Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

- Before Dawntrail -
https://ia902906.us.archive.org/12/i...6269716580.png
My character is supposed to be the representation of my ideals.
https://ia800409.us.archive.org/18/i...5809489960.png
I log out of the game while lookin like this.
So, imagine waking up to a body that isn't yours.
https://ia902906.us.archive.org/12/i...8575510580.png
Well, I guess there goes my pre-order early access money, oh well~
https://ia902906.us.archive.org/12/i...8723956809.png
Then I tried to use create new character to double check that after the changes my current lip is still the thinnest lip possible (the character concept my character is based on has marker line mouth a.k.a. a single line as a mouth) and sure enough, changing it to anything else makes it even bigger. Grilled sausages.
https://ia902906.us.archive.org/12/i...9167192185.png
So since fantasia won't fix it, I tried bothering Jandelaine and oh hey at least I can change my lip color to match my skin color ... and then I realized the next problem. The eyes.
https://ia902906.us.archive.org/12/i...8942929931.png
Sorry, I don't have a lot of pics that show the old looks readily available to post.
https://ia902906.us.archive.org/12/i...2141769748.png
The old eyes look more serious and focused and "madge" but after the update im just expressionless and deadfish. And fantasia can't fix it because my eye option is already the most pronounced option both pre-update and post-update. Why are the corners of my eyes lowered? This eye option was already supposed to have eyes with corners higher than the center of the top lid. Also face paint looks really flat and the texture is very ... no static? (think static on a TV screen)

Also if there is any way to turn off lip gloss while retaining the ability to dye the lips same as skin color would be good (because that was what it looked like pre-update)

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Originally Posted by SchwarzwaelderTorte

.... On the JP forums they organized a new proper feedback, no discussion thread immediately and said "We appreciate your cooperation in the international area." so I wanted to see how things were going here, but I don't know how we're supposed to organize ourselves when everyone is being extremely emotional in their posts across several random threads without considering how difficult it's going to be to report proper feedback, and people who don't care can't resist posting anyway.

Ughhhhh.

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I think that some people will express distraught initially but then write feedback, so don't lose all hope in the English-speaking side. Worst case scenario, we can just post over there with common sense and DeepL.
I will apologise for the display earlier in my post if it personally annoyed you, as I had posted it the very second I saw everything. How I feel hasn't really changed and I of course intend to write feedback but I also think that raw feelings are expected and valid too in this situation (especially for those seeing the changes for the first time).

As I have written feedback several times during the benchmark about the exact same problems, it's a bit difficult to figure out a way to describe the changes in a unique way a third time. When I am ready and have got my head together, I intend to continue to provide feedback. I would urge others to do the same if you cannot get used to or come to terms with the changes to your characters. It might seem futile as 7.0 has launched but I believe that if the discussion stays alive, it may be possible that we could get some adjustments in the near future. At least now that it's in the live game we can get some better photos.

Personally, I find myself really frustrated with the idea that we need to be diplomatic with our feedback or the devs won't take it into account. Like, of course people are going to be in heightened emotional states over this. If I give a detailed list of points of feedback with traces and labels, like I have in previous posts, why should it matter if I also say "this sucks and I hate it"

It is definitely something off with the lighting. I used a retainer fantasia to do character creation and load my pre-save of my character from EW, first benchmark, and second benchmark. The lighting in character creation is amazing of course and my character looks like she did in the updated benchmark and I was happy with how she looked. Upon accepting her appearance and summoning her in game however is where the issue lies. She looks completely different than what I created in character creation. Something with the lighting is off that is making her absolutely hideous in game. I have come to the conclusion that right now, there are no changes for me to personally make to better my character to how I want her especially since it seems the lighting in game is not up to par with the lighting in the character creation screen. I have tried tinkering with my own settings as well in hopes that maybe it is just my graphics settings and the new settings they added, but that is also not the case. All we can do is wait and see.

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Originally Posted by ShizuForever

Then I tried to use create new character to double check that after the changes my current lip is still the thinnest lip possible (the character concept my character is based on has marker line mouth a.k.a. a single line as a mouth) and sure enough, changing it to anything else makes it even bigger. Grilled sausages.

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I'm not using the thinnest lips possible for my character but I relate to you with the "marker mouth", the lips I had before weren't necessarily "thin" but they were "small" or rather "neutral", they just had a nice plain appearance - nothing too fancy or over the top. I concealed them as much as possible in the game before but as the graphics have changed I can't achieve the plain neutral glossy look I had before. I checked the thinnest lip option on Au Ra to see if I could fantasia maybe just for the MSQ and it made my character look like she had a wide :| face which just didn't really suit. I also agree about making your character a representation of ideals, I made my main character kind of as a fantasy self-insert rather than a separate being so it's very off-putting having it had an uninvited plastic surgery visit over night.

I need to take a proper 7.0 shot with a direct match to previous shots (vs this one I did at 4am) but yeah uh.

Femroe aren't doing crash hot, especially not hellguard. As a clan they might as well not exist? Which is horrific to say but it's how it feels because our actual racial defining traits are almost nonexistant.

https://i.imgur.com/J4jk12U.jpeg

I love missing normal maps! I love having a random baked in brow shadow that is meant to have a normal map under it that makes the character look like she's got contour smeared on her brow that she didn't smooth properly :/

Black pupils for femroe genuinely have ruined the visual aesthetic across both clans, the slight tweak to the eyeshape I used on Sko has made it less heavily lidded but given male roegadyn face 2 has the coloured pupils still and all the women got shaved features and more hyuran or doll-like visuals (face 3 especially for that one) it's a bit ridiculous...

This is from benchmark but I checked in live 7.0 last night and save for some colour adjustments (a bit richer for the eyes) they do still have coloured pupils:
https://i.imgur.com/r3GiEit.png

The flat diffuse for the nose ash is still obliterated. It's basically not there on my 2nd character's face, and she has been dollified pretty heavily vs the aloof charm of face 3 originally. On Sko it's kinda there but if you're in the field in daylight it's just ... gone. Looks like a slightly more aggressive shadow or dirty mark vs. sacred ash. Ash on skin, made in a way to stick with a binder like oil which these would be... isn't that light. I find it kind of funny given their sudden push for 'realism' over the lovely stylisation we had that it's seen it get so light.

https://i.imgur.com/l284AIc.jpeg

I've a lot more JP posting in my future about this.

We're the smallest played clan but we deserve some actual care too.

I would like to share my opinion on this as well. I really feel like this is not the same character as I remembered. A lot has changed for the Au Ra but the issue is definitely the eyes. The highlights are lacking and the pupils are significantly larger, which really changes the character. She looks quite dead inside. :(

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

All of my portraits are messed up and adjusting the lighting does not help. My mood towards playing has really fallen. They need to fix this. I really wish they would honour the original design and simply improve texture quality. /pray

So I’ve taken all day at work to process the initial shock of changes. I admit, loosing aspects of my character I’ve come to love (specifically the eye intensity and radiant glow) still sting. At the same time, however, I’m forced to ponder that. . .I don’t think the devs did this at ALL with malicious intent. Just the opposite, they were trying to boost the standard to make things visually even more appealing. Yes, mistakes were made, and if they knew this would be the outcome, it’s most likely they’d have done a few things differently. It’s difficult sometimes, but check people’s motives. If they’re genuinely trying to help, give ‘em credit.

Not everything turned out bad either. You mid and Highlander Hyurs are absolutely friggin BEAUTIFUL, like insanely so, and you miqo are downright yummy too. Stubbornly staying femroe til hell freezes over, you sexy hroth mamas be damned! Hmph!

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Originally Posted by ShizuForever

- Before Dawntrail -

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Ah, you have the same face/eye set I do. The 1.0 benchmark the eyes looked fine, but the 1.1 made them look weird. :( The 6.58 version eyes had shading along the water line (where the eyelashes are on the bottom) and it's missing in DT, which makes it look really jarring, and so it makes the lashes on the bottom look like a bad fake lash glue job. It is my only complaint for my character, I like the rest of how she looks, but the one issue with the eyes is messing with me. I submitted it THREE TIMES to the bug report forum, with the first two being rejected despite the info that I had to include being... useless to the actual complaint, but because it got held up like that, I think it wasn't fixed in time. I'm hoping some fixes come in hotfixes and future patches so we're all happy with our character's looks. :)

https://i.imgur.com/hH1nwGV.png

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Originally Posted by Vandi

So I’ve taken all day at work to process the initial shock of changes. I admit, loosing aspects of my character I’ve come to love (specifically the eye intensity and radiant glow) still sting. At the same time, however, I’m forced to ponder that. . .I don’t think the devs did this at ALL with malicious intent. Just the opposite, they were trying to boost the standard to make things visually even more appealing. Yes, mistakes were made, and if they knew this would be the outcome, it’s most likely they’d have done a few things differently. It’s difficult sometimes, but check people’s motives. If they’re genuinely trying to help, give ‘em credit.

Not everything turned out bad either. You mid and Highlander Hyurs are absolutely friggin BEAUTIFUL, like insanely so, and you miqo are downright yummy too. Stubbornly staying femroe til hell freezes over, you sexy hroth mamas be damned! Hmph!

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Part of it is a rendering "issue" or new way of rendering things, if you disable ambiant occlusion and play with the self illumination / lightning setting you can almost, almost get back to where it was pre patch but there is no denying there is also a deliberate choice to change the topology and rotate sometimes eyes a certain way, make them more droopy / inclinated in ways that were not like that before, chins and noses, proportions of the face has sometimes changed, in subtle ways but anyone knowing the looks of their character prior to this and paying attention documented the topology changes, i wouldn't go buy illusion philters right now because i do believe that Square isn't as incompetent as to let things be this way, people come up with very objective proofs that their faces structure have been changed down to the topology / edgeloops slightly displaced here and there sometimes.

I will say, cranking Gamma (system settings > Display) all the way down to zero helps a little but also highlights the fact that all my issues are from huge changes to the face sculpt. I went for the last cutscene before DT for comparison shots to control for camera angle and lighting as much as possible.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/69c1b8ad...ce5edd1fde.pnj

It's not a bad face but it's not what I want at all. It's also 90% the change in mouth and lip shape/size although it would be nice to have a small pupil option as well.

And also I cannot bring up enough how absolutely ??? the decision to slap a hot pink overlay on everything labeled ear is. It's not always this bright but there is always at least some hot pink there even with only the faintest amount of back lighting. It's not even applied well since some of the glow ends up on thick parts where it absolutely shouldn't be. :/

https://64.media.tumblr.com/818d9884...8b31d58ed5.pnj

On a positive note: my lizard no longer has hot dog fingers which IS a QoL update I have wanted for forever.

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Originally Posted by Vandi

So I’ve taken all day at work to process the initial shock of changes. I admit, loosing aspects of my character I’ve come to love (specifically the eye intensity and radiant glow) still sting. At the same time, however, I’m forced to ponder that. . .I don’t think the devs did this at ALL with malicious intent. Just the opposite, they were trying to boost the standard to make things visually even more appealing. Yes, mistakes were made, and if they knew this would be the outcome, it’s most likely they’d have done a few things differently. It’s difficult sometimes, but check people’s motives. If they’re genuinely trying to help, give ‘em credit.

Not everything turned out bad either. You mid and Highlander Hyurs are absolutely friggin BEAUTIFUL, like insanely so, and you miqo are downright yummy too. Stubbornly staying femroe til hell freezes over, you sexy hroth mamas be damned! Hmph!

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Not sure which midlanders you're looking at, but I'm happy for them. Mine turned out so hideous that I keep instinctively turning my head away from the screen when her face shows up in a cutscene.

Don't get me wrong though, I never assumed malice on the devs part. I'm sure they did the best they could with the time and tools they had. It's just that their best, this time, sucks. Shoddy work coming from a team of professionals doesn't deserve credit, well-intentioned or not.

I want to take my time and do a very detailed breakdown of my face and give clear suggestions on what I think would improve it, but I still need to calm and rest before I do so. I want to put my best self to the task instead of the me still feeling very raw and mournful.

Just for now however, I wanted to bring attention to a problem I noticed with the eyes ahead of time, since this wont require much explanation or any comparisons.

https://i.imgur.com/S600SK1.png
I've been bothered by how grey the whites of the eyes are in Dawntrail, but I also noticed that my pupils were grey as well. My eyelashes appeared darker than my pupils! I was wondering why and I had a hunch so I tested it out and sure enough:

https://i.imgur.com/5YwhNP2.png
For some reason, pupil darkness is tied to eyecolor! The lighter the eye colour, the greyer the pupil with a slight tint depending on eyecolor. While this example may look cool as heck, I would say this is certainly not a good thing. The greyness of the eye whites, the greyness of the pupils, and the strong shadow cast by the upper eyelid combine to make eyes look very dull and lifeless. I hope that the greyness of eye whites can be cleared up and that pupils can be made consistently black to fix that.

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Originally Posted by Anneliese_Lev

I don't have evidence, but the more I think about it, it looks like it was "upgraded" using a light touch of AI.

That's a good explanation of why you would obtain "doll" faces in female models

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I've been pondering on this and... I think you might be right. Concerning the textures at least - I don't think AI is particularly advanced when it comes to 3D work.

My lip misalignment issue did sorta exist on the old normal maps; there appeared to be two lines that could be interpreted as the apex of the upper lip. It didn't register as an issue then because the models and textures were lower res and more stylised and there was no texturing on the lips to 100% define lips and skin.

As well as that, AI wouldn't know how to handle Roegadyn's brows so it would smooth out the inhuman creases on the nomal map, but it makes sense for diffuse maps to maintain more of their detail since they can contain freckles, tattoos, makeup or scars.

I can't fathom a human artist looking at roe face 2 right now and being proud of their work, nor of thinking "this looks good!", but a machine with lacking human oversight? Yeah, I can believe that.

As much as I as a game artist myself am loathe to assume the use of AI rather than actual human artist's love and care, it makes this bitter pill slightly easier to swallow - it's not a human maliciously deciding the least played race can remain ugly for all they care or some overworked soul going "eh, close enough", but rather a skeleton team relying on technology to do the work for them because they simply don't have the manpower to do it manually as fast as the higher-ups are requiring them to.

Either way, I still stand by the fact I think they should have taken a lot longer to do this upgrade. perhaps starting with environments and lighting and taken another year or a patch or two to do the characters right. It's really not that hard to just update the models and textures to a higher resolution but change nothing else, but it does take a lot of time, care and effort.

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Originally Posted by faiarrow

I find it kind of funny given their sudden push for 'realism' over the lovely stylisation we had that it's seen it get so light.

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Same, I play this game so that I don't have to look at real faces because I genuinely like anime faces over faces in real life. I actually can't hold eye contact with others IRL because I have a fear of realistic faces. I am genuinely contemplating stopping subscription if this doesnt get fixed by the time 7.1 comes out due to it just simply being impossible to do MSQ while having to keep convincing myself that these faces are not real. The NPCs' faces have all of a sudden became super realistic. Especially when they (and to an extension, the character that 'I' became since the "graphical """update"""") open their mouth the interior of the mouth with all the clarity is like super freaky. Please fix.

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Originally Posted by azaleai

I've been pondering on this and... I think you might be right. Concerning the textures at least - I don't think AI is particularly advanced when it comes to 3D work.

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Someone can fact-check me on this, but I remember an old interview (was it just before or just after EW launch?) where Yoshida talked about how they planned to upscale the textures, but because of the sheer volume of textures, would use AI with human touch-ups. I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: Couldn't find anything definitive about the new textures being AI (although it wouldn't surprise me), but I did get confirmation that the UI updates from 5.5 were AI scaled with human touch-ups: https://gamerescape.com/2021/04/12/s...ture-upgrades/

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

I've been bothered by how grey the whites of the eyes are in Dawntrail, but I also noticed that my pupils were grey as well. My eyelashes appeared darker than my pupils! I was wondering why and I had a hunch so I tested it out and sure enough:

https://i.imgur.com/5YwhNP2.png
For some reason, pupil darkness is tied to eyecolor! The lighter the eye colour, the greyer the pupil with a slight tint depending on eyecolor. While this example may look cool as heck, I would say this is certainly not a good thing. The greyness of the eye whites, the greyness of the pupils, and the strong shadow cast by the upper eyelid combine to make eyes look very dull and lifeless. I hope that the greyness of eye whites can be cleared up and that pupils can be made consistently black to fix that.

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This pupil color...situation existed before the graphics update. Some races were affected more than others. (Seems like the update made it more obvious, especially on moon miqo'te, with their large pupils.) In my opinion, very light eye colors have always looked strange and unearthly because of it. Though, some people do like it.

https://i.imgur.com/cQmEHsj.png https://i.imgur.com/ez0ZSkB.png


I don't have a old screen shot to compare so I was lucky that my profile has the old model still for comparison. The eye stripe face paint doesn't go up to the eyebrows with face model 1 anymore however it does it with the other models so not sure if its a bug or intended. Also the limbal rings are a lot dimmer than they used to be so the eyes feels more lifeless than before.

The update was a massive success on my end, it really feels like going from a mid 2000s game to a modern one
https://i.imgur.com/O2MPAb7.png
https://i.imgur.com/kLU1dVx.png

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Originally Posted by ConantSivrha

This pupil color...situation existed before the graphics update. Some races were affected more than others. (Seems like the update made it more obvious, especially on moon miqo'te, with their large pupils.) In my opinion, very light eye colors have always looked strange and unearthly because of it. Though, some people do like it.

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If it existed prior it wasn’t anywhere close to this pronounced. My character did not suffer from this problem before Dawntrail and v2 of the benchmark.

gonna be honest
the update makes me very sad https://files.catbox.moe/rzna1i.png
eyes and lips look odd in nearly every animation and face 3 used to come with a baked in matte lipstick that is now just the same shiny color as any other
if there was an option to use the old face id take it in a heartbeat
even though the ear thing they did is amazing

I'm quite disappointed by the changes to my Au Ra guy. He used to look very gentle before the DT update, but now he looks perpetually angry, even when smiling he has this stern frown on his eyebrows, his eyes seem to be a bit more squinted and over all just doesn't feel right at all. My sweet boy before and now after in DT

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Originally Posted by Cosmoz

https://i.imgur.com/cQmEHsj.png https://i.imgur.com/ez0ZSkB.png


I don't have a old screen shot to compare so I was lucky that my profile has the old model still for comparison. The eye stripe face paint doesn't go up to the eyebrows with face model 1 anymore however it does it with the other models so not sure if its a bug or intended. Also the limbal rings are a lot dimmer than they used to be so the eyes feels more lifeless than before.

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If you still have the EW benchmark you can recreate your old character there and take comparison screenshots.

Can I have my old lips and nose shading back please. The eyes look somehow dead too :<
https://i.postimg.cc/RV5kkn06/Screenshot-68-1.pnghttps://i.postimg.cc/wMJSt9wj/Screenshot-93-1.png

aw I was so excited to play Dawntrail only to log In and be met with a skinwalker trying to pass as my character, this kinda killed the hype for me honestly :/

I tried my best to salvage any pictures I had from before 7.0 so sorry If It's bad quality^^

https://i.imgur.com/09y7HVu.png
https://imgur.com/a/Vfck7YQ
https://i.imgur.com/oRD85nY.png
There's not much I can add other than what others have already said, Eyebrows aren't as full as before, Eye shape has been altered and just the way the shadows fall on the face Is pretty unflattering IMO.
Something I cant understant Is why they took the liberty to outright change the limited options we already have instead of adding these new altered shapes as options In the Char menu? surely they must've compared to the Endwalker version while developing and seen the jarring difference In our appearences? anyways.

Hopefully with time I can get used to the changes but honestly? My char Is just not appealing to me anymore wich was not what I expected going In to 7.0


(Thankfully I could screenshot a old portrait so I have a before and after, they all look like this now lol It's pretty bad)
https://i.imgur.com/0AlitBR.png

First time posting on here and forums In general so hope this makes sense lol

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Originally Posted by Game_Over

snip

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Love the combo of your name and your post lol. I've also had my character since 1.0 and I plan on making a comparison post later on but the fact of the matter is that they put more care and attention into DOWNGRADING the characters a decade ago for ARR than they did in this update. It's rushed and sloppy work. I don't really have hope they will fix anything and I have felt apathetic towards the game for a long time and also only have started to post due to this change, since the connection to my character was pretty much the main thing that kept me logging in. I know it's possible to attain the supposed goal of preserving the original appearances. If they were able to do it going from better to worse graphics in 2012 they can do it in 2024 with modern technology. It comes down to if the will (or budget?) is there.

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Originally Posted by Len_

I don't really have hope they will fix anything and I have felt apathetic towards the game for a long time and also only have started to post due to this change, since the connection to my character was pretty much the main thing that kept me logging in.

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I enjoy a lot of different aspects of this game; I raid, I craft, I make glams, I farm achivements, I run roulettes... I've got something like 18k hours wracked up across all my characters. I play daily; the only time over the past four? five? years I haven't logged in every day were when I had covid and had to quarantine away from my PC, and when I've been visiting family or friends. I work from home and I almost always have XIV open on another monitor for ambiance and chatting while I work on a different screen.

But... despite all of that. I can't bring myself to log in right now. My intital plan for early access was to do just enough MSQ to get to the new areas so I could craft and gather and deal with the cutscenes focusing on my character's messed up face another time, but it's just so depressing. I got to the new city, suffering all the way, and then I was told I couldn't leave yet and I would have to do more MSQ. I just logged off and haven't logged back in since.

I don't think it helps that the buildup for this expansion was rushed and the motivations aren't really clear. I was mainly looking forward to the graphics update until I saw the benchmarks... And since that I've just been dreading it. And now it's here.

This isn't the game I fell in love with. This isn't my character that I fell in love with, that I've got 700+ days of playtime on. It's not a story I'm attached to and it's not about a character I'm attached to anymore, just a weird almost-imitation that is vastly stylistically different that can't even make the same expressions anymore.

I knew I'd stop playing the game eventually, but I'd hoped it wouldn't come so soon and wasn't so... sour as this.

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Originally Posted by Anneliese_Lev

I don't have evidence, but the more I think about it, it looks like it was "upgraded" using a light touch of AI.

That's a good explanation of why you would obtain "doll" faces in female models

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I am not saying that I 100% agree with you, but it is the funny that you should mention it: a few years back my friends ran my character through a "yaasify"-filter and that looks not entirely dissimilar from the treatment my character got in 7.0...

I don't really seriously believe it that they used AI, but a part of me can kind of see the changes to many female Miqo'tes be akin to using a "make this a "pretty girl""-Instagram filter lol.

But at the same time, it would explain how they could so consistently misunderstand where the lips versus mouth folds were when translating from the original models...

Can someone explain why they've done this to the eyelids?

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...8b221438faa43&

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...b47fc4c281d17&

Why is the bottom eyelid so fat?!

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Originally Posted by noumen0nn

Not sure which midlanders you're looking at, but I'm happy for them. Mine turned out so hideous that I keep instinctively turning my head away from the screen when her face shows up in a cutscene.

Don't get me wrong though, I never assumed malice on the devs part. I'm sure they did the best they could with the time and tools they had. It's just that their best, this time, sucks. Shoddy work coming from a team of professionals doesn't deserve credit, well-intentioned or not.

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Both this and also it took me 5 hours of calming down to ensure my post earlier above had zero "undiplomatic" words so good for their hyurs but I literally cant start MSQ because I also have to turn away from my screen whenever I see myself in any bozja cutscenes (I resorted to using my early access time to at least do something productive such as getting every job to 100) so my sympathies to you.

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Originally Posted by ShizuForever

Same, I play this game so that I don't have to look at real faces because I genuinely like anime faces over faces in real life. I actually can't hold eye contact with others IRL because I have a fear of realistic faces. I am genuinely contemplating stopping subscription if this doesnt get fixed by the time 7.1 comes out due to it just simply being impossible to do MSQ while having to keep convincing myself that these faces are not real. The NPCs' faces have all of a sudden became super realistic. Especially when they (and to an extension, the character that 'I' became since the "graphical """update"""") open their mouth the interior of the mouth with all the clarity is like super freaky. Please fix.

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I agree, they said they didn't seek realism and I feel kinda lied about that too... the problem is its also uncanny realism, some parts more detailed like eyes and iris, and others retaining their "anime like" or "fantasy like" features which makes it even worse...

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


Ok so I managed to get the Endwalker benchmark to do a better comparison. Needless to say that I'm super disappointed with the Dawntrail one.

Nope, not the same... Before and after:

https://i.postimg.cc/NjhhrcPd/Male-elezen-before.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/NjR36z3B/Male-e...er-resized.jpg

I'll post my female Elezen when the lodestone picture refreshes.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

My seeker of the sun with Face 1 and Eye shape 6 has gone from stoic to stoned during the idle pose. It improves when using emotes, but the default face looks so vacant... Honestly not sure what to do to fix it.

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Agreed, the changes to lip shape and eye color make things different.


I'm going to provide my feedback on the male miqo'te face 1 with mouth 4, although some of it will likely apply to other faces, genders or races.

After playing for a bit, I'm getting more used to the changes but there's several issues I see:

- Eye color is faded and darker compared to before. This is the biggest issue in my opinion. While they made the eyes look better from the first benchmark version to the second, the color of the eyes is still faded and darker compared to before. I suppose it's because it doesn't have the extra luminosity it used to have.

However, the consequence is that the character still looks "dead inside". When very specific lighting conditions are met, the eyes look fine but these situations are not that common. This also happens when I check other characters. It's hard to see the color of the irises of Keepers sometimes, for instance.

Additionally, the slit pupils of Seekers are less prominent now and harder to see.

- Eyebrows are thinner and faded and so is their color. Our eyebrows are simply less noticeable than before and face 1 didn't have thick ones to begin with, thus worsening the situation. The color of the stubble for face 1 also looks a bit faded to me.

- I personally don't mind the changes to mouth 4 but I agree that it's a big difference.

What I do feel is that the idle pose for mouth 4 makes it look as if we're smiling now. I'm not too sure if it's due to the lip color I have or if it's just like this. When checking other characters, it seems alright but sometimes when I look at mine it feels like the expression has changed for mouth 4 from normal or slightly serious to slightly smiling.

Lip color is also different.

On another note, I'm very happy that we lost the lip gap that many other mouths also had. I do wish for them to include it as an option to appeal to those players that do want it back, particularly for specific female miqo'te players.

- I have noticed that Koana has special features despite otherwise being a normal male miqo'te with face 1. One of the features that bothers me the most though is the fact that he has lower eyelashes whose color match his hair. Why can't we have those too? We literally have no lower eyelashes at all.

- The low resolution textures are still there and should be fixed: on the sides of the face, below the lower eyelids (and the lower eyelids themselves), the male markings below the eyes and face paint.

- My portraits look very weird now. I don't know what it is but they feel off and the face emotes don't convey the same feeling they did before.

Overall, the textures and graphics are great but I still feel like there's several areas to improve on. A lot of the feedback from previous posts such as this one has not been addressed. Also, as I expected, the body being lower resolution is jarring now.

They did improve it a bit but it's far from what it should be. Fingers need more work but toes look great. I suppose it's because the former are more complex body parts due to their movement.

I will conclude by attaching my own two pictures below of the before and after for comparison.

https://i.imgur.com/BGiZv2C.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/XBkEVNg.png

Disheartened by the visual update, having used my AuRa for over 5 years, since I was gifted expansions up to Stormblood and going from trial to subscription (was Mi'qote but the one I made didn't resonate with me). Used the ARR quest reward fantasia and chose AuRa Face 3 and never looked back.

The visual update which I won't dispute looks great, especially the scales, face 3 doesn't look the same to me anymore. I think it's a mix of the eye shape, mouth and the philtrum being so pronounced on the face. Not sure if I'm the only one who thinks so?

Not sure how you guys are getting access to the old lodestone view to show better side by side but here are a couple side by side from me even if it doesn't show the 'update' in the best light.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...ality=lossless

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...ality=lossless

I don't really have anything to compare with but I'm quite happy with how the graphics update treated me. I didn't need to make any adjustments with my pre-launch fantasia at all!

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...d82cd52a47bb0&

Found some contour changes that makes my character different (in a bad way):
https://ia903407.us.archive.org/13/i...1389019147.png
This is me pre-graphical-updates above. The face bone is a V shape and there is no jutting out from the area just below the eyes.
https://ia903407.us.archive.org/13/i...5422492702.png
This is me post-graphical-updates. My face is swollen everywhere but most noticeable on the area just below the eyes. I did not change face type as that completely makes everything different. I noticed it because I had to change my skin color to match my previous skin tone because I'm supposed to be a magicked doll that has never seen sunlight like ever. (uses umbrellas if I must go outside)


Please either make a new copy of the old face types or like roll it back or change current ones to align with old curvature (more V sleek) as I cannot relate to the current face types and consequently cannot make any meaningful use of my pre-order early access money.

I used the free fanta to change to rava because the huge eyelids are less visible on them with the darker skin tones, but I just noticed that light really catches on them...
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...fa625474171cb&

Why are they this thick on vieras?!

I'm in the same boat, I was really excited for DT (especially getting a new story) and I can't even look at my character in cutscenes anymore. I tried to get over it, but I now just skip all the cutscenes because it's too sad to look at. Sure, we got free fantasia, but I was happy with her appearance and thus made my WoL look the way she looked. I will continue playing because I love the game, but at the same time I was very much attached to my old WoL too and have a hard time to "just deal with it". I hope that SE will keep working on the graphics, so I can look forward to getting my real WoL back!

EW left/top, DT right/bottom:

https://i.imgur.com/jIAunnm.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/ip7RSUY.png

https://i.imgur.com/Dng3fBp.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/sd9UmXw.png

I tried to fix it with make up, but I was shocked to see what my WoL looked like without it! https://i.imgur.com/gwewt0H.png

Please SE, give us the old models back as an extra-option in character creation, so that we can make our WoLs look again like they used to, but also give those who are happy with their updated WoL the choice to keep it as it is now. :(

I made a comment not long ago, but wasn't able to provide images. So I just wanted to upload one for people to see the difference. The angle of the camera has changed and it's closer, but everything else in the portrait is the same.

But you can see how awful it looks now. Aaagh! It's even worse in a lot of cutscenes.

Link if image doesn't show up here: https://i.imgur.com/C3xixei.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/C3xixei.jpg