Benchmark v1.1 Feedback (06/03 Update) - Xaela Au ra Female Face 4

First and foremost, thank you for your hard work in your development on Dawntrail. I look forward to the DT release.

I would like to provide feedback regarding the recent benchmark update.

https://i.imgur.com/KrYwD9r.png
https://i.imgur.com/x3l7HS2.png
https://i.imgur.com/BLxrSFK.png

Criticism
#1: Horns
- The horns have been given a more aggressive gloss and look to them which appear too hyper realistic to the actual shading to the character's face. They look strangely moist or slimy. The first benchmark was better regarding gloss.
#2: Mouth Type 1
- Her bottom lip has been inflated compared to Endwalker. Her mouth has also been shortened in length which looks as if she's tensing her cheeks and mouth.
- My Au ra wearing dark lipstick. It is flat in color with little reflection to give it depth. This looks as if her lips are just pasted on. Endwalker shows much more reflection on the lips
#3: Corners of Lips (Mouth Type 1)
- There is shading at the corners of her lips which makes her mouth look unflattering. The shortening of her mouth is likely the main contributor to this negative look. This looks as if she is uncomfortable rather than resting face. I have included a doodle to the diagram to express what I see. This issue may be the result of lighting from the front-facing angle as it does not seem to be prominent or unflattering at a side camera angle.
#4: Jaw Type 2
- Were the cheeks widened for jaw type 2? It feels like her face has become fatter which contributes to the visual issue with her lips.

Neutral Feedback:
+ The bright limbal rings are important to me, they give her a piercing look which I love about her. The current benchmark has them softer and I wish they could be brighter like before. However, I can be content if this is the final product.
+ Are her eyes farther apart or is it just me...? If they are, I am not a fan, but it may just be my eyes playing a trick on me.

Positive Feedback:
+ The hair looks wonderful, really nice definition update.
+ Thank you for making her lashes thicker. This is much better than the last benchmark.
+ At first I didn't like the larger pupils, but they are growing on me.
+ Aside from the very wet looking horns, the facial and neck scales are lovely.

Overall I feel like her more realistic appearance will need to take time to grow accustomed to. I do not feel like I'm looking at my Warrior of Light, but instead an uncanny version. Although this feedback may sound harsh, I still do find her lovely to look at, much more so at an angle than straight on. I would like to mention that the v1.1 release of the Dawntrail Benchmark is an improvement.

Thank you for your time and attention to my feedback.

On #4, the question of jaw type, it helps to use a 3/4 profile to understand what's happening.

Live:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...04cbbe585f7b7&
Benchmark:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...5058630be93e0&

Face 1 on the left as a comparison, face 4 on the right.

The cheeks straight up got stung by a bee. They're more pronounced than face 1 now. We can also see face 1 cheeks are less pronounced as well in benchmark compared to live. There's also something funny happening at the termination line between horn and (flesh colored) skin. On top of that, the chin is more pronounced. Lips are surprisingly similar to what we have now, but because the rest of the face changed around it, they look narrower, and I can't comment on the dimple.

This should be jaw 2 and mouth 3 for my character, by the way. Only thing that changed between face 1 and 4 is the face itself, they're otherwise the same settings for consistency.

If you draw the contour line and compare it between face 1 and 4, for both live and benchmark, it really showcases just how bad the cheeks are now. To put it mildly, face 4 was ruined and the cheeks are actually puffier than face 1 now, which is a complete reversal of what it is in live.

Agreed. The changes have completely changed the style and look of face 4, and it is practically unrecognizable especially at certain angles where it just looks uncanny. I find it to be the same reasons that people have repeated:

- Lips are not translated properly at all and look completely different, when moving they look especially uncanny and shape oddly around the face, looking at the character when they are attacking makes this very noticeable. A return to the original shapes would've been preferred to me.
- Eyes have been changed improperly and the gaze looks frightened, confused, and unnatural. I'm not sure why this was changed at all, it looks very strange unfortunately.
- The whole face is a lot more rounder in an unpleasant way, most notable offenders are the cheeks/cheekbones that look *very* unnatural and a provide a stark contrast to the previous sharp look face 4 had. Jaw sticks out in a bad way too. The bone structure looks as if my skeleton is trying to pry its way out of my skin, especially noticeable when the mouth is moving. I would've liked the face to retain the original look and *not* get rounded off like this in such a sudden way.

The changes in the benchmark are steps in the right direction but all of the above and more was repeated dozens of times all over the place. It is very disappointing to see it seemingly ignored. It seems they may have wanted to make the face 'cuter' by making everything more round? If that is the case, I feel that is a very poor choice, as it completely ignores the reason a fairly large chunk of people found face 4 appealing to begin with. Personally, I don't find the roundness cuter, as it looks more like face 4 has an allergic reaction going on with how unnatural it looks, and is resultingly uncanny. It does not look human, let alone like Au Ra. All this at the cost of the fierceness and angular shape I've come to love, which is still lost, which I think is a massive shame. In my mind, it would be much better to preserve the original style and look of face 4, instead of insisting on these rounded off changes that might as well be a different face entirely instead of an upgrade.

Overall I'm definitely glad that it is better than before (however that bar was quite low considering how further wildly different face 4 looked in the previous benchmark), but considering their lack of attention to some of the points I saw repeated a lot throughout this whole time, I can't help but feel very disappointed. I still feel face 4 got one of the shorter ends of the stick in comparison to other options, again.