New Benchmark (June): Au Ra Feedback

[Lutin]

Hello, I already tried to post this as it's own post but I feel like no one is going to see it so I'm copypasting it here. And I apologize because I have been trying to have the pictures visible for 1hour to no avail. And I'm annoyed at this because I feel like posts without pictures are kind of missed... anyways. So there's only links. For reference, I decided to add a screenshot of the entire face with a bit of background showing so you can see it's actually the night/day and I'm not messing around X)

I couldn't help but notice a weird change in the limbal ring's reaction at night. Where the lighter rings look very nice glowing, you can't really say the same for darker rings. I don't really know if it was intended or not, but the glow of it makes it somehow disappear? (Well it doesn't help that my choice of colours is dark blue on light blue so it does seem invisible) Black limbal ring seems to be the only exception. I'm assuming it is because of the glow on a dark colour, it's just light theory really. My issue is that it was/is not like this as of pre-graphic update.
I joined here screenshots of my character currently, with the same colours
DAY https://ibb.co/HtH1fnk NIGHT https://ibb.co/SBZrPj7

As you can see, the limbal ring is still visible even at night. And that's the case for all "dark" limbal rings past a certain lightness.

Here is now the same colours but in Benchmark. As you can see the limbal ring is almost invisible in the night.
DAY https://ibb.co/3hYq7wk NIGHT https://ibb.co/2jZw01j

For reference, I am using the RGB: 36, 43, 56 in the benchmark as well as in current version. The before last darkest blue in the blue line.
Overall I don't know if it's just colour theory, an intended change, or a bug, but someone told me to post in on the forums maybe so that's what I did. Point still stands that it was way more visible in pre-dawntrail.
Here are some more screenshots, with other colours of the eye base while still keeping the same colour of the limbal ring so you can judge by yourself. Thank you for reading!

DAY: https://ibb.co/jbLKVYh NIGHT:https://ibb.co/wNJwpdg
DAY https://ibb.co/LP2RNrw NIGHT https://ibb.co/jkPXsJV
DAY: https://ibb.co/C6t2jnn NIGHT: https://ibb.co/2dMnQ4n

I would be really grateful if fellow au'ra players could give me their feedback on this because I didn't see anyone with this issue, as most people use a light limbal ring from what I've gathered. Please and thank you <3

[duckslap]

(copying what I posted in the JP thread but in English)

Here is what my WOL looks like currently vs in the latest benchmark



These are the main issues for I would like to highlight:

1. Eyes + forehead scale




The eyes do look 'prettier' overall and I love the new highlights, but the pupils are still more dilated than they are in the current game, which changes the look of my WOL a fair bit. The limbal rings don't extend to the outer edge of the irises, making the larger pupils even more apparent. The top eyelashes also appear to be leaning more downwards, and the lower lashes around the middle look a bit shorter. The upper lid eyeliner isn't as dark either.

The forehead scale has lost its sharp pointed edges and the shape is slightly different.

2. Lips




The lips don't appear as 'flat' now compared to the first benchmark, which I'm happy about. Compared to how they are in 6.58 however, they also appear to be 'frownier', and the centre line isn't the same, so they give off a very different impression in my opinion.

All that being said, I really appreciate the devs doing all they can to listen to feedback, especially so close to Dawntrail's release date. Thank you so much!

[Irishfae]

Here is a close up of what I'm pretty sure are your colors in the DT bench (easier for others to see :-) ):

It does look like the the nighttime shot eats some of the saturation, but the ring is still there and the same size. There also seems to be a weird 'pop' of the ring in the DT bench that isn't in game currently. I only see it in my purple eye, so there might be something happening with lighter color irises.

Here is what my character's eyes look like current with different lighting vs bench.
For reference these are the colors:

In game shot in my house and outside:


What it looks like in DT:


Note, I don't think the larger pupil size is helping this either.

Snip

[MizunaSaeki]

TLDR:
The color of limbal rings has drastically been affected through the graphical update. For some people this might not be an issue, or it’s something they can easily fix by swapping to another color swatch.
For others, the color they used more or less disappeared.
I fall into the second category.

I use a very similar colour for my character's Limbal rings you do; it's so odd to me because at night they're close to (but not quite the same as) the colour they originally were. I wouldn't mind it if the glow it has at night was visible in the day too.

Here's a comparison between direct light, in shadow, and at night.

[Lutin]

Thank you for your time Irishfae!!!! <3 I don't find the pupils to be an issue on my part, neither the ring size, but I can understand it for the people that don't like it. Maybe they should/will let people choose between old style and new style eyes? I think I heard/read something around these lines somewhere but I can't remember when and where. For me, just the saturation of the colour disappearing at night is the most weird to me X) Your purple also seems less saturated with the underlying light effect in DT. Interesting! It makes me wonder if it's intentional or not since it's not like this in current version as you said.

[limgrave]

For M face 3, this is a minor thing compared to the floating scales/holes along the hairline but it still feels odd given the texture upscaling and overall improvement to other makeup and improved face texture aspects, so I wanted to try to articulate it anyway. :) Otherwise, I've been pleasantly surprised by most other changes.

[Taranok]

I should really leave it with what I've already posted, but I just seem to keep going back.
So to add to what Taranok has pictures of. I snipped Kal's hair and tried to do some overlays. It isn't completely perfect, but I tried to get it as close as possible. I to get a head on comparison, but I just couldn't get it right, so hopefully these do.
((As a note, this rounding of the face occurred in my Viera alt too, really not sure why this decision was made))

Thanks for the even easier to digest image with red marks pointing it out. The face was such a stark difference when I first saw it in the benchmark that I instantly knew it before zooming in. It really is, simply, a massively different face and profile. Really was stung by bees in the cheek.

[Leon-Valeren]

sadly my au'ra lady got suddenly heavy eyebags
she had some before but they never were as visible as they are now. i can see them even from afar and it makes her look tired while before the subtle eyebags were a nice touch to make her look mature

benchmark (june) eyebags:


current version:

[Alice9]

A bit disappointing to see some of the continued feedback ignored, adding my voice to the mix to hopefully get some additional eyes on it or for at least some closure. There are so many grievances (completely misshaped eyes, lips, cheeks, jaws) that have gone ignored despite being repeated many times, while they continue to make random changes that weren't heavily requested at all.

[TheLiterateWolf]

Hello! Wanted to add my two cents to this after I tried the CC of the updated benchmark last night. I am very happy with the lighting and texture changes overall, as well as how the limbal rings look. My issues are, like many others here, with the mouth (*especially* the mouth), nose, and eye shape being very different to how they used to be.

For my Au Ra, I use face 2, mouth 4, and nose 3. The lips in both benchmarks appear thicker and have an inner curve to the upper lip that wasn't there before. The nose seems shorter to me, and the eye shape seems wider.

6.5 vs Benchmark 1.0 vs Benchmark 1.1


6.5 vs Benchmark 1.1


What I don't understand is why they felt the need to change options that were there, that people put many hours into choosing for their characters, rather then add them as new ones. In my case, I put literal weeks into choosing what I would prefer for my WoL. I take my character creation very seriously and, while it may not be the devs' intent, it feels like they're throwing all those hours and choices in my face, that they know better than me for what my character should look like.

What I think is the best solution would be to revert everything to how it was, update the graphics on them, and then add the new stuff as new options so that we have more diversity in our characters. Instead of replacing mouth 4 with a different style of mouth, add that as mouth 5, etc. To me that would make the most sense.