7.0 Graphic Update - Elezen feedback

[Hexterian]

I mentioned it in another thread, but subsurface scattering is a bit strong on my skintone. Very noticeable in benchmark.

Face definition is a bit soft for my liking, but not horrible. I'm a dark circles fan and they kept that, but I'd love a wrinkle slider for this type of thing or something. Like the corners of the mouth have faded away completely when I liked having those be more prominent.

Also always had an issue with lipcolor not coming through or washing out, and that's fixed now. I feel facepaint options are still low res though, so I'm not sure if that is still to be implemented.

[LianaThorne]

My only complain is the traslucent ears. The effect is too strong most of the time and it doesn't match most of skin tones (very dark/brown tones seem to me to have the less jarring effect). They look like they are glowing instead of being sightly traslucent. Overall, the color is a too bright pink and creates a disparity for a lot of skin tones, at least for the duskwight ones.

That inn picture hurt my soul.

[SheOfManyAlts]

Alright *cracks knuckles*. Liamont summoned me to share my opinions, so here we go!

Please skip if you’re not in the mood for a nit-picky rant from an elezen appreciator with far too many elezen characters, and thus a lot of gripes with the different ways in which this graphical upgrade has treated her many different little ducklings!

Lots of things to like about the graphical update, but I’m also of the opinion that if you truly like a person, then you’ll tell them when they're off to give a presentation with spinach between their teeth, and so - while some of this might seem nit-picky - I find it important that we do mention our concerns. Especially when the team clearly went above and beyond here in an effort to make everyone happy!

Sure, some of this is a matter of taste, and what cripples one character might be experienced as a massive upgrade for another character, so don’t take this as a ‘this is objectively wrong-list. It’s just what has personally made me frown at the screen in annoyance.

There are many great concerns already raised with lighting and traits and hair and eyes and eyebrows, so I’ll start my focus on the lips, then!

In an effort to make the lips feel… distinct(?), I guess, they’ve added a small beam of light along the upper lip. To emphasis the curve of the skin connecting to the upper lip, I suppose? However, it does run the risk of becoming a bit of a milk moustache/down thing instead.


It obviously doesn’t show up under all lights (Limsan light doesn’t give it, whereas Gridania and indoor lighting is super-bad), but it’s something that personally I’d get so fed up with that I’d just pick hues where it wasn’t that noticeable. Some people might love this change, but personally, it’s not for me.

(post 1/2, because I'm longwinded.)

[SheOfManyAlts]

Also, just really disappointed in the lips overall, especially for the females. Everyone else get more ‘natural’ or even ‘dewy’ looking lips where they fade softly, but the elezens are still stuck with a harsher line. Even on the ‘doll like’ face where you previously had a softer, more blended lip if you didn’t apply lipstick, it’s now this very defined line all around. Like somebody mentioned before, ‘light’ lipstick doesn’t exist anymore. The lip additionally - as a consequence of this change - loses the small curve that actually made it look like a friendly smile.


Same exact mouth, by the by.


The newfound perpetual 'smile' on the second male face is also a bit unwelcomed on some characters (though I guess it’ll benefit other characters). When talking about it with my friends, the general feedback is that the male elezens look ‘younger’ and less ‘stern’, which honestly feel like it’s the opposite of what they wanted when they matured up the WOL.

And, of course, I’ll still be a bit sad that the fact that you still can’t wear mascara as a female duskwight. =__= But that’d be an added thing to the character creator, and I guess the effort was not seen as important enough, compared to adding two new faces to the male hyur. *grumble grumble, petty petty, just deep down jealous*

Some hairstyles are oddly darker for no apparent reason? I never understood why we needed 4 of THIS particular hairstyle to begin with (yes, I see the hairpins change colour, alright, I get that), but they have always been the same hue of haircolour before, though? Why the difference now?




And then there are some hairstyles, that seem to no longer be ‘fitted’ very well for the face, clipping into it. I hope this is something temporary that will be fixed, because it’s actually one of the nicer hairstyles.

(note the way it clips into the forehead)

OTHER than that, I think the game has really lifted overall! I'm looking forward to playing it, and what can't be fixed, I guess I'll work around/learn to live with!

Alright, I think that was all for now.
Bitter old lady out!
/rant.

[Coerced]

Genuinely dislike it.

[linesthatinterlace]

So, hmm. In general I like it.
Before:




After:



Just looks a lot nicer to me in a lot of small ways. UNFORTUNATELY: there is a problem with the best haircut in the game, my character's iconic look, the shaved hair. Namely they added an inexplicable parting.



This is Just Bad in a way that has me like ???? - this is not what a shaved head looks like?!

[SheOfManyAlts]

There's something weird going on with the fem elezen mouth animations, and it looks really, really weird. The bottom lip curves upward unnaturally, and it's really distracting in the cutscenes and emotes.
Exhibit A:


Compare this to my Xaela, whose bottom lip looks normal:


Exhibit B:

Dawntrail:


6.0:


As you can see, the bottom lip shape was normal before. I suspect they didn't adjust the mouth animations from the Hyur base, and I hope they fix it.

This is super important and should likely have its own thread. I think in general there's a lot of threads right now about mouth shape and lip-movements looking wonky. It might be a good idea to post these pics in those, too, because that's well spotted and called, and that *will* need to be fixed. O___o I thought there was something off in the cutscene, but I hadn't thought to check with the emotes. But a full expansion of that? O___O Yeah, not fun!

[Cerwyn]

Overall? I'm pretty happy with the changes made. Of course, the lighting in the character creation screen is a bit funky but it's always been like that. In the benchmark itself, everything is nice and crisp and looks good when lighting that makes sense hits the character model.






I personally like the way that lighting hits our ears now and makes it look like an actual part of the body that resembles flesh; this is just in regards to Wildwood models, that is.






But hooo boy. Hoooo boy the fem elezen animations are bugging out.






For reference, on the current client of the game this is how the mouth animation normally looks.





TL;DR overall changes good mouth animations bugging out bad

[LianaThorne]

Just looks a lot nicer to me in a lot of small ways. UNFORTUNATELY: there is a problem with the best haircut in the game, my character's iconic look, the shaved hair. Namely they added an inexplicable parting.



This is Just Bad in a way that has me like ???? - this is not what a shaved head looks like?!

Isn't the first case I've seen of this today, someone derped up with the texture application or the model itself needs to be fixed to fit the new textures. Really no excuse for it to be put out looking like that though.

[Tifia]

General disappointment in the changes. I understand with the addition of polygons things will soften, but the look of my Elezen doesn't feel like my character. I play as a Duskwight. Without any changes to gamma & directly importing character data, this is the result:



I made a Wildwood version to see if I could better replicate my current model & had better success:




The things that I do like:
- The changes to the ear lighting & providing a bit more definition.
- Able to see freckles clearly. (Personal taste - I like freckles)
- Fuller eyebrows.
- Pronounced hairline.


Here are my issues:

- Lips have a more distinct outline, less blended, & mouth animations clearly being a problem, as others have mentioned.

- Skin tone, a big miss for me. I spent a while changing the gamma, graphics, & looking at light & dark tones - regardless of what I did, everything had a yellow undertone that looked sickly. I did a shift of the camera & got jaundice.



It varies based on location, & we know how wonky the lighting is in character creator. Before anyone says: "check it in the benchmark!" I did. While more tolerable, there were still issues. It does not give me confidence that this won't transfer over into the game. I don't want to get into a cutscene, have the camera cut up to me & I see this.

- The eyes. As many other posts are saying, they look dead & doll-like. There is more emotion coming from my OG Elf than the Dawntrail version.

- Eyelashes on the bottom look painted on instead of the soft look from the current version. The top lashes are too thin & vanish when you move away from the character. Current version of the lashes feel fuller & better blended.

- Nose. The bridge being straightened alters the profile for my character. The other nose options don't change it back.

- Faces are too soft. The one sharp line face for female Elezen's is now more rounded in the cheeks, nose, chin, & brows. I feel like my character had plastic surgery, with an emphasis on the plastic. We are all looking like dolls.

I respect the time it took for the developers to do all this work. Any graphical update for an MMO is an immense undertaking. The environmental updates look great & I think our current characters could fit in. It feels like the update was for corporate and not the players.

At the very least, got to fix those mouth animations.