Thread: 7.0 Graphic Update - Elezen feedback

May as well add mine here too.

EW


DT


Like I said, I don't hate it. As far as the dark circles... I don't know. I tried to play around and see if there was a particular setting they could have added to the game to give them (doesn't look like it, and yes, I even tried to replicate it with Reshade, can get close but not quite). I can only assume they did so on the models themselves for some reason I can't fathom. It's not like it gives them more depth, just makes them more sunken in. Its not like we don't have the option in Face Paint though.

Benchmark isn't much better in some areas.


I have no idea wtf this shadowing is here:


But in bright light head on lighting... eyeshadow isn't too bad. Nor are the eyes.



Still think interior lighting is going to be the downfall though. Especially when the light is overhead, cause you get the WORST shots with this skin tone.

Posted this comparison on other threads as well but figured it's better to have it in more places than one!
Here is a comparison from the EW benchmark and the DT benchmark. The skin tone may be salvageable? I don't know, I haven't played around with it - but right now the changes look abysmal, and of course there's nothing I can do with the reduced angularity of my son's face. They really did remove any kind of sharpness in favor of ?????? not everything has to be smooth CBU3. Please.




Going forward I'd like to see
a) restoration of the cheekbones/chin
b) restoration of the brow ridge
c) duskwight have always been quite cool-toned but the jaundiced look that he now has is quite concerning. maybe look into that too.
d) the lips look kinda bad. I'm not sure what went wrong with their texture but the old ones look so much more full, less painted on, and less stretched.

I've been doing some more playing around and it appears to be the eyelashes that are the main culprit here. They've been made much thicker and darker, and because they angle downward on most male characters they start covering the eyes a lot more than they used to. This also contributes to the "dead eye" look as it covers up some of the highlights that are in the eyes.



In an extreme close up view it isn't too bad, because you can see more of the eyes in this angle, but go a little further away and it already starts to become different.



And then in this screenshot from the trailer, at this angle you can barely even see the eyes for all the lashes, and it becomes a very different face.



Because of the lashes covering the eyes so much, it affects and changes the apparent shape of the eyes, which leads to a different facial expression and with that a different mood and feel for the character.

This doesn't happen in the same degree for most female characters though, mostly because their lashes tend to be angled upwards and so don't get in the way of the eyes as much.



In this final image I've edited one eye a little to remove the Wildwood dark circles and lessen the effect of the eyelashes. It makes the eye look much more open, and gives back a little more of the original feel.



Basically, I would recommend either thinning the lashes so you can see more of the eyes through them, or angling them up more so they don't cover up so much of the eyes. Additionally, I would consider lightening up the top part of the eyes themselves a bit, too, as they tend to run a bit dark, even with lighter eye colors.

Edited to add: I do like most of the changes. The new skin textures look good, other than the slight waxiness, and I especially like the new lighting - there have been many times when my boy has looked exceedingly strange due to awkward lighting angles. Hopefully that won't be as much of an issue now.

I slapped together a quick comparison video for my character using an image slider. The images are from my original post a few pages back, and the main reason I did this is to highlight the difference on the eyebrows and nose. To me, that's a really big change in both angle and thickness for the eyebrows, and the shadows on the nose make it look weirdly straight and almost blocky. To me, those are the most glaring issues that need to be addressed, as well as the mouth looking terrible in certain emotes as other people have pointed out.

In my original post I did mention it seemed like the eye shape had changed, but it seems like it's just slightly bigger while the shape is the same. What might've been throwing me off is the makeup around the eye, but maybe that will get tweaked, and I'm less critical now that I know the eye shape is still the same. The skin tone and hair colour also aren't bad in the benchmark itself, but that isn't too surprising since as mentioned, lighting in the character creator has always been dogshit. Here is a screenshot from the benchmark proper:



Clearly that looks a fuckload better, and even the nose doesn't seem that bad now that the lighting isn't directly dead centre of the face. Doesn't make it a non-issue though because if there ever is a scene like that then my character is gonna look weird as shit. Also, seriously, I want my old eyebrows back.

I’d like to add some feedback for elezen features in the 7.0 graphic update we see in the benchmark. While the overall graphic updates to the game are looking great, I do have some concerns regarding some of the changes made to elezen features that I will touch on below:

- Earclasps: While the texture quality of the earclasps has been upgraded, they are now significantly smaller and less prominent than the current in-game version. Considering these ear clasps are a race-specific feature a player can add to customize elezen ears, I’m a little disappointed that they’ve been sized down so much.


-Facial Features: Facial features for player characters across the board have been softened thanks to the higher poly count and softer lighting, which I think makes a nice improvement for many races, however I do think these updates have been applied a bit too broadly and as a result we are losing some of the key sharp/angular features that elezen are typically known for, ie pointy noses, sharp jawline, etc.


There are also a couple other concerns that I think may apply as more general graphical update feedback:

-Lips: I’ve noticed that overall the shape of the lips now have a slight upwards curve at the corners, giving the face less of a neutral expression in the default state and more of a soft smile. While it’s a lovely facial expression to perhaps see in a cutscene (which have some great facial/character animation in the benchmark by the way), its probably not the best idea to have this as the default in the character creator.

-Skin: Maybe this is just a bug, as I’m only really noticing it in the character creator when a cloud is passing overhead, but the skin will sometimes look too shiny and dewy, giving the appearance that the character is wet. Overall I think the new skin textures are nice, but this shinyness gives the feeling that the skin is waxy and its a little uncanny valley to me, personally.


I know there’s probably a lot of things being commented on as players are testing out their characters in the new benchmark, and much to work on before the Dawntrail release. I appreciate all of the hard work going into making our Warriors of Light and Eorzea looking as awesome as possible!! As you continue to work on the graphical update, I hope we can keep those special flavors that make each race unique in place