Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[sleepystaccato]

I ended up putting together more descriptive images of the limbal ring issue, it's still really bothering me how inconsistent the color is.
To start, this is the color swatch my character's limbal rings are and how they look in the aetherial sea background in character creation/the aesthetician

In this zone her limbal rings are darker than her iris, but as soon as she is put in any outdoors environment they get lightened substantially.

If the effect is meant to be for them to glow, why are they brighter at day time than in the dark?

as well, there seems to be a strange gradient effect happening at sunrise/sunset now that was not previously there, or if it was was far less noticeable. this gradient is also present on the character info screen. this has been more noticeable to me on characters with extremely light limbal rings where they'll just have a speck of neon color when examining them


The environment that closest replicates what her limbal rings looked like prior to 7.1 I've been able to find has been in the Tulliyolal inn room, too bad it's not this way everywhere.

They're not currently in a state where it feels good to keep using them, but my characters impression changes without them even though the effect is subtle. I kinda feel like her iris is too bright too but I'm not sure if I'm just going crazy from staring at eyes for so long.
Before, people with light color limbal rings were disappointed and now people with darker ones are upset... the back and forth between the two extremes is frustrating and I hope that they will be more transparent with what they intend to change and what is working as intended because just praying that an aspect of my character I like is going to stay how it is in the next patch is making new patches less exciting and more anxiety inducing. It sucks getting used to how your character looks just to have the rug pulled every few months.

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

I happened to have the Endwalker benchmark open while reading sleepystaccato's post, so here are some 6.X references in case you want them:


(I don't know if the color of the iris is accurate, but the limbal ring is the same as what you posted)
From left to right: Aether environment, Black Shroud day (in the shadow, backlit), and Black Shroud night

100% agreed with how this is anxiety inducing, I'm very worried that if they decide to fix/revert the darker limbal rings it will have an impact on the brighter ones and I'll lose my character again in 7.2.

[sleepystaccato]

Thanks for taking these, I wanted to grab them myself for comparison but I don't have the Endwalker benchmark on my new pc.

It's awful that either way they've gone in 7.x has negatively effected one or the other groups characters and I wish at least for limbal rings they'd just revert to however the were rendered pre-graphics update.

[RainStormwalker]

Is there a thread anywhere talking about the loss of the red subsurface scattering for Au Ra? I know they did that because people complained, but I thought it was beautiful and I feel really robbed. Horns will have a layer of dead keratin, but they still have blood vessels in order to grow, so their arguments didn't make sense anyway. If you shave an animal's horn down too much it will bleed. Were the people complaining even au ra mains? I never saw the posts Yoshi P was talking about anyway, everyone I know loved it. Could we have a toggle at least?

I had reserved from saying anything because I wasn't sure how it would look when they changed it, but it looks really sad compared to how pretty it used to be.

Edit to add: Also her pupils being so much larger in 7.0 and the inner edge of the iris being darker means she looks like she has black holes for eyes with the blue limbal ring around it. I know the larger pupil looks good without limbals and with some color combos, but it really made my character look strange. I miss being able to see the color of her iris. I'll deal with it though, I'm more sad they took the pretty color from the horns and tail.

[Tsumdere]

Girliepop, I've been playing duskwight since 2.0 as well. Don't act like I'm a tourist because I liked...my character looking slightly older? (also wildwood are wack miss me with that)
But yes, I agree the creation system needs an upgrade. It's really sad I can get more options out of a 20 year old Korean MMO sometimes lol

Fair enough! The only people I've really seen talking about the Duskwight eyebag "nerfs" on other websites don't know that Duskwight never looked like that in the first place, so I projected. Point still stands. It is ridiculous to think that massive character/vibe changes should stay regardless of whether or not you personally like them.
(Wildwood are whack.)

As far as I'm concerned, this whole graphics debacle should have lit the fire under their ass to have the character creator updates in 8.0. Really no excuse at this point. I don't care about the code excuse anymore - it's their job and we pay for them millions of dollars to tackle these sorts of projects.

[Noelani]

Does anyone mind checking if the skin tone of your character's face and neck matches your smallclothes body since 7.1? I'm seeing a mismatch for Keeper of the Moon F Miqo, most apparent on very light skin tones.

Bug report thread here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...qo-te-F-Face-4

The body skin looks a shade more yellow, giving a disconnected feeling from the head. It stands out the most in low to medium lighting environments. In direct sun the difference gets washed out.

[Turnintino]

Is there a thread anywhere talking about the loss of the red subsurface scattering for Au Ra? I know they did that because people complained, but I thought it was beautiful and I feel really robbed. Horns will have a layer of dead keratin, but they still have blood vessels in order to grow, so their arguments didn't make sense anyway. If you shave an animal's horn down too much it will bleed.

The blood vessels in horns are in the bony core of the otherwise keratin structure. You wouldn't see them illuminate pink in the manner Au Ra horns did before this patch. I do think some subsurface scattering makes sense, but it should match the outer color of the horns -- which is what I thought we were going to get for this fix, but alas.

[Rueby]

The blood vessels in horns are in the bony core of the otherwise keratin structure. You wouldn't see them illuminate pink in the manner Au Ra horns did before this patch. I do think some subsurface scattering makes sense, but it should match the outer color of the horns -- which is what I thought we were going to get for this fix, but alas.

I also thought there'd be some subsurface scattering on the horns still (not pink)....wasn't it meant to be that AuRa horns were hollow?

[Turnintino]

I also thought there'd be some subsurface scattering on the horns still (not pink)....wasn't it meant to be that AuRa horns were hollow?

That's my understanding as well, yeah. That they're meant to be built to carry vibration the way human ear drums do (but with a bonus to spatial awareness, I believe).

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

Is there a thread anywhere talking about the loss of the red subsurface scattering for Au Ra? I know they did that because people complained, but I thought it was beautiful and I feel really robbed. Horns will have a layer of dead keratin, but they still have blood vessels in order to grow, so their arguments didn't make sense anyway. If you shave an animal's horn down too much it will bleed. Were the people complaining even au ra mains?

(pics are from 7.0)

Yes.

But the announcement on Lodestone only said that it would be lessened, not removed entirely...
So I'm surprised that on Au ra F face 1 at least, it seems to have completely disappeared. (personally I don't mind, but I would have also been fine with horns that simply didn't glow bright red in an unnatural way)

In the cutscene when you wake up on the boat at the beginning of the 7.0 MSQ, it was glowing just as red (despite the lighting being on the other side of the head).
I've seen similar feedback from Au ra M Face 2 players.
It would already look a lot less weird if the parts that are not directly exposed to light were not changing color, and if the translucency color was affected by the color of the light.
But that's advanced graphics stuff, and this is an MMO with tons of technical constraints, so it's probably not possible.
Still, I'd rather not look like Rudolph the reindeer at random times if I can avoid it.