Dawntrail Graphical Update - Au Ra Feedback

[NistoBesto]

I really hope if they fix the issues with the eyeshadow they make them toggleable.
As it stands im very impressed with the changes to my face 3 in Dawntrail (at least with male Raen AuRa) and im questioning if this will turn into a huge game of tug of war where the devs humbly go with changing things to peoples requests only for them to turn around and read posts saying that what they changed runined something someone else really liked in the current benchmark. Idk i do hope this all turns out great for everyone but im sceptical

[Miyuuna]

I'm a bit late to this, but still wished to throw in my two cents. I do not dislike the graphical update, but there are some things which make me feel like my character doesn't quite look like himself anymore.

Comparison: Benchmark --> Current


1) The skin texture. It seems a little overdone on male Au Ra, and I dislike the appearance of it. I've seen people refer to it as watercolor paper texture, which seems accurate. I hope it will be toned down a little, as other races don't seem to have such a rough, unnatural texture and deep pores. The forehead scales also seem very rough around the edges.

2) The limbal rings. The limbal rings are noticeably darker despite being the same color in the palette.

3) The nose tip shape seems and nostrils seem a little more round, which I don't like as much. It could be the lighting, but I wanted to point it out anyway.

4) The lip shape seems ENTIRELY different, and this is where I have the most issues. The full lips are what I liked the most about my male Au Ra, and in the benchmark they just look less full and they adjusted the mouth corners, while I thought it was a unique trait of Au Ra. His expression completely changed.

5) The scales. I loved the ivory colors of the original scales, which is why I picked Raen. In the benchmark, they traded in the ivory for a sandy brown color with some ivory highlights, especially on the neck. They look flat to me and more like a sandrock-y texture instead of scales. I hope they will look closer to the original in the final release.


Finally, a comparison of the Benchmark facial features compared to the original. Mostly to visualize how much the lip shape has changed (I'm no digital artist, this is the best I could do). I majorly prefer the original.

Benchmark --> Original

[Iscah]

Additional weird realisation on the changes to face 3 - they have visible eyelashes now and I have only just processed this.

I was looking at the character creator again trying to really understand what is going on with the structure of the eyes in particular across all the races (my efforts to write a post about my Midlander girl get stretched further and further as I waver over what is an error introduced by the remake and what has just been ambiguous all along) and I was trying to figure out the current eyes on Au Ra and how they've ended up so strange and deep-set in the remade model, and had a few realisations in a row.

1. "They don't have eyelashes and this has never occurred to me."

2. "Actually if you tilt the camera from just the right overhead angle they have tiny eyelashes oddly high above the eye edge."

3. Fun bonus fact: You might be aware that Raen have blue-purple colouring inside their mouth instead of pink, but they also have it in the corners of the eyes!

4. Over to the benchmark, and now they have more noticable eyelashes right along the edge of the eyelid and making the eyes look narrower. They've also lost the spot of purple from the inner eye so the white comes to more of a sharp point.

I also keep fretting that I've mis-identified the exact issues with where they need dark around the eyes and to what degree. I was just going off the one screenshot when I should have done more comparing to the game.

If anything, this is giving me a lot of appreciation for just how complex the impression of a face is.

I think there are a lot of issues stemming from the fact that the characters' eyes are actually pretty weird structurally - in a lot of cases the eyelashes start well above the eyes and I think it might originate as visual trickery to make the eyelashes seem thicker by placing dark shadow under them as if they're concealing the eye beneath. There's also a lot of adding more "physical" shape to what was previously just hinted at with different shades of eyeshadow around the eyes, which in many cases is restructuring the shape of the eye.

[Iscah]

Still trying to construct some more in-depth diagrams, but I switched hairstyle on my Au Ra to see the sides of the face better and realised that the benchmark has made a bigger mess of the face than I had previously realised.





I've also just had a realisation while further playing around with the character that despite having simpler "human" eyebrows, I think the underlying face structure may actually be similar to the double-swoop eyebrow that is used on face #4, and that may explain the fairly sharp change of shadow halfway along the under-eyebrow.

I'd taken further reference screenshots tonight after seeing a post suggesting to use facepaint to block out the dark makeup around the eyes and see the structure, I think I'm going to have to take yet another set of screenshots with the eyebrows deactivated so I can see that better.

Still, even from these pictures you can see that the outer part of the eye has been altered a lot. The eyelid is heavier and juts out where previously it was quite flat; it has also been extended further past the edge of the eye and adds extra ridges -- and has caused a weird crease in the face, like it hasn't been fitted in properly.

The whole thing looks like a twisted mess of overlapping bits now, instead of neat curving lines.

There also seems to be eyeliner added, but not right against the eye, and there's either an impression of or actually is an extra layer of inner eyelid making the eyes seem extra complicated and sunken.

[Iscah]

The wrangling continues.

One more lot of comparison pictures, and someone on another thread mentioned the idea of using white face paint to block out makeup and show the actual shape of the face better, so I did that as well and that's rather interesting.




Besides the changes to the eyes, the change to the mouth shape becomes more visible, and the chin has become pointier. The scales to the sides of the chin look squarer as well.

The entire face looks somewhat puffy in the benchmark as well.

Regarding the eyes, the white-painted faces reveal how much the structure of the eye and eyelid have been altered. The eyelid in the current appearance is fairly flat in the outer half and overshadowed by other parts of the eye structure, but in the benchmark model it is very pronounced and catches a lot of light, and has been altered to a lighter colour as well so the effect is even worse.

On the outer corner of the right eye in the painted faces, you can particularly see that the eyelid has been pulled inwards and the curve of it has changed completely. The current appearance has almond-shaped eyes even at the oblique angle, but the benchmark appearance turns into an inward curve. On the left eye it looks like the lower eyelid might have been pulled inwards so the eyes are rounded rather than pointed at the outer corner.

The new eyelid also stretches out much further past the eye - particularly noticable at the outer corner, but it's an issue all around the eye. The dimensions of the current eye (marked out by the darkest layer of colour amid the surrounding makeup) are smaller and he barely has visible eyelids at all until he blinks.

It also seems that eyelashes have been added to the lower edge of the eyelid, further shadowing the eye. In the current appearance the character only has small eyelashes in the outer corner of the eye. I don't think I had even noticed them until I was studying the eyes closely for this.

Here is a focus on the eyes of both image pairs above:


Plus an interpretive tracing of the eye shapes:

It might be a little flippant to do the giant scribble around the benchmark eye when I probably could trace the line that is meant to be the edge of the makeup-eyeshadow versus actual shadow, but really it does all blur together.

The original eye shape has such a flow to it, but the new version is a disjointed mess.

There's also what seems to be a new dark shape over the eye (I have marked it in grey) which might be a shadow from the changed eyelashes or might be an attempt to convert a certain oddity of the current model into a more physical form.

I hadn't realised until I started having to scrutinise the faces, but face #3 has a curious effect where the eyes are set slightly back from the edge of the eyelid and you can see an inner colour inside the eyelid that is presumably meant to be the muscles around the eye.



It seems that the new model cannot handle this approach of only seeing it from certain angles, so the shape of the eyelid has been "tightened" to sit closer against the eye, but then they seem to have added this shadow that wasn't there before.

If it is supposed to replace this coloured rim, it is a strange choice of permanent position as it takes over more of the eye. I would think it would work better with just portraying it as the small visible muscle at the inner corner of the eye.

[CecMiller]

Bumping this thread.

Will post this on the JPN side later.

My own concerns:

Thank you for the Benchmark changes.

Unfortunately, it seems that there are still existing issues in the design of Au Ra. It seems Au Ra changes were largely ignored.

1. The pupils are too big/dilated. They were small originally. This changes the look of the character. Please change this back or add an option for the pupils to be big or small.

2. The colours of the umbral ring are more darked and cannot be easily replaced. My character was directly imported, and the colour is significantly darker. This colour can no longer be replicated as there are not many colours for blue. This blue was important as it represented the colour we’ve seen come up in the story multiple times with significant story relevance.

3. The lips are no longer upturned at the corners. This makes the characters expression change from slightly happy to neutral or expressionless.

There are more issues, but I feel these are most pressing for my own Au Ra.

Before and after Slider: https://imgsli.com/MjY5Mzcx



If you're interested in the story relevance I'm pointing at in point #2:

[DieLorelei]

Face 3, Eyes 3 Female Xaela here..

I appreciate the hard work the artists put in to address so many concerns in such a short period of time - the update is much better now. That said, I'd like to bring attention to some of my remaining concerns.

1. Mouth 1 & Lip Color:
   Not much to say here. The shape is still off, I also miss the upturned corners, but I might get over it eventually. I know gloss was added - but its still nearly invisible in most lighting.
2. Eye Shape 3:
   While I'm not skilled or knowledgeable enough to give a detailed drawing, or anatomical breakdown, here's a side-by-side.
   
   While subtle, the updated benchmark's eyes seem more rounded, dilated, & droopy, giving off the impression of either being drowsy or high.
   The original eyes are sharper, especially on the inner corners, & have a more ambivalent look to them. Giving her a calm & determined expression.
   
   However this could be due to the next complaint.
3. Upper Eyelid (Optional Feature):
   In the current game version, the Au'Ra's upper eyelid feature gives a strong eyeliner & soft, feathery eyeshadow effect to the eyes.
   
   The updated benchmark appears to be just a soft eyeliner - which is ironically a little weaker than that of a current Au'Ra without the feature at all.
   There isn't anything really wrong with this, however for those wishing to achieve a more dramatic makeup appearance, that only leaves us with the fairly limited face paint options.
   
   Personally, I like Face Paint 4 (Outer Eyeshadow) w/ Upper Eyelid feature. The combined appearance is both subtle & dramatic, giving a soft, two-toned eyeshadow effect to the middle & corner of her eyes. Unfortunately this option also isn't as distinct in the updated benchmark. The eyeshadow is a lot smaller, & the color drops off a lot shorter from the edge of her eye.
   
   While I understand that its possible perhaps a majority of players prefer the new look of both the Upper Eyelid Feature & Face Paint 4 - it would be nice if these were closer to the original. These features are optional, so it should be easy to justify retaining their original appearance.
   
   At the very least, with hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes being a lot lighter and less defined overall than as in the current game, it would be nice to have more options to make up for the differences. (2+ Face Paint options + more makeup variety?)

With wildly different preferences & mixed opinions across the board, perhaps one possible solution for a few of the different features could be to add an "intensity/opacity" slider. This might address most feedback regarding limbal ring, gloss, lip color, and face paint options. Or perhaps overhaul character creation entirely for 9.0.

In any case, I sincerely hope the team will continue to improve our character appearances based on feedback throughout Dawntrail.

Current Game / Updated Benchmark (v11):

[Merunari]

Cross-posting from the new/other thread!

Face 4 here also coming in with continued disappointment.

Mouth shape is the biggest issue I have. The corners are even more down-turned in the 1.1 benchmark than they were in the 1.0 benchmark, in addition to the lip line still being flattened and the upper lip shape being more curved rather than straight angles. It feels like they transplanted face 2's OLD mouth onto the new F4. It's a whole new mouth and it completely changes the face.

EW vs DT1.1 for comparison:


Eyebrows are weirdly dark now? This seems most likely to be a lighting thing, but it's super noticeable to me.

EW vs DT1.1 for comparison:



Pupils are still way too big. If you have limbal rings, it's hard to see the actual base color of the eyes.
On that note, limbals still feel much darker/not as glowy. I think it's more because they blended them into the iris rather than having solid, hard lines to make them look more "natural". I don't mind the blending, but the "unnatural" glow was specifically why I chose to have limbal rings in the first place.

The catchlights still suck, in my opinion. They're much better than the 1.0 benchmark catchlights, but they're way too small/subtle and way too sparkly. It's like there are multiple light sources pointed at the eyes, but that's not how shine on eyes works. They still almost vanish entirely in the benchmark itself, so the soulless/dead eye look is still an issue in actual gameplay outside of the character creator.

The whole face shape (jaw 1) feels a bit weird now. The chin is more round rather than pointed, the cheek bones sit higher and rounder, while also feeling like the cheeks have been hollowed out a little. The face still looks round, just... more in the chipmunk way rather than the actually round way it was before. This feels like it could be a lighting difference issue, but I'm not entirely sure, given that there are definitely minor model changes elsewhere (as noted with the lips in particular). I honestly can't tell if it's the lighting playing tricks on me or if the model was actually changed.

[Shikarii]

I'm really upset about this aura update. I always loved how my character looked. I never changed her face for 4 years. I loved her look, and then suddenly.. she looked different.. just different.
Imagine you wake up in the morning look in the mirror, and you look different.. thats so.. unfamiliar i dont like it. Why dont they just make extra faces, and leave the old ones like they were?
My character seems to have a completely different personality now I want my old Shikari Gnu back .. please SE make some changes that allow to use the old faces again.. its not nice when the face you see for 4 years every day and that you like a lot, now looks different..

[Mr_Gucky]

I'm really upset about this aura update. I always loved how my character looked. I never changed her face for 4 years. I loved her look, and then suddenly.. she looked different.. just different.
Imagine you wake up in the morning look in the mirror, and you look different.. thats so.. unfamiliar i dont like it. Why dont they just make extra faces, and leave the old ones like they were?
My character seems to have a completely different personality now I want my old Shikari Gnu back .. please SE make some changes that allow to use the old faces again.. its not nice when the face you see for 4 years every day and that you like a lot, now looks different..

I got familiar feelings as you. It was exactly the same for me. After 4 years, my Au Ra is no longer the same. It's terrible and I'm very sad about it.

I wish the old faces were still available.

Unfortunately I don't think that will happen.

This is probably her end...