Quote Originally Posted by Fuyume View Post

Literally same imported settings, no gamma correction, same location, disabled any kind of color correction or shader that could possibly influence it, even went out of my way to make sure that it's at the exact angle by using those windows behind them, and it still looks like a totally different character. And not in the good 'wow her textures are so much better' way, in the 'Since when does she have dimples? Why is her face so much rounder and softer?' kind of way.
She did have dimples. You just never saw them before because there was no light scattering coming from a bottom light point before, so they were never seen except as extra shadows on the mouth. The meshes did not change, from what I am given to understand. The pucker around her mouth is from the mesh; the light engine now finally shows it, is all.

Face being rounder? Light effect. Softer? Light subsurface scattering.

Quite literally looks "the same" to me - if it was a photo of a real person, it's the difference between taking a photo with no flash in a dim room , and taking a photo flash turned on.