Dawntrail graphics update is very disappointing.

[Daralii]

I seriously don't understand the rise of the corporate shills and the absolute worship of Yoship and devs.

It's corporate/brand tribalism.

[Rikizza]

The graphic update made the game look a million times better than what it was. Im very happy with how everything looks, im just a bit dissapointed not everything is done yet and some stuff still looks wierd and unfinished.
The shading is still wierd in a lot of places, but i heard they are changing indoor lighting in patch 7.05. I for sure hope they fix more of the lighting issues at the same time because its not only indoor lighting that needs to be fixed.

Example:

[CuteBucket]

I feel like a broken record posting this in so many threads, but I'll keep doing it.
How are these lips a "graphical upgrade?" I haven't even logged in on my au ra because it makes me so sad to see her face. It's not her anymore.
I don't know how someone could look at these lips and say it preserves the look and feel of the character. They are a totally different shape (and color for that matter, but that's not my main complaint)


Au Ra face 3 in Blender, 6.55 on left 7.0 on right.

Eye shape, nose shape and (mostly clearly) lip shape are totally different.
Pupil size is doubled, something that didn't happen to any other race or gender except female au ra. The bigger pupils contributed to a tired, flat, dead look to the eyes, whereas the smaller pupil looked more bright and alert. Other female au ra players have been raising concerns over this since the first benchmark in April. Face 2 and 4 also got hit hard with the lip flattening bat and dead eyes. This is the opposite of what they told us in the PLLs that they would do. Yeah, I'm mad about it. I would have loved upgraded textures and lighting, but instead I got an entirely new head that makes my character look like a stranger to me.

[Cheapshot]

I did read, you were arguing about the lighting with the poster before you.

You can wince and whine all you want, your words are there for everyone to see, including the context.
I stand by my original point, in that I consider the new lighting to be superior and do not want to have the old system back even if it is in your opinion "more dramatic".

End of story.

What on earth is your deal? You never had an original point. You quoted me explaining that I feel some scenes lost their visual impact because of the flatter lighting and less contrast, and talking about how the new models aren’t necessarily higher detail mesh wise. Thats it. And you didn’t respond to anything I actually said you just went “I still think the GFX look way better now.” while also more than once suggesting that I want to go back to some “old system”. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What “old system”? I’ve not once said anything about reverting anything. I’m an artist with over a decade of industry experience giving feedback. They made blanket changes to the games lighting that affected all cutscenes indiscriminately. I’m talking about encouraging that they do a pass looking at different cutscenes and lighting conditions to make manual tweaks, making sure everything looks its best. I’m also showing an objective direct comparison between the old character model and new. That’s it. That’s like, not a controversial take. You’ve been arguing against a stance I never took and I have no idea why. The only thing I can think is that you glanced at my post, made assumptions without reading, and lumped me into whatever group you’re normally arguing with and now you’re just doubling down forever.

[Granyala]

to not login and play through cutscenes of still present pixelated armour (on entirely NEW npcs and quests)

Pretty sure the pixellated armor is a design choice rather than a necessity of the engine. As is SE's obsession with staying around ~4GB of VRAM in 2024.

Even in the old GFX system, the game was perfectly capable of rendering highly detailed equipment with 4K textures w/o weird pixels (as evident in screenshots from people who use mods).

I totally agree that this practice sucks and that e.g.: Koanas armor was an eyesore. Though I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

The shading is still wierd in a lot of places.

Yep, cursed lighting existed in the old GFX and it still exists in the new GFX.
Keep in mind though: even in real life cursed lighting conditions exist. Providing good lighting for e.g.: movies is a difficult art.

I don't know how someone could look at these lips and say it preserves the look and feel of the character. They are a totally different shape

Can't say that I see much difference in terms of SHAPE but everyone wearing gloss is one of my own pet peeves with the update, because I made it a point that my Kitten never wears make-up. *shrug*

I’m also showing an objective direct comparison between the old character model and new. That’s it. That’s like, not a controversial take.

For the last time: I was not talking about the model part of your post. You know that I agree with you on that front from another thread already.
Yes, I should have been more precise and written "lighting" instead of "GFX".

That is definitely on me. Apart from that, my point stands unchanged: I consider the new lighting and shadows superior in most cases.

[lunartears]

I feel like a broken record posting this in so many threads, but I'll keep doing it.
How are these lips a "graphical upgrade?" I haven't even logged in on my au ra because it makes me so sad to see her face. It's not her anymore.(...)

Au Ra face 3 in Blender, 6.55 on left 7.0 on right.

Eye shape, nose shape and (mostly clearly) lip shape are totally different.
Pupil size is doubled, something that didn't happen to any other race or gender except female au ra. The bigger pupils contributed to a tired, flat, dead look to the eyes, whereas the smaller pupil looked more bright and alert. (...) Yeah, I'm mad about it. I would have loved upgraded textures and lighting, but instead I got an entirely new head that makes my character look like a stranger to me.

Quoting this to mention that I have also compared the actual mesh of Au Ra Face 1 in Blender.
Face 1 is probably not as egregious as the other faces, but I can't deny how different my character feels. It's not her anymore.
Honestly wasn't sure if I could post this but I suppose it does help the case...



You can literally see how different the resting pose of the face is just by an untextured mesh.

Aside from the pupil size change, the eyes are actually bigger and rounder (you can see it in your Face 3 too). There's also the thicker and fuller lips, forehead position is different, round nose instead of sharp, the horns look rounder and jagged instead of angular (why?), etc... I've said a lot about this in prior posts so I'll just let you notice anything else.

I also noticed the differences on your examples, the face generally looks more like an overly beautified doll and I agree with everything you've written, especially regarding how much we've spoken about Female Au Ra since the benchmark. Likewise, I'm at risk of sounding like a broken record (especially about the lips). It's ridiculous.

Also in the perspective of Koji going, on stage, "We don't want you to log in and think oh...ew... they look like that?" aloud.

And I did exactly that.

[Cheapshot]

For the last time: I was not talking about the model part of your post. You know that I agree with you on that front from another thread already.
Yes, I should have been more precise and written "lighting" instead of "GFX".

That is definitely on me. Apart from that, my point stands unchanged: I consider the new lighting and shadows superior in most cases.

For the last time? What other times? What even…? I was just summarizing my original post. And what point are you making to me? I’ve been trying to figure out your point or why you’ve been arguing with me this whole time. Our stances on the graphics update are not necessarily mutually exclusive! You like the new lighting? Cool! And I’m glad you see eye to eye with me on the models. You said the new gfx wasn’t perfect. I agree! I was simply saying that I hoped the dev team would spend time doing QA on this new update. I felt some lighting situations were not up to standard and some cutscenes that don’t look as impactful could use some manual adjustment. That like it. I’ve been trying so hard to get that through to you but you keep talking to me like I’m making these broad statements that you disagree with. To the person behind me saying revert the lighting and that I liked it all better before? Cause that aint me.

Quoting this to mention that I have also compared the actual mesh of Au Ra Face 1 in Blender.

That’s super interesting to see and thank you for putting in that work. As someone with modelling experience, it’s pretty illuminating and also validating that my limited observations just based on CC comparisons were correct. I would love to see the same kind of comparison for face 4 moon miqo.

[Pantheouns]

You would all legitimately cry over milk if it was spilled. The graphical update is fine and I'm sure they will polish it more as they go. Jeeze this community never used to cry and complain about every little thing when I started playing back in 2014. Now you can't take 5 steps in game without finding something to cry about because you're all severely entitled. Grow up.

[Slayer25c]

Graphic update is fine and makes the game 100 times better and will be improved over time. You guys sure crying about a lot of things

[Cheapshot]

I won't make any comments on it since it's not a face I play, but hope this helps:



Sorry about the part outlines, I couldn't figure out a way to hide them so I just hid the optional ones (like makeup and racial options) for better visibility.

Alternatively, here's a photo with textures (eye colour and lips dont match but it should be fine)

(Old on left, new on right)

Oh is that Sunseeker? Still cool to see. Maybe I’ll try and see if I can look at Moon myself somehow. That way I can enable the edge outlines and look around. “Shade smooth” makes it a bit difficult to see the actual geometry which I’m real curious about.