Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

@faiarrow and azaleai: the English forums are not as heavily moderated as the Japanese ones, but if you're going to post feedback on the Japanese threads please avoid sharing TOS breaking stuff like normal map data... It doesn't matter if you got permission from azaleai, Square Enix didn't give anyone permission to rip their game files.

[Doopliss]

On 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.

I don't mean to be dismissive of anyone here, but I wanted to add on to this, too.

I can definitely understand why some people think it's cute (and it certainly did look cute on many characters), but I feel like a lot of people forget that Raen can have blue, green, purple, grey, cool-toned dark browns, and so on for skin color options, too.

This made that bright red/pink contrast look really, really unpleasant on basically a lot of non-neutral and non-peachy skin color options. And the light, neutral tone of Raen horns don't adjust to skin color enough--like, say, Elezen ears do--to make that glow that goes through them less glaring and unpleasant.

While it looked fine on my both of my Raen (my ♀ one has red-toned brown skin, and my ♂ one has outright red skin), I had a couple of friends with blue and dark, ashy-skinned Raen who absolutely despised the glow for its color alone. I'm personally happy for them that it's gone, because I don't think what it added to my Raen was worth it for what it did to theirs in exchange.

I just wanted to mention this because I feel like everyone who wants it to stay tends to have peachy or neutral skin colors... I don't mean this as an attack or anything, but just a request to consider how important color scheme balance is to some people.

Though, color issues aside, I also agree with SchwarzwaelderTorte in general in thinking the glow itself just looked really awkward and way too intense far too often.

[Argantaelle]

Some bold person (and I'm personally very grateful to them for their dedication) looked through all changes to character models and made a list.

Numbers in brackets refer to faces in the character creation screen; in most of the cases, changes affect also their twins from another clan.

Minor changes (like scar placements, eyebrows, facial hair, lips, eyes, eyelids, eyeleashes)
Midlander males (1, 5, 7)
Highlander females (2, 4)
Elezen males (3)
Elezen females (4)
Roegadyn males (1, 4)
Au Ra males (4)
Viera females (1, 3)
Au Ra females (3)

Moderate changes
Miqote females (2, 3, 4)
Roegadyn females (1, 3)

Major changes
Au Ra females (4) - eyes

Almost every race/gender/face combination got their philtrum reduced. There were some other texture changes (like Midlander girls got their eye shadow restored), but they are hard to document. Also, the 7.1 patch updated lots of hairstyles (more than 500 hairstyles have been changed).

It would be nice if SE dared to make a list of changes and not some obscure mentions that something has been updated.

P.S. My description is intentionally vague, but if you want to find the initial file and thank the person who's done this tremendous amount of work, you can find them in the discord dedicated to character appearances.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Some bold person (and I'm personally very grateful to them for their dedication) looked through all changes to character models and made a list.

Are the numbers here referring to specific face features, or the actual face numbers?

I notice Midlander female isn’t mentioned, and it looks like they at least attempted work on the eye bags, but not much else, at least not on the face I’m using. Might have just been a shadow change, because I can still notice them.

While they did change the philtrum, it also seems to be only in regards to how its shadows display. They did not correct the ones that were made wider or narrower than they were before in relation to their lip shapes. My copium is that maybe the upper lip fix was too complex to get in by patch release, and that we will see that fixed along with philtrum shape. Fingers crossed.

[Daralii]

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.

Here's the download link if you want it.

https://archive.org/download/ffxiv-o...6.0-Endwalker/

[Tahli]

The newest bug report I made on Face 2 F Miqo'te eyebrows got moved to "Working as Intended."
I don't understand how something that looked so good in the first benchmark (even if not fully accurate to old shape) could be intentionally deformed into a pinched, angry line that looks like a black sharpie was then drawn over it.

Eyebrow #3 for example is quite literally now just a line.

[Rikizza]

The newest bug report I made on Face 2 F Miqo'te eyebrows got moved to "Working as Intended."
I don't understand how something that looked so good in the first benchmark (even if not fully accurate to old shape) could be intentionally deformed into a pinched, angry line that looks like a black sharpie was then drawn over it.

Eyebrow #3 for example is quite literally now just a line.

Agree so much with this. I would use this face because its beautiful, but i just cant get over the brows

[Tahli]

Agree so much with this. I would use this face because its beautiful, but i just cant get over the brows

Thank you! Sometimes I feel crazy being one of the few people talking about this when those eyebrow changes are just so, SO extreme...

I don't know, should I start a thread petitioning specifically for a change to Face 2's eyebrows? If it really is intentional, they won't change it unless enough people speak up saying they don't like it.


Even the CC icon of the face option still has a curve and a softness to it...

[azaleai]

@faiarrow and azaleai: the English forums are not as heavily moderated as the Japanese ones, but if you're going to post feedback on the Japanese threads please avoid sharing TOS breaking stuff like normal map data... It doesn't matter if you got permission from azaleai, Square Enix didn't give anyone permission to rip their game files.

Ah... You're right. Direct comparisons like that are second nature to me at work, suppose I was still in work mode when I came across those. I'll delete it.

[Heavenchild]

The newest bug report I made on Face 2 F Miqo'te eyebrows got moved to "Working as Intended."
I don't understand how something that looked so good in the first benchmark (even if not fully accurate to old shape) could be intentionally deformed into a pinched, angry line that looks like a black sharpie was then drawn over it.

Eyebrow #3 for example is quite literally now just a line.

My report about the problem that only(!) male slim midlanders have no normal visible belly button was also moved to 'working as intended'. Really annoying. :C
That hard line looks really wrong. Why did they do this? D :