[DT Benchmark] Specific Feedback re: Mouth/Lip Color Updated Shapes

[Kanehon]

Unpopular opinion but I like the new lip textures :< I#d be upset if they reverted it.

the Textures are amazing, and there is much detail in the lips too, and I love it.

But they changed the shape of the lips, which changed how characters look and their expressions. And I hope they will keep revisiting it to keep it closer to the original look even with the high quality and improved textures

[posona]

Unpopular opinion but I like the new lip textures :< I#d be upset if they reverted it.

I don’t think the textures are an unpopular opinion. They’re gorgeous, my boy’s lips look so soft now! I love them. But the shape is not the shape I fell in love with and really changes his expression.

[Caesius]

So, just for the sake of having a thorough record, I took screenshots of M roe and M lala as well. I "would" test every face and mouth combo across every race but that would be insane.

I didn't notice much of a difference for M Roe when I tried it the first time around, but now that I know what to look for it's more obvious. I don't have an issue with the lip color updates on this face, but it does confirm that the specific pattern of changes are universal:

• The application of lip color is now a single universal shape or "mask" that applies identically to all races and faces.
• The mask is stretched horizonally to the very corners of the mouth and vertically to the very edge of the lip.

Dawntrail benchmark on the left.





By the way, if anyone wants to check what their character used to look like, you might still be able to use the Endwalker benchmark, though you may have to download it from a third party since it seems Square have replaced it with the Dawntrail benchmark entirely.

[KisaiTenshi]

By the way, if anyone wants to check what their character used to look like, you might still be able to use the Endwalker benchmark, though you may have to download it from a third party since it seems Square have replaced it with the Dawntrail benchmark entirely.

Techpowerup still has all the benchmarks.

[Vandi]

Just my imagination but I feel like femroe faces lost a bit of the wickedness and turned a little more. . .domesticated. Not a good thing in my book. As well, for all the races, there seems to be a noticeable loss of luster in the eyes.

Hi lander F however. . . “. . .hold my beer.” Me: “Absolutely.”

[Caesius]

Just my imagination but I feel like femroe faces lost a bit of the wickedness and turned a little more. . .domesticated. Not a good thing in my book.

Probably not your imagination, and I think it's largely due to their lip makeup, thus this thread. However, it does look like their eyebrows and eyeliner have also lost a bit of definition/thickness, which is also true for a lot of faces/races.

As well, for all the races, there seems to be a noticeable loss of luster in the eyes.

I think this is due to catchlights no longer being a static, always-on application and now dependent on lighting+environment. You may be able to get a stronger sparkle in the eye with precise lighting, but that's so hard to do already....

Hi lander F however. . . “. . .hold my beer.” Me: “Absolutely.”

Agreed :P

[KhujaRela]

this is exactly what I wanted to express too! I think the team that worked on faces didnt understand very well what makes a face unique and an expression important...

[Cai]

Wanted to add to this as I feel the same way, the lips along with the eyes are the only stand-out features that make my characters feel completely strange and unfamiliar every time I look at them. It sounds silly but they look like they were swapped with a sadder, less excited impersonator.

[Turnintino]

Worth noting, I think, that in order for this lip color solution to work, the lip textures in both the normal and diffuse maps would need to be stripped. Lip color, as it currently exists, is a semi-transparent layer that sits on top, without hiding the normal or diffuse textures. The discrepancy with the diffuse map would be the most obvious to the naked eye, but the normal map would also have glaring discrepancies depending on lighting conditions. I'm not sure there's an elegant (and resource-efficient) solution to that problem without at least partially back-pedaling on the graphics update (by painting a diffuse-like texture onto the lip color overlay, etc., rather than allowing the normal map to do its current job, which looks more "real"), at least as it pertains to characters. Which some people do clearly want, to be fair, but just as many don't.

[Caesius]

Honestly, as someone who is not a 3D modeler, it does not look to me like it should be terribly complicated to add additional options for lip color shape.

It's plainly obvious that currently they apply the lip color in exactly the same way on every single face, with what seems like four "anchor points" at the very corners of the mouth and the very edge of the central lip folds.

So let's say all they defined were the anchor points and the lip color is then applied automatically rather than by hand. In that case, they could add customization options where the anchor points are simply moved by transformation functions, or even where the shape of the lip color application itself is transformed with e.g. a more dynamic curvature on the lower lip.

But if this was indeed a process that took a lot of work by hand then I'm even more confused as to how it came out like this. In another thread I mentioned that F Au Ra face 2 mouth 1 looks like its mouth geometry was adjusted to fit the lip color shape rather than the reverse. Like, sure, the old mouth was wide and it would've looked silly to have the new makeup go from corner to corner. But then why was the constraint that the "anchor points" always have to be at the mouth corners done anyway?

They implemented the graphical update in such a way that they had to butcher certain faces on account of the constraints they put in place. If they did not also put in some framework to ease the addition of new customization options then in my view it was simply released in an unfinished state.