Dawntrail Graphical Update - Au Ra Feedback

[Duskane]

I really like the softer look now
something about my Viera irks me but my OG au ra just looks soo much better now outside of limbals being a little dull now and they do need to do a little clean up the body scales a bit

DT EW

[LianaThorne]

I'm checking in here as someone else who's disappointed with the mouth shape/lack of lip gloss It completely changes how my character feels. The best way I can describe it is more "puckered in" - it's missing the line/width of the original. Here's a comparison (current on left/new on right) - she really does look quite different!

It just feels like they really dulled out the face and made it less alive/vibrant. :/ Sad.

[Blutkatze]

I seem to be lucky, since I cannot complain too much about how my WoL is looking with the new update - some things I was a bit bummed out the past few years have been fixed, but I also miss the glossyness of the lipstick. I hope this will be added again fairly soonish.

One thing I really am not vibing with is the skin texture up close. I know skin is usually not super smooth, but a mutual on twitter described it as "paper towel texture" and I think - especially up close - it is a bit too much. I like how the skin looks from further away; it gives a bit of realism, but as soon as you zoom in (as you might do for gposes) it looks a bit too much.

If this could be either smoothed out or even get more finer that would be cool, but overall I'm one of those lucky Au Ra players that is actually fairly happy with the result.

I really hope that all feedback is heard and everyone can love their WoLs again!!!

[Glyphs]

I also want to chip in with my comparisons and feedback... I wasn't happy, and upon seeing other people's before & afters with both Au Ra and non-Au Ra, it does feel like Au Ra have some of the bigger aesthetic changes.

Before vs. After



Main things are the eyes and mouth. The iris is smaller, but the pupil much larger, and this just gives a very different vibe and feeling... the upper lid "eyeliner" option is also far less pronounced, which makes the eye shape itself also look a lot different. The combination of them all just looks so different, it feels silly but I have to admit I feel a little upset seeing it

With the mouth, on everyone's, it feels to me like a) the mouth shapes themselves are more homogenised between face types - my face 1 Au Ra almost looks like she has a face 2 mouth now, and I've seen face 2 Au Ra have lost the definition on theirs - Turethir's post above is a good example of this - and b) the no lip colour option has far harsher/darker colours. No lip colour mouths had a much softer colour and gradient before, but now it almost looks like my WoL is wearing lipstick. The combination of these two, like the eyes, gives a very different feeling. I could probably make peace with one or the other, but the combination...

[Madorin]

(I hit enter too soon on my earlier post haha, sorry!)
Just contributing to balance the discourse but I personally am very happy with the changes to the eyes, lips and nose on my male au ra. The face looks far more realistic to me, the nose especially is just amazing. The eyes now have a real warmth, I especially like the expanded pupils. He looks a lot less cartoonish and more believable. I'm also so happy that the eyebrows are finally visible haha, I've been drawing them on for years!



(Left is current, right is update)
I've played male Au Ra face 1 since Heavensward early access so I'm very attached to it and I think they've done great justice to it here. I personally hope they keep these changes!

[WastedAlmond]

I'd like to chip in as well, I purposefully selected a prominent nose for my character and now they've changed it completely to a more generic one(but still pretty enough I guess).





To be frank, some of the changes are doubtless driven by the more realistic lighting. Sure my character is still cute, but she has a completely different nose. I think the live version (longer straighter nose) gives her face more character. And I'd like it if they tweaked the shape a bit, to be truer to the original face shape.

[LadyKianna]

I can move my head around and watch the light go THROUGH her head to shine on the lip... I think I can see it in her eyeball too







In the last pic you can see it's not as obvious against the aetherial background as it is in limsa (first set) and gridania (second set) but it's still there and the sun is very clearly behind her head.

[rinzukodas]

Here to join in with the chorus expressing some disappointment with how Auri faces have been flattened and changed.

My girl made out OK overall, but Face 2 for Fem Au Ra has a lot of minor changes that go together to create a really uncanny valley for those of us that liked the unique features of the current live Face 2:
-The lip change. The shadows that previously defined the edges of the Face 2 lips are gone, and the shape has been changed. Versus the live game, they seem flatter and less unique. They should be adjusted back to look like the old lips or a toggle should be given for us to select what we prefer.
-The eyes. The pupils are overly dilated. I would love an adjustment to make them resemble the more stylized live game at present.
-The limbal rings. The glow effect is OK, but they've been made much smaller compared to live game. Again a toggle would be great!
-The eye shape. As many other Face 2 players have voiced, the shape has been changed, making our characters look not like themselves. Please adjust closer to the original!

I also can't go without mentioning the skin textures: on darker skin and lower graphics settings, the textures look waxy, which contributes to the unsettling dead effect that characters across race models have. If there is a way to adjust the skin to look more alive again and retain the undertones that they previously had, that would be incredible. <3

Overall, I am unfortunately critical of the homogenization of female Auri faces to appear more doll-like and cute. They look less unique with the benchmark changes. While Face 2 is among the softer options, I still managed to create a stern and cool look for my girl, and I treasure that look highly. It being taken away through this collection of changes that are individually smaller but in a gestalt create an extremely different look makes me a little sad

(Additionally, while it's harder to see with Raen scales, there's texture issues with scales at the edges where stray pixels/artifacting is visible on darker skintones, which feels like an issue of only testing with lighter skintones. Please do test with darker skintones as well!)

[execlinca]

Agreed - though my gripes are a lot smaller than some people's characters, I definitely feel a difference in the mouth shape with Face 1...


(current left, benchmark right)

She looked happier before, it makes me sad! I really feel the comment about how it feels like they swapped Face 1 and Face 2 mouths, because I somehow feel like Face 2 feels more suited to her now... I always liked Face 2 horns and they look amazing in the update, so I don't exactly mind, but since I have a lot of art of her it's a drastic change to consider.

The pupils are definitely a lot larger, but that doesn't super bother me with my character's looks, but it does make some characters look much more different and I sympathise. The scale artifacting around the outside on darker characters is pretty bad, but I think that is definitely something they'll fix if people post about it more. Definitely a quality issue.

[GoatOfWar]

I apologize if my thread belongs elsewhere. I do not really use the forums, so I was unsure.

I appreciate the development team's hard work on the new graphical update. I know some changes are inevitable and will just take some time getting used to, but when I made my character in the new benchmark I could not get over the very dark eyeshadow that now comes prepackaged with the male Au ra face 3.



(7.0 is above, current below)

As you can see, the eyelid and the inner corner of the eye is noticeably darker in the updated version. I can kind of understand what they were going for and I can see some people enjoying this change, but I am not among them. I could see this being a toggle, but as it is I am upset about how much it changes my character's general expression and vibe. I would very much like an option to remove this makeup/dark shadow.

(I know the character creator lighting is not the best, but I tried different lighting as well as the benchmark trailer itself, this is also not dependent on eye shape/eyebrow/other features/face paint choices - so the free fantasia will not fix my problem. I am very attached to my character so I'm a little stumped on what to do.)

Feel free to post other Au Ra related graphical update feedback in this thread as well, as I know I am not the only person with concerns.

My female Au ra just doesn't look like my character anymore because of how they changed the structure of the lips and noses.
I hope it won't go live the way it is now.