Benchmark 1.1 Feedback - Elezen

Some feedback of my Elezen WoLs in comparison with the 1.0 benchmark.

https://i.imgur.com/pAbx7DI.jpeg

The fem Elezen mouth fix is the biggest change that I needed from 1.0. She looks much more fierce compared to the 1.0 result with dead eyes and lower teeth that's trying to escape her mouth. The teeth for both male and female Elezens are more detailed now, when back in 1.0 they mostly look like mouth guards.

https://i.imgur.com/SS7wFdx.jpeg

Lighting for dark skin characters is much better now. I have the same issue with Endwalker where my brown skinned WoL is illuminated terribly especially in Ultima Thule. 1.1. lighting now shows her features clearly, compared to 1.0 where her mole and nose is drowned out by the shadow.

https://i.imgur.com/Tf9jH0b.jpeg

Another point for lighting fix, especially in character creation. The moving clouds from 1.0 character creator made it hard to get a consistent feel for color. 1.1's character creator is similar to Endwalker's, and the colors now accurately represent what you will see in the benchmark movie.

https://i.imgur.com/Gio98yq.jpeg

Lighting and teeth detail fix. 1.0 makes him look like he's been working on customer service for 10 years. 1.1 actually evokes a feeling of excitement for a new adventure.

https://i.imgur.com/hQqYDH8.jpeg

This is something I noticed in 1.0. The lighting effect of the viper lb3(?) animation makes my red haired character's highlights look like tinsel even after the light source is gone, and it wasn't changed at all in 1.1. Compared to a white haired WoL where the tinsel effect is very minimal, I'm guessing this is an intended effect.

So far I'm very happy of the results of 1.1. Thank you to the dev team for all your hard work <3

Aaaaand, they screwed up the female Elezen mouth. You can click on the image for full size.

https://i.ibb.co/hy6G04w/dt-1-1.jpg

Miqos have also this error to a very small degree. We need an 1.2 version of the benchmark.





Cheers

Thanks for the Elezen specific thread.
I will put in some screenshots of my own.
(From left to right Endwalker, Benchmark 1.0, Benchmark 1.1)
I'm a little unhappy with my WoL to be honest...
Male Elezen Face 3 looks much less feminine and soft in comparison to Endwalker.
I'm still missing my lipgloss and I feel like the whole shape of the face has changed (not sure if it's only because of the lighting)


https://64.media.tumblr.com/d5eec4fd...a0cd7d6dfc.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/0937cd51...803455d747.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/7b21b8b3...cd866f6d25.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/628a59e9...496e89f77f.pnj

I'm really glad they fixed the femelezen mouth animation, the skin colors/shading and everything about the eyes.

My main requests for female Elezen face 1 are to re-add black color into the eyebrows to make them look closer to the original, and to make the shape of the lip closer to the original shape. Those two alterations really change how the face looks and I struggle to recognize her as the same character in the benchmark. I would also like the lips to be glossier but I don't mind it too much if they stay less shiny.

Otherwise I'm very satisfied with the changes!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reinha

This is my main in the old version of the benchmark and in the live game's character creation mode.
https://i.postimg.cc/wB8p1Jkm/DTbench-Comparison.png

And here is the new benchmark version.
https://i.postimg.cc/FFWXjwZm/Update-Face.png

+ The lighting and shadows have been greatly improved compared to both the live game and the old benchmark
+ Eyes have a shine to them again and they look alive
+ The lips look three dimensional again
+ A smaller portion of the ear turns pink, giving a more natural look
+ Eye liner makeup has been made closer to the original and not so heavy
+ Hair quality is better
+ The skin doesn't have a green undertone like in the first benchmark

- Nostril shape / side of the nose has changed?
- Lip shape is still different and smaller compared to the original
- Lips are less glossy than in the live game
- Eyebrows are still light and not black

My female Elezen undeniably has better graphics but she still doesn't look quite like herself, regardless of lighting conditions. I think it boils down to the eyebrow color and lip shape being different from the original.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Aaaaand, they screwed up the female Elezen mouth. You can click on the image for full size.

https://i.ibb.co/hy6G04w/dt-1-1.jpg

Miqos have also this error so a very small degree. We need an 1.2 version of the benchmark.





Cheers

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Oh I didn't notice this. I will have to experiment with makeup too when I get home. Given how close Dawntrail's release is I don't know how feasible it is for a 1.2 benchmark, but I hope they'll release one just to fix these issues.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lyallon

Thanks for the Elezen specific thread.
I will put in some screenshots of my own.
(From left to right Endwalker, Benchmark 1.0, Benchmark 1.1)
I'm a little unhappy with my WoL to be honest...
Male Elezen Face 3 looks much less feminine and soft in comparison to Endwalker.
I'm still missing my lipgloss and I feel like the whole shape of the face has changed (not sure if it's only because of the lighting)


https://64.media.tumblr.com/d5eec4fd...a0cd7d6dfc.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/0937cd51...803455d747.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/7b21b8b3...cd866f6d25.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/628a59e9...496e89f77f.pnj

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I think the change in the softness is both from the lighting and sculpt for face 3. The benchmark sculpt (both 1.0 and 1.1) has a curve that emphasizes the chin and jaw, while the lighting in 1.1 from all the front facing shots draw a shadow that deepens the cheekbones. It does take away the softness of the current version.

I'll look at the changes in makeup too later for a comparison, my WoLs usually only have eye makeup because the shiny-ness of the lip paint is distracting for me during cutscenes.

I do think on the whole it is much improved, my Elezen actually looks mostly like himself again now. Or at least, this face is giving largely the same laid back vibe that the old one does, with the removal of the "evil eyes" look that benchmark 1 had.

https://i.imgur.com/8bEe1q7.jpeg

However, there still remains the issue of the incorrect facial textures for faces 2, 3, and possibly 4, that were taken from Wildwood, that are now giving Duskwights dark shadows around their eyes that we did not have before, and that are impacting the neutral facial impression quite a bit, especially on darker skin tones. It is still making my character look a bit uncanny in a way he didn't before.

Current:
https://i.imgur.com/t2O6FZF.jpg

Benchmark 1.1:
https://i.imgur.com/uRyEH0A.jpeg

I am going to reiterate what I had already posted this in the bnchmark update thread. While I am happy with the changes for the most part, and I'm glad they fixed the weird rigging for female elezen mouths, I am still dissatisfied about the forced default smiling expression. Before, the lip shape for female elezen face 4 curved downward, giving her a more serious face.

However, in the benchmark, the lip shape has remained changed so that it curves upward in a constant smile. Pre-update, face 4 is the only face that doesn't have a default upward lip curve, which is why I chose it for my more stoic character. It seems this issue is affecting all races, not just elezen, where the mouth shape changes create a new resting expression for the characters.


https://i.imgur.com/k3mjRW9.png

Edit: I am very thankful for all the hard work that the devs have put into the graphics update. While I am giving my feedback on what I would like to see, at the end of the day, I think the graphical improvements as a whole are good. If there is an update down the line even as Dawntrail has already released that addresses the issues with the character models, then I would be very happy, but I think the actual bugs and glitches need to be fixed first before worrying about the minute details of our characters' faces.

The one major thing that I was hoping to get fixed was the eyebrows, and it looks like nothing was done at all to fix it:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...440&height=481

I'm glad the eyes seemed to have been changed to be more similar to EW, but I would like to kindly ask why we were even given the option of straight eyebrows in ARR-EW when now all straight eyebrow options are removed in DT?

The fullest lip option for Duskwight Face 2 is still nerfed. There are no longer any actual full lip options for this face, this was the largest one and it is now very similar to the other thinner lip options. The nose bridge is still noticeably different as well, lacking the indent and nose bump near the brow ridge. The lips in particular really change the look of my WoL, I'm very unhappy that nothing was done to address these concerns from the previous benchmark.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPK5uchX...name=4096x4096

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPK5uckW...name=4096x4096

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oracleofroses

Oh I didn't notice this. I will have to experiment with makeup too when I get home. Given how close Dawntrail's release is I don't know how feasible it is for a 1.2 benchmark, but I hope they'll release one just to fix these issues.

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Not all faces are affected. So i guess, they confused some normal maps ... again. -.-




Cheers

I'm so saddened and discouraged by the 1.1 benchmark because they seem to have changed duskwight undertone lighting...1.0 benchmark had my guy with all his sharp edges sanded off and looked horribly dull but at least his skintone seemed consistent with live.
Now his skintone is GREEN. He looks GREEN. He used to have a more cool yellow undertone to his skin. Now he is GREEN.

https://i.gyazo.com/95cc175b15db90fa...c3511b7013.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/6ff5e4320164e748...ecafcb7c62.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/e9e87973a2234315...f815d5792f.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/4b6b80614aac081c...03dad6caff.png

Comparison with the Endwalker benchmark:
https://i.gyazo.com/14cd7573f57a7761...74c3be5293.png

I have tried in character creator to maybe change which tone I use but unfortunately all the options seem to be
1) Too grey
2) Too blue
3) Too warm

I'm so discouraged and nearly in tears as I see how good all my friends' characters look, and my son is just...Green.

To add on... here is a quick screen recording of me trying different skin tones, trying to fix the issue...no dice. This sucks y'all.

https://gyazo.com/b5c4b1fd19bc5abb37b33f49cec05212

Additional thoughts: I am disappointed but unsurprised that they did not seem to fix the sculpt issues pointed out in the 1.0 benchmark - unsurprised because I don't think they would have had time to address them. I do hope staff saw the feedback and hope that maybe we do get something akin to the old sculpts instead of what we have now.

They re-lumped my boy. :( I guess it is much closer to the current version and some people liked the lumps, and maybe it was just a weird artifact from the funky lighting in the first benchmark, but I was excited that the weird jowl lumps on male duskwight face 2 were finally getting smoothed a bit. But, alas, they will persist. And now he's also lost his lip gloss and has the wildwood eye bag textures making him look tired/congested all the time too. At least there's noticeably more polygons so some of the other odd lumps were indeed smoothed.

I accidentally made a whole new thread about this because I didn't realize an Elezen thread was already going. Whoops. But I noticed some hairstyles that are meant to sit flush against the head have some gaps on Elezen.

https://i.imgur.com/EFLC0W4.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/c3QPFP6.jpeg

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

https://i.imgur.com/a32b4jU.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/9Etj75z.jpeg
^ This one especially is mostly only evident when rotating the character.

https://i.imgur.com/tH6bVv2.jpeg

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

https://i.imgur.com/JLzXEc6.jpeg

Please pardon some of my layer sloppiness at the bottom. I was ironically trying to get through these as quickly as possible. I rotated the character multiple times in an attempt to show the gaps as clearly as possible.

The last (5th) hairstyle on the first row also doesn't appear to be sitting flush and that is evident when rotating, however it is so subtle it's difficult to capture so I omitted it.

Hoping they're able to fix this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Coerced

I prefer what was shown in the previous benchmark outside of the lighting. At least the changes to the shape of the eyes were obscured partially by the lashes.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...37409b6248.png

Otherwise, none of the issues I have were altered in any positive way.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...5496f91c15.jpg

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...50e241612a.jpg

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I'll drop this here as well, I suppose.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Viedyn

Hoping they're able to fix this.

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HOLY COW. Completely missed this bc I was so concerned with my guy's skin tone but this is dire. You can clearly see on my screenshots as well that the hair is not properly fitted to the head.

I'm female elezen player and i'm glad they have fixed the wired mouth movement and over pervious to light face, but there's still one thing i hope they can improve:
The sharpness on female elezen's face is gone, please bring it back. I think disappearance of sharpness makes female elezen lose their characteristics and looks less different from other races. She does look softer in new version but come on, I don't need this at all. I choose female elezen because they're cool instead of soft.

I am having difficulty with fixing my female elezen because they're more rounded now. The softness/roundness is affecting her nose and eye shapes. The nose feels wider and gives the sense of setting the eyes farther apart, despite being the slowest nose option on any face (currently face 1). The eye shape I have is rounding out and in the same place as the eyelash/makeup Facial Features is making it look even more round. I like the angled eyebrows and have them, but they've gotten even thinner than they already were! Which just exacerbates the smoothness of the face because there's More Face, haha.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how my character looks, but I do miss the definition on nose and lips for sure, plus the shape of the lips has changed slightly. It's a change that I can live with, but given the chance, I would go back to the pre-Dawntrail version in a heartbeat lol. I also wish lip gloss would be noticeable again. I can see it if I squint, but it seems very faint now.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/3ced7e5e...8cfbece871.pnj

Dug out an old gpose for comparison. Resized the screenshots a bit too much I'm afraid lol, but the change in the lips/shine is still quite noticeable I think:

https://64.media.tumblr.com/cf394ceb...abe08ca368.pnj

Overall, I like my face 2 wildwood man, but this is haunting me:

https://i.imgur.com/D0kZYkV.jpeg

The neck seam, alas, still persists. At most angles, it's still miles better than the current neck seam we deal with in Endwalker, and yet:

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

At other angles, it has indents where the neck width of the body doesn't match up with the neck width of the head.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChaChaOnIce

The fullest lip option for Duskwight Face 2 is still nerfed.

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The same thing has happened for alot of other faces from other races as well- the designers have something against full lips, maybe?
Mouths on Lalafells have also been nerfed & are less full lips :( I hope these issues get improved

My feedbacks:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPOCp0_a...name=4096x4096
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPOG24Lb...png&name=small
Male Elezen - Generally am very happy with the update. However there are some issues I do not fancy.

• The original ear clasps texture is matte. For mine, it looks like bone-white material. In the ver 1.1 benchmark, the ear clasps are so small and metallic. The colours do not in any way present them as matte.

• The overlay of the hair made the brows look patchy. I'm not sure what is causing this issue and I hope it can be fixed.

• The lips look dry in ver 1.1, the reflection is gone. Not a big issue but it will be nice if the lips can look slightly dewy.

• The neck polygons look awful. Necks are big part of Elezens. It will be great if the polygons can be increased in that area.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPOCp0_b...jpg&name=large
Female Elezen - She is a Face 4. Originally, my female elezen has a sharp look. However in the v 1.1 benchmark, her sharp look is gone. She looks softer and younger.

• Her eyebrows in v 1.1 benchmark has been altered to a lower ark. I have tried looking at other brow types available but the edges are so drastically high in ark that there are no inbetweens. They make her look very fierce instead of sharp. The brows made a huge difference to her vibe. I hope the devs will look into it.

• Her lips in v 1.1 has been edited into a slight smile. The edge of the original lips are travelling downward. v1.1 lips are also slightly thinner than the original lips. The top part of the original lips looks like 2 Mount Fujis, but the v 1.1 lips looks like 2 hills. The bottom part of the original lips is more plump than v 1.1's. Again, this affects the vibe of the character.

These are my personal feedbacks and I hope the devs will consider working on them. Thankyou so much! I look forward to Dawntrail.

It's already been said but yeah i'm not happy with the inclusion of the dark wildwood eye patches on duskwight faces 2,3 and 4 (face 1 always had them). Everything else i'm happy with, can work with, or looks like it's just the updated shader giving a different look.
current | benchmark
https://64.media.tumblr.com/af083537...814943fd2b.pnj
benchmark top, current bottom (sorry i swapped it up)
https://64.media.tumblr.com/886b4c97...4f84c6ecaa.pnj
this isn't the updated textures being drawn differently or model smoothing, it's adding a feature that was never there

I'd highly suggest posting your feedback onto the main JP thread here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...D%B0%E8%AB%96/

I've posted mine, and also linked this thread and the last benchmark thread.