Yoshida gives update on the benchmark/character creator

[Astronis]

I want to believe that the issues with player characters can be fixed with some new lighting and bugfixes, but I remain immensely skeptical. Many of the changes (particularly those made to au ra face models) seem to be the result of artistic intent rather than technical need, and by definition cannot be "fixed". Maybe it really is as simple as tweaking the scaling of face bones- there are 3rd-party tools capable of that, and gpose enthusiasts are not shy about demonstrating their capabilities. But I wouldn't put money on that possibility. Two months is the blink of an eye in gamedev time, and I have the sinking feeling that a lot of the changes people have expressed their concern about are already baked in.

I suspect this is the case. A *lot* of the problems people are pointing out will be washed away with better lighting, but not all. The devs added quite a lot of polygons to the models. They had to do something with them other than, "perfectly mimic a lower-poly model." In the case of my specific WoL, they added enough to his nose to make a subtle but noticeable difference; however it doesn't bother me because it is also clear to me everything that was added is in places that completely lacked polygons before and the result is a subtly different but much better looking nose. I also have a face 4 female Au Ra, and I can 100% see the difference in her mouth--I more or less chalk up the differences there to the same thing, a clear addition of polygons that add definition that otherwise the devs could not achieve with the lower poly model. I understand people being bothered by it, though, it does make her look a little less severe. For the sake of people truly bothered by this I hope the devs tweak it a little.

[Rudje]

I suspect this is the case. A *lot* of the problems people are pointing out will be washed away with better lighting, but not all. The devs added quite a lot of polygons to the models. They had to do something with them other than, "perfectly mimic a lower-poly model." In the case of my specific WoL, they added enough to his nose to make a subtle but noticeable difference; however it doesn't bother me because it is also clear to me everything that was added is in places that completely lacked polygons before and the result is a subtly different but much better looking nose. I also have a face 4 female Au Ra, and I can 100% see the difference in her mouth--I more or less chalk up the differences there to the same thing, a clear addition of polygons that add definition that otherwise the devs could not achieve with the lower poly model. I understand people being bothered by it, though, it does make her look a little less severe. For the sake of people truly bothered by this I hope the devs tweak it a little.

A problem I've been seeing (not from you, your post is reasonable, just in general across several topics) is people arguing against the people pointing out problems by saying that the altered traits are all old artifacting (they objectively aren't, especially in the newest faces, but that's the argument). The thing is, even if that was the case, those artifacts heavily influenced the flavor of the face and should have been preserved in some way, be it adding options that tweak the face a bit towards that old look or by preserving harsher looks in the upres. Neither of those things happened; instead, were being told that fully redesigned faces are what we look like now and there's no recourse due to how limited chargen is.