Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Besudo]

--- Glitched eyepatches

As someone said earlier, eyepatches should be logical to add to the facewear slot. However, some races are now graphically glitched with them after the DT drop. At least on male elezen and male lalafell as far as I know and the couple I tested (specifically the scion bandana) have your forehead clipping out through the front. Which makes no sense since it's not even like the bandana moves? I'm not sure how it happened and it happens on a lot of emotes and in cutscenes.

I did submit a bug report here on the forums in a report started by a lalafell that also had seen the issue. But it was moved to duplicates and I can't find any "original" bug report for it, though hopefully I'm just blind.

--- Elezen graphical feedback

I'm not sure if this was brought up but I'm really sad that male duskwight elezen look like they're all depressed and sickly now. The change to their eyes with a permanent dark ring around them completely changes the tone of all the faces but it's not anything you can adjust. I read that it could be that they used the same settings from Wildwoods and it could be true since my Wildwood Male had bags and grumpy eyes from before and those are still here. If that's the case, it would be nice if they reverted that somehow for Duskwights.

It looks a lot like the eartips transillumination is overtuned and showing strongly all the time there's light. It *should* be when you're standing in front of a light source but I've been seeing it happen a lot and being far more dramatic than it should be for the sources. If they toned it down a little, that would balance it, I think.

There's an even more pronounced seam at their necks and on their wrists. I believe the seams have always been there but I never even noticed the wrists ones before the DT change. It's very clear now. I'm not sure how we got a step backward in one area but it's really a shame.

There also doesn't seem to be a true gray anymore for skin colors for my male duskwight. The gray I was using before was changed to a gray with green undertones. Looking through all the options, the "best" is a gray with blue undertones but there's no simple gray that's just gray. Which is what it was before the change. I get it could change but with no strictly gray option, it's odd and the undertones again change the feel of the character.

I know a lot of people would say these (and the issues that others have been having) are minor things but, besides the fact that it's very clear to the people that play these characters or frequently see their friend's characters that suffer from odd issues in the change, each "minor" issue adds up. And then when you look back on it, it doesn't feel minor when it's several issues, it feels frustrating.

I will say the environments look wonderful as does most of the gear.

[eohippus]

Seeing that feedback is being looked at, I am reposting the graphics I posted after the second benchmark. None of these errors were correct when the game launched in full. (The images looked huge in a preview, so I'm just linking them)

https://imgur.com/BGkxfkk
https://imgur.com/hHuuQr1

In the first image, you can see that my character's nose bump was made less pronounced. This was a charm point of his face for me, and I'm sad to see it reduced. Like many others, my character was hit by changes to his mouth/lips and eye shape that still bum me out. his eyes lost their rounded shape, and his mouth was pulled inward with the cupid's bow/upper lip slimmed down. I would prefer if these changes were reverted.

I'll make an additional post, and maybe bug report, about skin color issues later as there are more issues in DT. But tl;dr, the skintones changed to the point where I had to take his skin darker because he lost all sense of contrast between his hair and skin, and he still does not look quite right to me. I hope these things will change with future updates.

PREV Post: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6471918

[Boblawblah]

Yay, this is great news!

[MaiSuu]

It's good to hear that our voices are being heard and taken into consideration. I'd like to pitch in my own, currently i have no screen shots for comparisons but...

PLEASE FIX MIDLANDER FEMALE FACE 1. There is just so much wrong going on with this face after the graphical update. It went from most used to literally rarely used even on npc's... which leads me to think that maybe they dont even like how it came out.

For starters please take a look at the eye bags, they are too large on this face, the whole face looks quite swollen in comparison to the others.
The eyelashes, please give them back, they are too small compared to 6.x
The irises feel too large, for the eyes. This may be a result of the now darker sclera, please look into fixing this, it makes some expressions look VERY ODD, as if the eyes are more sunken in than usual.
The nostrils feel wider- on all noses. This could be a trick of light, but also could just be tampering with the model itself.
All faces seem a tad bit wider than they were before - But this one feels the most round compared to other faces like face 5 which has sharp jawlines, this one no longer does. It used to.
Please look into fixing lip sizes - They all seem very similar in size and thus no fantasia really seems to help bring back a look of having thinner lips. In particular lips 4 look most changed Larger and round.

I used to really love this face, and i'm still using it but terrified of looking at myself outside of shadows or in cutscenes. It genuinely feels completely different. Please give us the old look back as options!

Midlanders as a whole could use a lot more love in the graphical update as they didn't seem to receive as much attention as the other races. I know many don't play this race as much as the other popular ones (miqo/aura/viera) but they seemed to have lost what beauty they once held...

Please look into giving our unique details back! I miss looking at my midlander face 1... it hurts.

I hope to see more calls for attention to midlander female faces as they definitely need it, but most especially face 1.

Lastly, please rework the game lighting issues, or something, it feels as if alot of issues would be solved with this alone as the models genuinely do look amazing in character creation but horrible in actual game play where the lighting plays cruel tricks on the mind and shows all the imperfections.

[luchi]

I've noticed an issue that has to do with hair textures when using the AMD FSR setting at 99 resolution scaling. (It isn't noticeable on NVIDIA DLSS, but the game is a blurry mess on that setting so its not a viable solution)

The defect: Whenever I zoom out from my character, several hairstyles have rendering issues leaving gaps in the hair.
I have tried changing my in game settings and my LOD settings in Nvidia control panel and nothing has fixed this issue. I have a 4090 and running the game at max settings. The location and current fps of my game does not change the result.

This image shows the hair looking good when zoomed in:


This image shows how gaps start to show as I zoom out a little:


This last image shows the bald spot growing larger on the character as I zoom almost all the way out:


It's hard to get good images of this issue as it can get pixelated as I zoom out. The issue is more visible on darker hair colors and I have noticed the issue on other races such as female Au'ra as well. This only started post 7.0 graphics update.

[neonkiwi]

If changes are reverted or again completely changed....could we please see them as new options instead of completely reverting certain face/race features. it would make newly fantad players and the people who want to stick to the old look happy.

for example: i have seen a lot of mentions from Au'ra Face 2 fem players to have the "fish like" mouth returned.... and that's fine, however myself and others used the free fanta to move to face 2 specifically because the fish mouth was gone..
this could be fixed for both players by just adding the "fish shape" as mouth option 5

I'm sure there are players from every race who feel this way about certain new changes and we would see a completely different characters if certain changes got reverted.

IF the changes are made to revert anything could we P L E A S E see them as new options and not revisions to any current ones

i have fallen in love with my new au'ra and it would suck to see the new faces reverted/changed again to reflect something i did not create after already using the free quest fanta.

[FlannFanon]

Lalafell Eye Issues

1. In particular with face 1/101, the permanent/default eye shadow is MUCH more pronounced in 7.x where it only looked like fuller eyelashes pre-dawntrail. Potentially because before it was black and now it's a dark navy making it stand out much more. Because the face already has a Facial Feature option to add even more eye shadow, reducing the default so you are not forced to wear any/such a noticeable amount would be preferable. Makeup should be something opted into, not the default.

2. As a more general issue, the shadow at the top of the iris is much much darker than before causing the shape of the eye to appear different. This is a huge issue for such an important facial feature. Reducing how dark this shadow is or how far it extends down into the iris would restore much of the original appearance and charm.

attached are two Pre-Dawntrail screenshots and two 7.x screenshot for visual comparison:
Pre-DT:



7.x:

[illiere]

We would like to thank everyone for their feedback regarding the graphical update.
The Development team has been carefully reviewing this thread and many others, including bug reports and concerns raised outside of the official forums.

We are currently working on an update based on the feedback provided, as well as preparing to share details about our planned course of action.
As these are undergoing thorough final inspections, we expect to make an announcement in late August.

Thank you all for your patience as we continue fine-tuning the graphical update.

Thank you for your reply, I look forward to seeing how the Graphics Update progresses in the future.
I must add though, people who are happy with the Graphics Update are much less likely to voice their opinion then those who aren't.
I'm someone who has been fervently following the progress behind the Graphics Update, watching every fanfest, every panel, going through all of the races/genders in the benchmarks and trying different options to see how things have changed... You've been incredibly transparent and forward with the information around the update, It's been great to see.
I've been overwhelmingly happy with how everything looks post-7.0, there are some issues that I'll discuss in a following post due to character limit, but generally I like how faces have been recreated for the Graphics Update. Pretty much all player character faces, to me, look either like enhanced versions of their 6.X equivalent or the few changes that, to me, fixed glaring issues with the old 6.X faces (such as poor proportions, poor texturing, fake 'eye shadows', lips on the texture being misaligned to the face mesh, etc.) I, personally, prefer the new 7.0 faces and it would be a crying shame for people who are happy to miss out on 7.0's improvements in favour of overcorrecting in the face of criticism.
I would ask that the developers and artists at Square Enix parse the feedback and review resulting changes very carefully, and be considerate of those who are happy and not vocal about it (as those who are happy will just keep playing like usual) and those who are unhappy. Not everyone will be content with the Graphics Update no matter what is changed, it's possible that any great changes made now will cause a second round of feedback from people who enjoyed how their characters looked in 7.0 (especially if they've already used their free fantasia). Please, to the devs and artists, hold confidence in the work you've done here as it is genuinely great!

[1/5]

[illiere]

My main is a Face 4 Female Veena Viera, and I have literally never been happier with how she looks! I was always iffy about her 6.X appearance, I never truly liked it but it was the best I could get at the time. In my opinion, her new 7.0 face looks miles better than what I had in 6.X. When the 1.1 benchmark came out, I spent a very long time figuring out how I could even further improve her appearance by trying out different options for Face 4 Female Viera in the CC, once I was happy I used a Fantasia in 7.0 to finally have a character whose appearance I love, the team did a great job here. I ask to not change this face drastically or be careful about changes, as I'm now worried that it'll be changed for the worse.
My one request, is that I wouldn't mind if the cupid's bow peaks on Female Viera Face 4 lips were more natural looking, more rounded, and better defined. Right now, the cupid's bow peaks are very square/pointed, and the area around the point seems odd looking, like as if it's misaligned with the colour of the lips (please note, I don't use lipstick for this character). I've attached an image that shows the vanilla 7.0 lips and an edited version that I did quickly in photoshop, hopefully it illustrates the change I'd like to be implemented.



I must also add, I adore the new eye textures! For pretty much everyone. These are exactly the kind of eyes/eye textures that I personally would've implemented and I think they look fantastic! Great job there, in full honesty. I love my Face 4 Female Veena Viera's new eye textures, she has gorgeous eyes now! I also really love how the eye textures look on my alt Face 4 Male Moonkeeper Miqo'te, they suit his personality very well, they have a kind of 'detached''shadowed look to them that I really like. Overall, the eyes, especially with the dynamic lighting, are a big improvement over what we had before.
Unfortunately though, it seems that the eye texture for Face 2 Male Raen Au Ra were changed from the larger pupils in the 1.1 Benchmark to really small pupils in 7.0 Live. I personally greatly preferred the larger pupil eye texture as it made my character look kinder, which is the vibe I wanted for him. Now the 7.0 super tiny pupils make him look more evil, unnatural, and unappealing to me, I don't like them and want the old Male Au Ra Face 2 1.1 Benchmark eye textures back. Or could we please have the larger pupils as an option in CC, let us choose the eye texture?



[2/5]

[illiere]

Other than that though, I am really happy with how the faces for Face 4 Female Veena Viera, Face 3 Male Raava Viera, Face 2 Male Raen Au Ra, and Face 4 Male Moonkeeper Miqo'te, look ingame!
For other races/genders faces; I personally adore how great the Female Au Ra faces turned out! I wanted to make a Female Au Ra character in the past, but the old 6.X faces always looked very off-putting to me, they looked very doll-like with odd proportions (particularly Face 2 Female Au Ra) and empty eyes. Now, with the new 7.0 assets, they look amazing! I adore how great Faces 1,2, and 3 look, please don't make drastic changes to them! They all look so cute, beautiful, and, personally, much more human to me. I genuinely love how gorgeous each of the Female Au Ra faces look now! Pretty eyes, lips, and well-proportioned faces (thank you for fixing the lip texture being misaligned with the mouth on the mesh on Face 2 Female Au Ra.) I also think Face 4 Female Au Ra looks great, but I can understand people wanting that face to look more severe/harsh/sharp. The new Au Ra scales/horns do look lovely though.
Same for Elezen, Elezen faces all look amazing, especially the Female Faces are greatly improved! I love their new eyes/eye makeup in particular. Pretty much all of the faces look great to me and I find I'm often admiring how good everyone looks ingame, I love how Miqo'te look, I love how Hyurs look, I love how cute Lalafell are, and Hrothgar look amazing (the fur shader is a nice touch!), thank you so much for the work that you've done!
I also really like the skin texture details such as pores and wrinkles, it looks really nice! I love little touches like that, makes the characters feel more human.

[3/5]