Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Loggos]

Something that I still don't understand about this graphical update is.... why now?

I've been wondering about something similar. Why release an update that is evidently not finished together with a new expansion, something highly anticipated, highly scrutinised, that is supposed to draw lots of attention (incl. professional and consumer reviews) to your product and attract new people?

The graphics update is so inconsistent, it feels like it was a chaotic last minute assembly. Faces have been "updated", bodies haven't.
Some hair and gear textures have been changed, some haven't.
Lighting has been changed but the quality in old regions or houses often went down etc. etc. Everything aboutit felt unfinished.

I'll forever be sad that we didn't get the kind of graphics update they were originally working on when they talked about it the very first time:

https://youtu.be/18-F5uAyRgw?t=424

(Yes, I know this was "still in development and subject to change".)

Here they only updated the shaders and the face models on the "high res" side are the same as the original ones if I understand it correctly.
The characters look so good, all while retaining their unique features and personality.
That miqo'te is stunning imo.
(The skin textures in particular look so much better and more realistic than what we got. The eyes too. And before you say "that's not ingame lighting, that's their 3D program" or something: it doesn't change the fact that they chose those images to advertise what it would look like ingame according to their plans at that point in time.)


Even if updating shaders will not be a solution forever and at some point you'll have to work on the models, it might still have been an interim update that's consistent as opposed to what we got now?
If you """just""" improve shaders and have no modelling work to do then perhaps the quality of your graphics will increase more evenly across your entire game?

I'm not saying it would be easy, I'm sure updating shaders comes with its own technical challenges.
But I wonder if those are higher than the technical challenges the devs had to overcome wrt the actual update we got (including future challenges to build on the current update for further improvements).
Or if they just didn't want to stick with their original shader plan out of convenience (e.g., for lip syncing purposes, saving money bc why reinvest into FF14, etc.).

[eohippus]

I think loggos' viera is another good example of how much more gray/cool toned dark skin tones have become with the update. I'm not sure if its partially because of how overtuned the shine is on dark skin now, but its really a shame. xiv has never had the best color palette or skin tone options, but now (other than male mooncats bizarrely being a little bit more warm toned for some reason), it feels like across the board a lot of the little warmth that was there has been pulled out of certain colors.
(There's probably more going on than just the shine though because I just remembered that some of my friends who play dark skinned au ra with fantasy skintones also had their undertones completely change)

[Loggos]

Yeah it's a lot ashier compared to the EW version and more desaturated as well. Even though pre-DT ffxiv always had lighting issues when it came to dark skin characters at least the CC options looked more alive. You had a wider variety of true undertones and different levels of saturation. Now it seems like all colour choices are kind of washed out and their undertones are a lot closer to grey, minimising the differences between them.

[Astronis]

I saw that they were changing it so Au Ra horns don't have light shining through them anymore, which is a huge shame.... it was beautiful! Light shines through fingernails, even ear cartilage, it wouldn't be inaccurate for it to shine through the edges of Au Ra horns too, no?

I believe what they plan to do is change the color of the subsurface scattering so it's not red. Light should still shine through to some degree, but without blood in the horns, the light won't be tinged red. I hope that's what they do, in any event.

Are they changing it so light doesn't shine through anymore? Or just adjusting it so it's not such a strong effect? I thought it looked nice on my au'ra's horns too but it was waaaaay overtuned. They have some serious problems with the lighting still in general.



Stood next to a window and my hair and horns went nuclear. Even the insides of my eyes and mouth catch light they shouldn't be.



Same on my cat. Glowing hair, and light coming through the head and lighting inner edges that shouldn't be lit.

Changing this would require something like ray tracing, which is not something they will do. I think we should be happy they managed to reduce the effect of it as much as they have. It used to be so much worse.

[noumen0nn]

It used to be so much worse.

Can you elaborate on this? Light shining through heads was not an issue prior to dawntrail

[Turnintino]

Can you elaborate on this? Light shining through heads was not an issue prior to dawntrail

It absolutely was. I have no screenshots, unfortunately, because -- well, why would I have wanted to commemorate that? But I would notice light shining through my character's head between their lips all the time, for example, even more glaringly than in Cheapshot's examples. In my experience, at least, it's much reduced now. But of course I'd love to see it completely eliminated, if that's feasible, because it's still jarring.

[Astronis]

Can you elaborate on this? Light shining through heads was not an issue prior to dawntrail

Not the most egregious example; I'd thought I'd took a screenshot when I'd seen it at its worst, but turns out I hadn't. In any event, you can see the light from behind my character's head shining on his lips and a tiny bit on the corner of his eyelids.

It happens because, basically, our character models cast shadows but they don't block light. If you manage to get your camera inside a player model you'll see light shining through clear and unfettered. Getting our character models to block light and cast shadows wouldn't be worth the effort. Ray tracing works for it, but real-time ray tracing is pretty new, taxing, and it can't be done with older video cards.

They've mitigated it a fair bit. I can't stand in strong light and make it look like my character is barfing Light anymore. It's still there but not nearly as strong.

[Turnintino]

Aaand it turns out I did have a screenshot from Prae that showcases the issue, pre-7.0 (my friend was in the scene with me and I wanted to show her, for reasons unrelated to the hideous lighting lol).



Like the screenshots others have shared, it seems to happen where there's any overhead light-source. We see it shine unobstructed through parts of the model that would, in real life, cast shadow, like my character's fringe or his upper lip. (You can also see the way it highlighted the neck-seam...)

Prae's lighting is still pretty harsh, so I imagine a comparison shot would only look marginally improved, but that's beside the point.

[Astronis]

Prae's lighting is still pretty harsh, so I imagine a comparison shot would only look marginally improved, but that's beside the point.

Yeah, it'll probably still be there, just not as strong. The location I noticed it the strongest before was in the Gold Saucer; there's some particularly strong light there that happened to be at the right angle to light up the inside of my character's mouth like a Christmas Tree. Standing in the same place now, I cannot replicate it.

ETA: My misfortune in mentor roulette is your evidence:
Still there of course, not as sharp. They softened the light I assume.

Actually fixing this issue would require so much processing power that it would be ludicrous to even try. No one is playing a ten year old MMO that requires real-time ray tracing just to eliminate a lighting issue that occasionally affects the inside of character's lips and and lower eyelids. The best they can do, which to me it looks like they did, is change the lighting so it it's not as common or as strong. Something that raises the processing power needs a little bit, but not to the astronomical heights ray tracing would require.

[Doopliss]

...They've mitigated it a fair bit. I can't stand in strong light and make it look like my character is barfing Light anymore. It's still there but not nearly as strong...

I'm sorry, man, but I just can't see whatever it is you're seeing; in no way to me does your character's case look worse than the example Cheapshot gave. I know it's not the worst you were able to find, but this is still an aspect I'm very used to paying attention to myself, and I haven't been unhappy with my characters' colors and lighting looking 'inconsistent' until now. To me, it feels like you're mixing up "rim lighting" with light "going through a character"--which it actually does do now.

While, again, like you, I do really enjoy how most lighting bounces off of my main's face considerably better now, how certain lighting unnaturally moves through parts of it--hair especially--has been driving me up a wall since the beginning of the update. I think we can't keep pretending everything is better or everything is worse; it's not good faith either way.


This is in my best friend's in-game house that I've gone in and out for for years. We still (unfortunately) haven't made any changes to it since Stormblood, but that means the lighting has been unchanged as well. This level of egregiousness never happened from just standing in front of their window before.

I also can't really get any notable, good rim lighting on my characters in GPOSE anymore, especially if I want to use a specific color, because things like this happen now:


Again, the single light source I used is pointed at her back. Why does a portion of it dye the tips of her bangs now...? Why does it circle around her collar? Ironically, I'm also much more certain the Adventurer Portrait lighting hasn't been updated now, because it doesn't do this.

Sorry for the long post, I'm sure people who have seen me post around can tell very clearly that this is just something that bothers me way more than it should. I miss taking GPOSES of my characters, though, and this has just been one of the few, extra things that make it more difficult.

Put under a spoiler for no reason other than I get embarrassed easily, and these aren't particularly good. These are just some examples of GPOSES I took prior to 7.0 where I know I used all three light sources, with one always being pointedly at the back. My characters were blocking light properly and have very little weird interactions with it.

I will say though, rim lighting on lips is weird. My ♀ Viera had the same issue as your Highlander, and you can even see it a bit in the screenshot I posted. However, I think the new "worst case" is a lot worse than the previous "worst case," and it should absolutely be fixed. Even if not by 7.1...

Also adding this to just pre-emptively protect myself, lol:
1. Yes, the GPOSES use shaders. I like very vanilla-esque shaders and mess with the levels myself.
2. Yes, I've remembered to turn them off for comparisons.
3. No, they're not against TOS. There's actually an official response within these forums regarding that.