Dawntrail Graphical Update - Au Ra Feedback

Please report the troll if you haven't already (it's the yellow triangle on the left under the post) before people actually take the bait.

The tribal hair that is made specifically for male Au Ra does not have any updates regarding their unique horns. Here are some screenshots to show the differences:

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

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

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

https://i.imgur.com/nCh2wQR.png

https://i.imgur.com/YIJo3fj.png

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

https://i.imgur.com/at4NRD8.png

I absolutely love the graphical update for the horns on the side of our heads, but I just noticed this while lurking in the character creator, and the differences are huge. Maybe the devs overlooked, but hopefully these hairstyles will be updated eventually.

Thank you.

EDIT: This is the same for Raen too. I just used Xaela for screenshot examples.

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Originally Posted by AstiSpumante

Looking at the OP's photo it looks like they took a picture of a screen for their current character which is what has added a little glow to things. It's not uncommon for console players to do.

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The point is that they took two pictures of the same character, both in the benchmark.

Lots of obvious giveaways even aside from the hair, but the main ones are the nose/nostrils, identical horn/scale textures, clothing texture, the small "jagged" edges along the neck scales, the eye/pupil/iris design, and the identical shape of the mouth. They just rotated the character slightly to move the background and brightened the left image.

Not funny, not productive or helpful, but for some reason some people are determined to try to invalidate or belittle the concerns of others. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Originally Posted by karadazkar

The point is that they took two pictures of the same character, both in the benchmark.

Lots of obvious giveaways even aside from the hair, but the main ones are the nose/nostrils, identical horn/scale textures, clothing texture, the small "jagged" edges along the neck scales, the eye/pupil/iris design, and the identical shape of the mouth. They just rotated the character slightly to move the background and brightened the left image.

Not funny, not productive or helpful, but for some reason some people are determined to try to invalidate or belittle the concerns of others. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Ah looking at the curve of the cheek and eye shines you're right thanks for pointing it out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gember

The tribal hair that is made specifically for male Au Ra does not have any updates regarding their unique horns. Here are some screenshots to show the differences:

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

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

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

https://i.imgur.com/nCh2wQR.png

https://i.imgur.com/YIJo3fj.png

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

https://i.imgur.com/at4NRD8.png

I absolutely love the graphical update for the horns on the side of our heads, but I just noticed this while lurking in the character creator, and the differences are huge. Maybe the devs overlooked, but hopefully these hairstyles will be updated eventually.

Thank you.

EDIT: This is the same for Raen too. I just used Xaela for screenshot examples.

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It's the same for the female Au Ra exclusive hairstyles too. None of the hairstyles with additional horns have been updated, which is especially jarring when compared to the lovely new facial horn textures. I hope that if they do update the hairstyle-specific horns, they will also make them match in color to the facial horns and scales. I love my Au Ra's choppy hair and additional horns to the point where I refuse to change her hairstyle to anything else, but I've always found it a bit jarring that they don't match in color to her off-white facial horns/scales.

Taking a look at the fem Au Ra face 1 lips all together, I'm really surprised by how much the upper lip shape has changed over all 4 options. The wide curved cupid's bow was pretty consistent across them, and while it kind of remains in the 4th benchmark option, it's still pretty softened up. The lack of shadows on the lines between the lips also changes the appearance quite a bit, the slight pursed expression the shadow gave felt like it gave a lot of character to their faces when they weren't actively emoting

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

This is a bit of an aside since I'm mostly commenting on the lips here, but the rounding and lowering of the nostrils kind of disappoints me. I know people tend to consider face 1 the 'pretty' face, and this might be just a personal opinion, but the nostrils slanted upwards like that always reminded me of snake faces, and I liked that it felt a bit less human like. It's cute, and it gives a slightly uncanny feel to my girl, but I don't get that same feeling with the benchmark, it's a lot more human (and uncanny to me in a different way lol)

I don't think the character creator is capable of dividing hairstyles by subrace, so instead we get horns that don't quite match either clan but could ostensibly belong to both of them. Small indie company, please understand, et cetera et cetera. I've never liked it myself but you can't fault the graphical update here. We probably won't see this change until character creation is overhauled (and even then, we still might not get it).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by smashBG

I don't think the character creator is capable of dividing hairstyles by subrace, so instead we get horns that don't quite match either clan but could ostensibly belong to both of them. Small indie company, please understand, et cetera et cetera. I've never liked it myself but you can't fault the graphical update here. We probably won't see this change until character creation is overhauled (and even then, we still might not get it).

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Oh yeah, I didn't think about how the colors would have to be divided by subrace. Perhaps it would be more feasible for any hairstyle (regardless of race/subrace) that has a hair accessory (like a brooch, hair tie, flowers, ribbons, additional horns, etc.) to gain a third color selector to change the color of the accessory. I've always found it a bit strange that some hairstyles have beautiful permanent accessories, but they can't really be edited or adjusted to fit with different character aesthetics or glamours.

Regardless, I doubt we will get any changes to the color of the hairstyle exclusive horns (or any other hairstyle-locked accessories) since that's more of a change to the character creator rather than a graphical update -- it's just some very wishful thinking on my part. I'd still like to see the actual texturing/modeling on the hairstyle-horns updated though, since the hairstyles themselves have already been updated and are looking pretty nice (albiet, a bit less brightly colored and shiny).

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Originally Posted by Kimeraandrel

Snip

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Hello, I'd like to tell you it's a troll post that you're responding to. It's best not to feed them and move on rather than diluting the feedback. While I know you were engaging with them in good faith- they weren't intending on engaging with anyone in good faith! Keep the amazing feedback rolling.

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Originally Posted by CecMiller

The only part I disagree with is that they greatly improved the eyes. The eyes look much worse in the benchmark here for me personally - they are less sharp and the pupils are massive and it looks more dead than before. I think for some, the blending of the umbral ring is more of a hit or miss - some love it, others hate it and prefer the harsher contrast/border. The red colour is more washed out so you have to select a brighter red to get the same effect. Currently in EW, you can have a deep, but also bright colour for the umbral rings, but now you either choose a watered down colour compared to current options or go for the brighter options which are not as deep as before. Not sure why they changed the colour options to the point that if you import your current character, you have to change the eye colour to get the same effect.

Would be nice to have an option, but I think the massive pupils look significantly worse personally. I'm hoping they give us an option to customize the shape of the pupil.

Overall, I think the graphics direction also resulted in a style change where the au ra were made to look more "cutesy" resulting in changes such as much larger pupils which isn't a graphics update, but a style change and not really what people were expecting.

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This is fair, when I say the eyes are improved, I mean mostly the limbal ring and iris texture. The limbal ring makes the eyes glow now, or can match and just brighten the limbal ring itself with no glow. The eye also appears to have a visible, reflective cornea with the iris as a 'flat' muscle, like it actually is.

And I agree they did make them a lot more cutesy, but they did it by copying the japanese doll aesthetic, which is extremely noticeable in the permanently puckered lips. I posted it in another thread but, no, really. Japanese doll.

https://texancultures.utsa.edu/wp-co...0/i-0277n3.jpg

Puckered lips, rounded face. We can disagree on the eyes, that's fine. I had larger eyes regardless. But the puckered lips look atrocious when I never had those initially. I can get used to a wider face and softer features even though that's not what I wanted for the character. Those lips kill it outright.

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Originally Posted by Ariel_Wind

Hi everyone, here to give feedback as well.

I need the devs to know that I love their work and that I also play a femroe with a darker skintone and she looks absolutely stunning in the benchmark. But my main is an au ra and here she is:

https://i.postimg.cc/GH6B23TP/au-ra-face-6-point-58.png https://i.postimg.cc/DJC0K7KX/au-ra-face-7-point-0.png

Left is her face now as of 6.58 / right is her face in the benchmark.

This is face 4 / Mouth 4. For some reason the benchmark makes her look lifeless. My main issue is with the lips, I don't know why they got bigger like that. As other people have noted face 4 got rounder and so the character looks less fierce and imo the shadows look... strange. I also take issue with her new skin/eye color but I found that I can achieve the original look by changing colors slightly.

In the benchmark cutscenes those issues were less visible so maybe it's also a question of lighting and facial expression. But I still wanted to report on that!

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Looking at it, I'd say the eyes look more dead primarily because of the eyebrows. They're higher up, less fierce, more neutral. They're also darker but the face as a whole is also darker. And, unlike you, I can't fix my skin tone because it was already at the extreme of its category, so I have no hope to fix it. I just have yellower skin now. I'll need to grab a comparison later.

1st set of photos are side by sides of my character ported into the Benchmark via Save data. No changes made YET.
The top of the square is 7.0, bottom is what we have in game rn.

The face seems shorter, rounder? Outer eye corners lack original wing making eyes look massively bigger/rounded. Bottom inside corner used to have this little swoop & now the whole eye is just round? The black in the pupil is HUGE, this combined w/ new Limbal rings washes out over all color of the eye especially w/ this new starburst like pattern that is happening. The color is gone.
Nose looks upturned, assuming due to shadows?
Mouth shape is fundamentally different now making her look so much different. The outside corners mouth no longer look elongated, looks like her mouth just got cut off at the ends abruptly. Her cupids bow is gone. Color of the lipstick is also now this new matte?
I don't mind the matte but wish there was an option to have both a matte & glassy lipstick option because the new color combined w/ the new lip makes her look completely different.
The T zone where her cheeks are shaped & meet her nose have lost their angularness, again it's more rounded, it feels like her face got smooshed to me. Especially around the top part of the cheek face scales & where the eyes meet her bangs/hair line. She is round anime like, no defining bone structure or features.
When I look at her new form it just doesn't feel like home to me. Tbh I think I cried twice out of frustration during character creator trying to get her to look how she has always looked to me.

2nd set of photos are after making some changes in the character creator to try to achieve something that looks more like my character.

Had to change the color of both eyes. Left hand eye that is green w/ the limbal ring had to go over to the left 1 slot, same with the limbal ring. The gradient affect I have going originally just did not translate over. I also had to change her right hand blue eye 1 slot up as it had more greenish tone in it now rather than blue. I had to switch off of the lipstick as it was too dark for her in both the color & the matte.
Anytime I tried to change anything physical other than the coloring it feels like she gets more & more muddled & lost in translation so altering the colors & hoping this is not the final product is the best I can do.

The other 2 photos are just again side by sides of old vs new.

Some other things to mention:

Skin is too shiny. What will it look like with the wet filter on in gpose.
Scales have a strange cut out seem around them & for darker colors this translates even worse.
Raen scales look worse than the Xaela scales texture wise. The Raens scales are losing their golden bone like hue. They now look like a dried out sand dollar to me. They're more white?
Color swatches in general for eyes, lips, hair seem like they have been mixed around.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/5378892/

Here we are. Disregard the hair color and style in general. It's a hair I do use but I didn't load them saved so it might be the wrong exact color. Moving on.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...7cc184d00440f&

Well, I guess the hair is also less shiny, YMMV if you don't like that. Note, no reshade is used here, this is vanilla in-game.

The right limbal ring was turned off to show there is a limbal ring. I can brighten it and achieve a similar effect to HW-era limbal ring, not a real problem. Eyebrows are different, a little bit higher, more 'bright-eyed.' Cheeks are 'puffier.' I guess more full would be a more accurate description. The lips are puckered but about the same width, but the jaw is softer and more rounded, and the chin through cheeks is a little bit wider. The skin color is noticeably a few shades yellower, there is no way to fix that.

The spikes on the cheek look different, and the butterfly, despite looking sharper, has a weird, rough edge at the bottom of it. Horns in general look vastly better, except complaints about not being sharp enough.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...0f8449c85507b&

Here we have a front-side profile. The tip of the horn is roughly aligned to the corner of the lip and halfway down the chin. The limbal ring has been brightened up to show that, even at its brightest, it doesn't catch as strongly as the old one. The dimple of the pursed lip is extremely pronounced, and we can see the cheek-jaw-chin shape has changed significantly, as with the nose, by looking at the contour of the profile against the hair and background.

Horns are vastly, vastly improved. Night and day, 10/10, the forward horns are great.

Eye is an interesting one, since it's very similar, but the entire face is lit in what appears to be a darker overall lighting, which might account for the yellower-looking skin, it's just lit less and possibly with a yellowed light, though the ground behind looks very similar which betrays this line of thought as being the case. Maybe the cloud blocked the sun at a bad time, I tried to account for it.

The nose was reshaped, both wider at the base and less sharp an angle overall, but oddly looks sharper compared to the lower poly live face, this is mostly a trick. It looks slightly more natural but only just.

To put it mildly, these are not the same characters. The face is very different. The eyes are more green (probably why they look soulless for some people, it's literally not the same color,) spikes have been mucked with, lips are from another species from a society that forces women to pucker their lips to achieve maximum cuteness instead of the normal look.

Oddly, the eyes look the same aside from the color issues. Eyebrows are a bit wrong, pupils are more dilated but the iris and sclera are about the same size and shape. Eyelashes more defined, maybe a bit longer.

There's a lot that was done right in this HD update, but this isn't the same face. At all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ariel_Wind

Hi everyone, here to give feedback as well.

I need the devs to know that I love their work and that I also play a femroe with a darker skintone and she looks absolutely stunning in the benchmark. But my main is an au ra and here she is:

https://i.postimg.cc/GH6B23TP/au-ra-face-6-point-58.png https://i.postimg.cc/DJC0K7KX/au-ra-face-7-point-0.png

Left is her face now as of 6.58 / right is her face in the benchmark.

This is face 4 / Mouth 4. For some reason the benchmark makes her look lifeless. My main issue is with the lips, I don't know why they got bigger like that. As other people have noted face 4 got rounder and so the character looks less fierce and imo the shadows look... strange. I also take issue with her new skin/eye color but I found that I can achieve the original look by changing colors slightly.

In the benchmark cutscenes those issues were less visible so maybe it's also a question of lighting and facial expression. But I still wanted to report on that!

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Something else I noticed about the eye brows is that the crease/fold above your eyes is a lot more visible in the EW image and the shadow under your eye brows/in your eye socket is a lot darker, intensifying her gaze even more.

Eye lid folds can really change how an eye looks so the fact that it is less prominent in the DT picture adds quite a bit to the blank expression/stare for me personally.

I can see that the shadows in the EW picture are stronger in general, while they are a lot more mellow in the DT image, making your character's face look flatter.

But - without having checked - I am under the impression that the shadow under your eye brow/over the eye lid fold is darker relatively speaking than the corresponding shadow in the DT image.

That makes me wonder if they did in fact resculpt the eye socket, meaning that the eyes in EW are a bit more "sunken" (not in a bad way, I personally quite like it) while in DT they have been slightly flattened/ moved a bit further to the front.

I would have to actually boot up PS to compare the (relative) darkness of the shadows and perhaps looking at her in side view could also shed light on this because if the eye sockets are more sunken in EW then it should show up in side view.

Perhaps I'll find some time later because now I wanna know this about my character, too.

But even if this is just a case of pure lighting (which it could be) it's still a bit sad how the softer shadows lead to less definition and more wishy-washy features, when those stark shadowy edges and contrasts led to so much personality in this particular case.

If it's just the lighting though (in case of the eye sockets) I really hope it's just the CC.
Did you notice a similar lack of defining shadow between the eye brow and the crease of the eye lid while playing the benchmark or is the eye lid fold less prominent throughout the whole clip?

Hopefully the benchmark update hammers out most issues we've seen. Still gotta see how my character will look, but pretty hopeful since a number of things shown in this thread are being addressed.

Although we have had the official response today saying that they're working on an update, it seems to place all the blame on textures and environments and say nothing about actual remodelling of the faces, so I think it's important to still put that part of the feedback out.

I put together this comparison of my character's current appearance (PS4 screenshot) VS a mirrored version of the benchmark appearance. This is at the default camera angle upon opening the character creator, clicking "Face" to make it zoom in and then zooming closer as far as the camera would go.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...5cd58e2803.jpg

Relevant character settings:
Face 3
Jaw 4
Eyes 2
Iris L
No limbal rings
Brows 2
Nose 1
Mouth 1
"Other Features": cheek scales and thicker eyebrows turned on; extra eyeliner turned off.

Note that there's some inherent oddness as a result of the character's stance being non-symmetrical, so the body looks a bit warped here, but that's not the point of the image.

Also the lighting in the current appearance has somewhat washed out the part of the eyeliner extending outward to the side of the face, so that isn't as much of a change as the image makes it look.

The key issues are:

Eye shape looks different and has lost a lot of the "wide-eyed" look of the original.

Eyebrows - I think the actual shape hasn't changed that much, but the deepened shadows underneath cause it to blur down and look more furrowed and angry.

Exaggeration of the shadow under the eyebrow. There is some inbuilt shadow there in the original but it's much fainter.

Changed shape/position of the face paint - this isn't face-specific (I have seen some other people post about this on other characters and different races, and issues with other types of face paint) but it's still a change I would rather see fixed back to its original position. The part on the cheeks now collides with his scales.

Mouth shape and expression has changed - this calls for a close-up. The original model has a slight upward curve at the edges of the mouth even though the shadow angles downwards from it. (Note that if you adjust the jaw shape in the character creator, it tugs on the shape of this shadow but leaves the actual mouth shape untouched.) In the changed model, the shadow has been reinterpreted as the actual shape of the mouth and an extra downturned line has been added to the edge of the mouth, turning a slight smile into a frown. This is an absolute loss - this was the only Au Ra face with a friendlier expression and it has been directly removed.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...bcc25a4eae.jpg


Meanwhile, at what I would normally consider a more flattering angle...

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...4dc921f450.jpg

The eye shape itself seems unchanged from this angle, but other issues remain clear.

The heavy shadow vastly changes the apparent shape and mood of the eyes.

Additionally, the eyelid catches the light and changes the impression from "wearing heavy eyeliner" in the original model to "deep-set eyes" in the changed one.

Again the change to the mouth can be seen - it has been extended outwards into what was previously just a shadow, and been given clearly downturned ends that were not there before.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...6fac564350.jpg


Looking closer at the eyes, the current shape of the eyelids seems quite flat or is flattened out by the black eyeliner. In contrast, the benchmark eyelid does not seem to have eyeliner, just the greyer eyeshadow that extends outwards, and an eyelid crease is visible where the previous appearance seems flat. Multiple layers of creases make the eyes seem unnaturally sunken.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...4250f52e15.jpg




I made an attempt at photoshopping the benchmark screenshot to address the main issues with it. It's still not quite right (I think I've under-done the shadows in the end) but it is certainly much closer to feeling like the right character and not a sour-faced imposter.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...4285421e44.jpg


TL;DR:

• Shadowed eyes completely alter the character, while the eyelids are ironically too lit and stand out from the eyeliner where they didn't previously.
• Mouth shape has been misinterpreted and has changed the character's mood.

I also continue to suspect that the entire benchmark is slightly stretched horizontally compared to the actual game.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Although we have had the official response today saying that they're working on an update, it seems to place all the blame on textures and environments and say nothing about actual remodelling of the faces, so I think it's important to still put that part of the feedback out.

I put together this comparison of my character's current appearance (PS4 screenshot) VS a mirrored version of the benchmark appearance. This is at the default camera angle upon opening the character creator, clicking "Face" to make it zoom in and then zooming closer as far as the camera would go.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...5cd58e2803.jpg
[Snipped due to word limit]

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This is a fantastic, detailed post that I would honestly recommend cross-posting to the JP thread if you ever feel like you have the time and energy. I feel that it would be well-received there. I also think male Au Ra get overlooked a lot in comparison to female Au Ra (although I do think female Au Ra very much do deserve the amount of attention they're getting in this case).

I also have a male Raen alt with the same face as yours and I disliked these changes too, lol, so I have some bias here.

In vein of that, I also wanted to share that, due to the pupil size change in male Au Ra--and how much smaller their eyes are compared to female Au Ra--the balance of their eye colors change quite a lot when you have limbal rings, when compared to the live version of the game.

Live:
https://i.imgur.com/3F9oEiM.png
Benchmark:
https://i.imgur.com/E42Dp9u.png
(Sorry for the uneven cropping)

Of course, I like the general fidelity increase in the eyes, and I think the gradient impression is very nice. However, in the current game, the color balance between the orange and yellow is more equal, with the orange color's larger spacial coverage being evened out by the glow of the yellow limbal ring. Meanwhile, in the benchmark, the orange is much more dominated by the yellow on all fronts.

That's not to say the pupil increase doesn't change the impression even without limbal rings, though. I personally feel that it does.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

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Thank you very much. Your photohopped image illustrates the point particularly well, so I'm glad you created it even though it probably was quite a bit of work.
I agree with Doopliss and think this would be good feedback for the JPN thread.

Thank you so much for this well constructed and illustrated breakdown! I also added my own to my starting post. You even noticed things that I didn't even realize to point out even if something felt "off" - such as the lack of the upturned mouth corners on the updated version (it does really affect the expression!).

I remain hopeful in light of the recent news, even if the concerns addressed are not really 1-to-1 the same I am personally concerned about with my own character. Hopefully our feedback reaches at least some relevant eyes and ears!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Doopliss

This is a fantastic, detailed post that I would honestly recommend cross-posting to the JP thread if you ever feel like you have the time and energy. I feel that it would be well-received there.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

Thank you very much. Your photohopped image illustrates the point particularly well, so I'm glad you created it even though it probably was quite a bit of work.
I agree with Doopliss and think this would be good feedback for the JPN thread.

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Thanks guys. Can I just drop my English post into Google translate or do I need to simplify it? I won't have any ability to check the translated version for accuracy. It's not going to translate "scales" like weighing scales or something bizarre like that?

Also, I updated the repainted version of the benchmark image (and I'm just about to update it another time) and I think I got it closer to the shape of the eyeliner on the original - and for the eye itself, it actually seems to be the exact same shape on the angled shot if I take the outline of the original and place it directly over the benchmark image, so I'm not sure why it looks like such a different angle in the straight-on mirrored shot.

You should edit for clarity and avoid idioms or other things that might not translate well, but otherwise Google Translate works. I posted on the JP thread and they seemed to understand well enough. You can also translate your post to Japanese, and then from Japanese back to English to make sure it doesn't get accidentally butchered.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Thanks guys. Can I just drop my English post into Google translate or do I need to simplify it? I won't have any ability to check the translated version for accuracy. It's not going to translate "scales" like weighing scales or something bizarre like that?

Also, I updated the repainted version of the benchmark image (and I'm just about to update it another time) and I think I got it closer to the shape of the eyeliner on the original - and for the eye itself, it actually seems to be the exact same shape on the angled shot if I take the outline of the original and place it directly over the benchmark image, so I'm not sure why it looks like such a different angle in the straight-on mirrored shot.

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Overall I do agree with smashBG's advice. That seems to just be the route every ENG -> JP uses, and what the few JP -> ENG posters used, as well. Just like us, they'll likely be able to figure out any awkward translation using context clues. Most subtleties between languages get lost in translation, so it is best to simplify what you can.

I understand your worries about the use of scales, though... When I enter "scales" alone in google translate, it does seem to default to definitions for weighing scales. I tried some synonyms with little luck, as well. Typing in "fish scales," however, seemed to get me a translation closer to the intention...?

Entering "Uroko" or specifically "うろこ" into google seems to lead to the Japanese Wikipedia entry for the concept of scales on living things. However, I can't blame you if you don't want to risk typing "fish scales" into the translator every time in hopes of something more accurate, haha. And I figure attempting to just copy and paste the "more correct" characters manually after the translation would be difficult, since Japanese sentence structure is quite different from ours.

Perhaps something like "pattern" might be safer? I wish I could be of more help.

Sometimes a good way to confirm specific words can be to look something up on Wikipedia (e.g., pull up an article on scales and then switch the langauge to Japanese for the corresponding JP article).
I know it's not foolproof and only works for individual words but perhaps you can check if certain keywords are right nonetheless.


Edit bc post limit (might turn this into an individual post later):

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

Since there's already a lot of feedback, you can probably find a post mentioning Au Ra and translate it to see if they talk about scales, and find what word they use.

I did that and got 鱗(dictionary link), which is the kanji for うろこ.



(I don't know if people need to crosspost to the JP thread, and I'm not really advocating for it, just giving some pointers)

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Thank you that's a good piece of advice!

I'm not sure if it needs to be done either but I think it might be worth a try/not necessarily leads to negative outcomes at least (though I could be wrong).

My personal reasoning is: even if the devs read the English forums (or have people summarise/translate things for them) making it as easy as possible for them doesn't seem like a bad idea to me.
I feel as if we all more or less collectively agree that the English forums are rather chaotic right now, with individual feedback threads all over the place, making it hard to dig through all of them, and that the single feedback thread on the JP forum is a lot more orderly.
So even if they technically also go to the EN side adding some well-structured feedback to a well-organised place in ther native language (albeit auto-translate) might make things more accessible and reduce some of their work-load while also increasing the likelihood of being heard.

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Originally Posted by Lucyeriae

This has been said a lot, but I just feel like leaving my opinion as well because I feel a bit conflicted (I apologize for grammar errors, English isn't my first language).

https://i.imgur.com/aKqI3xX.png

The reshape of the mouth makes it look like it lost something. The edges of the mouth are not as deep anymore. But what I feel it affects more is the smile.

https://i.imgur.com/BQWX9sP.png

https://i.imgur.com/PhPJnp0.png

I love my girl's smile. I feel like the change of the corners of the mouth, as well as the shape in general, makes it look less like a natural smile and more like a hard curve upwards, and that makes it feel like she is forcing a smile and doesn't even want to be there. :(

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+1000 this

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Thanks guys. Can I just drop my English post into Google translate or do I need to simplify it? I won't have any ability to check the translated version for accuracy. It's not going to translate "scales" like weighing scales or something bizarre like that?

Also, I updated the repainted version of the benchmark image (and I'm just about to update it another time) and I think I got it closer to the shape of the eyeliner on the original - and for the eye itself, it actually seems to be the exact same shape on the angled shot if I take the outline of the original and place it directly over the benchmark image, so I'm not sure why it looks like such a different angle in the straight-on mirrored shot.

---

I recommend DeepL over Google translate

I did an extra zoom into the benchmark face in different lighting and now I'm thinking the difference in eye shape may go - figuratively and literally - deeper than I had realised, and the eye shape is very deep-set.

I don't know for certain whether it has been changed or whether it was always like that and the very black eyeliner concealed the exact shape of it.

If it has actually changed, that might explain why it is looking narrower from straight-on but not from below.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Loggos

Sometimes a good way to confirm specific words can be to look something up on Wikipedia (e.g., pull up an article on scales and then switch the langauge to Japanese for the corresponding JP article).
I know it's not foolproof and only works for individual words but perhaps you can check if certain keywords are right nonetheless.

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Since there's already a lot of feedback, you can probably find a post mentioning Au Ra and translate it to see if they talk about scales, and find what word they use.

I did that and got 鱗(dictionary link), which is the kanji for うろこ.



(I don't know if people need to crosspost to the JP thread, and I'm not really advocating for it, just giving some pointers)

hey there! this is for male au ra face 4 feedback:

I think the face texture might not be completely aligned on the new sculpt and is just a bit more obvious with new lighting. This is more prevalent to the lips where there is a harsh distinct bright line of color before the lip sculpt crease and the darkened lip coloring.

EW 6.58
https://i.imgur.com/jvZ14c7.jpg

DT 7.0
https://i.imgur.com/AAM2p9n.jpg

Here is close up
https://i.imgur.com/SPlbbHb.png

And i attempted to draw a line to show the distance between the lip crease:
https://i.imgur.com/SgWDwSx.png

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Doopliss

This is a fantastic, detailed post that I would honestly recommend cross-posting to the JP thread if you ever feel like you have the time and energy. I feel that it would be well-received there. I also think male Au Ra get overlooked a lot in comparison to female Au Ra (although I do think female Au Ra very much do deserve the amount of attention they're getting in this case).

I also have a male Raen alt with the same face as yours and I disliked these changes too, lol, so I have some bias here.

In vein of that, I also wanted to share that, due to the pupil size change in male Au Ra--and how much smaller their eyes are compared to female Au Ra--the balance of their eye colors change quite a lot when you have limbal rings, when compared to the live version of the game.

Live:
https://i.imgur.com/3F9oEiM.png
Benchmark:
https://i.imgur.com/E42Dp9u.png
(Sorry for the uneven cropping)

Of course, I like the general fidelity increase in the eyes, and I think the gradient impression is very nice. However, in the current game, the color balance between the orange and yellow is more equal, with the orange color's larger spacial coverage being evened out by the glow of the yellow limbal ring. Meanwhile, in the benchmark, the orange is much more dominated by the yellow on all fronts.

That's not to say the pupil increase doesn't change the impression even without limbal rings, though. I personally feel that it does.

---

I think because the pupils have become larger, some of the eye colour isn't presented as clearly as before.

The solution here would be to revert the pupils to being smaller or, even better, adding the option to make the pupil large like it is the benchmark or have it small as it currently is (and should be the default).

The intention of the devs was always to maintain the character image from 6.58 relatively intact and making the pupils bigger is a change which doesn't really accomplish this. Best case scenario is they make everyone happy and add the option, but I'll still be left wondering as to why the change was made in the first place when its very evident in situations like this.

Reposting what I posted in https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...08#post6439108 in the hopes it'll get seen. Hope that's ok:

Just wanted to add my thoughts in the hopes that it'll get changed.

I use au ra face 4, mouth 2, eyebrows 3.

The shape of the mouth has completely changed, and it makes the character's whole face look different.

https://imgur.com/a/OgUjRo4

This makes it look like she's gone for a lip filler. It makes her face look puffy and fake. Honestly, it makes me feel kind of icky, because it's like she's been edited to adhere to some kind of doll-like beauty standard - like she's been made to seem more cutesy and rounded, as if a load of botox and filler has been forced on her.

Additionally, the angle of the eyebrows has been relaxed, making her look less stern.

https://imgur.com/9dKm71X

Also, her nose (nose 1) has been turned up.

Essentially it feels like the lips, nose, and eyebrows have been switched to another kind - the lips most of all. I'm very unhappy. I don't want to play a softened, beautified version of my au ra who's pouting at me all the time. I want the shapes of her features to remain consistent with those I originally chose.

I really hope if they fix the issues with the eyeshadow they make them toggleable.
As it stands im very impressed with the changes to my face 3 in Dawntrail (at least with male Raen AuRa) and im questioning if this will turn into a huge game of tug of war where the devs humbly go with changing things to peoples requests only for them to turn around and read posts saying that what they changed runined something someone else really liked in the current benchmark. Idk i do hope this all turns out great for everyone but im sceptical https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...fe1c9b82c8c68&

I'm a bit late to this, but still wished to throw in my two cents. I do not dislike the graphical update, but there are some things which make me feel like my character doesn't quite look like himself anymore.

Comparison: Benchmark --> Current
https://i.imgur.com/B1IwaI7.png

1) The skin texture. It seems a little overdone on male Au Ra, and I dislike the appearance of it. I've seen people refer to it as watercolor paper texture, which seems accurate. I hope it will be toned down a little, as other races don't seem to have such a rough, unnatural texture and deep pores. The forehead scales also seem very rough around the edges.

2) The limbal rings. The limbal rings are noticeably darker despite being the same color in the palette.

3) The nose tip shape seems and nostrils seem a little more round, which I don't like as much. It could be the lighting, but I wanted to point it out anyway.

4) The lip shape seems ENTIRELY different, and this is where I have the most issues. The full lips are what I liked the most about my male Au Ra, and in the benchmark they just look less full and they adjusted the mouth corners, while I thought it was a unique trait of Au Ra. His expression completely changed.

5) The scales. I loved the ivory colors of the original scales, which is why I picked Raen. In the benchmark, they traded in the ivory for a sandy brown color with some ivory highlights, especially on the neck. They look flat to me and more like a sandrock-y texture instead of scales. I hope they will look closer to the original in the final release.


Finally, a comparison of the Benchmark facial features compared to the original. Mostly to visualize how much the lip shape has changed (I'm no digital artist, this is the best I could do). I majorly prefer the original.

Benchmark --> Original
https://i.imgur.com/sdJCXN8.png

Additional weird realisation on the changes to face 3 - they have visible eyelashes now and I have only just processed this.

I was looking at the character creator again trying to really understand what is going on with the structure of the eyes in particular across all the races (my efforts to write a post about my Midlander girl get stretched further and further as I waver over what is an error introduced by the remake and what has just been ambiguous all along) and I was trying to figure out the current eyes on Au Ra and how they've ended up so strange and deep-set in the remade model, and had a few realisations in a row.

1. "They don't have eyelashes and this has never occurred to me."

2. "Actually if you tilt the camera from just the right overhead angle they have tiny eyelashes oddly high above the eye edge."

3. Fun bonus fact: You might be aware that Raen have blue-purple colouring inside their mouth instead of pink, but they also have it in the corners of the eyes!

4. Over to the benchmark, and now they have more noticable eyelashes right along the edge of the eyelid and making the eyes look narrower. They've also lost the spot of purple from the inner eye so the white comes to more of a sharp point.

I also keep fretting that I've mis-identified the exact issues with where they need dark around the eyes and to what degree. I was just going off the one screenshot when I should have done more comparing to the game.

If anything, this is giving me a lot of appreciation for just how complex the impression of a face is.

I think there are a lot of issues stemming from the fact that the characters' eyes are actually pretty weird structurally - in a lot of cases the eyelashes start well above the eyes and I think it might originate as visual trickery to make the eyelashes seem thicker by placing dark shadow under them as if they're concealing the eye beneath. There's also a lot of adding more "physical" shape to what was previously just hinted at with different shades of eyeshadow around the eyes, which in many cases is restructuring the shape of the eye.

Still trying to construct some more in-depth diagrams, but I switched hairstyle on my Au Ra to see the sides of the face better and realised that the benchmark has made a bigger mess of the face than I had previously realised.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...baa9d74282.jpg

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...c25ef846d2.jpg

I've also just had a realisation while further playing around with the character that despite having simpler "human" eyebrows, I think the underlying face structure may actually be similar to the double-swoop eyebrow that is used on face #4, and that may explain the fairly sharp change of shadow halfway along the under-eyebrow.

I'd taken further reference screenshots tonight after seeing a post suggesting to use facepaint to block out the dark makeup around the eyes and see the structure, I think I'm going to have to take yet another set of screenshots with the eyebrows deactivated so I can see that better.

Still, even from these pictures you can see that the outer part of the eye has been altered a lot. The eyelid is heavier and juts out where previously it was quite flat; it has also been extended further past the edge of the eye and adds extra ridges -- and has caused a weird crease in the face, like it hasn't been fitted in properly.

The whole thing looks like a twisted mess of overlapping bits now, instead of neat curving lines.

There also seems to be eyeliner added, but not right against the eye, and there's either an impression of or actually is an extra layer of inner eyelid making the eyes seem extra complicated and sunken.

The wrangling continues.

One more lot of comparison pictures, and someone on another thread mentioned the idea of using white face paint to block out makeup and show the actual shape of the face better, so I did that as well and that's rather interesting.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...a039fbee55.jpg
https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...5eb55e5592.jpg

Besides the changes to the eyes, the change to the mouth shape becomes more visible, and the chin has become pointier. The scales to the sides of the chin look squarer as well.

The entire face looks somewhat puffy in the benchmark as well.

Regarding the eyes, the white-painted faces reveal how much the structure of the eye and eyelid have been altered. The eyelid in the current appearance is fairly flat in the outer half and overshadowed by other parts of the eye structure, but in the benchmark model it is very pronounced and catches a lot of light, and has been altered to a lighter colour as well so the effect is even worse.

On the outer corner of the right eye in the painted faces, you can particularly see that the eyelid has been pulled inwards and the curve of it has changed completely. The current appearance has almond-shaped eyes even at the oblique angle, but the benchmark appearance turns into an inward curve. On the left eye it looks like the lower eyelid might have been pulled inwards so the eyes are rounded rather than pointed at the outer corner.

The new eyelid also stretches out much further past the eye - particularly noticable at the outer corner, but it's an issue all around the eye. The dimensions of the current eye (marked out by the darkest layer of colour amid the surrounding makeup) are smaller and he barely has visible eyelids at all until he blinks.

It also seems that eyelashes have been added to the lower edge of the eyelid, further shadowing the eye. In the current appearance the character only has small eyelashes in the outer corner of the eye. I don't think I had even noticed them until I was studying the eyes closely for this.

Here is a focus on the eyes of both image pairs above:
https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...cfa5fc8476.jpg

Plus an interpretive tracing of the eye shapes:
https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...cf59710821.jpg
It might be a little flippant to do the giant scribble around the benchmark eye when I probably could trace the line that is meant to be the edge of the makeup-eyeshadow versus actual shadow, but really it does all blur together.

The original eye shape has such a flow to it, but the new version is a disjointed mess.

There's also what seems to be a new dark shape over the eye (I have marked it in grey) which might be a shadow from the changed eyelashes or might be an attempt to convert a certain oddity of the current model into a more physical form.

I hadn't realised until I started having to scrutinise the faces, but face #3 has a curious effect where the eyes are set slightly back from the edge of the eyelid and you can see an inner colour inside the eyelid that is presumably meant to be the muscles around the eye.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...a8d4bdc86d.jpg

It seems that the new model cannot handle this approach of only seeing it from certain angles, so the shape of the eyelid has been "tightened" to sit closer against the eye, but then they seem to have added this shadow that wasn't there before.

If it is supposed to replace this coloured rim, it is a strange choice of permanent position as it takes over more of the eye. I would think it would work better with just portraying it as the small visible muscle at the inner corner of the eye.

Bumping this thread.

Will post this on the JPN side later.

My own concerns:

Thank you for the Benchmark changes.

Unfortunately, it seems that there are still existing issues in the design of Au Ra. It seems Au Ra changes were largely ignored.

1. The pupils are too big/dilated. They were small originally. This changes the look of the character. Please change this back or add an option for the pupils to be big or small.

2. The colours of the umbral ring are more darked and cannot be easily replaced. My character was directly imported, and the colour is significantly darker. This colour can no longer be replicated as there are not many colours for blue. This blue was important as it represented the colour we’ve seen come up in the story multiple times with significant story relevance.

3. The lips are no longer upturned at the corners. This makes the characters expression change from slightly happy to neutral or expressionless.

There are more issues, but I feel these are most pressing for my own Au Ra.

Before and after Slider: https://imgsli.com/MjY5Mzcx

https://i.imgur.com/K9GCWP6.png https://i.imgur.com/J2MfzES.png

If you're interested in the story relevance I'm pointing at in point #2:
https://i.imgur.com/D03eWSX.png

Face 3, Eyes 3 Female Xaela here..

I appreciate the hard work the artists put in to address so many concerns in such a short period of time - the update is much better now. That said, I'd like to bring attention to some of my remaining concerns.

1. Mouth 1 & Lip Color:
   Not much to say here. The shape is still off, I also miss the upturned corners, but I might get over it eventually. I know gloss was added - but its still nearly invisible in most lighting.
2. Eye Shape 3:
   While I'm not skilled or knowledgeable enough to give a detailed drawing, or anatomical breakdown, here's a side-by-side.
   
   While subtle, the updated benchmark's eyes seem more rounded, dilated, & droopy, giving off the impression of either being drowsy or high.
   The original eyes are sharper, especially on the inner corners, & have a more ambivalent look to them. Giving her a calm & determined expression.
   
   However this could be due to the next complaint.
3. Upper Eyelid (Optional Feature):
   In the current game version, the Au'Ra's upper eyelid feature gives a strong eyeliner & soft, feathery eyeshadow effect to the eyes.
   
   The updated benchmark appears to be just a soft eyeliner - which is ironically a little weaker than that of a current Au'Ra without the feature at all.
   There isn't anything really wrong with this, however for those wishing to achieve a more dramatic makeup appearance, that only leaves us with the fairly limited face paint options.
   
   Personally, I like Face Paint 4 (Outer Eyeshadow) w/ Upper Eyelid feature. The combined appearance is both subtle & dramatic, giving a soft, two-toned eyeshadow effect to the middle & corner of her eyes. Unfortunately this option also isn't as distinct in the updated benchmark. The eyeshadow is a lot smaller, & the color drops off a lot shorter from the edge of her eye.
   
   While I understand that its possible perhaps a majority of players prefer the new look of both the Upper Eyelid Feature & Face Paint 4 - it would be nice if these were closer to the original. These features are optional, so it should be easy to justify retaining their original appearance.
   
   At the very least, with hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes being a lot lighter and less defined overall than as in the current game, it would be nice to have more options to make up for the differences. (2+ Face Paint options + more makeup variety?)

With wildly different preferences & mixed opinions across the board, perhaps one possible solution for a few of the different features could be to add an "intensity/opacity" slider. This might address most feedback regarding limbal ring, gloss, lip color, and face paint options. Or perhaps overhaul character creation entirely for 9.0.

In any case, I sincerely hope the team will continue to improve our character appearances based on feedback throughout Dawntrail.

Current Game / Updated Benchmark (v11):
https://i.gyazo.com/b604c55da8f87366...858213a25e.jpg

Cross-posting from the new/other thread!

Face 4 here also coming in with continued disappointment.

Mouth shape is the biggest issue I have. The corners are even more down-turned in the 1.1 benchmark than they were in the 1.0 benchmark, in addition to the lip line still being flattened and the upper lip shape being more curved rather than straight angles. It feels like they transplanted face 2's OLD mouth onto the new F4. It's a whole new mouth and it completely changes the face.

EW vs DT1.1 for comparison:
https://i.gyazo.com/0a93fe288ea24125...e5bfe47e4f.png https://i.gyazo.com/66b06aa27da1e9cf...33ef0a5d1a.png

Eyebrows are weirdly dark now? This seems most likely to be a lighting thing, but it's super noticeable to me.

EW vs DT1.1 for comparison:
https://i.gyazo.com/a7b89a3851af49fa...575b75439a.png https://i.gyazo.com/c149ee9969a437ce...60b3ceead4.png


Pupils are still way too big. If you have limbal rings, it's hard to see the actual base color of the eyes.
On that note, limbals still feel much darker/not as glowy. I think it's more because they blended them into the iris rather than having solid, hard lines to make them look more "natural". I don't mind the blending, but the "unnatural" glow was specifically why I chose to have limbal rings in the first place.

The catchlights still suck, in my opinion. They're much better than the 1.0 benchmark catchlights, but they're way too small/subtle and way too sparkly. It's like there are multiple light sources pointed at the eyes, but that's not how shine on eyes works. They still almost vanish entirely in the benchmark itself, so the soulless/dead eye look is still an issue in actual gameplay outside of the character creator.

The whole face shape (jaw 1) feels a bit weird now. The chin is more round rather than pointed, the cheek bones sit higher and rounder, while also feeling like the cheeks have been hollowed out a little. The face still looks round, just... more in the chipmunk way rather than the actually round way it was before. This feels like it could be a lighting difference issue, but I'm not entirely sure, given that there are definitely minor model changes elsewhere (as noted with the lips in particular). I honestly can't tell if it's the lighting playing tricks on me or if the model was actually changed.

I'm really upset about this aura update. I always loved how my character looked. I never changed her face for 4 years. I loved her look, and then suddenly.. she looked different.. just different.
Imagine you wake up in the morning look in the mirror, and you look different.. thats so.. unfamiliar i dont like it. Why dont they just make extra faces, and leave the old ones like they were?
My character seems to have a completely different personality now I want my old Shikari Gnu back .. please SE make some changes that allow to use the old faces again.. its not nice when the face you see for 4 years every day and that you like a lot, now looks different..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shikarii

I'm really upset about this aura update. I always loved how my character looked. I never changed her face for 4 years. I loved her look, and then suddenly.. she looked different.. just different.
Imagine you wake up in the morning look in the mirror, and you look different.. thats so.. unfamiliar i dont like it. Why dont they just make extra faces, and leave the old ones like they were?
My character seems to have a completely different personality now I want my old Shikari Gnu back .. please SE make some changes that allow to use the old faces again.. its not nice when the face you see for 4 years every day and that you like a lot, now looks different..

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I got familiar feelings as you. It was exactly the same for me. After 4 years, my Au Ra is no longer the same. It's terrible and I'm very sad about it.

I wish the old faces were still available.

Unfortunately I don't think that will happen.

This is probably her end...