7.0 Graphic Update - Elezen feedback

[Naseilis]

Alright, my turn !

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Overall, the result is a mixed bag, but mostly positive. Here are the elements that called to my attention the most :

EYES :
Actually pretty happy about the changes to the shape of this set of eyes. They were the most innocent but also "out of place" looking so that's why I picked them initially, but now they are more in line with the other designs and it makes him look more mature like the rest.

HOWEVER, he's a duskwight, and now he has dark circles under his eyes ?? No can do ! I took a duskwight face specifically to avoid those dark circles... !

The new eyebrows make all the elezens look angy or evil now, help- And I've seen some who have lost their eyebrow identity... It's not all bad, but for the most detailed ones to lose their identity is a shame for sure.

HAIR :
The hair seems to have lost some shine in parts and gained in others, and the new hair shader doesn't make it look like hair. Idk, I'm gonna be real, it looks kind of "cheap"... The previous hair had more definition somehow, albeit not always lighted correctly. Something about the previous shader made it shine more like actual hair strands ?

I also find the coloring much less saturated in the benchmark version that the previous one (except for the secondary hair strands coloring which in turn looks extra saturated in some places), and seems to go in line with people's observations so far.

SKIN TONE :
The model seems to gorge itself with a tad too much lighting which makes it glow and wash out the shadows in high lighting areas. The problem also subsides in low lighting (e.g. first pic) as expected of SSS, so there might be some tuning to do ? I'm a BIG fan of the reddish ear tips, of course ♥

TL;DR : Nice eyes upgrade, but please, NOT the dark circles under his eyes ! Also eyebrows, varied lighting and coloring "issues"

[GodModule]

Thought I'd add my Elezen to the dedicated thread. I'm happy wth the update, but I feel like some of the gormlessness (which came from him being half lalafell) is lost

[cio]

Already posted my main in the thread, but here's the changes on an elezen alt.

Her hair is pretty much ruined, the shine is gone.

[Chasingstars]

[Minneyar]

Here to add onto the pile of things likely already said. I've tried to sit on them for a few days and see how I felt about it honestly, and I just can't get them out of my mind. Like many others, I expected to fiddle with a few changes in regards to skintone etc being that this is the first time in 10 years changes this drastic have occurred. HOWEVER..

Here is a side profile view comparison:



- it seems like the color of the hair has been somehow washed out and isn't as vibrant. Idk if it is an effect of the new lighting or what but it seems dull.

- The ear has been adjusted and reshapened to be more rounded, but for ear 3 it feels as if this has shortened them quite a bit.

- The nose has also been rounded off as many others have stated for their faces and I can't say I'm a fan of it..

- Why did they reshape the ear clasp so drastically?

Front views:



- Lack of eyelashes from a certain distance and creepy listless eyes.

- The lipstick looks like it was applied using a rubber stamp instead of being like.. actual real lips with highlights.

- Like the profile view, I'm not pleased with how washed out the colors feel. Even the eyebrows look faded and muddled compared to current graphics. Which is strange because the irises are so detailed and crisp comparatively.

ALSO has anyone mentioned the texture on the racial starter gear for F Elezen? Like.. somehow it feels like it's worse?? It looks like it can't decide if it wanted to be hd or not and somehow got stuck at halfway. I'd like to hope it isn't the final product because WHEW.

[decomposer]

I doubt, that they will re-implement very old bugs.

This is something I've been grappling with over the last few days. Are we really meant to think that hooked noses, strong profiles, smaller almond eyes, and full lips were "mistakes?" If so, I'm not sure why they let people build characters with those mistakes for ten years. A lot of people held onto those features as the only crumbs that allowed us to make ethnically diverse characters.

[Larirawiel]

This is something I've been grappling with over the last few days. Are we really meant to think that hooked noses, strong profiles, smaller almond eyes, and full lips were "mistakes?"

Jepp. There is a nice documentary on YT how ARR was made. They took literary every shortcut, they could to finish ARR as fast as possible. With the graphical update, they fix some defect things.



Cheers

[SpiritMuse]

I doubt, that they will re-implement very old bugs.




Cheers

Now you're just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Of course I'm not arguing to reintroduce bugs, it's ludicrous that you would even assume that.

Plainly, if a facial feature ends up looking differently than you intended due to a bug, and you plan to update that feature after 10 years of people creating characters with it while promising to preserve the original look of characters as much as possible, you should rework that feature so that the updated, unbugged version still reflects the actual way it has always looked.

[Lorefiend]

Jepp. There is a nice documentary on YT how ARR was made. They took literary every shortcut, they could to finish ARR as fast as possible. With the graphical update, they fix some defect things.



Cheers

The normal map might not have been perfect and got remade, but 3D shapes are not bugs. The sculpting of the face was intentional for 1.0, and it is intentional for 7.0 too.
The changes hurt the character creation range we used to have, and are the opposite of what they said they were trying to do; staying faithful. This is not something that needed to be lost to fix the bugs.

[Larirawiel]

Plainly, if a facial feature ends up looking differently than you intended due to a bug, and you plan to update that feature after 10 years of people creating characters with it while promising to preserve the original look of characters as much as possible, you should rework that feature so that the updated, unbugged version still reflects the actual way it has always looked.

Yes, it happens, that the players start to like some bugs or not intended behavior of a game. It was the same in WoW. Blizzard assigned an incorrect sound to a warrior ability. Later, they fixed it and the players were upset because they liked the wrong sound. This is more a philosophical question: is a bug really a bug if people like it and it does not disrupt the game?

The normal map might not have been perfect and got remade, but 3D shapes are not bugs. The sculpting of the face was intentional for 1.0, and it is intentional for 7.0 too.
The changes hurt the character creation range we used to have, and are the opposite of what they said they were trying to do; staying faithful. This is not something that needed to be lost to fix the bugs.

Yes, they altered also some other aspects of the face. Because they increased the polygon count of it. And more polygons look different than less polygons. The eyes also look different because the anime-like white dot is gone.



Cheers