Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[KihyiFelhede]

seriously... sorry but I just do not understand what their thought process is. idk how miqo eyebrows can be considered a "bug" (that is NOT what bug means) but we've heard a big fat goose egg about viera lips.

[DRKoftheAzure]

I'm one of those weirdos that is still waiting for the butt slider to be implemented so that i can stop using the 2B pants...

[Tahli]

seriously... sorry but I just do not understand what their thought process is. idk how miqo eyebrows can be considered a "bug" (that is NOT what bug means) but we've heard a big fat goose egg about viera lips.

Viera lips could definitely use some improvement, among all the other low quality inconsistencies that a lot of updated facial features have. But just to clear up your confusion...

Bug report after being marked from Accepted->Confirmed->Fixed
Post with more details to help you understand the separate things that went wrong with this feature, and why they may have only considered half of this a bug.

There is a difference between poor design choices they made when converting the old graphics to new, vs unintended mapping mistakes made after that change that caused pixels to compress unnaturally. The portion of the problem that they changed with those Miqo eyebrows was, in fact, a bug.

Identifying those differences may help others to get at least some of the changes they hope for, if those conditions apply.
I still hope for improvement all across the board, though. Even if it means adding new options that better match the old shapes. There's been plenty of feedback given showing what exactly people are asking for.

[Tarath]

I took this screenshot for the recent sweepstakes and the shadow at the corner of the mouth has never looked worse.


Initially that shadow is supposed to be above the corner of the mouth, but in DT the mouth was made shorter yet they somehow tried to keep the illusion of length by adding more depth to the corners.


Though it might look OK on a neutral expression, it looks jarring and out of place when other expressions are being displayed.


Even when the shadow isn’t very prominent, the overall gentle and soft shape of the new mouth becomes more highlighted.


This is one thing I don’t understand about the graphics update, it pushes for more realism with its shape, texture and lighting, yet the expressions have never been more cartoonish.

I’m obviously still not happy with the changes DT brought with it, said screenshot and the recent posts about mouth shapes made me want to rant about this again.

[LuciaMirain]

I play a face four viera and it is painful seeing the difference. They literally just erased the cupids bow. If you compare it to the details on face 1 it is honestly insulting. They put all their effort into making face 1 look gorgeous, then a little less effort on face 2....then 3 (the lips on face 3 are even worse than face 4) and then they sort of just threw in the towel. I don't think enough people play face four so there isn't really an outrage about it.

[Daudream]

The only face I've even noticed a fix for was fem au'ra 4, gave me quite the hope when it happened as they made that face in what I'd consider an acceptable state, even if a was a bit disappointing to see my own au'ra still untouched, but that was forever ago now and every update since have given me zero clear fixes (most likely faces I don't use, would have been nice if they actually listed the fixes...) except for breaking the eyelids on every single character.

So my au'ra is still a complete downgrade, her lips are flat and their gloss is gone, her pupils are larger instead of her old intense pinpricks (this will never be fixed because it's clearly a conscious style change puke) her eyes are rounded and less stylized with puffy swollen eyelids and unaligned textures and her eyelids are STILL BROKEN! Them breaking the eyelids bothers me the most, as it happened after launch and I know they have been fixing it (my miqo'te isn't broken anymore) but clearly not every face gets the same amount of love..... it has ruined several of her portraits and is extremely frustrating.

I honestly don't want to see them add any new features or options to faces, because as it stands the foundation is broken and low quality, I should not have to edit my character to pick new options that are more faithful to the old faces, the current options should be faithful to how they were, only then they can add whatever they want as new options! I don't need every pixel to be an exact 1 to 1 but this is not an acceptable state and I expect better from a huge company like this.

TDLR; I expect better from a large company, and do not want to see new options for faces until they've fixed the current ones (or if the update comes with fixes).

[Mistyraine]

Wish there were more options for faces, lips etc but *sigh* I have a better chance at winning the lottery than this happening ...

[Doopliss]

I took this screenshot for the recent sweepstakes and the shadow at the corner of the mouth has never looked worse.


Initially that shadow is supposed to be above the corner of the mouth, but in DT the mouth was made shorter yet they somehow tried to keep the illusion of length by adding more depth to the corners.


Though it might look OK on a neutral expression, it looks jarring and out of place when other expressions are being displayed.


Even when the shadow isn’t very prominent, the overall gentle and soft shape of the new mouth becomes more highlighted.


This is one thing I don’t understand about the graphics update, it pushes for more realism with its shape, texture and lighting, yet the expressions have never been more cartoonish.

I’m obviously still not happy with the changes DT brought with it, said screenshot and the recent posts about mouth shapes made me want to rant about this again.

The loss of drawn-on shadows like these still bothers me so badly because there was a ton of artistic intent behind the way certain 2D textures were placed on the old face models, especially around eyes and lips. As subtle as these things may seem, they were deliberately added because they helped invoke a specific character/expression the designer wanted to relay, and are generally something a lighting engine can't create. It's not unlike the principles of makeup.

I always found it kind of painterly, in all honesty, and part of what made FFXIV's artstyle stand out to me--an artstyle I never once read as attempting for realism. Even about two years later, I still think it's a shame all of these were removed for the sake of looking less stylized...

[LuciaMirain]

The more I sit in character creation the more confusing it gets. Some characters have really pretty details while others feels like someone slapped them in the face and said "good enough". I don't get it. Is this something that will be worked on more or is this it? Just looking at au ra faces face 1 is just a higher quality than face 4, same with vieras. the skin, the shadows, the details in how eyes or lips curve. It is kinda daunting when you start to actually look at the differences. When is the character creation update coming? Hopefully they add more options there I guess.....

[KihyiFelhede]

snip

Alright, I will take the L on that. I admit I thought the brows issue was just a matter of the new paints sucking. I still maintain that glaringly altered sculpts/paints should be added to a "laundry list" akin to accepted bug reports though.