Character graphical changes are NOT in an acceptable state, please make it optional

[Papayatar]

This is 100% based on which location you pick in the corner. I'm almost certain that the lighting in the character creator is busted or unpolished in any location that is not the default aetherial sea. I say this because a good chunk of criticism about characters looking off come with screenshots with backgrounds that aren't the aetherial sea background. I think all of the preset locations have terrible lighting situations:

The one I quoted before looked the most aggressive in the waxy look compared to yours and the others I’ve seen. They straight up looked like a wax candle man and yours has that “dewy” wet and shiny look. So I was assuming it’s PC specs + whatever is happening in the CC environment.

But yeah the CC lighting is so bad and probably why when the trailer is ran characters look 10000x better. Except in that opening scene that zooms in on the face, that stays questionable lol.

But like either way I’m in the, most look fine and we’ll all get used to it camp. But I also am kinda like why did the lips and some eye shapes get adjusted that change the feeling of the character. Esp. the lips and how some had neutral expressions and now they have a slight smile, or the adjustment for some lips to be fuller than before.

[Tsitra]

As mentioned by many others, I hope Au Ra eyes can be given more sharpness and life. Also the mouth could get more look like the original.

[4clubbedace]

As mentioned by many others, I hope Aura eyes can be given more sharpness and life. Also the mouth could get more look like the original.

the reason everyones eyes "look dead" is that before, eyes were illuminated at all times regardless of global effects, now? theyre affected by global lights,

[GrizzlyTank]

the reason everyones eyes "look dead" is that before, eyes were illuminated at all times regardless of global effects, now? theyre affected by global lights,

They were illuminated by the camera. If looking at the sides the reflection would vanish, otherwise the light dot would persist.

[Yencat]

Joke aside, what I meant was that the texture is strange and doesn't feel smooth like it usually does, that's all.

it's ok to disagree with me, I'm very glad you're happy with the changes, have a nice evening!

I noticed the same thing and also thought it looks like blackheads or even stubble.

The (stronger?) freckles on the cheeks are new as well, and I'd prefer to just have clear skin again with the option to add freckles or other marks.

[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 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?



Really way too green compare to my warm gray.......

[Shiro-Marusu]

Came to this thread looking for solidarity, lol. My mooncat sadly no longer looks like the same person. I think the eyes are the biggest factor, but I'm not sure.
I actually feel some texture changes could already do a lot to get the old impression back, even for the remodeled lips.

Slider 1
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So, to sum up the things I've noticed so far;

- The texture of the eyes/eyeliner now follows the model more, and the eyes themselves have a slightly different shape. Because the eyeliners had quite a different shape in the old one, it changes the impression a lot. The old ones were less rounded, and a bit more elongated. A bit like how a cosplayer would do make-up to resemble anime characters. The new eyes also look smaller than the old ones because of this.

- because of the missing highlight and added black to the eyeliner, the eyes now look more bored/vapid in my honest opinion.

- The lips are modeled differently, so that they are slightly more pronounced and have obvious 'dimples' or shadows around the corners. This often creates the impression of a 'smirk' or at least raised corners. While some may like it, I did not want this 'cheeky' expression for my character. There is now also a much more pronounced philtrum, and with some lighting it can still be spotted from a distance. I just don't like how it looks.

- The lips are also textured/painted differently, with a more pronounced cupid's bow, possibly to meet/match the modeled philtrum. This makes the lips look a bit more pouty.

Overall the new impression feels more sultry/cheeky, as opposed to serious/stoic. Not bad if that's what you want, but it's just not the same character.

I have played this character for 10 years and I have never changed a single thing about him. Sadly a fantasia to just make a different character won't work for me. I love roleplay and this character has his own story! Making him into another character would be akin to killing the story. I appreciate that other people have other standards, but I'm overall just sad about what I'm seeing.

[Shiro-Marusu]

Came to this thread looking for solidarity, lol. My mooncat sadly no longer looks like the same person. I think the eyes are the biggest factor, but I'm not sure.
I actually feel some texture changes could already do a lot to get the old impression back, even for the remodeled lips.

Slider 1
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Slider 3

[...]

Going to continue from this because I made more comparisons. They aren't all lined up perfectly, but I think it's enough to show the differences in textures/shapes.
Another thing I noticed is that the eyebrows sometimes seem to sit on weird, and depending on the angle or emote it doesn't look that appealing to me. Sometimes they curve weirdly.







Disclaimer; I am aware that perhaps not all of this can be changed. Some issues look like they are inherently structural and possibly too complicated to retcon. But As for spacing between the eyes, eye-shape, mouth-shape. Eyebrows that curve or sit strangely. I feel like some changes could be made to make it resemble the old features more. In some angles my cat still looks like his old self, but in many others he seems like a different person.

Maybe some people will think I am exaggerating, but I really truly hope some changes will be made. I'm really worried about this.

[Shiro-Marusu]

Going to continue from this because I made more comparisons. [...]

Hopefully this doesn't distract from the topic at hand too much, but I would like to expand upon my comparisons some more. However, this time I want to include things that I think are an improvement and why I think some changes were made, and then think about how despite these changes it could still look more like the original.

So, when looking at some emotes it is clear that some structural changes were made for what I can only assume is the (attempted) improvement of animations/rigs. Perhaps this was to make sure the improved graphics would not end up looking odd on a face that was modeled less realistically;



In the picture above you can see that the old model had the lower jaw pulled back a bit too far using certain emotes. The new one looks more realistic in that regard and I think it is an improvement.

Then the eyes;



It is clear that the eyes now have a more realistic 3D shape and I am fairly sure this is so that they would reflect the dynamic lighting more accurately. However, in making these changes I feel like perhaps they have lost some sight of the original impressions. While I do not think that with these (perhaps necessary) changes you can 100% go back to the original, I feel like perhaps you could get a fair amount of its original identity back by adding the sharper edge towards the inner-eye, and making the 'eyeliner' a bit less thick/black and a bit more elongated.

In the old eyes, the opening of the eyelids was also bigger than the opening of the eye-hole (for lack of better words). This allowed the elongated eye-liner to still move along in a more believable fashion with emotes. Perhaps there is a way to do the same with the new one without losing the overall shape that is necessary for the reflections.

The lips also seem a bit more relaxed and realistic, which is good. However, I feel like this can be done without adding the more obvious 'dimples' or making the lower lip fuller, or changing the shape so much. The new model also seems to have a slightly shorter upper lip, which does look more realistic but I would say is not completely necessary same as the newly modeled philtrum that wasn't really there before. (I would be okay with adding one if it were a bit less obvious perhaps.) These changes seem to be more subjective choices than needed for functionality, but perhaps I don't know enough about the process.

Overall I think I can see what they were going for, but feel like perhaps they have leaned more towards trying to achieve realism than preserving the original identity. (aside from some rig issues that seem like they are simply bugs) I hope that with player feedback, we can at least find a happy middle-ground.

[Papayatar]

Here's how my man looked in the opening:

Ah ok it’s such a weird thing cuz many others just looks dewy and then you have…sir wax figure.

I think I saw somewhere that the skin transparency + lighting is also bad with certain skin tones so I’m guessing that’s maybe part of the problem? Either way hopefully whatever issues are in the benchmark are just because it’s benchmark and not actually the final product.

"Easiest fix" would be giving us the option to pick the current aesthetic while keeping what's been developed. I doubt their penchant of having some sort of spagghetified coding in their engine preventing them from doing just that would just go away, but since they wanted the feedback... welp, here we are. /shrug

I don’t think it’s be the easiest to do a toggle. Have they ever given us a toggle for anything ever? Other than like an off/on toggle like for hats and weapons?

Also I swear in some LL or something they said the spaghetti code isn’t or is barely spaghetti by now??? And current issues are just general limitations from other resources.