Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Aurumis]

I really hope they see this but many things were already in the benchmark and people asked them to fix and...they didn't. Also the promise of the characters lookint the same but they didn't deliver it at all...

[Turnintino]

I'm just really dissapointed with what they did with the male miqo'te face 4 eyes 3... it's horrible how much expression of the eyes they erased to become dead inside. I want them to fix it so badly...

Agreed. You can see a clear difference in the proportions in one of my previous posts, especially in the gifs.

[Aurumis]

Agreed. You can see a clear difference in the proportions in one of my previous posts, especially in the gifs.

Please use your post and submit a bug repport with the /supportdesk too in the game and add the link of the official forum and your post, I did it with mine. (Other people, pls do the same not only in the forum!!)

[Gredunza]

Fantastic, well-constructed feedback. I'm planning on collecting my observations about Midlander face 1 into one big list like this, and I'll absolutely be using your post as a model.

Please! I used face 1 as well and have been heartbroken with what it has become; but I'm simply not skilled enough to collate the data to a useful level.
I can also recommend looking at page 15 of the JP thread, there's an excellent break down of face 1 there.

[noumen0nn]

Please! I used face 1 as well and have been heartbroken with what it has become; but I'm simply not skilled enough to collate the data to a useful level.
I can also recommend looking at page 15 of the JP thread, there's an excellent break down of face 1 there.

Thanks, I'll take a look! I've already made 2 posts in this thread going over some specific changes to face 1, so feel free to use the info there for your own feedback purposes if you want. My next steps are collecting more photo comparisons for the nose and mouth, as well as errors in our new facial animations, and then I'll consolidate everything and make a post on the JP thread myself.

I wanted to point out the dramatic change to the overall face impression of Midlander Hyur face 1, using my character as an example.




I'm not the world's best artist, but here is a sketch I made to emphasize the difference in features. I used photoshop to morph my initial pencil sketch to be as accurate to the in-game images as possible.

Hello, I believe I've identified one of the primary culprits in Hyur Midlanders looking "off", which is that the shading at the top of our eyes cast by our upper eyelids has been significantly toned down, to the point where it looks functionally absent.

[Turnintino]

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how terribly my catboy's portrait translated in the new lighting lol.

Behold:



And still, you can see the way his face has changed, from his jawline, to the shape and curve of his lips, to the shape of his nose (it lost the smooth feline slope it had previously), to the thickness and position of his eyebrows... Small things, individually, that combine to create a different face altogether.

[Aco505]

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how terribly my catboy's portrait translated in the new lighting lol.

Behold:



And still, you can see the way his face has changed, from his jawline, to the shape and curve of his lips, to the shape of his nose (it lost the smooth feline slope it had previously), to the thickness and position of his eyebrows... Small things, individually, that combine to create a different face altogether.

The lighting's so awful in portraits. It's like they forgot to put a correct one. Same with the character equipment window.

[Doopliss]

I was initially going to reply to a comment about this in the Face 1 ♂ Miqo'te thread, but this is more general and I want to pretend I'm a little more organized than I actually am, so I'll comment here instead.

But the more I look at all of the races, the more eye color and eye shading has been bothering me. In the Miqo'te thread mentioned, another user was talking about how eye color was one of the worst offenders. And...I agree, but I also felt even more bothered because male Keeper eyes are now shaded the same way female Viera eyes were shaded prior to the update. So instead male Keepers look off while female Viera (especially Veena) just look...unfortunately, broken (though there are a lot of issues with female Viera right now, too. As if opposite to the Hellsguard problem, their nose smudge is much too dark compared to before, and lacking the nice blending they had prior to 7.0).

It's such a small thing that I feel embarrassed every time I mention it, but honestly, the way eye color and shading varied between race to race was something I noticed since 2.0, and was present even on the higher fidelity 1.0 models...

For example, Hyuran eye tones are generally gentler and less bright. When Viera were added, I noticed immediately they shared the same tones as Hyur. Female Viera specifically were made with a really unique dark gradient over their eyes that gave them a more "mature" and "gentle" look, and that made their eye colors a smidge darker-looking. This was especially noticeable for Veena and their larger pupils. Instead that was replaced with a dark black line just stripped over the upper portion of their eyes with that nice gradient removed...

Now, on the other end, male Keepers were designed with pupils that reacted significantly to their eye color choice. It's on the same level as female Roegadyn. Particularly, though, since male Keeper pupils are so large, this gave them an especially bright, otherworldly look to their eyes. Female Keepers actually always had colored pupils too, but it's to a lesser extent than male Keepers. I assume this is because they're a 1.0 model and male Keepers are a 2.0 model, and they changed them to make them equivalent in the update... I get where they're coming from with that, but the impression is different enough that I actually think those differences should instead be maintained.

Elezen, Roegadyn, Au Ra, Miqo'te, and Dunesfolk (Plainsfolk had tones closer to Hyur) in general all had brighter-looking eyes before the update. In Elezen and most male Roegadyn cases, it's because their pupil colors were actually also subtly affected by their iris color (again, for female Roegadyn, that difference was actually as extreme as male Keepers, which I think should be kept). Male Roegadyn eye color is affected in the same way as female Viera for a couple of face options in the update, which surprised me--basically all the ones that got changed to have stark black pupils instead and had any gradient removed now have all their eye colors looking "whiter" than before.

Maybe the old eye designs seemed sloppy and unintentional to some, but, to me, it always felt intentional and gave the differences between races and clans a more distinct feeling. In the update, it just feels like they didn't actually pay attention to what made eyes feel the way they did, and that includes even Hyur, as you can see from many examples pointing out the problems in ♀ Midlander Face 1!

I feel like I'm asking for too much with this, but, god, I hope they actually look over it...

Sorry for the wall of text and lack of image examples. I'm just tired after all the prior attempted JP thread organizations and bug reports, unfortunately.

[ConantSivrha]

The issue with the lip shadow was very noticeable to me in-game, especially when light wasn't shining directly on the face but the ambient lighting was still bright enough to see clearly. I've also noticed some similar shadow forming a line on the bottom outline of the bottom lip. I think the (now irremovable) lip gloss makes it look worse by lighting up the center of the lip and creating more contrast, but that's just a guess---I can't confirm my suspicion, because I can't see the new face without the gloss.

"Drawn on", as you described the shadow later in your post, is the perfect way to describe it; I wasn't sure how to articulate exactly what looked unnatural about it, myself. Your post identifies and puts into words a number of specific changes and issues that someone might look at and think "something isn't right about this" but not know what to say about it.

The nose my face 4 female miqo'te uses, nose type 6, has always had a different shape than the other noses on this face (6 is slightly downturned, while the other noses are upturned). The shine that goes all the way up the nose looks perfectly natural on nose 6 and enhances its shape, so I thought it was one of the best additions. Before seeing your post, I hadn't noticed how the shine looks mismatched with other nose shapes of this face, but you're right. Your character's original nose had a distinct shape that was obscured in the update, and the shape of the nose shine contributed to that.

On one hand, I want my character to keep their current nose shine, or something similar to it. However, if each nose had its own fitting "shine shape", it would help make each nose look more like itself, and look more distinct from each other when the face is pointed towards the camera. (In my opinion, the more upturned noses should have the shine concentrated on the tip, while type 2, which is a straighter nose, and type 6 should retain the current shine.)

Thank you for making this post, Cheapshot. It is impressively detailed and comprehensive.

[suikka]

Don't know if someone has brought this up yet but something that's personally bothering me about the update is the way your character automatically lowers their eyelids a lot when looking down. Sure, it's probably more realistic and I would love to see it on occasion, but I wish there was a on/off toggle because it really changes the expression/vibe I'm looking for sometimes.



Not to mention how jarring it is when my character is smiling. He physically can't keep his eyes open if he smiles while looking down even slightly:



It's a very minor complaint compared to how amazing everything else looks but something like this really messes with my gposes/portraits..