Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[oWither]

My male Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te eyebrows look really crushed in some expressions and cutscenes. Eyebrows are thinner overall than they used to be in pre-7.0 even in neutral. Every other change I have gotten used to.

(open images in new tab for comparison)

Character info:
Male Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te
Face: Type 4
Eye shape: Type 3
Eyebrows: Type 4
Facial Features: None

[TheDustyOne]

I'm sorry but I have to disagree that the expressions are too mild now. I think they're they opposite - they're way too exaggerated now.

<snip>

This is something that really needs to be talked about more because it was something I noticed even in the benchmark, but couldn't put my finger on what was wrong when I saw my character smile. At the time I just chalked it up to the face changes, but no, I believe they also reanimated the expressions entirely for the new head models (there are new bones in the face as far as I know) and the end result ends up looking uncanny. Maybe I should look through my older screenshots and compare, but something about my characters current /beam, /smile, and /simper is massively off.

[Rueby]

This is something that really needs to be talked about more because it was something I noticed even in the benchmark, but couldn't put my finger on what was wrong when I saw my character smile. At the time I just chalked it up to the face changes, but no, I believe they also reanimated the expressions entirely for the new head models (there are new bones in the face as far as I know) and the end result ends up looking uncanny. Maybe I should look through my older screenshots and compare, but something about my characters current /beam, /smile, and /simper is massively off.

Expressions in their current form look really uncanny. Especially smile. Alot of character have this really unhinged upturned corners of the lips. This isn't a cute/subtle smile. Mouths and muscles don't work that way. It's so strange how 10 year old facial animations were way better and more expressive than this. I feel like for expressions everything got dialed up to 11.

[Argantaelle]

I'm slowly crawling through MSQ (I have lots of story to catch up on before I can reach DT). I know that most of the main NPC hasn't been updated yet (so I can enjoy vanilla Thancred's face, praise the Twelve), but NPC who share player characters's models are very noticeable.

This picture, imo, demonstrates the problems with the character update:



1. Lifeless flat hair without any kind of natural hair gloss.

2. The swollen cheeks of the Elezen girl in the background.

3. When a character smiles, too often their eyes turn into extremely narrow slits (combined with swollen cheeks, it creates a very interesting expression; that was not the initial intention of SE designers, at least I hope so).

4. I also noticed that light and shadows interact with a character's face in a weird way—both cheekbones and philtrum compose a brightly lit triangle, which looks unnatural. Not all faces are affected (it seems like most of the characters suffering from this issue are girls).

(more examples)

5. Also a common issue with smiles: only the lip corners are trying to create the smiling impression by being pulled up; the middle part of the lips isn't affected in any way. It looks very unnatural, and the wider the mouth is, the worse the smile looks. Maybe that's the real reason for the remodelling of all mouths, haha.
I can't say that the situation with smiles was ideal before DT; SE couldn't make a wider mouth look natural when smiling (I know it very well, because my character had the 2nd mouth type). But now it got worse; even standard-type mouths look uncanny.

6. Some eyes turned into flat, lifeless objects, like Miqote's eyes in the screenshot.

Minfilia's eyes also became lovely grey pebbles.

Kan-E-Senna, what has happened with your forehead?!

[MagicMush00]

LIST OF DISSATISFIED FACE 1s

Here I'm just going to compile a list of all the less than satisfied face 1s I've come across, to boost visibility and gather them in one place. Apologies if I've missed anyone. I'll try to keep it updated until I get bored or run out of space.

• ikaRR on the JP forum
• solbianca on the JP forum (1, 2, 3)
• noumen0nn (1, 2, 3)
• LlymlaenGreene
• aiqa
• Yenrz
• Thundertron
• NoxLuminos (1, 2)
• Araxes' Wife
• Trifecta739
• HawkeScream
• SugaryMiraa
• VessLynn
• Mercelia
• Verschlafen
• Siy
• Jihos
• Verdelot
• Ostheim89 and Pigeoms
• Gredunza
• lira_m
• Avisse
• Router and Kaziek
• MaiSuu
• Louhikko
• 1313
  

Thank you for summing up so many different requests for midlander f face 1, another change that's not easy to notice, but really impacts the overall impression under strong light sources from above, is how the middle part of the forehead and upper nose bridge are now more "forward going", they get lit up more than the rest of her face and contribute to the weird looking impression the new face has, before, that area used to be flatter and/or at least didn't react to the lighting as it does now; in addition it also looks like the nose (the part between the eyes) gets wider in the area around the eyes, giving it a weird puffy look that wasn't there before, the whole eye area used to feel more natural and "flat" , but now because of the changes (larger nose base, puffy eyelids, bigger eyebags) it unfortunately looks like she is having an allergic reaction when in certain lighting conditions. One thing i noticed though is how a lot of the problems with these changes are greatly reduced when a light source is either shining direct frontally or from slightly below, and are instead way more noticeable with light sources that shine down from above.

[Iscah]

4. I also noticed that light and shadows interact with a character's face in a weird way—both cheekbones and philtrum compose a brightly lit triangle, which looks unnatural. Not all faces are affected (it seems like most of the characters suffering from this issue are girls).

(more examples)

Yes, I've noticed this with my Midlander (female face 3) and while playing MSQ I was noticing it on Erenville as well.

I had filed a bug report which got rejected as "working as intended", but surely it can't be?

It looks awful, and (only after the report was rejected) I've found screenshots of the original model showing that it wasn't like this before.

[Moonfallen]

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.

Personally I think the new changes they made should be the ones to be the additional options, but that's my opinion. I think the best option would be for them to have additional options overall considering how limited we are with character creation, it's pretty insane to not have more options after over a decade of the game. Everyone benefits from having more options in character creation. I hope one day we get even more options than the old and new ones.

Edit: just to reiterate, I'm a huge advocate for having both the old face options and the new ones. That's the best resolution to keeping players who miss their old characters and facial features, and the players who like their new characters and facial features.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

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.

This is honestly one of my biggest concerns, I don't want reversions to any of the previous assets, shapes, lighting etc. I like the current look, I prefer it and if even half the changes (relating to lighting, material, textures, basic shaping, lips, expressions, hair and so on) proposed by people in this thread were taken into account and implemented, it would ruin most of what I've come to love about the graphical update as a whole. Which would be incredibly depressing and genuinely hurt my desire to continue playing for a while.

I don't want current, 7.0 assets, materials, etc. to be reverted, revised or removed, I genuinely like them.

I would much rather see they overhaul character creation and introduce "legacy" appearances and looks that use higher quality assets that are designed to be as close to the original as possible. As complete reversions like many people in this thread are calling for, the idea of it is just depressing—it makes me not want to play a game with people who are so unapologetically averse to any form of change, but its expected.

There are many of us who like the changes, players with multiple characters of varying races who are thrilled with them and aren't going through with a fine-toothed comb to fix every major, minor or moderate flaw they can find compared to pre-Dawntrail. I would argue that said players are likely the majority as well, as reddit, discord and the official forums only account for a fraction of the game's active playerbase and should never, ever, be considered the majority or the prevailing opinion.

The eyes are nice and add a lifelike appearance to characters that was sorely lacking when they were just basic textures and not a shader.

The new faces are lovely and have endeared me to my characters all over again.

The new expressiveness on characters with the stock expressions we've grown accustomed to over the years is a delight to see.

The new textures are great and materials are stunning in many cases and add a detailed vibrancy to the world that did not exist before.

There's so much I like about the update that many of you would seemingly see reverted, destroyed or removed outright due to an inability to even attempt to adapt to or accept change. It is, genuinely, depressing.

Have your criticism, complaints and feedback, but just remember that for every person here who speaks up, there's likely a dozen or so more who are silently enjoying the update as is and don't want to see any form or reversions or regression.

I genuinely do not envy Square Enix right now as they literally cannot win no matter what they do and many in here will never be satisfied short of them reverting the graphical update entirely.

[CantDecide]

I would much rather see they overhaul character creation and introduce "legacy" appearances and looks that use higher quality assets that are designed to be as close to the original as possible. As complete reversions like many people in this thread are calling for, the idea of it is just depressing—it makes me not want to play a game with people who are so unapologetically averse to any form of change, but its expected.

I think you're misunderstanding. We are asking for parts designed to be as close to the original as possible using the higher quality assets. That's what I mean when I say I want the old features restored.

[Opabinia]

(I also added this comment to a thread in the Japanese feedback)

Miqo'te Moon Keeper face type 2 - eyebrow type 2 used to be the gentlest one - the other eyebrows were angry. After the changes eyebrow type 2 is now angry too. I don't think fixing this will inconvenience other users who were enjoying the angy look.

for reference: screenshots of SHB benchmark vs DT benchmark/Game side by side: