Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Heroman3003]

Im not invested enough to say much, but I gotta say, I love how utterly incapable of making actual comparison pictures this thread is. Taking a pic of a character in a certain location at a certain time of day, and then comparing it to another picture in an entirely different location with entirely different lighting and ambiance at a different time of day and then complaining about how 'radically different' the two look and even then I can barely tell the difference. Doesn't apply to everyone but good lord half of these comparisons feel like they're only different because one is taken in the dark cave lit up by a tiny candles and another in the middle of sunny beach.

[Daralii]

Im not invested enough to say much, but I gotta say, I love how utterly incapable of making actual comparison pictures this thread is. Taking a pic of a character in a certain location at a certain time of day, and then comparing it to another picture in an entirely different location with entirely different lighting and ambiance at a different time of day and then complaining about how 'radically different' the two look and even then I can barely tell the difference. Doesn't apply to everyone but good lord half of these comparisons feel like they're only different because one is taken in the dark cave lit up by a tiny candles and another in the middle of sunny beach.

With what they did to the environment lighting, it could easily be the same location at the same time, and you just aren't able to tell.

[Heroman3003]

With what they did to the environment lighting, it could easily be the same location at the same time, and you just aren't able to tell.

I can literally see the background of those pictures, and that those are two different places. I don't deny the lighting may have changed severely in some places, but that only makes attempts at drawing comparisons while taking pics in radically different circumstances even less sane lmao.

[faiarrow]

I can literally see the background of those pictures, and that those are two different places. I don't deny the lighting may have changed severely in some places, but that only makes attempts at drawing comparisons while taking pics in radically different circumstances even less sane lmao.

So, save for the mobile version cap, these are all in the same spot but show the clear weirdness of them attempting to fix the lighting engine problems they've had since launch of 7.0:


Yeah, the previous comparisons were in different spots, but you can still see the difference they were talking about given the limbal rings are really bright and it's something they've been tweaking on and off silently every patch release. You don't have to be rude about it though — people are stressed enough with the lead into 8.0 and the dread of another round of feedback likely being required without people coming in here and griping about people being "less sane" for seeing a clear visual difference on their character.

[Sarantserel]

I can literally see the background of those pictures, and that those are two different places. I don't deny the lighting may have changed severely in some places, but that only makes attempts at drawing comparisons while taking pics in radically different circumstances even less sane lmao.

I'll admit that was not the best after picture I could take and I'll have to find better before/after comparison, but the limbal rings are definitely different from before the patch

Edit: Found this before/after image online

[Tarath]

I was hoping the eyelid change in gpose would fix the eyelid bug, disappointed to see that’s not the case.



Though I’m surprised to see the limbal ring glow doesn’t bleed as much into the eye as they used to when they glow brightly. This is more in line with the thickness limbal rings used to be in EW, which I appreciate.


However the intensity of the glow is still dependent on the surrounding light source. I wish that the glow intensity would be reversed between day and night. I understand that they want to avoid having limbal rings being barely visible during daytime as it was in 7.0, but I feel that they overcorrected the glow in 7.2.
I personally find it silly that they’re more intense during the day when in general light glows more brightly when the surroundings are darker.





We’re soon nearing the end of this expansion and honestly it’s been frustrating to see how the graphical update has been handled. More polygons and higher resolution textures doesn’t automatically make things better when they’re misaligned and mismatched from original features.
Though I welcome the additional features shown during fanfest, they don’t bring much hope in regard to fixing these issues that’s been brought up since the very first Dawntrail benchmark.

Here's coping they'll finally show as much enthusiasm towards fixing these issues as they are in regards to potentially adding butt slider..

[Sarantserel]

Though I’m surprised to see the limbal ring glow doesn’t bleed as much into the eye as they used to when they glow brightly. This is more in line with the thickness limbal rings used to be in EW, which I appreciate.

The limbal ring definitely looks more in line with EW, but I've gotten used to the new look, so at this point I really wished they just gave us an option to swap between this new one and the one from before with the bleed

[Doopliss]

Somebody posts a quick image neutrally saying "I think this might be different" and another immediately replies to get mad about a more exaggerated version of their claim that they didn't make. Classic.

Regardless it is pretty easy to see that the glow now stays within the circle of the limbal ring, when prior the glow "breached out" in all circumstances before from 7.1 onwards.

[Tarath]

The limbal ring definitely looks more in line with EW, but I've gotten used to the new look, so at this point I really wished they just gave us an option to swap between this new one and the one from before with the bleed

I agree, it would be neat if we could adjust the intensity of the glow and bleed/thickness to our liking.
And hopefully that would be a fix to those using a darker limbal ring colour and wishes for it to not glow, which it currently does.

[Anarnee]

Im not invested enough to say much, but I gotta say, I love how utterly incapable of making actual comparison pictures this thread is. Taking a pic of a character in a certain location at a certain time of day, and then comparing it to another picture in an entirely different location with entirely different lighting and ambiance at a different time of day and then complaining about how 'radically different' the two look and even then I can barely tell the difference. Doesn't apply to everyone but good lord half of these comparisons feel like they're only different because one is taken in the dark cave lit up by a tiny candles and another in the middle of sunny beach.

Frankly, they shouldn't and wouldn't have to be having to do all this work if the devs had bothered to do what they'd promised us in the first place.

The amount of time and effort the people in this thread and others have put in to show the discrepancies, for more than four years is an obscene amount of unpaid labor to be asking the people that are paying for a product, and to expect people to always be perfect is stupid too.

People would have the pics in the same place and then people just shift the goal post to it just looks different because of the new lighting anyways. This is not anyone's job, besides the devs who screwed it up in the first place, and they shouldn't even have to be doing this.