Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Rawazh]

Yes, we should be demanding that they do. The mobile version is proof that the graphics can be updated without sacrificing the original impression, and Dawntrail's own update was a complete failure in that regard. I've been showing the mobile graphics comparisons to friends who aren't in the loop inn order to spread word. Keep bombarding them with feedback and criticism until they are forced to listen.

I posted on the japan thread about it, hopefully someone will read it!

[Plasmaspy]

Still on major copium for the old face to come back

[CidHeiral]

I was quite pleased with the initial batch of Dawntrail zones and their massive leap in quality and detail compared to the collection of empty fields we had gotten in previous expansions. However, the quality of the two new zones released last patch is all over the place. A few issues I've noticed:


1. Some of the worst tiling I've ever seen.

This looks like it was a very rushed job and looks completely unnatural. The fact that there are only a couple plain rocks here and there to break it up doesn't help.





Compare that to this similar area from a few years ago in WoW:



The terrain is varied, there's lots of unique little doodads scattered around, the rocks looks like they're part of the landscape and not just pasted there, and most importantly the ground textures flow into each other naturally and with zero noticeable tiling.

I'm not saying FFXIV needs to look like WoW, but it definitely seems like one scene had a lot more time for the artists to do their thing than the other.


2. Inconsistent texture quality.

This patch of grass with leaves scattered around looks pretty good!



Yet directly on the other side of the stone next to it is this moss:



Even the ivy leaves nearby aren't consistent in quality with each other. Why do some look great and others look like they were ripped from an N64 game?



Cosmic Exploration has similar issues. Look at this rock compared to the rock wall behind it. Is the rock texture just stretched over the entire mountainside?



Near that wall is a waterfall that looks like a flat low res jpg rolling out of a cave. Texture issues like this are everywhere in the new areas, which is surprising given that upgraded texture quality was a big selling point of the graphical update.

3. Environment design and cohesion.

Walking through OC/CE it often hits me that I'm just walking through video game assets scattered around. Those assets should be arranged in a way that makes it a natural looking and immersive space.

Take this mountain range (?) from the Cosmic Exploration zone. The giant crystals in the far back look very low res and like they're wrapped in a plastic bag. The rock spires between the larger crystals and the moon surface look out of place. All of these elements looked dragged into the scene and don't blend together at all. There is very little visual cohesion in this area, and you see that all over both of the new zones.



Here's a similar scene in WoW where the crystal formations look much more like they're a natural extension of the surrounding environment. Again I'm not saying FFXIV needs to look like WoW, I just think the artists in this example were probably given more time to work out how to make everything fit together well.




4. Summary

I know the team is capable of doing better because they did exactly that in the normal DT zones. By and large those areas look fantastic and for the most part suffer from none of these issues. DT towns like Iq Br'aax are some of my favorite places to hang out at because they did such a good job making them feel like a believable place with lots of little details and care put into them.

SE please give your artists the time and resources needed to match that quality in the patch content zones as well. It's difficult to feel immersed in these areas when they look rushed and unfinished.


Side note:
I have a 4090 and get 200+ FPS in every zone. Can there please be a higher draw distance setting? The new grass density looks great but you can only see it an inch in front of your face. This should apply to the mobs as well, they currently pop in very close to the player.

[CidHeiral]

Posting twice @ the devs because there's an image limit.

1. Highlander Lips

I've been complaining about the lip issue on female highlander face 1 since the beta. To reiterate:

- The bottom lip has a very stark line running straight through the middle of the lip, separating it into a much darker half and a much lighter half. It looks very strange and unnatural, like you have three lips.
- There's a prominent inverted white triangle on the upper lip either not present or very very light in the original.
- The lips overall have various splotchy white parts that make them look almost infected, an odd interpretation of the low res highlights from the original.




How mangled it all is can be seen even more clearly in the flat texture.



Interestingly, in certain lighting sometimes the lips look a lot better as I've shown below (everything on the right side is from 7.0). When the light is just right it blends the colors together and everything looks much closer to how it should (except the persistent upper lip triangle which shows how much more prominent it is now). If the lips looked like the below image all the time I'd have no complaints.



Devs, please blend out the details of the lips to match the example above and the original model. If at least the bottom lip gets fixed I can live with the rest of it.


2. Shadows

Speaking of lighting, shadows are still broken since my bug report on the issue was accepted a year ago. In a recent patch there was a note about the engine taking multiples light sources into account to improve shadows but as far as I can tell that hasn't actually improved anything.









It seems any character that isn't your own gets waaaaaaaaaay lower quality shadows that don't even display properly a lot of the time. I can't imagine the weird staggered shadows are intentional but if the overall low quality is intentional can there at least be a setting to apply the player shadow quality to everyone if your system can handle it?

Side note:
Please greatly increase the shadow rendering distance inside housing. Currently if a light source isn't directly in your face it doesn't properly account for the geometry around it.




3. Player model body.

Please revisit the bodies of the player models if possible. It looks quite strange to have a very nice smooth head on very jagged angular body.





This also results in shadows sometimes getting caught on those rough edges (this gif is reused from the bug report on shadows in general).



I understand you have to account for potentially hundreds of these models in the same spot but hopefully they can be smoothed out at least a bit more at some point.


4. Upscaling Implementation.

I currently run the game on FSR + FXAA because the DLSS/AA options look like blurry soup any time you are in motion and I'd rather deal with jaggies than the game constantly blurring and unblurring the image which really messes with my vision. Please implement a DLAA option so we can get the benefits of the AA but at our native resolution.


That's all for now! Thank you!

[Rawazh]

Pushing it to the first page because it is still a LARGE problem ongoing - we still don't have any news from SE and people are starting to grow impatient :/

[Liamont]

We have been patient for a year+, it'd be nice if we can actually get some sort of response from the management. At this point I just want to know if I should give up or if I should keep fighting.

[HeyMcFly]

I'm still waiting for them to add Y'shtola's hair to Viera >

[GreenLeafy]

I just recently resubbed with a friend after being away from the game since February but have been occassionally taking a peek at things in the forums , most notably the graphical update shenanigans. Its pretty discouraging seeing that basically nothing has really changed ingame - barely any light fixes so there's still jank blocky shadows , barely any face fixes so my WoL is still a stranger , the textures feel like such an eyesore in some cutscenes when you have an old gen texture npc next to a new gen one , the repeated textures that have ruined zones still remain , etc... the list just goes on and theres 300 pages to showcase it just on the english forum so far and countless other threads. Things they just shoved under the rug for a year since DT was released.

This year was the 10th year anniversary of me playing this game , hit 2400 sub days , kinda wild coming back to an objectively less consistent-looking game than before. I'm glad that there are still people out there who are just as dissatisfied with the recent changes and am sorry that the developers seem to not really care to apply the same level of polish and care as they once did or even give us the respect and courtesy of addressing these issues directly.
It was a real eye-opener how much the enjoyment of the game was tied to me actually being attached to my WoL and once they took that away my interest tanked.

[DynnDiablos]

I think folks need to come to terms with no major changes are going to happen at this point and the graphical tweaks are not going to be ongoing forever. At some point, the dev team has to say enough is enough. I don't believe they will make a formal announcement either. The expectation they are going to just continue to rework the character models is unrealistic. Eventually, there needs to come acceptance.

[Astronis]

We have been patient for a year+, it'd be nice if we can actually get some sort of response from the management. At this point I just want to know if I should give up or if I should keep fighting.

There was a response before 7.1 was launched that explained several things they planned to address, as well as several things they explained they would not change. You can dig around in the news section of the Lodestone for it if you haven't seen it before--it describes some things they knew would take until 7.2 to address but nothing in it suggested they would be working on face models beyond that point. Most of what they said they'd address was quite subtle based on my reading, though I'm not sure if everything they listed has been addressed or not since they don't itemize these things. I know they've adjusted philtrums, some minor tweaks to lip appearances, subsurface scattering on au ra horns, the weird hair glow, how shadows are cast on faces, and some other details here and there. I don't know if they've done anything about jaw shapes, it wasn't something I paid a lot of attention to, and based on the news post it sounded like anything they did would be very subtle anyway. I don't expect that there would be another response from the devs beyond that, though anything's possible.