New Benchmark Feedback: Midlander Hyur Females

[Gemina]

I don't see a lot of Midlander females, so decided to make a thread for feedback for the new benchmark released today (June 3rd). Please feel free to post your feedback for Midlander females here too, regardless of what face you use.

I was reasonably happy with the previous benchmark version, but not this one. Here is a comparison, 6.5 (live game) vs the new benchmark:



I'm not really sure what to say here. She looks so different to me, it is like the new lighting highlights her features in the worst way (ex: emphasizes the nose bridge, and the undereye area makes her look tired in anything but the best light I could find, which is this). She was so cute, and now she is much less so, to my eyes.

+ a small note in regards to the lips: in both versions she has "light" lip color. However in the new benchmark, I noticed that there is a glossy/reflective effect even when I choose no lip color at all.

Any more opinions/feedback about Midlander females is welcome.

I do see the differences between the two pictures, but they all look like improvements to me. The image on the left is much more cartoonish than the right. The image on the right looks much more alive, but this might actually be unwelcomed to some players. The face shape and eye shape a very similar, and only the lips are vastly different. The most important thing though is that I can tell it's the same character. If this was my Hyur, I would be content with the update, but everyone is going to feel differently.

[1313]

Personally im not a fan of face 5 midlander chicks, but the pics in the op show as improvements across the board for me. I use face 1 and I'm pretty happy with the changes in 1.1 vs 1.0 bench, although it'll take some getting used to. Looks like my character is A LOT younger than the current version, and I'm not really a big fan of controlling a teenage girl looking avatar. Hopefully they can add a touch up to make them look like actual adults instead of high school graduates

[ieatcatfood]

https://imgur.com/a/b7eLJFz
I really dislike the changes to face 1 midlanders

[Sommerfugl]

They went way too strong on the shadows.

Benchmark 1.0


Benchmark 1.1



As you can see, 1.1 was updated with stronger shadows that are way too strong for those faces. Benchmark 1.0 had it spot on.

[Swordsman]

I'm not really sure what to say here. She looks so different to me, it is like the new lighting highlights her features in the worst way (ex: emphasizes the nose bridge, and the undereye area makes her look tired in anything but the best light I could find, which is this). She was so cute, and now she is much less so, to my eyes.

Edit to clarify: a big reason she looks less cute to me is because her expression looks different, especially the mouth. She looks like she has a touch of a smile before, but in the benchmark it is gone and combined with the undereye area she just looks bored and tired.

I can see the dissimilarities to my character too. Differences in size of the nose, philtrum, and lips stand out to me the most. I'm not going to flat out say it's ugly, but it's certainly different and very noticeable (at least to me). Yeah, it looks like my character but at the same time it's not, lol.

[CantDecide]

I am very unhappy with the changes of the overal shape of face #1. Lips, eyes, nose, chin, hairline all look very different. And none of those are an improvement.




The JP forum has a pretty good comparison post.

I completely agree, and had even made a post for the old benchmark voicing similar concerns. You and IkaRR on the Japanese forum have done a really good job outlining the problems.

Bouncing off your post, here's an updated slider comparison of how the changes affect my main: https://imgsli.com/MjY5OTA1/0/2
It's got an option to compare the old benchmark, too.

I'm happy to see they've fixed the red cheeks, same-length lower lashes, and missing eyebags I mentioned in my old post. Her hair also looks better when running the benchmark itself than it did in the old one.

Unfortunately all the problems you've highlighted remain, as well as the others including the lower lashes being too far away from the waterline like OgruMogru has mentioned, the nerfed eyeshadow (Thundertron55 and SugaryMiraa do a good job showing it in this thread), and the red lip undertone despite having the darkest blue lipstick option selected.

In some ways it's worse than the old benchmark. The character creation lighting is more washed out for me even though I imported my game settings across all benchmark versions. I suppose this wouldn't be such a big deal if not for the lack of shading above her eyes. I'm not sure if that's because of the lighting or a change to the texture, but it makes them look smaller than they did even in the old benchmark, and puts too much visual burden on the under eye area which makes the eyebags look more noticeable than they do in the live game.

Overall, I'm very disappointed to see that they really did change the core shape of face 1 like I feared. :/

[Eriyu]

My problem is mostly related to lighting as several hairstyles have broken self-shadowing (on max settings)

I'm seeing the same thing with other hairstyles. Hopefully they're just still in progress? This first one is especially baffling, but the second one looks worse in motion.

[mdv8]

I definitely agree with this. There's something off about the face that makes it look eerily like a different character. I also think that it's something about the reflection of the eyes, and also agree that there used to be what looked like a slight smile that's gone now (I use mouth 4). The expression looks much more blank around the mouth, and the eyes look like they're empty, without much life behind them. It doesn't look like the same character, it looks like someone else who's just a really good lookalike. I hope they have time left to still be fiddling with the graphics update a bit more before launch.

[Gemina]

I definitely agree with this. There's something off about the face that makes it look eerily like a different character. I also think that it's something about the reflection of the eyes, and also agree that there used to be what looked like a slight smile that's gone now (I use mouth 4). The expression looks much more blank around the mouth, and the eyes look like they're empty, without much life behind them. It doesn't look like the same character, it looks like someone else who's just a really good lookalike. I hope they have time left to still be fiddling with the graphics update a bit more before launch.

Supposedly they are working on it all the way up to launch, and I believe they are going to continue to work on it afterwards but I think that has more to do with updating all the NPCs and areas of the game.

I definitely see the differences here, especially considering this is the face I use. The passive smile helps to cancel out the resting B-face from my eyebrow selection. The benchmark version shown here looks like what could be considered to be the older sibling of the current 6.55 version.

[Miki_L]

Face 5 has a sharper, skinnier cheek line compared to before. I'm not the first one to point it out, but I want to also chime in that it changes my impression of my character which I do not want.