Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[MrKusabi]

I acknowledge the rigging issue. I am talking more about the face and overall design to be untouched. The rigging is related to gear, not the actual model. My ultimate fear their solution would be to increase the female hrothgar arms to be huge and muscly to match the gear issues and if that happens I will flip.

Oh no. I never even considered that possibility. That would be horrific, and I heartily agree with you.

[Iscah]

If the changes are meant to correct old models that translated poorly, female Hrothgar have no reason to be altered.

[Birdbrain]

I think back to the relatively quick fixes to Moon Miqo'te fangs during the benchmarks. That's the gold standard I'd hope for regarding graphical update tweaks.

Detractors could say, "well how often do you see your character's teeth anyways?". Apparently some devs disagreed and took the complaints of those who did notice seriously. This is what these characteristics looked like before, this is how different they look now, and this is what can be done to bring them closer to what they were. It was nice acknowledgement over a non-subjective change, and it didn't matter how often we actually looked inside of our character's mouth.

So when I see things like less prominent nose smudges, pupil size changes, radical lip shape changes, thinner/misaligned eyebrows on other races... or one example in my own case, a big chunk of color missing from the horns... I believe those too are 'Moon Miqo'te teeth' issues that need 'Moon Miqo'te teeth' solutions. However the pessimism in me wonders, is it the popularity of specific races/faces that matters most? Is twitter and other social media influence the main push? Did they stop taking feedback after a certain point? What else can you do, I guess, but hope a dev reads 1 post among hundreds of others and agrees it isn't "spec".

[lunartears]

From 7.1 Patch Notes (Preliminary):

2.x 5.x 6.x
The following adjustments have been made to certain NPCs:

Model quality, texture resolution, and material qualities of faces have been improved.

Well, I hope they have learned a bit from the feedback and that this doesn't mean that unique NPCs are going to look significantly different

I can't see a single change to the lips on Au Ra in those low res images (I know that's a given but I'm desperate), not sure about the eyes.
Not long until 7.1 to find out what they've changed about our faces, I can imagine there's either going to be mass disappointment or quite a lot of conversation, maybe both.
On the other hand, there's a lot of nice system features coming like the mount tilt disable. Though, I'm disappointed about nothing regarding the portrait/"try on" lighting, I hope they're considering looking into it.

[Iscah]

Well, I hope they have learned a bit from the feedback and that this doesn't mean that unique NPCs are going to look significantly different

Sadly it'll probably be bringing more NPCs up to the altered face shapes, and no guarantee they'll get even the player-model fixes. Ones like G'raha where one version of his face survived as the old model but his other versions were altered.

[noumen0nn]

The closest look we really got from these tiny images is this picture of a Midlander from the part about eyeglasses opacity.



It's hard to glean much without knowing which numbered face options this model is using, but there's... some reason to hope. Here's the good things I notice:

-Eyebrows are a lot fuller and more tapered again. I can't tell if this model has the facial feature enabled that makes them thicker or not.
-I think?? The eyeliner has been adjusted? It looks every so slightly more "winged" again, although it's still missing the little bit of dark line under the lower-outer part of the eyelid.
-No visible eyebags. Thank god.
-For the lips, it's sort of hard to tell. The "dip" in the lip-line at the very center looks more accentuated, which is good. The awful "pouty" lipstick is nowhere to be found, but I can't actually tell if this model is wearing lipstick or not. If not, we don't know if there's been improvement, If yes, then that's probably fixed.
-The philtrum looks much shallower like it used to be. It's difficult to tell at this angle whether it has been widened back to its previous proportions too.

And the bad:

-Ugly tear tracks are still there, just visible behind the glasses
-Nose still looks suspect. Though it's possible this model is just using one of the larger nose options; my character uses the smallest one after all
-The shadow under the upper eyelid is still gone, which is arguably the most critical and transformative aspect of the face. Midlanders will not look correct until it is restored

[Moqi]

I have to say, I thought people were making too big a deal sometimes over very minor things but they do add app. Coming back after the update, my character looks less androgynous. I'm just gonna wait until the update is done to see if it's worth changing but it was very uncanny at first.

[Luluna]

I really hope they have got rid of the baggy eyes on Hyur midlander females, it is quite bad. Face 1 has terrible bags and face 5 has really dark inner eye shadows QQ. The lip colours seem all beige/brown and just washed out I really hope they had tried to fix some of it.

[Khryseis_Astra]

The closest look we really got from these tiny images is this picture of a Midlander from the part about eyeglasses opacity.

It's hard to glean much without knowing which numbered face options this model is using, but there's... some reason to hope. Here's the good things I notice:

I’m not the only one who was trying to look at these tiny pictures for clues! lol Too bad this image has the face mostly in shadow though… I’ve found that not facing a light source hides a lot of the flaws that become instantly noticeable when you do.

The lips… I’m not sure. If they’re using the thinnest option, then they’re much improved, but if they’re using the fuller ones, they’re probably still messed up. Still, I can notice slight improvements even with the shadows. Worst case scenario and they don’t fix my Highlander’s face well enough, I’ll can just turn her back into a Middie. Why I can’t just have a Midlander head on a Highlander body is beyond me! lol (but more character customization in general is a rant of its own…)

[noumen0nn]

I’m not the only one who was trying to look at these tiny pictures for clues! lol Too bad this image has the face mostly in shadow though… I’ve found that not facing a light source hides a lot of the flaws that become instantly noticeable when you do.

The lips… I’m not sure. If they’re using the thinnest option, then they’re much improved, but if they’re using the fuller ones, they’re probably still messed up. Still, I can notice slight improvements even with the shadows. Worst case scenario and they don’t fix my Highlander’s face well enough, I’ll can just turn her back into a Middie. Why I can’t just have a Midlander head on a Highlander body is beyond me! lol (but more character customization in general is a rant of its own…)

The thing that gives me hope with the lips is that they seem fuller at the corners of the mouth, like how they used to be. Having seen pictures floating around the web of the diffuse maps of various faces, I can tell you for certain that the 7.0 Midlander map is just... wrong. It looks nothing like the lips on any other race; like their lips taper off and end before reaching the corners of the mouth. The lipstick follows suit and thus we have our permanent pout. If *both* are fixed, we're probably fine.