Dawntrail Graphical Update - Au Ra Feedback

[Aimed]

My au ra gal looks SO GOOD I will say I think this face came out very well. That said, I spotted what appears to be a bug:

https://imgur.com/a/8ViL7j1

- In full light, eyelashes look as expected
- In shadow, eyeliner & mascara suddenly appears
- No eyeliner or mascara makeup option is turned on
- (edit: this is F face 3)

I think I saw someone say this was happening to their midlander as well.

Intel i7-8700K CPU @3.70GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080

[LansEvernovice]

Skin gets a soft rubbery look when in strong light, it look like the inside is hollow and you can easily cave in the face model if applying pressure.

The skin and eyes also have a green tint instead of my initial warm gray but I'm switching between PS5 and the PC benchmark so I dunno if that does it.

Some droopy charm of eye shape no.1 was lost, maybe it's just the more prominent eyelids messing things up?

The loss of the permanent lipgloss is truly tragic, but if anything there needs to be built in dark shade for middle of mouth line so it pops more?

[Glaciating]

Overall, I love the wonderful new textures for the horns, the improved hair textures, the detailed shadows, and so many of the environmental improvements. On the other hand, I find that the impression I get from my Face 4 Xaela is completely different from before. I really valued the "tomboyish"/"non-cute" look with sharp features, intense eyes, and thin mouth. The changes made in the benchmark weaken the feel of the eyes and dilate the pupils, round and soften the face, add a shine to the skin when lit, and worst of all leave you with a plump, puckered mouth no matter which option you pick. It just doesn't feel like my character any more.

Purposefully, I tried to find consistent, unflattering lighting for both to do an apples to apples comparison. Here's what I've got:


Unfortunately, no amount of tweaking in the character creator seems to be able to restore the feel I get from my Endwalker and prior face. I hope that SE can make a few adjustments to restore the features that made Face 4 unique and attractive. I hope they can find a way to bring back some of that sharpness from the original face.

I think that could be achieved in part by:

• Adjusting one of more of the mouth options to make them flatter, thinner and more severe. Ditch the dimples please.
• Decreasing the size of the pupils, and brightening daytime limbal rings to define them a bit better.
• Thickening the eyeshadow option to give the eye more sharpness and definition.
• Making one or more of the nose options more angular.

Here's an amateurish edit that I hope indicates why those changes bring it closer to what we had before:

[MiloslavBlazena]

Just wanted to drop my two cents in here, too: don't really like what happened to the fish face option. The mouth was COMPLETELY changed, should be reverted back to the old design. I liked how cute and silly they looked but its like it was erased.

[Et_ela]

Benchmark:

Live:




I'm not a big fan of how the new eyeliner looks cause it results in the eyes looking too big, round, and soft for me. The lips also became thinner for this specific option. I tried looking at the other options but none of them seem to give the same feel that my wol originally had. :'(

(The new scale textures look great!)

[Eraden]

Mao wonderings why new looks making Au Ra looks like suckings on rhubarbs.

[larsa7]

I decided to create an account here for this. I think they changed a lot of my character and while some changes are good, she's a different character in the end.

Old: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q6R...ew?usp=sharing
New: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EkP...ew?usp=sharing

To me, these changes were made:

• Hair looks much better, I prefer new one, fluffier and more alive.
• Horns and the tail both look better, although the colour is grey instead of dirty white which I don't like.
• Scales seem like someone cut them from paper and glued them on her skin. I like that they look more detailed/realistic now, though. However, I wish they'd remained thick. The colour issue is here just like with the horns and the tail.
• Her new visible eye seems to have a sharper corner to it which makes her look more tired/pissed off. I prefer her earlier innocent eyes.
• The mouth seems shortened and gives me this "duckface" impression. No. That's not what I want, ever. It's like she's puckering up a tiny bit. There's an actual emote for that, no need for my character to look like that all the time when idle.
• I've seen this seam on her neck where the scales look worse, it seems unfinished.
• Those limbal rings are different. Like totally different. I loved the fact I could originally make her eyes have this cool blending effect where the yellow eye gets all hazy. It's gone, replaced by brown limbals. If I wanted to only have the brown circles around the eye, I would have chosen them originally.
• Pupils look bigger and their borders are soft, just like with real eyes. Well... I actually prefer more unnatural eyes in video games, so that's not what I want.
• The new nose looks longer to me and its nostrils seem smaller. However, I believe this is only because of lighting change and is no big deal at all.

All of those changes together make her look a few years older. Given that time has passed between ARR and DT, it doesn't feel too bad. However, it feels jarring when so many changes are thrown at your face at once.

I've played with her for years, thousands of hours. While some other WoLs also look very good to my eyes, for me, she's the WoL. I created her with the old graphical limitations and did as good of a job as I've ever done. She's my favourite character I've created since I started creating them in video games in the late 2000s.

Continues in my next message.

[Nebty]

All of those changes together make her look a few years older. Given that time has passed between ARR and DT, it doesn't feel too bad. However, it feels jarring when so many changes are thrown at your face at once.

It's extra jarring for someone who hasn't even finished the story too. I'm actually right before Shadowbringers. I don't even know if I want to keep going at this point while all of the redesign stuff is still up in the air. I kinda feel like I'd just miss her old face more if I did, but if I do wait then it'll feel even stranger when the transition happens halfway through the plot.

[larsa7]

Continues from my first message in this thread.

That's what makes it so sad. If anyone asked me if I wanted to play the older or newer before touching the game, I'd go for the newer character. However, I'd still wonder why I couldn't get the better-looking eyes.

I think the changes remind me of face four, which I would've chosen originally, had I actually wanted to play with it. The face two has always given me this goofy and gentle vibe. Empty sometimes, yes, but it's the face that resembles my actual one the most. The fact that I could somewhat see myself in my character brought me joy.

A benchmark mug shot: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dxy...ew?usp=sharing

The colour of the limbal ring looks a bit better here, but that sneer. I don't think the old face would've looked quite like that. Meh. However...

A better benchmark picture: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b2F...ew?usp=sharing

Her eyes look alright in that picture, blending of the limbal ring and the iris seems to happen like it should. It seems that with this new engine, getting a character looking good really depends on the lighting. Before, the characters just either looked good all the time or (rarely) really horrendous with bad lighting conditions.

The goofiest picture of old Haname: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qHA...ew?usp=sharing

There's no way to achieve those sort of funny moments anymore with these new graphics. That makes me sad, I love the empty fish eyes sometimes...

I tried to fix her with the character creator, but the best I could do was to remove the limbals completely, so her yellow eyes looked better.

I may use that free Fantasia. I may not. I don't know if I can get used to playing what's essentially Haname's older sister at this point. She's beautiful, for sure. She's just not Haname.