts with the face.

I might try to put together some more pictures to illustrate my other issues with the face the way other people have, mainly to do with the weirdly prominent eye bags and the severely reduced makeup from the facial feature. Thank you to everyone else who has put together such comprehensive posts detailing the things that have changed! There's no guarantee that it will amount to anything but voicing our opinions in a constructive way is definitely the best way to try to get some changes.

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Originally Posted by sweetchort

Hello o/

I'm still thinking there is an issue with Miqo'te eyes. The two eyes don't look in the same direction. The main reflection points aren't symmetrical on Miqo'te eyes (this is also the case with Sun Miqo'te) :

https://i.imgur.com/IXHfrMJ.png

https://i.imgur.com/3EEPIuj.png

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I didn't even notice that myself before, you should try making a bug report about it if there isn't already one for that specifically.

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Originally Posted by Tahli

I didn't even notice that myself before, you should try making a bug report about it if there isn't already one for that specifically.

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I already tried to report it on the French forum; they told me it's "working as intended"... I don't really know if it's okay to report it again :/ I didn't have these pictures for the first report, so I suppose they didn't see the issue. I'm not home for 2 days; I'll try to report it on the English forum when I come back. ^^

If a better English speaker than me wants to report it first, go ahead. ^^

Hm, what I think is interesting:

Most of the times I read and write in EN forums - but I am German - and I realized:

In DE Bug Forums here, there at least always is a reply to a report - either that they would forward this, or it is intended, or that they would like to see more information.

They would only move / close a report, if there is no reply / the needed information was not added later. Here in EN Forums, they only move - without - anything at all :(

Germans do not report so much it seems OR everyone else is using EN as well, because you should ASSUME that you have a greater reach here and are more likely to be heard

Apparently that is not the case :confused:

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Originally Posted by Rueby

Anyone noticed the really unnatural way the eyeballs uh...shake?/twitch???

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Real people have subtle eye movements like that. What would be unnatural is for them to just vacantly stare into the void completely motionless, which was previously the case in FFXIV. Between the movement and texture upgrades the eyes look so much more alive now.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

Real people have subtle eye movements like that. What would be unnatural is for them to just vacantly stare into the void completely motionless, which was previously the case in FFXIV. Between the movement and texture upgrades the eyes look so much more alive now.

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The thing that will make them "stare into the void" is the size and positioning of the eyes. Get that wrong and the character is going to stare into the void whether or not their eyes quiver while they do it.

I came across some 6.55 screenshots and was curious how they would compare to now:

https://i.imgur.com/NWiggrC.png
https://i.imgur.com/2M8ZbT9.png

It's so blatantly not the same person...
At risk of feeding into it, I still can't fathom the rhetoric behind people claiming that faces look "no different" or "look better" in response to dissatisfied people.

Something needs to be done about Hrothgar hands, they are an absolute abomination right now. I always wear the Hrothgar Wristguards, because I prefer my beastman to have claws. But now it looks like he has a set of claws growing out of regular fingernails. Can we please go back to fingernails being an accessory option and not actually part of the character model for the Hrothgar?

https://i.imgur.com/pM4MWFw.png

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Originally Posted by shinjyu

https://i.ibb.co/w4QNtn3/IMG-0911.gif

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I don’t know if you’re still around but could I ask you how you managed to create such a high quality animated gif? I would like to do the same so I can show an edit to my character but I cant find any way to save it without it loosing a lot of quality.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

I don’t know if you’re still around but could I ask you how you managed to create such a high quality animated gif? I would like to do the same so I can show an edit to my character but I cant find any way to save it without it loosing a lot of quality.

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I'm just going to jump in so you don't have to wait around, but use Gifski

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Originally Posted by cutestfox

I'm just going to jump in so you don't have to wait around, but use Gifski

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Thanks. I’ll have to see if I can get a desktop set up so I can try it. I’m out of town on an ipad for a while and it says gifski isn’t compatible.

After I got through the MSQ with the new face (got sick of reglamming my masks at the last zone), I developed a strong feeling of disinterest in seeing any more cutscenes for the unforseeable future. I have no interest in playing the patch MSQ or anything else. The face is too strange, and it's especially bad when it emotes.

At this point in time, I really wish I could wave a magic wand so things could be how they were before 7.0 downtime. I miss the features of my character and please excuse this but I also don't personally see anything "amazing" or "beautiful" in the new graphics system. It's really mostly the opposite to me. Everything feels somehow simutaneously either too saturated/bright or lifeless/dull as opposed to before.

I know that it is an unrealistic and selfish thing to want to go back to the old graphics as a whole so at the least I really really wish we could have the old facial designs back. This game means a lot to me and to feel so meaningless about logging in everyday makes me so sad.

My character's face is perfect in the update. His eyes don't stare into the void (unless I'm actually in that void with Zero- then he can't help it- the void is literally all around him). His eyes look perfect and so do his expressions. He is absolutely unchanged by the terror of the update.

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Originally Posted by Kaziek

Now aside from things others have mentioned, one thing that has been bothering me a lot is how much more triangular and younger the face looks currently. At first I thought that they may have changed the jaw shape entirely, but after giving it some time it looks like the new lighting is doing weird things with the face shape that I'm not entirely sure is intentional.

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There's definitely something going on with the lighting. This can't be the way my character is supposed to look in the light D:
https://i.imgur.com/Xtynz5Y.png https://i.imgur.com/d3B3LtF.png https://i.imgur.com/dey0NN1.png

This is a comparison in the light and in the shade:
https://i.imgur.com/eqaABVj.png https://i.imgur.com/d8VvlWE.png


https://i.imgur.com/2oGufUy.png https://i.imgur.com/JkhLb7g.png


Bonus picture of wonky lighting in Old Gridania:
https://i.imgur.com/yZX1d52.png


P.S. I play on PS5.

The lighting oddities aren't limited to characters either. I don't understand what's happening to the Thaliak statue here.

https://i.imgur.com/kW7x0Yu.png

Edit: Placeholder post for now, I'm going to work on my own big diagram image too

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Originally Posted by sweetchort

Hello o/

I'm still thinking there is an issue with Miqo'te eyes. The two eyes don't look in the same direction. The main reflection points aren't symmetrical on Miqo'te eyes (this is also the case with Sun Miqo'te) :

https://i.imgur.com/IXHfrMJ.png

https://i.imgur.com/3EEPIuj.png

I tried to correct it with Photoshop (the upper one):

https://i.imgur.com/LaOX1W2.png

I really hope we'll get a fix.

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Same thing is going on with female Elezen eyes. It's probably what gave me the impression/feeling of my character being cross-eyed. I especially feel/see it with the left eye.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

There's definitely something going on with the lighting. This can't be the way my character is supposed to look in the light D:
https://i.imgur.com/Xtynz5Y.png

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Looking at her facial structure the shadow location seems correct given where the light is coming from. The shadows perhaps seem a bit more dark and harsh than they realistically should be, but they were made that way after the community complained they were too soft in the first benchmark so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I really HATE!! the graphic update.

now the chars look lifeless/soulless and like bored (sorry) s*x dolls.

the male chars look like they didn't sleep for weeks and smoked weed (did you see the BIG eye bags especially at elezen and male hyuran faces?!)

no character look like before (in a bad way!!). its not about shades, etc.... the SHAPE of eyes and lips were changed!
so the chars became something you NEVER would have created...

since the update I didn't log into the game, neither renewed my abo payment...



https://ibb.co/Ny9TM4J

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

Looking at her facial structure the shadow location seems correct given where the light is coming from. The shadows perhaps seem a bit more dark and harsh than they realistically should be, but they were made that way after the community complained they were too soft in the first benchmark so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

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Her face never looked like that before the update in the same area and light I took those pictures. In fact, before the update, she looked beautiful in almost any lighting. The only exceptions were very few weird lighting moments (sometimes in cutscenes) that affected the other races the same way and made them look horrible/deranged, like that certain spot in Old Gridania. Also, I find that the lighting/shading in the picture you picked clashes with the corners of her mouth.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

Her face never looked like that before the update in the same area and light I took those pictures.

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That is because the game had an old and busted lighting solution falling on old and busted models. You're going to see shadows where there may not have been shadows previously because they are now being simulated properly.

To think about it another way, your character's head shape is similar to one of these makeup sponges. As you can see, shadows are forming opposite to where the lighting is coming from. If the pointed end were facing down and the light coming from a bit above them as in your image, shadows would naturally form in the lower half that slopes inwards and away from the light.

https://media.glamour.com/photos/586...utyblender.jpg

I'm not saying you're wrong for feeling any which way about your new character or the changes, but what you're seeing is just how light works. The debate here is more of an artistic one than any kind of graphical error. Do you have light work as it realistically should or do you have everyone stylistically illuminated at all times? Personally I prefer the first option but that's entirely subjective.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

That is because the game had an old and busted lighting solution falling on old and busted models. You're going to see shadows where there may not have been shadows previously because they are now being simulated properly.

To think about it another way, your character's head shape is similar to one of these makeup sponges. As you can see, shadows are forming opposite to where the lighting is coming from. If the pointed end were facing down and the light coming from a bit above them as in your image, shadows would naturally form in the lower half that slopes inwards and away from the light.

https://media.glamour.com/photos/586...utyblender.jpg

I'm not saying you're wrong for feeling any which way about your new character or the changes, but what you're seeing is just how light works. Light wasn't working normally in the old graphics because they were very limited in what they could do.

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I get what you're trying to say, but it still looks off to me. Unnatural. The shadows in the picture make it feel like she's sucking in her cheeks or something. Or maybe trying to do a failed duck-face? I dunno, it's like the shadows shouldn't meet her upper lip at the points where they do. And the corners of her mouth have light on them when they feel like they shouldn't.

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Originally Posted by lunartears

After I got through the MSQ with the new face (got sick of reglamming my masks at the last zone), I developed a strong feeling of disinterest in seeing any more cutscenes for the unforseeable future. I have no interest in playing the patch MSQ or anything else. The face is too strange, and it's especially bad when it emotes.

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Lmao ,God , I gave it a shot to run with my new face too and gave up after 1 quest. Was running an old EW quest and experienced the new smirk emote on my character.
https://i.imgur.com/x16PdDd.png

Compared to what it looked like in EW.
https://i.imgur.com/fW8DOf0.png

I just put the headpiece and glasses afterwards since I couldn't really deal with looking stoned out of my mind in every cutscene either since my eyes are extremely dull now aswell. And man its definitely not the same experience anymore and turned into every scene being comedy when I'm looking and smiling like this.
https://i.imgur.com/3UAZm07.png
Those new mouth corners certainly are something..
I also really lost the attachment to seeing myself in cutscenes and only really look forward to how much more jank it could possibly get as it goes on purely for comedic purposes and at the very least get a laugh out of it all.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

I get what you're trying to say, but it still looks off to me. Unnatural. The shadows in the picture make it feel like she's sucking in her cheeks or something. Or maybe trying to do a failed duck-face? I dunno, it's like the shadows shouldn't meet her upper lip at the point where they do. And the corners of her mouth have light on them when they feel like they shouldn't.

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There's certainly nothing wrong with feeling that way, especially after seeing her another way for so long. It may look like she's sucking in her cheeks because that's the same area where her face slopes sharply inward.

https://i.imgur.com/d3B3LtF.png

I see what you mean about the little illuminated dots in the corners of the mouth. Perhaps there's an issue with the geometry there that's catching the light in a weird way?

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

I see what you mean about the little illuminated dots in the corners of the mouth. Perhaps there's an issue with the geometry there that's catching the light in a weird way?

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There’s a weird thing with the catchlights sometimes too, where it falls on the edge of the iris and makes it look distorted. Don’t have a screenshot of that yet, I never seem to be able to time it right. It also seems like there’s a light source inside our heads now, which is certain lighting conditions, it looks like we’re leaking light out of our eyes and the corners of our mouths!

https://i.imgur.com/Pmfk5MH.jpeg

Extreme lighting example because Prae is awful, but it really illustrates it.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

It also seems like there’s a light source inside our heads now, which is certain lighting conditions, it looks like we’re leaking light out of our eyes and the corners of our mouths!

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There actually is a 'character lighting' setting, which does that, especially in really dark areas such as Praetorium. I don't remember exactly where it is, but you can adjust and/or turn that off.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

There actually is a 'character lighting' setting, which does that, especially in really dark areas such as Praetorium. I don't remember exactly where it is, but you can adjust and/or turn that off.

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I was wondering why my character looked weird in Praetorium and some other lvl 50 areas compared to newer areas where my character looks pretty good. I will have to find and test that setting.

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Originally Posted by WickedSensei

I was wondering why my character looked weird in Praetorium and some other lvl 50 areas compared to newer areas where my character looks pretty good. I will have to find and test that setting.

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It's under System Configuration> Display Settings. Character Lighting is at the very bottom.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

There actually is a 'character lighting' setting, which does that, especially in really dark areas such as Praetorium. I don't remember exactly where it is, but you can adjust and/or turn that off.

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I was wondering why my character looked weird in Praetorium and some other lvl 50 areas compared to newer areas where my character looks pretty good. I will have to find and test that setting.

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Originally Posted by WickedSensei

I was wondering why my character looked weird in Praetorium and some other lvl 50 areas compared to newer areas where my character looks pretty good. I will have to find and test that setting.

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Also I don't think Prae has been updated yet. They're doing things in waves with each patch.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

Also I don't think Prae has been updated yet. They're doing things in waves with each patch.

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Got it makes sense now

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Originally Posted by Barachim

It's under System Configuration> Display Settings. Character Lighting is at the very bottom.

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Thank you

Annoyingly, the character lighting setting is global for all characters, including npcs. I’d like to turn it up a bit for myself but then I see it makes npcs in the distance glow and look odd. Would be nice to separate those out into self and others.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

I don’t know if you’re still around but could I ask you how you managed to create such a high quality animated gif? I would like to do the same so I can show an edit to my character but I cant find any way to save it without it loosing a lot of quality.

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I used procreate for image edit and export gif. it's ipad app for drawing and you should pay for it. and i come this thread like everyday for see any other opinions or cases. sooooo... yeah. just let me know if you guys want to see me :)

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Originally Posted by NaokiMiakoda

I really HATE!! the graphic update.

now the chars look lifeless/soulless and like bored (sorry) s*x dolls.

the male chars look like they didn't sleep for weeks and smoked weed (did you see the BIG eye bags especially at elezen and male hyuran faces?!)

no character look like before (in a bad way!!). its not about shades, etc.... the SHAPE of eyes and lips were changed!
so the chars became something you NEVER would have created...

since the update I didn't log into the game, neither renewed my abo payment...



https://ibb.co/Ny9TM4J

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I 100% Agree. My Female Miqo'te is sad about her own existence atm and is just hoping she can get back to her old self eventually, but she's trying to not get her hopes up.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

That is because the game had an old and busted lighting solution falling on old and busted models. You're going to see shadows where there may not have been shadows previously because they are now being simulated properly.

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Being "old" doesn't automatically make it "busted" or the new version better. I'd say they busted the models in the update.

Even if the old shadows were "faked", that ultimately means they were placed where a human artist believed the shadows should sit on the character, and it becomes an integral part of how the character is supposed to look.

Additionally, it's not just a matter of new lighting on the same faces. The face structures have been changed, some of them quite considerably.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

Annoyingly, the character lighting setting is global for all characters, including npcs. I’d like to turn it up a bit for myself but then I see it makes npcs in the distance glow and look odd. Would be nice to separate those out into self and others.

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I always had the character lighting turned right up on the older graphics and never thought it particularly made characters glow. I assume it increased the entire brightness fairly evenly. (It's also probably why I don't recall having lighting issues with my dark-skinned alt character much, despite other people talking about that being an issue.)

I switched from PS4 to PS5 when Dawntrail released and the setting didn't carry over, but I've seen people commenting that it makes characters look worse in the new graphics, so I've been wary of turning it back on.

I haven't been following this thread as closely as I followed other graphics update threads post benchmark 1 and 2, but there's been three major issues sticking out to me (no pics, because I'm still assembling them all)

1. Dark skin tones are way, way too reflective. This is more pronounced on player character models than it is on Erenville. Dark skin does reflect light, but the way that it has been rendered in XIV makes it look like my character is coated in oil. This is most obvious when you pick from the farthest row to the right. I'm hopeful that this is something that can be tweaked/will be adjusted later.

2. Skin tones were lightened across the board, and all male midlander skin appears to have been made more gray/cool toned. My character lost all sense of contrast between his skin and his hair color with the update, so I had to use the free fantasia to take him to the darkest option. End result still is not the same as what he looked like pre-update. Wondering if an RGB value has been incorrectly handled that makes all the skin both cooler and lighter. (Even some tan midlander npcs now look duskwight level gray.)

3. Changes to things like mouth/lip shape and eye shape are just as noticeable in cutscenes, and they feel more pronounced on midlander 5 than I thought they would.

Last two problems could be tweaked with slight edits to the models or just adding more options to the CC. Especially regarding skin tone. There could easily be an additional 4 rows added between the second to last and last option for midlanders.

also, as a few asides....lots of expressions look wonky on my midlander (including his smile! which is used to often in cutscenes. it curves up instead of going out and up like a smile does irl). his lips no longer had a clear definition against his skin so I had to give him lipstick just for a semblance of that. and makeup (which is drastically lighter!) no longer sits correctly on his face. the eyeshadow somehow falls above his eyebrows lol. these are both things I assume might get tweaked or corrected later but I thought it was worth mentioning them too.