Dawntrail Graphical Update - Au Ra Feedback

[SabrinaScribb1es]

I already said this in a different thread, but I also wanted to share this here. Aside from the changes to the individual facial features (lips, nose, eyes, etc.), I knew something else was bothering me about the changes to Au Ra face 2, but I couldn't quite figure it out until I added outlines to compare the shape of my Au Ra's 6.0 and 7.0 faces.



*EDIT* I realized when I was comparing the head widths between the 6.0 and 7.0 versions of my Au Ra, they were at slightly different angles/zooms which made the difference in head widths look a bit larger than it actually is, so I'm removing the photos comparing head widths and only keeping the photos comparing the difference in jaw/cheek shape.

If you look at where I have outlined the 3/4s angle of my Au Ra, you can see how the shape of her face has been changed to make the transition between her cheeks and chin smoother. The chin and the top of her cheeks no longer 'poke out' as much, because the bottom of her cheek has been filled in. This takes away from the original puffy/chubby cheek look because there's no longer a clear separation between the end of the cheek and the begining of the chin. The smoother more filled-in jawline makes her lose a lot of her original soft and round "baby-faced" look, and that's not even mentioning the change in the shape of her nose and lips.

I chose this face because it was refreshing and exciting to see a face-shape somewhat similar to my IRL face, but now it no longer has that same appeal. I feel like all 4 faces have been homogenized in both the actual head/face shape and their facial features to make them all more "generally appealing," but the uniqueness of the different faces is big part of what gave the female Au Ra their charm.

[ShinkansenByNight]

I have a F Au Ra Raen Face 4. I made a comparison image with my biggest pieces of feedback from the benchmark. Overall, I think my character took the changes pretty well, all things considered, so I'm mostly happy. I'll avoid talking about anything that might be from the lighting changes, but there are just a few things that make her look slightly off to me.



Full size image:
https://imgur.com/xuYzEWI

Main things:
1. Bottom lips have gotten fuller. Personally, I really liked the thinner lips!
2. The lower eyelids for all Eye types on Face 4 have greatly increased in thickness. I think this is the most must fix out of any of my issues - it looks incredibly strange. It looks normal from the front, but is very noticeable from the side.
3. The contours of her face around her eyes have changed. This is partly due to the increased thickness of the lower eyelids, but I think there have been other changes with her 3D model topology that are causing this. I really liked the soft curve of her face before, so I would love it if this could match the Endwalker model more.

The only other thing I'll note is that the texture of her skin has a rough, almost Perlin noise quality to it. It looks kind of like JPEG compression, but no, that's really how it looks in game. It was present before in Endwalker, but did not seem quite as bad as it is now. It would be nice if this could be smoothed out.

[Iscah]

Although we have had the official response today saying that they're working on an update, it seems to place all the blame on textures and environments and say nothing about actual remodelling of the faces, so I think it's important to still put that part of the feedback out.

I put together this comparison of my character's current appearance (PS4 screenshot) VS a mirrored version of the benchmark appearance. This is at the default camera angle upon opening the character creator, clicking "Face" to make it zoom in and then zooming closer as far as the camera would go.



Relevant character settings:
Face 3
Jaw 4
Eyes 2
Iris L
No limbal rings
Brows 2
Nose 1
Mouth 1
"Other Features": cheek scales and thicker eyebrows turned on; extra eyeliner turned off.

Note that there's some inherent oddness as a result of the character's stance being non-symmetrical, so the body looks a bit warped here, but that's not the point of the image.

Also the lighting in the current appearance has somewhat washed out the part of the eyeliner extending outward to the side of the face, so that isn't as much of a change as the image makes it look.

The key issues are:

Eye shape looks different and has lost a lot of the "wide-eyed" look of the original.

Eyebrows - I think the actual shape hasn't changed that much, but the deepened shadows underneath cause it to blur down and look more furrowed and angry.

Exaggeration of the shadow under the eyebrow. There is some inbuilt shadow there in the original but it's much fainter.

Changed shape/position of the face paint - this isn't face-specific (I have seen some other people post about this on other characters and different races, and issues with other types of face paint) but it's still a change I would rather see fixed back to its original position. The part on the cheeks now collides with his scales.

Mouth shape and expression has changed - this calls for a close-up. The original model has a slight upward curve at the edges of the mouth even though the shadow angles downwards from it. (Note that if you adjust the jaw shape in the character creator, it tugs on the shape of this shadow but leaves the actual mouth shape untouched.) In the changed model, the shadow has been reinterpreted as the actual shape of the mouth and an extra downturned line has been added to the edge of the mouth, turning a slight smile into a frown. This is an absolute loss - this was the only Au Ra face with a friendlier expression and it has been directly removed.




Meanwhile, at what I would normally consider a more flattering angle...



The eye shape itself seems unchanged from this angle, but other issues remain clear.

The heavy shadow vastly changes the apparent shape and mood of the eyes.

Additionally, the eyelid catches the light and changes the impression from "wearing heavy eyeliner" in the original model to "deep-set eyes" in the changed one.

Again the change to the mouth can be seen - it has been extended outwards into what was previously just a shadow, and been given clearly downturned ends that were not there before.




Looking closer at the eyes, the current shape of the eyelids seems quite flat or is flattened out by the black eyeliner. In contrast, the benchmark eyelid does not seem to have eyeliner, just the greyer eyeshadow that extends outwards, and an eyelid crease is visible where the previous appearance seems flat. Multiple layers of creases make the eyes seem unnaturally sunken.






I made an attempt at photoshopping the benchmark screenshot to address the main issues with it. It's still not quite right (I think I've under-done the shadows in the end) but it is certainly much closer to feeling like the right character and not a sour-faced imposter.




TL;DR:

• Shadowed eyes completely alter the character, while the eyelids are ironically too lit and stand out from the eyeliner where they didn't previously.
• Mouth shape has been misinterpreted and has changed the character's mood.

I also continue to suspect that the entire benchmark is slightly stretched horizontally compared to the actual game.

[Doopliss]

Although we have had the official response today saying that they're working on an update, it seems to place all the blame on textures and environments and say nothing about actual remodelling of the faces, so I think it's important to still put that part of the feedback out.

I put together this comparison of my character's current appearance (PS4 screenshot) VS a mirrored version of the benchmark appearance. This is at the default camera angle upon opening the character creator, clicking "Face" to make it zoom in and then zooming closer as far as the camera would go.


[Snipped due to word limit]

This is a fantastic, detailed post that I would honestly recommend cross-posting to the JP thread if you ever feel like you have the time and energy. I feel that it would be well-received there. I also think male Au Ra get overlooked a lot in comparison to female Au Ra (although I do think female Au Ra very much do deserve the amount of attention they're getting in this case).

I also have a male Raen alt with the same face as yours and I disliked these changes too, lol, so I have some bias here.

In vein of that, I also wanted to share that, due to the pupil size change in male Au Ra--and how much smaller their eyes are compared to female Au Ra--the balance of their eye colors change quite a lot when you have limbal rings, when compared to the live version of the game.

Live:

Benchmark:

(Sorry for the uneven cropping)

Of course, I like the general fidelity increase in the eyes, and I think the gradient impression is very nice. However, in the current game, the color balance between the orange and yellow is more equal, with the orange color's larger spacial coverage being evened out by the glow of the yellow limbal ring. Meanwhile, in the benchmark, the orange is much more dominated by the yellow on all fronts.

That's not to say the pupil increase doesn't change the impression even without limbal rings, though. I personally feel that it does.

[CecMiller]

This is a fantastic, detailed post that I would honestly recommend cross-posting to the JP thread if you ever feel like you have the time and energy. I feel that it would be well-received there. I also think male Au Ra get overlooked a lot in comparison to female Au Ra (although I do think female Au Ra very much do deserve the amount of attention they're getting in this case).

I also have a male Raen alt with the same face as yours and I disliked these changes too, lol, so I have some bias here.

In vein of that, I also wanted to share that, due to the pupil size change in male Au Ra--and how much smaller their eyes are compared to female Au Ra--the balance of their eye colors change quite a lot when you have limbal rings, when compared to the live version of the game.

Live:

Benchmark:

(Sorry for the uneven cropping)

Of course, I like the general fidelity increase in the eyes, and I think the gradient impression is very nice. However, in the current game, the color balance between the orange and yellow is more equal, with the orange color's larger spacial coverage being evened out by the glow of the yellow limbal ring. Meanwhile, in the benchmark, the orange is much more dominated by the yellow on all fronts.

That's not to say the pupil increase doesn't change the impression even without limbal rings, though. I personally feel that it does.

I think because the pupils have become larger, some of the eye colour isn't presented as clearly as before.

The solution here would be to revert the pupils to being smaller or, even better, adding the option to make the pupil large like it is the benchmark or have it small as it currently is (and should be the default).

The intention of the devs was always to maintain the character image from 6.58 relatively intact and making the pupils bigger is a change which doesn't really accomplish this. Best case scenario is they make everyone happy and add the option, but I'll still be left wondering as to why the change was made in the first place when its very evident in situations like this.

[Loggos]

snip

Thank you very much. Your photohopped image illustrates the point particularly well, so I'm glad you created it even though it probably was quite a bit of work.
I agree with Doopliss and think this would be good feedback for the JPN thread.

[Iscah]

This is a fantastic, detailed post that I would honestly recommend cross-posting to the JP thread if you ever feel like you have the time and energy. I feel that it would be well-received there.

Thank you very much. Your photohopped image illustrates the point particularly well, so I'm glad you created it even though it probably was quite a bit of work.
I agree with Doopliss and think this would be good feedback for the JPN thread.

Thanks guys. Can I just drop my English post into Google translate or do I need to simplify it? I won't have any ability to check the translated version for accuracy. It's not going to translate "scales" like weighing scales or something bizarre like that?

Also, I updated the repainted version of the benchmark image (and I'm just about to update it another time) and I think I got it closer to the shape of the eyeliner on the original - and for the eye itself, it actually seems to be the exact same shape on the angled shot if I take the outline of the original and place it directly over the benchmark image, so I'm not sure why it looks like such a different angle in the straight-on mirrored shot.

[huopa]

Thank you so much for this well constructed and illustrated breakdown! I also added my own to my starting post. You even noticed things that I didn't even realize to point out even if something felt "off" - such as the lack of the upturned mouth corners on the updated version (it does really affect the expression!).

I remain hopeful in light of the recent news, even if the concerns addressed are not really 1-to-1 the same I am personally concerned about with my own character. Hopefully our feedback reaches at least some relevant eyes and ears!

[Aadrian1234]

I posted additional screenshots in another thread a few days ago, I forgot to post them here too.

First comparison



Second comparison



The dimples, the puckered lips and changed lip shape, the really dilated eyes, the overall softer face, and so-on are all things that have massively changed my character's tone and expression.
As I picked a combination of features to really accentuate her stern and fierce looks, these changes are the complete and exact opposite of what I want for my character.

[Taranok]

I posted additional screenshots in another thread a few days ago, I forgot to post them here too.

First comparison



Second comparison



The dimples, the puckered lips and changed lip shape, the really dilated eyes, the overall softer face, and so-on are all things that have massively changed my character's tone and expression.
As I picked a combination of features to really accentuate her stern and fierce looks, these changes are the complete and exact opposite of what I want for my character.

In my observations, they:

• Widened the face (making it rounder, less hawkish.)
• Reshaped the lips.
• The lips are now black voids of light and will cast harsh shadows around the corners (no subsurface scattering,)
• look like a goldfish.
• The eyes are greatly improved, have real depth and look like actual eyes (no regard on shape.)
• Changed skin tone (noticeably yellower for my character.)
• Ruined my character's entire aesthetic, for much the same reason.

The lips aren't actually wider or narrower than before, but widening the face causes them to look extremely small now, and the character's overall look is just ruined. I don't know who was in charge of this update but they really missed the mark on au ra.