Character Portraits feedback

[Iscah]

The portraits have been given to us as a "beta" feature so it seems an important time to give feedback.

So my current thoughts:


1. Stop automatically de-linking portraits from gearsets when the set is updated.

Once you've linked a portrait to a gearset, it is automatically de-linked if you update the gearset. I find this unnecessary and frustrating, particularly as most times I update a gearset I will reapply the same glamour I was already using, or perhaps have changed something inconsequential.

Even if I've changed the appearance of the gearset, I would still prefer an inaccurate but well-posed picture over the unflattering default.


2. The default portrait is set up poorly and distorts the face.

There are two ways of zooming in and out for the portraits (and gpose): there's the camera zoom setting adjusted via the slider and there's the natural adjusting of the camera through either the mouse scroll-wheel or controller L1 + right joystick.

The lower the slider is set, the more distorted the character looks at close range.

The default combination of a close shot and the slider set at 100 (ie. 50%) results in a distorted, "bulging" face that doesn't represent the character's normal appearance very well.

A higher setting on the slider gives a more natural appearance closer to how the character normally appears in the game.

I would like to see the default portraits adjusted to have a higher slider setting (and obviously re-framed to fit the character properly in the picture again).


3. Make the controller buttons work more like gpose.

Specifically, L2 and R2 pause character motion while in gpose. I keep trying to do this while editing portraits and it just brings up the PS4 hotbar over the portrait window. It seems I can only pause motion by navigating to the on-screen button.


4. In the main list of portraits, add a "duplicate" button to the right-click menu when you click on a portrait.

Right now the closest option is to set it as your instant portrait, then click the Plus button in the corner and "create new from instant portrait". But it would be neater if you could just create a copy directly.


5. Interaction of expression from emotes and the default expression list

Currently if you use an emote that makes the character do a particular expression (eg. "joy") that expression shows while you are editing the portrait but is overwritten by the default "straight face" or "none" when you finish editing and go back to the main portrait menu. This seems like an error.


6. More simple "soft gradient" backgrounds please.

Like the basic "solid grey" but less... grey. But still simple and darkish muted colours. Maybe some pale muted ones as well, not as bright as the "vellum" or "aether" backgrounds.

Basically, a choice of soft colours that we can coordinate with the character's outfit.

[MoofiaBossVal]

Would also be cool if a pet/minion could be displayed too.

[Krotoan]

5. Interaction of expression from emotes and the default expression list

Currently if you use an emote that makes the character do a particular expression (eg. "joy") that expression shows while you are editing the portrait but is overwritten by the default "straight face" or "none" when you finish editing and go back to the main portrait menu. This seems like an error.
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Was having a similar problem as discussed on the "show your plate!" thread (perhaps I should have made a separate thread.. ).. where I was using "cheer" for the open mouth but when on the main portrait menu my face went back to "none"

It actually seems to remember the expression too (or however the emote works) since when swapping portraits you can see the expression fall off the face as it morphs back to "none" when chosen.

Someone else mentioned that OTHER points in the animation saved correctly but stopping at my chosen point in particular didn't work, as they had tested with it as well.

As an experiment could you also try the emote you were having trouble with and see if other points in the animation save?

[Iscah]

It actually seems to remember the expression too (or however the emote works) since when swapping portraits you can see the expression fall off the face as it morphs back to "none" when chosen.

From everything I've seen so far, the portraits are not screenshots but a "live" shot of your character frozen in place. Most tellingly, weapons with special effects are animated and moving even though the character is still. And of course it's able to change outfit according to what you are wearing. You can also see hairstyles pop into position as you switch to a pose and (I assume) gravity is applied to the moveable bits.

It seems that it's not storing the actual picture but the instructions to generate the picture.

[Iscah]

Testing stuff when making my first post has shown up an additional oddity, which I hadn't realised because previously I had only created a single portrait per character for the adventurer plate. Now I have created some extras, I am realising that they all switch to match the character's current outfit instead of saving what you were wearing when you took the portrait.

I assume this is why the portrait unlinks from the gear set when you change it (in case you changed its class and thus weapon and access to battle poses) but that still seems heavy-handed. Can the system do a check and only unlink the set if the class has changed?

[Amenara]

1. Stop automatically de-linking portraits from gearsets when the set is updated.

Once you've linked a portrait to a gearset, it is automatically de-linked if you update the gearset. I find this unnecessary and frustrating, particularly as most times I update a gearset I will reapply the same glamour I was already using, or perhaps have changed something inconsequential.

Even if I've changed the appearance of the gearset, I would still prefer an inaccurate but well-posed picture over the unflattering default.

I agree 100%, probably the most obnoxious thing about the adventure plates for me. That being said I am pretty sure SE knows about this issue and is working on resolving it among many other things with the "Beta version" Adventure Plates.

[Gemina]

Some things I can think of are being able to save multiple plates. We can have multiple portraits to upload to the plate on a whim, but if we theme the plate to a portrait, we cannot retain the customizations if we upload a different portrait and change the plate to fit it.

Snapshots, or upload a gpose. It would be really awesome to choose our background, include a pet/minion/mount, and see how many players get photo bombed.

I noticed the background options have a (simple) tag, and I am curious if that means more will be released.

[Fawkes]

3. Make the controller buttons work more like gpose.

Specifically, L2 and R2 pause character motion while in gpose. I keep trying to do this while editing portraits and it just brings up the PS4 hotbar over the portrait window. It seems I can only pause motion by navigating to the on-screen button.

I think L1 and R1 do this for me, I'm not sure I wasn't trying to unpause it but it did.

[Iscah]

Another oddity I have discovered is that it seems that poses using the limit break animation turn up completely blank if you currently have a different class equipped.

While I can understand why they wouldn't want to show these pictures – given that they're shown with current equipment, using the wrong weapon for the pose would do some weird things – I think it needs some kind of explanation text to appear saying it is deliberately hidden.

[Iscah]

Further frustration as I switch to a gearset with linked portrait to get the message "Portrait and gear set unlinked. Current gear inconsistent with gear set."

I think this because the earring in the set is shared by another job and had a different glamour applied to it when I applied a plate to that job.

So that's apparently enough to throw the whole system into disarray and I'm not allowed to keep the set linked, despite the fact that the portraits are entirely capable of adjusting to show the new glamour – or you could just let the portrait slightly mismatch the character's appearance.

I want to like this portrait system, but in its current state the application of portraits to your character seems far too tenuous and easily disrupted.