Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Keumjo]

They're just never going to touch the mouths, are they?

I really truly massively hate the changes to the mouths.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

For the most part, I could live with the graphics update if all they fixed were the mouths+expressions but it seems to be the only thing that they haven't worked on/made progress on. I just want to know that it's something that's coming.

Picture added for the people who thinks we're being picky about the graphics update:

Regarding the ponder emote, I hadn't spoken up about how anything looks on the female au ra face 2 because the midlander was butchered so much worse but if possible, I would like the emote to be adjusted to be closer to the old "ponder". It used to also look like a cute pout but now the eyes are comically enlarged. I understand it's supposed to look like an eyebrow is raised/one eye is squinted but it just looks completely unserious. There's a clear difference in impression between the two as well. The old one looks introspective while the new one looks like she's not comprehending.

Use it outside of gpose to get a proper look.

Here's how it looks for me on face one:


Anything that requires face or eye tracking in gpose, portraits, or when targeting other characters is fundamentally broken right now and you will not see the emote in its proper implementation. Your second shot is clearly in gpose or with you facing the camera, which we know has issues as of this patch as eyelids are broken and will not move the way they are supposed to; almost like the bones are improperly rigged or having no parenting with other facial bones. When you use it untargeted your eyes will look to the left everytime and it actually looks more annoyed now than contemplative or curious like it used to be in the past. So still broken, but the issue you're referring to is specifically due to camera tracking for the eyes/eyelids being busted.

The eyes are only comically large because the eyelids for all associated emotes are broken.
Taunt is utterly horrifying when you enable facial tracking and move the camera.

This is taunt:

These are, supposed to be, simper:

As you can see, the eyelids aren't following the eyes like they used to unless a character isn't targeted onto or forced to look directly at anything. Its a pretty big, far reaching glitch and I would encourage everyone to go into the bug reports forum and upvote the heck out of the player that already reported this as it has fundamentally changed how every character looks when emoting and cannot at all be intentional, nor is it really good for us when comparing things from this patch to those previously as the face is literally broken in a way it wasn't, and has never been, before, altering most expressions and emotes.

Personally, I've been fine with the graphics update for the most part; as I've made apparent many times in here, but this really upset me.
Emotes have been fine for years, the faces properly rigged, sure the shape changed and altered the look slightly, but to literally break the eyelids and eye tracking?

That's just crazy to me and I question how that even happened between patches.

[LuciaMirain]

So I decided today to properly look at my viera in the daylight and compare with the picture I took the other day and.....
They actually changed alot of the things I was annoyed with. It isn't perfect, but it is getting there.
Before graphical update:

After Graphical update:

After this weeks patch


The lips still lack the cupids bow, but I can see that have made some changes, mostly on how the shadows fall but also on the shape of the mouth. It isn't as stretched out anymore. The nose seems to have gotten a highlight to make it appear more narrow. The eyelashes are still bad but I can cover them with viera eyeliner. Her eyes also don't feel as vacant as before. All in all: it isnt perfect but I feel like she might actually be playable now.

[HawkeScream]

Random thought. Seen screenies of updated Aymeric and Emet and curious how they both got upgrades and didn't get changed at all, like those two are PERFECTLY upgraded with zero changes, look fantastic and still look exactly like themselves, and a perfect example of what everyone was expecting with the character updates, but that same care wasn't put into the player characters.

[glitteringcosmos]

Random thought. Seen screenies of updated Aymeric and Emet and curious how they both got upgrades and didn't get changed at all, like those two are PERFECTLY upgraded with zero changes, look fantastic and still look exactly like themselves, and a perfect example of what everyone was expecting with the character updates, but that same care wasn't put into the player characters.

It's because both of these are custom rigs to begin with, and don't need as much work because they're one-offs with a single set of features each. The ones for our characters have 4-6 options per feature (face, eye shape, eyebrow, mouth, nose, etc.) that they have to test for every single possible combination to make sure it looks right. I'm not saying this to excuse the piss-poor quality of the implementation of these "upgrades," just to say that it is unfair to compare apples to oranges in this case. That's why they're changing the rigs so that every single player option has the same UV map across the board—to cut down on the amount of work it takes to work with them. Unfortunately, as we've seen, the options for race in player characters are so diverse and unique from each other that unifying them all under the same UV map is just a recipe for disaster and they should have known better that this is how it would turn out.

ETA: if they HAD given the same amount of care to our player characters, and the results we got with Aymeric and Emet were what we got with our PCs, this would be a non-issue and people would be jumping for joy with the changes—because that is ultimately what they promised at the first fanfest in Vegas in 2023, and ultimately what they failed to deliver. They vastly overestimated the capabilities of their developers' skill and the engine itself, unfortunately.

[Glitchima]

I was testing a couple of different faces with a friend in regards to the eyelids not properly closing and... yeah. its kinda bad actually - and whats more confusing is that it seems like its a bunch of different races too, i wonder what exactly happened for this change to affect so many different races/faces? It's not *every* face across the board (which I initially thought was the case), but only some. The ones we saw affected were for example M Viera 1 and 3, but not face 2. (didn't check 4). Similar thing with M Miqo'te's as well, my character (face 3) had the same problem, but my friend reported seeing no changes on face 4. I genuinely am kind of fascinated at how this exactly happened lollll i hope this is something they fix sooner rather than later...

[Ansemaru]

Encountered a case with a relatively unpopular face on a relatively unpopular playable race that seems like it's possibly unintended- I don't know if it's a bug or an oversight or what, but.

Male Elezen Face 3 has a specific issue compared to every other Elezen face option, male or female. It's also not an issue I can see with any other playable race that isn't covered in fur, for that matter. It looks like it's just missing the portion of the texture that gives characters proper pores, specifically around the nose and cheeks. They look very shiny and blurry, almost stretched-out, and have a distinctly lower resolution impression than other options.


(Face 3 with a light skin color)


(Face 3 with a darker skin color)


(Face 2 with a light skin color)


(Face 2 with a darker skin color)

It's also more pronounced with noses that have a more angled tip- which is to say every nose other than type 1.

[HawkeScream]

It's because both of these are custom rigs to begin with, and don't need as much work because they're one-offs with a single set of features each. The ones for our characters have 4-6 options per feature (face, eye shape, eyebrow, mouth, nose, etc.) that they have to test for every single possible combination to make sure it looks right. I'm not saying this to excuse the piss-poor quality of the implementation of these "upgrades," just to say that it is unfair to compare apples to oranges in this case. That's why they're changing the rigs so that every single player option has the same UV map across the board—to cut down on the amount of work it takes to work with them. Unfortunately, as we've seen, the options for race in player characters are so diverse and unique from each other that unifying them all under the same UV map is just a recipe for disaster and they should have known better that this is how it would turn out.

ETA: if they HAD given the same amount of care to our player characters, and the results we got with Aymeric and Emet were what we got with our PCs, this would be a non-issue and people would be jumping for joy with the changes—because that is ultimately what they promised at the first fanfest in Vegas in 2023, and ultimately what they failed to deliver. They vastly overestimated the capabilities of their developers' skill and the engine itself, unfortunately.

Tysm for the explanation, that makes sense and helps me be a little less salty about it. And also helps me understand the issues/what's going on with the UV maps better too. Imagining what could have been though, ugh lmao

[Hatsuoki]

Snip

A few posts above my quoted post was me talking about the eyelid bug so I knew about it.

Unfortunately:

1 - Ponder being like this has been since 7.0, not just 7.2.

2 - The picture of your character outside of gpose also has her eyes like mine except your hair is covering the enlarged eye. To be extra clear, this isn't about the eyes looking to the side as that was normal even in 6.58. The issue is the enlarged eyes making a "raised eyebrow" expression rather than the original "deep in thought" expression.

3 - Of course I'm going to want to use it in gpose. While the picture of my au ra was with eye tracking, it also does it without eye or head tracking. In a couple of hours, I can take pictures outside of gpose without any tracking and update my post.

Edit: Here it is outside of gpose.

[noumen0nn]

They're just never going to touch the mouths, are they?

I cannot believe this gif I made in September is still relevant. The philtrum depth has since been corrected, but the lip/lip gloss shape disparity is still exactly the same. Why??