Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

More options is always better in this case. You can have your stuffs. I can have mine.

SE need to realize this or people will continue to bicker non-stop. It’ll only get worse as they try to flip flop back & forth between old > new > adjusted > aaaaadjusted (lol) models over time.

[CidHeiral]

The old system worked and was sufficiently convincing as it was.

In your subjective opinion. I disagree and think they looked pretty awful. Both views are perfectly valid opinions to have.

So... what exactly made them look lifeless to you?

Everything. The stark white sclera, the brightly over saturated and flat iris, the general lack of any sort of shadowing on them, the lack of any movement unless you were targeting something, etc. They remind me of that villain from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.



The new eyes address all of those issues and I think they look fantastic. Characters no longer look like soulless automatons staring blankly into the void. I think the subtle movement they added to the eyes looks great as well. In my opinion they've had a massive amount of life breathed into them, it's really night and day.

That being said, a lot of people bring up anime when talking about the eyes and if you're a big anime fan I can see how you may prefer the old style. Whatever your reasons are I don't think there's anything wrong with liking the old eyes, it's just personal preference.

[TheDustyOne]

I do feel like we should be able to have a version of the game that runs the old graphics, though. The information being sent from one player to another is just simple "character has features X, Y and Z" and that gets translated into graphics by the individual computer. That's how modders can have their customised graphics, so couldn't they do the same thing with an official version of the program that has the old graphics still loaded?

The main argument against this would be the doubling up of assets. The graphics update also brought an overhaul of how materials worked, and as such you'd have to create 2 sets of materials for every new model; every model would likely need to have a higher-poly version to fit with the new aesthetic and a lower-poly version for the old client; and if it was going to be a toggle in-game, that would require having the game size balloon to massive degrees, you'd need a fully separate client instead, and that would double the amount of testing needed.

Part of the reason for the graphics update, for good or ill, was to change the development pipeline. By having 2 versions of assets, they now potentially double the workload needed, which would be massively unfeasible with their already slow updates.

I think the graphics update was nice to have, but I do lament the change in the overall style and so I join these threads in the hopes to implement fixes with their new pipeline and rendering techniques. I do think it's possible to have better models, textures, materials, etc. while also adhering to the old aesthetic.

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

They remind me of that villain from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Ok, but that analogy only works because they pasted cartoonish eyes onto an actual live human, and the stylistic clash is done on purpose to give you that sense of discomfort.
FFXIV is not a game with a realistic art style, and if anything with the new exaggerated creases on the lips and under the eyes, and the rough grainy skin texture slapped onto stylized 3D models, you have the exact opposite effect which achieves exactly the same sense of discomfort.

If you have a problem with white scleras and oversaturated irises in a world where Lalafells exist and a franchise in which most characters have spiky, stylized and unrealistic haircuts... why were you playing this game until now?

[CidHeiral]

Ok, but that analogy only works because they pasted cartoonish eyes onto an actual live human, and the stylistic clash is done on purpose to give you that sense of discomfort. FFXIV is not a game with a realistic art style, and if anything with the new exaggerated creases on the lips and under the eyes, and the rough grainy skin texture slapped onto stylized 3D models, you have the exact opposite effect which achieves exactly the same sense of discomfort.

I wasn't making a commentary on the contrast between his eyes and his otherwise real face, I was just saying the old eyes reminded me of his.

I'd have to disagree with the latter part of your assessment. The models look plenty stylized to me, just with more detail. You're free to prefer whichever you please.

If you have a problem with white scleras and oversaturated irises in a world where Lalafells exist and a franchise in which most characters have spiky, stylized and unrealistic haircuts... why were you playing this game until now?

I had a feeling your original post was just a setup for a snarky comment but I had hoped it was still possible to have a polite conversation in here. Disappointing but I'll make sure to keep that in mind going forward.

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

I wasn't making a commentary on the contrast between his eyes and his otherwise real face, I was just saying the old eyes reminded me of his.

But why do they remind you of his eyes specifically, and not of any cartoon or anime character with red irises, white scleras and painted eye highlights?
Why was this the first example you had in mind to describe what you didn't like about the eyes prior to the graphical update?
Is it not because, even unconsciously, that contrast and sense of discomfort left an impression on you that you were trying to convey by sharing this example?

I'm sorry if asking somewhat provoking questions instead of "agreeing to disagreeing" is interpreted as being rude and snarky, but I'm legit trying to understand where the people who have opposing opinions come from (it's quite difficult when people only say "idk what you're all complaining about I think it's better xD"), and sometimes when I come across inconsistencies like "I didn't like the stylized anime eyes in this stylized anime(ish) game" it can be quite confusing.

Like, I came to FFXIV from another MMO with a fairly stylized animeish style, knowing that it was a FF title, a franchise known for its stylized animeish style, and knowing to expect a stylized animeish game.
I would be interested in trying out FFXI for the same reasons, even if it's a game that came out 20+ years ago with PS2 era graphics (the only things that are holding me back are the time restriction on the free trial, the outdated UI, and I heard that the game systems are a lot more cryptic than FFXIV and I don't know if I have the patience for it)
On the other hand, I've never played WoW because I could never get past the art style (the characters and environments look too bulky and "painted on" for me, in a Games Workshop kind of way, which I imagine was the intention).

So, genuinely, I have a hard time understanding why you would play a game for so long if everytime you looked at your own character or NPCs in cutscenes, you had issues with the stylized eyes, or you would think "what's with these soulless automatons that look like they just got back from war".

I can also say that I did feel that way back in ARR when looking at my own character, but that's because in ARR cutscenes the player character barely has any facial expression (at least prior to 7.0, now they added an extra smile in the intro cutscene in Gridania, so maybe they improved other cutscenes too), and if I hadn't pushed through until the end of Heavensward (where your character becomes a lot more expressive, for obvious MSQ reasons) I would have probably dropped the game because of that.

[BiddyBatnana]

It's ok to think the old eyes were shit compared to the new ones. Which is the case also for me.
I liked the old ones to an extent but with the newest materials the eyes look 10x better and more alive, added to the materials on the skin it's a great combo.

Anime style doesn't really work in FFXIV (imo) because we lack cell shading and proper shaders to make it look convincing as a anime game.
Also pointy features were due to a lack of polygons and vertex when modeling the characters back then.

I believe the new direction is to make the game more realisitic and closer to FFXVI and I'm here for it, even though it takes time to get adjusted to the face's features that were changed during the graphical update.

[TheDustyOne]

Final Fantasy has tried doing a blend of realistic and anime since at least FF8, with 9 being the only real deviation from that. The more realistic approach with the graphics update has produced some nice effects (I personally like the subsurface scattering after the tweaks it's had), but the update can't ignore the art direction the game has had over the past 11 years.

Too much realism takes our characters away from that careful balance between anime and realistic and puts them into the uncanny valley. There's a reason that the change in eye shine is such a massive point of contention; just because the new implementation is more realistic doesn't mean that our characters suddenly look more life-like, for a lot of people it achieved the opposite effect. It was only after the tweaks to the eye shine to fake having one there that I started feeling more comfortable with my character again, but that has its own caveats that have been pointed out earlier.

The two main things I want to see improved for my character are the eye shapes being tweaked and the lips being tweaked. Those 2 things would make me happy with the graphics update. But that's only me, ideally I want to get as much of the details back to what 6.x offered. The eyebrow and eye textures also could use tweaking, I swear my eyes used to be more vibrant in colour back in 6.x.

Edit: The philtrum was also another area that bugged me; I didn't mind that it was more pronounced than 6.x, but it was too detailed and distracting. The changes made to it in 7.1 are what I consider the ideal; instead of a realistic philtrum, we have a subtle bump adding detail that only enhances that anime-realism mix.

[Sairaag]

The new eyes address all of those issues and I think they look fantastic. Characters no longer look like soulless automatons staring blankly into the void. I think the subtle movement they added to the eyes looks great as well. In my opinion they've had a massive amount of life breathed into them, it's really night and day.

That being said, a lot of people bring up anime when talking about the eyes and if you're a big anime fan I can see how you may prefer the old style. Whatever your reasons are I don't think there's anything wrong with liking the old eyes, it's just personal preference.

Yeah, my opinion is definitely influenced by my taste for older anime styles, so I preferred the old eyes for that alone. However, it does seem to me that some eyes just have more problems. I can't speak for all eye types (I see opinions tend to be divided, especially for female characters with larger eyes), but it looks like male Miqo'te in particular didn't benefit much from the changes. So far I can't remember seeing anyone say they prefer the new eyes for their catboys, but I have seen complaints for all of our face and eye types. At least with my Miqo'te, I think his irises actually look slightly flatter after the update, there's still that sort of dulling film-like thing that often covers the irises, they don't catch light as easily because of eyelid changes and so on... I think it's just a case of one solution not fitting all.

[Iscah]

At least with my Miqo'te, I think his irises actually look slightly flatter after the update, there's still that sort of dulling film-like thing that often covers the irises, they don't catch light as easily because of eyelid changes and so on... I think it's just a case of one solution not fitting all.

yes, I've talked about it before. They should have removed the "film"/blank space between the visible eye surface and the eyelid, which I think was intended to look like a shadow cast by the eyelashes, but instead they moved the eyelid lower down so it now casts a real shadow over the visible iris that goes lower than the fake one.

I really wish they'd make a separate set of faces with an alternate take on the eye shape. (And then they need to use it for G'raha to give him his wide-eyed look back after they finally got it right in the HD trailer graphics.)