Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Moonfallen]

Thank you SO much for bringing this up!
A bunch of headpieces that previously fit me aren't sitting the same way anymore and it's been driving me insane. I'm most sad about the schoolgirls ribbon that would fit perfectly in Endwalker and is now floating above my head with the same hairstyle used.

Oh no, now that you mentioned it I definitely notice the ribbon being farther up/in our head. I didn't notice it before but I just looked since I am online now. It used to be farther back because it covered the clip in my hair (I use hair 5) so that's how I know that one is also messed up.

[Leon-Valeren]

I have noticed the characters have been worked on since the benchmark, sadly they still remain different in a way i can't use fantasia without losing their typical characteristics.


1. MIQO'TE face 4 ♂ (seeker of the sun), eye shape 3, mouth 1

main issues:

• eye shape has changed to be more fox like in appearance

• eyes appear to be darker due to a dark shadow cast above iris

• typical seeker of the sun eye slit is not visible anymore, makes eyes look more human. it seems to be changed to a smaller size even

• mouth appears still to be smiling, makes certain emotes look confusing. it has no neutral shape anymore

• character doesn't look as grumpy and neutral as he did before

eyes and mouth:



seeker of the sun eyes:



emote SMILE:



emote SIMPER:



emote FURROW:


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2. ELEZEN face 2 ♂ (wildwood), eye shape 1, mouth 1

main issues:

• character appears to be younger and softer. i miss the mature look he had before. his dark eye shadows got cleaned aaaah

• the emote SCOFF has been changed so much that it doesn't look mocking anymore how it should be but instead looking soft and apologising

emote SCOFF:


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3. AU'RA face 3 ♀ (raen), eye shape 5, mouth 2

main issues:

• eye shape has been changed and became more narrow

• eyes appear tired, less lively

• eye bags are visible from afar, further make the character look less energetic

eyes:



another example for the eyes:

[Kaziek]

One thing that I don't think anyone has pointed out directly is that several faces have a dark shadow underneath their eyes hear the nose now that doesn't go away in pretty much any lighting (though darker, more contrasted areas make it worse). This is definitely due to the more prominent eyebags along with the harsher lighting, but I figured it might be helpful to point out. This really seems to me like an actually unintended consequence of the new lighting and models rather than an artistic choice. I've seen it on several different faces so it seems to be a fairly universal issue.

[Larirawiel]

Those dark shadows are messed up normal maps. I made a bug report here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-Elezen-faces

But they closed it as "Insufficient Information". I still do not know why it is insufficient. But SQEX does SQEX things. Maybe it is too difficult for them to fix it.


Cheers

[Doopliss]

I don't play this combination, but I haven't seen it mentioned in a while, so I wanted to add that the nose smudge option for ♀ Dunesfolk Face 4 has still not been fixed.

Here's a comparison of the same option on the Plainsfolk variant of the face to show what it's supposed to look like:



I only feel a need to mention this again because, for some reason, the nose smudge issue had been fixed on every female Plainsfolk face, and faces 1-3 for female Dunesfolk, but not 4. So it feels easy to potentially miss.

I know ♂ Viera Face 1 is also having issues with its dark nose/nose smudge option's colors--particularly against dark skin--so please also look over these.

[Louhikko]

I agree, I actually mentioned this in my post as well but it really makes our characters look so much older, like our cheeks are sunked around the eyes. Don't know if it's a bug (like Larirawiel mentioned) or a "feature" but it's super distracting especially because it's so pronounced.

[Adamantini]

I didn't have much to complain about regarding my character until now, except for the strange feeling that he lost his serious look and gained a sad expression. But recently, I checked out some emotes and noticed that his big grin looks terrible.

The smiles are decent, but whenever he smiles showing his teeth, it looks so forced and strange that I decided to come here and ask if anyone else feels the same way (since I tried looking for old screenshots to compare, but couldn’t find any that could serve as a reference for the old big grin). I use face 4 for the male Viera, and I'm noticing that all smiles showing teeth (like the big grin) seem to be very wrong.

[ConantSivrha]

One thing that I don't think anyone has pointed out directly is that several faces have a dark shadow underneath their eyes hear the nose now that doesn't go away in pretty much any lighting (though darker, more contrasted areas make it worse). This is definitely due to the more prominent eyebags along with the harsher lighting, but I figured it might be helpful to point out. This really seems to me like an actually unintended consequence of the new lighting and models rather than an artistic choice. I've seen it on several different faces so it seems to be a fairly universal issue.

I can’t speak for hyur and elezen, but I know that my face 4 female miqo’te already had tear troughs before the update. Light would catch on them from some angles, but they were generally hard to see. Nowadays, they’re still hard to see in most lighting conditions, but there some lighting conditions that make them obvious where they didn’t before.

I hope this feature won’t be removed from any faces that already had it before the update. But, of course, it would be better to remove it or make it optional on any faces that it is a new addition to, so the original look of those characters is preserved.

[Iscah]

Some screenshots of G'raha as an example of what I think has been going on with all of the male Miqo'te eyes. I think it is a change that has been applied to all Miqo'te faces but it shows up most clearly on face 3 where the eyes are bigger to begin with.

My character is the same height as G'raha so I got the camera right up in his face to take comparison shots before and after the update.



Up close you can see that the eye shape has changed considerably between versions.

Original design

The original eye shape has quite wide-open eyes going by the shape of the eyelids, and the eyelashes go all the way out to the outermost corner of the overall eye shape. There is no makeup used on this face type.

There is an odd blank space under the eyelid that technically seems to be a stretched-down inner eyelid but design-wise just creates the impression of a dark shadow cast by the eyelids and lashes. Because of this space, there is no need to have any shadowing on the visible eye surface.

There is a clear division between the eye surface and the rim of the lower eyelid.


Dawntrail modified design

The position of the eyelid has been lowered, and heavy eyeliner has been added to the upper eyelid to disguise the shifted position. This has multiple negative effects: it alters the look of the eyes; it makes the upper edge look blurry instead of the sharp edge of the eyelid; and it also means that personality-wise this is now a character that wears makeup instead of one that does not.

The eyelashes are in a different position and the outer corner of the eye has shifted downwards. The eye is now primarily framed by makeup rather than the eyelashes.

The eyes seem to have additional shadow cast onto the eye surface from the lowered eyelid.

The eyelid rim is oddly lit and there is no clear division from the eye surface to eyelid, so the eye seems to stretch out even further horizontally as it blurs into the eyelid. (I had the same issue regarding my female Midlander so I suspect this is widespread across characters using pale skintones.)

The eyebrows have lost their colour.

Small wrinkles have been added below the eyes around the base of the lower eyelid - this is more detail than I want to see. The early announcement of the graphics update made a point that the devs were not planning to go overboard on realism.

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I think the artists have made the error of seeing the visible surface of the eye as the entire size of the eye, when actually the shape of the eyelid creates an impression that the eye is bigger than that.

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One interesting thing of having this happen with a major character is that we can also look at how they were interpreted for trailers.

G'raha's appearance in the Endwalker trailer was quite "off" and I think that was again down to them looking at the shape of only the visible eye surface and using that for the trailer model's eye shape. They reviewed their approach for Dawntrail and got a lot closer to the character's original appearance - ironically just as the appearance has been changed to something else.

To compare the Dawntrail trailer to the pre-Dawntrail eye shape:

[Rueby]

Those dark shadows are messed up normal maps. I made a bug report here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-Elezen-faces

But they closed it as "Insufficient Information". I still do not know why it is insufficient. But SQEX does SQEX things. Maybe it is too difficult for them to fix it.


Cheers

I feel like you need to baby feed them information. At least I had some success having my stuff accepted. You're showing stuff but relying on the person to observe, which to you I guess is obvious. I think you can add coordinates of where you're standing for good measure too just in case. I haven't made a character related bug reports because I'm not sure they'd accept it...But mine either went into dupes or accepted/working on fix.

I'm honestly not really sure. You included alot of screenies and they were obvious to me, but I'm still puzzled what classifies as 'insufficient information' and it can be abit frustrating.