Dawntrail Graphical Update - Au Ra Feedback

[Kiku_Sazanami]

Agreed. Raen scales look terrible on females; less like scales and more like painted or stuck on plates.

[JaydeDancer]

I'm going to chime in to say that I also would like my old lip textures back please.

This is her currently:



Notice the shine on her lips and how her upper lip appears to be slightly thinner than her bottom lip. There is also a small dip and some nice "lip" type textures there.

This is her in the benchmark:



Her lips are really flat and no longer shiny. Her hair also looks pretty flat, which is kind of out of place given the shine on her skin in certain lighting. I don't like these two things, but I'm not going to cry over it because she still looks really good!



I did also have to adjust her limbal ring by scooting it to the left a few squares on the color selector so that it showed up again the way I wanted it to. But, that's not a big deal.

I do feel like the concerns expressed in this thread are valid concerns, and I see where people are coming from with regards to the scales. SE has never really explained to us what the scales are made out of, so perhaps they had some idea behind these changes that they haven't explained very well and that's why they look the way that they do. I hope SE takes this feedback into consideration and makes adjustments in the future (like, within the next year. Not the next 10 years please lol).

[stenovrain]

Agreed. Raen scales look terrible on females; less like scales and more like painted or stuck on plates.

This! The scale really looks weird as if they had never been washed since they were born.

[RoadGGG]

With everyone upset, I was worried I got the short end of the stick as well...

I seem to have gotten the opposite problem with people: She looks more alive and happy than her 6.58 look! (This is GOOD for me, btw.)
6.58

7.0


Granted, I DID have to make some small changes (swapped the eyes and lips cause the ones she currently had looked weird, but that doesn't seem like a big problem for me considering we're getting a free fantasia.

To the people here who are genuinely upset, I advise you try editing your blorbo a bit and see if that fixes some of your issues.

[lunartears]

I really prefer the original lip appearance, the setting is the same yet the difference looks so strong. Also tried out Mouth 3 instead of 1 today to see if it would thin the lips a bit more and it just didn't give the same feel (not pictured here)



Took a side view picture to compare the shape of the mouth/nose. The lips look more puckered up in the new version.



Another note: I've been looking at my character a lot and I've noticed that the eyes look really off? I considered myself a part of that "dead stare" Au Ra fanbase, but it feels like the version of that stare I liked has been replaced with a truly unappealing soulless eye look.

EDIT: Horns not connected to the scales? Oh that's very strange...



More of a personal addendum but also got lots of anxiety regarding the new mouth rig, I am attached to the weirdness of the /fakegrin emote on this race.

[anigym6]

Hello 14 devs, thank you for your work in all of this!

Add me to the list of people who are finding the change in my character's lip shape (not color, I know that can be adjusted very easily) to be really off from the original. Others in this thread have already pointed out the whys, so I'll just attach a screenshot and add my name to the pile.

[HeyMcFly]

snip

She is pretty!
I also like the nose shapes better- they look less bird or skeletal like
But they really need to clean up the scales & adjust the lips

[Selvia]

So as an Au Ra haver, I really do enjoy graphics update. The increased poly count looks great and I enjoy it a lot and really love how nice he looks in the benchmark. Also messing with the Gamma filter helped to restore how I usually see my Au Ra and it’s been lovely for myself.

My only true issue that I would like to see be addressed is the coloring of the neck scales on male Raen. (I’m sorry, I don’t really know how to insert images from mobile phone here.)

The way the neck scales look now looks as though the contrast between the lighter tone of the scale surface compared with the darker color used to define them feels very drastic and most noticeable on the neck. It’s something I wound up noticing far more and feels more distracting to me. It felt as though it was a sticker placed on top of the neck rather than something that feels like “natural scales” that are part of my character as I usually see it in the current version of him.

A way that I think could help to balance and address that is by decreasing the saturation of the darker color to help it blend more seamlessly with the lighter scale color, if that makes sense? Again, I apologize that I’m not able to add in images at this time to help visualize my point better but I hope it’s understood what I’m trying to say.

I do also want to say that I appreciate the updated look and I am pleased with everything else. I genuinely was happy and excited seeing him in the benchmark trailer and found the lighting in trailer to be a better representation of how I would see him in game than what is represented in the character creator. (I know that others may not feel that way and I understand as well.) But I do appreciate the time the team has taken to make these changes for the game going forward and I hope you’ll also be willing to take my feedback into consideration for future fixes. Thank you!

[Kayato]

Aside from the lips and eyes, which everyone points out, I'm referring specifically to the scales and horns, which are what got me playing Aura.

1) The scales are noticeably thinner than before (both in shape and thickness) and seem to stick to the skin. At first glance, they may look more detailed than before, but they just look flat, like a tattoo or sticker of scales, especially the nose and neck scales.

2. As the resolution increases, the texture of the horns becomes flattened.
All the curves and contours of the horns are reduced, and the reflections are reduced, giving it an unpleasant resin figure texture, or a sanded look. This is even more pronounced when you look at the back of the horns.
The roughness of the horns was the reason I played Aura in the first place, so it would be disappointing to see this texture representation significantly downgraded.

3. Different scales have different resolutions for different face types. Especially for the male Au Ra's, the difference between the scales on face 3 and face 1 is noticeable.
Could it be that the data for Face 1 has been processed more for promotional images? This also happens with the male Viera race.


Overall, the horns and scales look downgraded because the textures have been sharpened, but they are too thin. Could you maybe increase the thickness a bit more like before or add some reflections to the horns like before?

[Ancalagon_Blacktalon]

This is funny to me because one of the big complaints when they initially showed Au Ra with these changes was that the limbal ring was too subtle.

but personally its intended effect looks virtually the same to me, at least with my character. compare,




The eye texture itself is better but I think the ratio of iris-to-glow is nearly the same, just with the transition made fuzzier so it actually blends in.