Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gucky

I was hoping that the devs would react, at least a word would have been enough. But so far nothing has happened and with every day that passes my hope is fading.

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I'm fully expecting them to ignore it just to avoid losing face. I'd like to be pleasantly surprised, but the pages and pages of feedback and examples and in-depth comparisons are likely going into the metaphorical paper shredder.

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gucky

I was hoping that the devs would react, at least a word would have been enough. But so far nothing has happened and with every day that passes my hope is fading.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

I'm fully expecting them to ignore it just to avoid losing face. I'd like to be pleasantly surprised, but the pages and pages of feedback and examples and in-depth comparisons are likely going into the metaphorical paper shredder.

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I understand the lack of acknowledgement right now is bad, but they did already confirm (in a footnote of the final benchmark update lodestone post...which is annoying...) that they'll continue making adjustments in Dawntrail patches. The issue is too big on the ENG and especially the JP forums to ignore.

Of course, I think they should still make a dedicated post acknowledging that they failed a large amount of their customers. It's completely reasonable to be aggravated that they haven't.

Just...don't give up hope, and, in spite of others who may try to poorly convince you to do otherwise, keep bringing attention to it. They have a frustrating history of fixing things completely silently, even while people ask for acknowledgement for months on end (again, I really think their silence sucks regardless).

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Originally Posted by Rueby

Can I ask you for the facial expressions for Face 4 Miqo as well? Keeper if you can if not that's okay...looking at that vid made me really miss my old char :/
I made a video on the new facial expression emotes but I think I missed 1. I posted it earlier.

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https://youtu.be/I8VrTxEoXhE?si=ImZX8iCKvQfY0LsE

as your request~ :) sorry i can give you only basic emot :(

/biggrin (mgp 20,000), /reflect (seal 10,000), /ponder (4.3 MSQ) are should be buy fantasia or took a many times

i will search any volunteers as i can who can use /ponder.

+ ==================

man i got volunteer in 6 am lol

https://youtu.be/0UL7iqad0yI?si=0o118icjvHSLgHal

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Originally Posted by shinjyu

https://youtu.be/I8VrTxEoXhE?si=ImZX8iCKvQfY0LsE

as your request~ :) sorry i can give you only basic emot :(

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Thank you so much for this...I'll include it in my bug report that'll hopefully not get rejected...or get dumped in insufficient information if that's okay.

It's here

Let's hope it doesn't get thrown into insufficient information...I'd be really interested to see people test the emotes on their chars and watch out for the eyebrow twitching. Someone said it happens on Fem Aura too. Maybe if we compile more findings it might get fixed. I'm trying hard not to lose hope.

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Originally Posted by Rueby

I'm not sure if there's a way to embed video on this forum but I made a somewhat scuffed youtube video showing the eyebrow twitching issues + facial expressions for face 4 moonies...

It took so long to upload. I wish I could upload more, but I'm not seeing anyone speak about this issue

Here

Edit:
I think I forgot ponder, it took an hour to upload this video..ugh. Ponder actually has the twitching issue.
I would love to see if other people can go check the expressions on their characters too...I don't think this is acceptable especially on the player character...cmon.

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In your video the lips are twitching too. In the sneer, pucker up and big grin expressions at least.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

In your video the lips are twitching too. In the sneer, pucker up and big grin expressions at least.

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Amazing catch! I was too distracted by the eyebrow twitching I didn't notice how subtly the corners of the mouth twitch...yikes. I wonder what's causing these? I find it so hard to believe it's done on purpose..

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Originally Posted by Rueby

I'd be really interested to see people test the emotes on their chars and watch out for the eyebrow twitching.

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actually, this happening in male and female Roegadyn face emote too. I already report as bug :(

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ebrow-emot-bug

male roe face 2

https://youtu.be/mmMCY3SYpxc

female roe face 1

https://youtu.be/tFpJNVCN17c

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Originally Posted by Rueby

Amazing catch! I was too distracted by the eyebrow twitching I didn't notice how subtly the corners of the mouth twitch...yikes. I wonder what's causing these? I find it so hard to believe it's done on purpose..

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There are some cases where smiles will cause the inner corners of the eyes to also go up. Someone earlier in the thread posted it on a miqo'te or au ra, and I noticed it to a lesser degree on my character. The rigging is a mess.

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Originally Posted by shinjyu

actually, this happening in male and female Roegadyn face emote too. I already report as bug :(

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ebrow-emot-bug

male roe face 2

https://youtu.be/mmMCY3SYpxc

female roe face 1

https://youtu.be/tFpJNVCN17c

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wow they dumped it into insufficient information...that's alarming. I doubt they even took the time to check, maybe try to post it in the bug thread I made I tried to include everything I can but I think I'm reaching the daily forum limit...

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Originally Posted by Daralii

There are some cases where smiles will cause the inner corners of the eyes to also go up. Someone earlier in the thread posted it on a miqo'te or au ra, and I noticed it to a lesser degree on my character. The rigging is a mess.

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Huh...so this is rigging related? Some emotes straight up look abit uncanny to me...It's funny how I find the PRE-DT emotes to be way nicer...I'm not really experienced enough to know much about rigging etc

I submitted another bug about the Keeper face 4 eyebrows, this time specifying Dawntrail (not benchmark 2) and highlighting that Seeker face 4 has the correct eyebrows so it should be clear it's an actual bug and they have a guideline for correcting it. I wish I could just edit my original bug with the extra info though, it's so dumb they get locked after being moved.

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Originally Posted by shinjyu

here it is, my comrade fella. if anyone want pre DT recording or screenshots, I'll give it to you guys. korean server still remain 8 month to DT anyway~ :)

https://youtu.be/YaSRtIcNJVI?si=8DXQlWrm1YuJgZAs

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Thank you! This is very helpful! Hopefully, if those of us in other regions kick up enough of a storm, everyone's faces will be fixed before Dawntrail hits you guys on the Korean server.

For comparison purposes, I've compiled some screenshots of the current Dawntrail version of the mouth (face 4 mouth 3 on female miqo'te), using a character with a similar appearance to the one in the video.

https://i.imgur.com/jzl9n2J.png

As seen in this picture, the bottom edge of the top lip is pitched up in a tent-like shape towards the middle. This is more visible when the mouth is open, and it causes the overall shape of the opened mouth to be more triangular, a bit like a cartoon cat mouth. The original version of the mouth didn't look like this (as seen in Shinjyu's video). When the mouth is stretched wide, the middle section of the top lip looks unnaturally stiff and seems to be positioned too high.

Additionally, the drawn-on shadows near the corners of the bottom lip create the appearance of strange indents on the bottom lip, and this becomes more obvious when the mouth is wide open. The shadows on the lips were mentioned previously in a post by Cheapshot, which also discusses many other alterations to female miqo'te face 4. The following quote is only a small portion of the post, which I would encourage anyone to read if they want to know more about the changes to this face:

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

https://i.imgur.com/ChgUy5F.png

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Originally Posted by Rueby

https://i.imgur.com/8yL7W5F.gif
https://i.imgur.com/HoQ8GCZ.png

Expansion : Stormblood
Quest : Silence in Three Parts
Cutscene No.1

I love the quality control here. The characters blink way too often that to me it's actually distracting, to top it off her eyelashes clip through her eyelid, and since she's blinking nonstop it's so obvious. Granted this is happening in this angle, but honestly, I don't want to check her other cutscenes because I'd rather not see the amazing quality that this update brought to our beloved characters.

I thought I couldn't be more disappointed in this graphical update, but here I am. It's really hard to remain positive about this since I doubt any of it will get 'fixed', everytime I submit a bug report they say not enough information. What more would they possibly need then the issue is right there??

I know I'm abit emotional but all I had left in this game was my character, my house and the unending journey to see my favorite characters that the writers obviously hate.

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Her face, like many other NPC's with unique faces from previous expansions, hasn't been touched. It remains to be seen if it ever will be, but I believe the official word was that these NPCs would be updated later, while player characters (and consequently, NPCs who use the same features) remained the priority.

Before the update, for example, my catboy had a similar (though less drastic) issue. Below, you can see that his lashes clipped through the inner corner of the eyelid.

https://i.imgur.com/7acbSoc.png

And an old bug report shows the same thing happening on at least one other face.

I haven't taken new screenshots, but this was one thing that I would actually define as "fixed" by the update, probably by the way they rotated the lashes on many faces. Regardless of the how or why, though, it no longer occurs on my miqo'te. It's possible Yotsuyu's issue may be addressed as well, assuming they actually update her mesh someday, but who knows.

I said this earlier, in response to a post about Ryne (whose mesh hasn't been updated either), but I do wish we could've just gotten visual bugs like that addressed without completely -- and unfaithfully -- reconstructing our faces. So many of us would've been happy with no more than that, upscaled textures, and better lighting lol.

I wish I had a video saved of face 3, mouth 3 moon keeper miqo because the emotes now looks so off :/

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Originally Posted by Turnintino

Snip

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That's really interesting...I only ever used M Miqo Face 1, F Aura Face 2 and F Miqo Face 4...I never noticed any glaring issues. Honestly the pictures of your catboy look...alright to me, I had to look closely to see it. Not to say it's not there but yeah.

I found Pre DT vid of this cutscene....approximately same-ish part though I had it paused. You can see everytime she blinks her lashes sit well on her eyelids and don't stab them. If this issue existed when I did the SB msq I would've been so annoyed by it. She blinks way too often now that it's actually weird/distracting. I think this 'touch of realism' was unnecessary and looks jarring given the game's style imo...I wish it was a toggle of some sort but I doubt such a thing is possible.

https://youtu.be/aLlp4asWdVg?si=KeZrTcK3fDR5QMop&t=350

I'm not experienced enough to tell you what's going on or what went wrong. I'm terrified of looking up close at Zenos actually, I know he had some kind of upscale because his ear doesn't suffer from the intense artifacting it did before, but I'm not too worried about him because Zenos as a whole is a unique model...

I don't know why they rushed it aside from knowing that DT is a weak entry and needs something to 'hype' it up and/or bring more people in with 'new' not outdated graphics. ShB rode on the back of the SB set up, EW on 10 year build up....DT? Emet told you to look forward to it and graphical update. I'm really disappointed. I had such low expectations from the MSQ going forward after EW, but the graphical update and how altered our characters are made me not want to do the MSQ or look at my character much.

I wish they gave it more thought/time..or let players test and give feedback. Show us a sign that we're being heard rather than this sensation of 'it's all pointless'. I would've been fine if this game wasn't story driven, if you didn't get attached to your character or other characters in the story or the world around us. Literally the first MMO that didn't make me think 'eh, my char is something to dress up and I'll hardly look or care to look at her often. I haven't found a game that does this, the way this game does.

I'm sure there are merits to this graphical update and perhaps with time it'll get better....but could we at least have gotten our characters' defining features back...

Some head pieces no longer fit on your head depending on your race. Noticed that some of my head gear is just floating away from my miqo's head. Can't get a photo to upload to show what I mean.

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Originally Posted by Moonfallen

I wish I had a video saved of face 3, mouth 3 moon keeper miqo because the emotes now looks so off :/

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here it is, my good friend.

https://youtu.be/WSgx3OAyLhU

I need more physic jigglies on Viera ears

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Originally Posted by shinjyu

here it is, my good friend.

https://youtu.be/WSgx3OAyLhU

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Ah thank you so much my friend! I miss my old face and emotes!

I like the update. I think it looks fine. It certainly doesn't seem as major as they were hyping it up to be though. It's still an upgrade, but I feel it was a bit over-hyped especially given how much time was dedicated to talking about it during Live Letters.

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Originally Posted by Conroy

Really shouldn't be able to see a seam on my neck in cutscenes... There wasn't ever a seam before.

Still the complaint of lifeless lips just smacked onto me.

https://i.vgy.me/moSG65.png

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The neckseam is so bad on some races it should be it's own thread with a clear title regarding it.

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Originally Posted by Argasun

The neckseam is so bad on some races it should be it's own thread with a clear title regarding it.

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It'd be really funny if the body updates manage to make them worse.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

It'd be really funny if the body updates manage to make them worse.

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Not sure but there are clear gaps where you can see light shining through on some races, or severe indentations like they quickly joined meshes or something without making anything smooth. Bizarre.

In relation to facial expressions being weird or broken now, I got around to looking at Female Au Ra's forehead scale (can't remember if i mentioned it in this thread but either way) and can confirm that yes it is now moving abnormally.

Bit difficult to portray this issue in a photo so here's what it's doing in 7.0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faiKCyp6uV4 (and here's what it was like in 6.5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVWpYvbvPtE)

Reported it as a bug but thought I would share it here, thankfully I recorded my 6.5 face's expressions ahead of time.

I also feel like the forehead scale has been moved more upwards as opposed to being in the center (might have to check this myself though). I would also appreciate any input from other Female Au Ra players if your forehead scales are moving around as I haven't made any characters using the other faces to check.

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Originally Posted by lunartears

In relation to facial expressions being weird or broken now, I got around to looking at Female Au Ra's forehead scale (can't remember if i mentioned it in this thread but either way) and can confirm that yes it is now moving abnormally.

Bit difficult to portray this issue in a photo so here's what it's doing in 7.0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faiKCyp6uV4 (and here's what it was like in 6.5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVWpYvbvPtE)

Reported it as a bug but thought I would share it here, thankfully I recorded my 6.5 face's expressions ahead of time.

I also feel like the forehead scale has been moved more upwards as opposed to being in the center (might have to check this myself though). I would also appreciate any input from other Female Au Ra players if your forehead scale is moving around as I haven't made any characters using the other faces to check.

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This looks very strange to me, it feels oddly hm...stretchy? Like a tattoo almost. I don't know but what I'm seeing is that its shape deforms abit with brow movements due to how 'expressive' they decided to make the facial expressions...

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Originally Posted by lunartears

Snip!

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My video isn't nearly as good as yours sadly cause PS5 recording stinks sometimes, but you can see the forehead scale is definitely moving with emotes that have bigger eyebrow movements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9WmgGiReTM

Au Ra Raen Face 2.

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Originally Posted by smitten_miquitten

I looked at some Endwalker pics, and gosh the eyebrow color change is such a bother. They're just invisible comparatively. Some comparison pics (sorry they're not as good. The emotes don't really look quite the same anymore so it's harder to get matching angles).I know the skintone is different, I changed it to a bit warmer for Dawntrail, so don't mind that.

Endwalker
https://i.imgur.com/6BXyfPG.jpeghttps://i.imgur.com/C9VABvD.jpeg

Dawntrail
https://i.imgur.com/7HtE6s7.jpeghttps://i.imgur.com/BgzftKG.jpeg

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Hey there ! I've been following your bug reports since Benchmark 1.1, I have the same issue as you with my miqo'te and I'm devastated.

I just can't start the MSQ with that face... I even had the early access, but come on... cutscenes looking eyebrowless?? No way!

I also tried the other faces and the other tribe and just as you said, it feels so unfair that we're the only one with this issue ; and since the same face for the Seekers have eyebrows that looks just fine/other faces have the right color, I'm convinced it's a bug, not a choice. Even more when you see that in Benchmark 1.0, there was no issue with that.

EW Face :
https://file.garden/ZjISrNClQA2p3WyJ...u/neyin6.5.PNG

Benchmark 1.0 Face :
https://file.garden/ZjISrNClQA2p3WyJ...drftujrtyu.png

DT :
https://file.garden/ZjISrNClQA2p3WyJ...lu/uglyass.PNG

I was so happy with 1st Benchmark....


My other complain is about emotes/face in general, as many : I have to change so many portraits because now they looked super weird. For instance the taunt emote looks dumb now for some reason and gives a super puffy face.

I don't have an HQ version of it in EW since I could'nt possibly think I would need to take a proper screenshot of it before DT (it's from team portraits so it is small),
but here is a comparison of my BM portrait in EW vs in DT, using the taunt emote :

https://file.garden/ZjISrNClQA2p3WyJ...lu/smirkew.png https://file.garden/ZjISrNClQA2p3WyJ...ylu/smirk2.png

DT just gives "i'm so tired huhu" vibes... ugh (and eyebrows gone on vacations doesn't help ovbiously)
I don't have screens of the worst portait because I changed it right away, it looked terrible after DT (but again the same tired vibe & puffy).


So in conclusion, my character in DT looks now eyebrowless and like a hamster with cheeks filled with food, and I should do MSQ looking like this? Heck no!


How can we make things change and reach SE efficiently?? I'm desperate...... Feels like they don't care about those bug reports
Is there anyone talking about the eyebrows in the japanese bug report forum?

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Originally Posted by Neytirhi

Benchmark 1.0 Face :
https://file.garden/ZjISrNClQA2p3WyJ...drftujrtyu.png

DT :
https://file.garden/ZjISrNClQA2p3WyJ...lu/uglyass.PNG

I was so happy with 1st Benchmark...

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The first benchmark was so much more flattering on Miqo'te. :(

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Originally Posted by Neytirhi

I also tried the other faces and the other tribe and just as you said, it feels so unfair that we're the only one with this issue ; and since the same face for the Seekers have eyebrows that looks just fine/other faces have the right color, I'm convinced it's a bug, not a choice. Even more when you see that in Benchmark 1.0, there was no issue with that.

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I really really hope they actually read my new bug and either make it the main one instead of my old bug for benchmark 2, or add the Seeker vs Keeper info to the old one if they won't swap them. I'm really worried they'll go "Dupe!" and yeet it without reading that there's new relevant info that I can't add to the original bug (such a silly policy imo, why is adding new stuff not possible?).

After work I'm going to get screenshots for different eyebrow colors too. All of the Keeper ones go greyish as they get lighter it seems like, not just white and blonde.

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Originally Posted by Argasun

The neckseam is so bad on some races it should be it's own thread with a clear title regarding it.

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Was in a Ruby Weapon farm today and noticed that for whatever reason Nael also suffers from this?
https://i.imgur.com/2ndWbO4.png

It has been a long time since I ran that trial but I genuinely don't remember her having that and am completely lost how this even is translating to unique models.

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Originally Posted by GreenLeafy

Was in a Ruby Weapon farm today and noticed that for whatever reason Nael also suffers from this?
https://i.imgur.com/2ndWbO4.png

It has been a long time since I ran that trial but I genuinely don't remember her having that and am completely lost how this even is translating to unique models.

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Feels like someone hit sharpen (ENHANCE!) like 20 times on her head...I can see the artifacting lmao....Feels like AI upscaling at this point...

I couldn't find a good picture of her face that's HQ but I found this. What did they do to my babygirl...

Forum apparently hates this link https://huiji-public.huijistatic.com...9%E5%86%99.png

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Originally Posted by Neytirhi

I'm convinced it's a bug, not a choice. Even more when you see that in Benchmark 1.0, there was no issue with that.

[snip]

I was so happy with 1st Benchmark....

How can we make things change and reach SE efficiently?? I'm desperate...... Feels like they don't care about those bug reports
Is there anyone talking about the eyebrows in the japanese bug report forum?

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So, I can offer some kind of extra information that might help out your bug reports. It’s not that there was no problem in the first benchmark, it’s that there was the opposite problem. When they replaced the brow textures (with one the same resolution for some reason??) brows became too light. So they were more visible than they used to be on darker skin but looked completely awful on lighter skin. The devs did respond to complaints but their fix seems to have just been make them even darker than originally so they’re almost invisible on dark skin now.

One thing I’ve noticed is how flat the brow texture looks and I wonder if that’s part of it? It feels like there were multiple tones in the brow as well as different levels of transparency pre DT. Maybe some alpha info and maybe a secondary overlay were originally there and lost in the update? Or maybe the pre DT eyebrows struck a balance that they are finding themselves unable to recreate (probably not helped by lack of QA). I don’t know I’m just speculating on that.

Im kinda personally wondering why they can’t just use the old brow textures that worked? Same with the eyelashes. The new textures aren’t higher resolution so what was the point? Change for no reason.

Yeah they did that to mine when I tried to make a new post about it :(

It may help to add more screenshots? Like I added several from Pre-Dawntrail. Granted they used Gpose filters (I'm on PS5) but the difference is still huge!
Pre Dawntrail
https://i.imgur.com/ZzjK743.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/irn7xhV.png

Dawntrail
https://i.imgur.com/LI9CzH7.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/05pq2DT.png

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

So, I can offer some kind of extra information that might help out your bug reports. It’s not that there was no problem in the first benchmark, it’s that there was the opposite problem. When they replaced the brow textures (with one the same resolution for some reason??) brows became too light. So they were more visible than they used to be on darker skin but looked completely awful on lighter skin. The devs did respond to complaints but their fix seems to have just been make them even darker than originally so they’re almost invisible on dark skin now.

One thing I’ve noticed is how flat the brow texture looks and I wonder if that’s part of it? It feels like there were multiple tones in the brow as well as different levels of transparency pre DT. Maybe some alpha info and maybe a secondary overlay were originally there and lost in the update? Or maybe the pre DT eyebrows struck a balance that they are finding themselves unable to recreate (probably not helped by lack of QA). I don’t know I’m just speculating on that.

Im kinda personally wondering why they can’t just use the old brow textures that worked? Same with the eyelashes. The new textures aren’t higher resolution so what was the point? Change for no reason.

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I'm hoping they make them match what Seekers of the Sun have. Those seem totally fine! They don't seem to have any problem being visible on light or dark skin.

I watched a comparison of a cutscene of before and after the graphics update, and the new lighting really ruins the scene. The shadows are much lighter or nonexistent seemingly non existent.

https://youtu.be/U2C2lWKvycY?si=zmkG0YN2-rJDQ8UD

https://i.imgur.com/zOh7Sxn.png

The table seems less detailed.

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

I noticed that night time and dark areas in ARR zones don't feel as dark as they used to either. This is a good video comparing a lot of old areas before and after https://youtu.be/2aUOQeVF7EU?si=JNA_qtPohD9rgW0h

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

The glow effects from some objects like the crystals at Urth's Fount also look worse.

https://i.imgur.com/Lx4lnlU.png

The graphics update hurt the art direction of some of the old content, imo.

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Originally Posted by Nitelancer

The graphics update hurt the art direction of some of the old content, imo.

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Probably my biggest issue with this update right after how poorly player characters were handled. Art direction across the board is just in shambles.

Like what is this? Lmao

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Originally Posted by Emoo

＜2.0MSQ「エオルゼアの明日のために」香煙の間の提督＞
https://i.gyazo.com/b60f1ebd0b7e3546...12a6cb1757.png

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Originally Posted by GreenLeafy

Like what is this? Lmao

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So that's the Dawntrail "glow-up" everyone keeps mentioning!

Any word on if they will be touching things up? My Vieras face, especially the lips are really off

I want my lips back. Female Miqo'te Face 3 Mouth 4. Please give them back. PLEASE YOSHI P! RESTORE MY LIPS and then make whatever you replaced them with into A NEW FACE / MOUTH OPTION. I am so sad about this. Why did you have to ruin my face and mouth just to add yours? Why can't you give mine back!? I feel betrayed.