Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[CidHeiral]

For the record, this is with character lighting turned all the way down, and yet he's fully illuminated in a completely shadowed environment, as if cut and paste from another image.

That was a direct result of player feedback. It was previously much more subtle but changed after the first benchmark when people complained.

Environmental Lighting Adjustments

When characters were backlit or in shadow, the softened shading made details appear rather flat. As such, we made overall adjustments to characters' environmental lighting to preserve a three-dimensional appearance even when a character wasn't being lit. We also made minor adjustments to the overall environment, such as fog.

Source: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ecd574ad0d397a

Unfortunately that's the double edged sword of addressing feedback. Any change meant to appease one group of people is going to be disliked by another group of people. Fortunately in this instance while I do think it looks silly to glow in the dark it doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the game or anything.

[Turnintino]

That was a direct result of player feedback. It was previously much more subtle but changed after the first benchmark when people complained.



Source: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ecd574ad0d397a

Unfortunately that's the double edged sword of addressing feedback. Any change meant to appease one group of people is going to be disliked by another group of people. Fortunately in this instance while I do think it looks silly to glow in the dark it doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the game or anything.

I can appreciate their attempt, but I'd also argue the inciting issue wasn't ultimately addressed; the details of the character still look flat -- we're just also glowing now lol. But if the saturation were just turned down a bit to match the environment, it would make a world of difference, IMO.

I think their fix was strange to begin with, though, since all it seems to do is force character lighting, a setting we have in the game but not in the benchmark, where of course some players might've felt its absence. It also doesn't appear everywhere. By my observations, it only seems to act like this when the character is in shadow during daylight hours, so I'm not sure it's even entirely intentional.

[CidHeiral]

I can appreciate their attempt, but I'd also argue the inciting issue wasn't ultimately addressed; the details of the character still look flat -- we're just also glowing now lol. But if the saturation were just turned down a bit to match the environment, it would make a world of difference, IMO.

I think their fix was strange to begin with, though, since all it seems to do is force character lighting, a setting we have in the game but not in the benchmark, where of course some players might've felt its absence. It also doesn't appear everywhere. By my observations, it only seems to act like this when the character is in shadow during daylight hours, so I'm not sure it's even entirely intentional.

Personally I liked the softer lighting of the first benchmark and I think they should have let people actually run around in the world for a bit before making drastic changes, but it is what it is. It's definitely intentional though because you can see the same thing going on in their examples in that lodestone post.

[Iscah]

That was a direct result of player feedback. It was previously much more subtle but changed after the first benchmark when people complained.



Source: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ecd574ad0d397a

Unfortunately that's the double edged sword of addressing feedback. Any change meant to appease one group of people is going to be disliked by another group of people. Fortunately in this instance while I do think it looks silly to glow in the dark it doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the game or anything.

The base cause of the player feedback was the devs' introduction of the new "soft lighting" in the first place, which affected different skin colours in drastically different ways – my dark-skinned Miqo'te looked fine in the first benchmark but my pale-skinned Midlander was translucent.

Both of them looked fine in the old lighting and both of them look awful in the new lighting in different ways to the benchmark – pale seems prone to going featureless and puffy in bright light; dark has constant reflection from the fake cool-white spotlights that shine on everything now.

[Kaziek]

Bumping to whine about the lighting, because it really is such an eyesore sometimes lol.



For the record, this is with character lighting turned all the way down, and yet he's fully illuminated in a completely shadowed environment, as if cut and paste from another image.

This is one of the worst parts of the update in my opinion that affects everything and isn't race/face specific. Characters are just way too illuminated, and barely have environmental lighting colors applied to them. Looking at the difference between the night scenes in the EW benchmark vs. live really shows how off everything looks in comparison.

[lunartears]

Bumping to whine about the lighting, because it really is such an eyesore sometimes lol.



For the record, this is with character lighting turned all the way down, and yet he's fully illuminated in a completely shadowed environment, as if cut and paste from another image.

I've been replaying Heavensward lately (to help someone) and it's been so egregious that I complain about it every single time I enter a cutscene. Azys Lla was the worst one.
I can't forget about "how it's supposed to look"... Not to mention of course seeing how off all of the NPCs look now.

Also, it reminds me of my earlier post:

Found this video today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgBEkzT8xhU
Good reference for the way that MSQ has been affected by the graphics update.

[CuteBucket]

This is one of the worst parts of the update in my opinion that affects everything and isn't race/face specific. Characters are just way too illuminated, and barely have environmental lighting colors applied to them. Looking at the difference between the night scenes in the EW benchmark vs. live really shows how off everything looks in comparison.

It's particularly egregious in many old cutscenes now, as have been posted previously in this thread. Oh, did a scene once have harsh, dramatic lighting in it for artistic effect? Not anymore!

[Arzalis]

I'd say the issue is that "harsh, dramatic lighting" often just looked really bad. In those quoted examples above, the new one looks better every time to me because the old shadows were terrible. They often also ended up highlighting all the issues with the old face models.

To my knowledge, they haven't fully updated all the old zones with the new lighting and such yet, so that's probably a big reason why your character sticks out sometimes. The character models are using the new shaders but the environment hasn't been updated to reflect that yet.

[Turnintino]

I've been replaying Heavensward lately (to help someone) and it's been so egregious that I complain about it every single time I enter a cutscene. Azys Lla was the worst one.
I can't forget about "how it's supposed to look"... Not to mention of course seeing how off all of the NPCs look now.

Also, it reminds me of my earlier post:

Like... I can understand the desire to soften the harsher lighting that we previously saw in cutscenes for the sake of clarity or whatever, but these examples plainly aren't doing that -- or they aren't only doing that anyway. The shadows weren't just softened, the characters have been illuminated. It's jarring, I would argue even without the side-by-side comparisons in some cases. Turn the dimmer down even a little bit lol.

But where I can at least understand the intent behind the above tweaks (I still agree they way over-corrected, rest assured), I don't think there's any good reason to apply this "fix" outside of cutscenes, especially. It bears repeating, I would really love to see further adjustments, across the board.

[Kaziek]

Like... I can understand the desire to soften the harsher lighting that we previously saw in cutscenes for the sake of clarity or whatever, but these examples plainly aren't doing that -- or they aren't only doing that anyway. The shadows weren't just softened, the characters have been illuminated. It's jarring, I would argue even without the side-by-side comparisons in some cases. Turn the dimmer down even a little bit lol.

But where I can at least understand the intent behind the above tweaks (I still agree they way over-corrected, rest assured), I don't think there's any good reason to apply this "fix" outside of cutscenes, especially. It bears repeating, I would really love to see further adjustments, across the board.

I feel like a good middle ground would be to adjust the character lighting slider to allow for it to go even darker than it currently is at zero. That would let people who enjoy the way things look now continue to do so, while letting those who preferred the old style have it back again.