[Character Graphics Update]: Second Benchmark Worries

[Alice9]

More options would always be welcome, however if the goal of the developers is to make sure characters still retain the same feel/look from prior, then that is absolutely what they should prioritize. Especially since it is very clear that this goal has not been attained yet. As such, they really should not keep any radical changes just because new people (especially people without existing characters of that race) like the changes.

Ideally, new options, sliders, and toggles would probably please the vast majority of people- but if they have to prioritize one thing or the other, keeping their original vision and being true to their words should be it.

[PercibelTheren]

Unless they suddenly overhaul every single model in the current benchmark that is the direction of the new look and it's a departure from the old one. Some stuff will probably be fixed, but I don't think most of it is going to be and holding your breath about it is going to make you pass out.



Doing their best to keep it wouldn't have looked like some of what they've done which is where my problem comes from. A lot of faces had features completely redesigned in the process of being changed and even if the textures get more polished that's still not my character's face. Even if it was artifacts, those artifacts had existed for years and should have been factored in to the direction to take a face update.

It's just. Very frustrating that they come out with these assurances when they apparently had no intention of keeping it, given that some of the faces hardest hit shouldn't have had heavy artifacting due to age.

Thank you for saying this. I was told that the sharper features of some characters' faces were just artifacting and other issues with older graphics. OK, but those issues are what makes my character look the way he does. I don't completely hate the updated version and I'd probably get used to it, but the benchmark makes him look overall younger and much less serious.

[Reimmi]

Options would be the only way to keep both sides happy.

Person A: OMG I hate the new eyebrows, Square Enix better change them back
Person B: OMG I love the new eyebrows, Square Enix better keep them

Only way to make them happy is to offer both eyebrow options.
Just an example.

honestly the character creator needs a massive overhaul anyway
butt slider, more eyebrows, let us have more than 1 face mask, etc

[AnnRam]

I'm not worried because we're getting a second benchmark. I'm actually just worried from the feedback they might add.

I made a post 2 days ago highlighting there are quite a lot of people happy with the character update.
But reading some people's feedback, specifically about female au ra had me worried SE might use their feedback to revert changes.(I'm not referring to bugs mind you)

For example; Me and my girlfriend are a huge fan of female au ra larger pupil changes.
It makes a already cute doll like race even more cute.
Writing this part on behalf of myself and my girlfriend because she's in love with the new look of the female au ra, the new look makes her excited to change race to au ra and play it (and me as well as one of my main is a female au ra) but the thought of that going away come either full release or the new benchmark makes her quite unsettled and myself.
I think in order to please as much people as possible I think major visual changes such as the eyes/pupils. I believe making it a select-able option is the best possible solution to make everybody happy if SE is planning to make huge changes like that.
That way the people that prefer the new update can enjoy their new look and the people that like the smaller tiny pupil can be happy.

I also like the lighter eyebrows as well and on the fourms I know that also haven't been popular.
Here is my other post that showcased some popular posts from other social media: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...itive-Feedback

Are their any worries you have SE might add to the new benchmark due to feedback? are you worried as well they might revert too many changes?

And as always.
Thank you FFXIV Development Team for all your hardwork and swift communication about the benchmark and showing everybody you care.
Take care of yourselves!

Well if you're unhappy with the current direction of the game you can always unsub as GCBTW and Yoshida says.

[Plushy]

The issue with the bigger pupils is also that they are making 2 colour option kinda nonexistent. I think devs made the pupils redesign when they were going to get rid of the limbal rings, but then based on feedback returned the rings, while also didn’t rethink the effect. As a result limbal rings plus enlarged pupils are covering “base” colour almost entirely.

I have to respectfully disagree when it comes to not being able to see the eyes well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ew_au_ra_eyes/
I think it really depends on the color of your eyes I believe and also the lighting which I hope serves well in the update.

Sorry if you feel like you’re being dog piled here, but I have to agree with everyone else in here so far. I understand where you’re coming from though, I really do. You’re happy about the changes. Your character looks better to you now. That is great! I truly want that for you. Understand though that while these changes have made you happy, the same changes have made a lot of people very sad. When you have some people that are happy and some that are upset, and both sides feelings are valid, it becomes a matter of priorities and intent. The developers have to weigh the options and decide which group to satisfy (I’m assuming they can’t just add more facial options and make us both happy. The CC limitations probably need their own huge effort to update)

So on one hand you have players who have gone from content to upset. The face they grew attached to changed too much and looks like a stranger to them now. Many of them will have carried the same character through the whole games story. (The changes aren’t limited to what’s caused by lighting as many detailed comparisons of the character mesh have been made both here and on the JP forums.)

On the other hand you have players who have gone from content to even more content. They were already using the faces as they were, or they like the new look of a face and want to switch to it. They weren’t as attached or invested in their characters previous appearance as the other group. They also don’t have years of attachment to these new features like the other group has to the old ones. They are upset by the idea of not getting the new features but were not upset prior, and would not have been upset if the new features remained the same but higher quality.

It makes more sense to prioritize the first group here. You can aim to keep things in a place where everyone was mostly content, or enter a new place where some people are really happy but others are really sad. But if that’s not as clear cut a choice to you, then you have to consider what the developers intent has been through this process:

It’s pretty clear what the intent of the dev team was, and that further adds weight to prioritizing the first group. We’ll see what happens, and I would love more than anything to just get an expanded CC with both closer matches to old features and new prettier features for those that want that. Realistically unlikely though.

I’m of course biased because I’m of the group who is unhappy with what happened to my characters features, but I’ve tried to explore this as objectively as I can and I feel the conclusion is pretty obvious. I don’t have any more control over the situation than you and I doubt I have any influence on it either. This is more a general appeal to other players. While I want you to have new facial features you like more than the existing ones, all things considered it just makes more sense for those to come further down the line with a proper CC update.

No worries I understand people are upset so I can understand seeing people happy with the changes can make people not happy.

[Absurdity]

This... makes a lot of sense, actually. If I'm not mistaken, this is how clothing is already handled. They don't make a separate mesh for each race, they make two or three for different body types (midlander, lalafell, sometimes highlander) and then use shape keys to tailor them to each race's specific proportions.

Makes me wonder at the possibility of face sliders if/when the character creator receives an overhaul.

For the body and clothes they're not even using shapekeys as far as I know, female hyur, miqo'te, roegadyn, au ra, viera and elezen all just use the midlander body with different bone scaling applied.

Shapekeys morph the model itself but they need to be done for every individual model since they have different amounts of polygons and vertices and shapekeys tend to break when the amount of them changes. This is why the face shapes don't look quite the same as they did before, they needed to remake the shapekeys for the new updated head models.

Bone scaling on the other hand manipulates the skeleton underneath, it is more limited in what it can do (while still looking acceptable) but applies to all models rigged to said bones. It's how they make most races look different without having to create 17 different versions of the same armor, with bone scaling they only need to make a unique model for male roegadyn, female midlander, male midlander, male highlander (for some reason) and lalafell.

As for the sliders, in 3D modeling programs the shapekeys are already a slider. Now I have no idea how the game handles those specifically, but my assumption is that it picks a fixed point on those sliders to use as the 4-5 customization options for every part of the face.

[Glenfiddich]

Well if you're unhappy with the current direction of the game you can always unsub as GCBTW and Yoshida says.

It baffles me every time I read these statements.
What are you trying to accomplish with such stupid statements? Applause?
I'd prefer that mean People like you would unsub.

[HollowedDoll]

For the body and clothes they're not even using shapekeys as far as I know, female hyur, miqo'te, roegadyn, au ra, viera and elezen all just use the midlander body with different bone scaling applied.

Shapekeys morph the model itself but they need to be done for every individual model since they have different amounts of polygons and vertices and shapekeys tend to break when the amount of them changes. This is why the face shapes don't look quite the same as they did before, they needed to remake the shapekeys for the new updated head models.

Bone scaling on the other hand manipulates the skeleton underneath, it is more limited in what it can do (while still looking acceptable) but applies to all models rigged to said bones. It's how they make most races look different without having to create 17 different versions of the same armor, with bone scaling they only need to make a unique model for male roegadyn, female midlander, male midlander, male highlander (for some reason) and lalafell.

As for the sliders, in 3D modeling programs the shapekeys are already a slider. Now I have no idea how the game handles those specifically, but my assumption is that it picks a fixed point on those sliders to use as the 4-5 customization options for every part of the face.

From my understanding the new heads being able to morph into each other via shapekeys is a side effect of remaking the heads using the same base model and UV map rather than something that's actually being used in the end product.

I've seen this practice in other recent games as well. As for actual shapekey usage in this game, from what I've read about this it's either 0 or 1, unlike say visemes in Unity, so it's mostly used to have a certain shape applied for reasons such as overlapping gear. It's noticable with hairs especially because a lot of them drastically change shape rather than just get masked out.

I imagine faces are set up in a similar manner, whether they could turn these values into sliders is anyone's guess I suppose, but one would think if that was the case they would've done so already.

[CecMiller]

I have to respectfully disagree when it comes to not being able to see the eyes well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ew_au_ra_eyes/
I think it really depends on the color of your eyes I believe and also the lighting which I hope serves well in the update.


No worries I understand people are upset so I can understand seeing people happy with the changes can make people not happy.

Unfortunately, this can go both ways.

Here is a before and after for Male Au ra where most of the main colour for the eyes is lost:




The issue also is that the colours have become more muted as you can see from this detailed JP response with 115 likes:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6446796


Or another example with 229 likes:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...24#post6440724

[Plushy]

Unfortunately, this can go both ways.

Here is a before and after for Male Au ra where most of the main colour for the eyes is lost:




The issue also is that the colours have become more muted as you can see from this detailed JP response with 115 likes:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6446796


Or another example with 229 likes:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...24#post6440724

The level of detail is honestly scary of people pointing out what is different that I don't even notice.
The only clearly noticeable thing when it comes to au ra is just the pupils were bigger when I first saw my au ra!

Impressive honestly, but in regards to the male au ra. Yeah I can see what you mean now. Though hopefully with the change in lighting this will fix this as I seen some nice male au ra that you can see their eyes fine. I also think people might need to do some tweaking like yoshi-p said which is why we're all getting free fantasia to adjust colors. Him saying that makes me think that fixing the colors isn't possible and just a difference in lighting rather than the color palette changing/have changed. The first post also says they'll wait until the update to see if it fixes so guess we'll see.
But overall I can see what you're talking about since male au ra overall eye size is smaller than female au ra, theirs seems more blended in and darker though ironically I think it looks really cool, though I don't play male au ra so my opinion on the matter doesn't carry much weight.