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

[AirisRay]

Hello if you want to know my opinion, i think your new character looks another, this is not your character anymore in my opinion, she looks like she have botox, lol, but i am not an artist and i can not to say any about the characters *this is a joke, because some people say, what if you not an artist, you do not know anything about art* :3

Just popping in to add to the voices letting you know you are not crazy, if I look at this image and the gifs from later in the thread for more than a second, I start to see very obvious differences. The lips are absolutely the worst offender but the nose shape has been altered quite a bit as well.

Hey, I just wanted to chime in as well because I know a lot of heat leaves and comes your way in particular. If it also helps you feel a little better, I also can easily spot the differences.

In the benchmark, her eyebrows have been combed and have ever-so-slightly less of an arch. Her hairline is different, due to the new head models not accommodating all of the current hairs. It rests lower on her forehead, and the sides are farther apart because the model is different. The cupid's bow of her lip is weaker, and the inner line of her mouth is straighter. The color of her bottom lip extends farther than it did before, causing the shape to look more homogeneous. She has much thicker mascara and the fat under her eyes is more defined. The star face paint has moved farther toward the front of her face--you can use her eyes as a reference. Light does appear to hit her lips in a blocky sort of way, which I'm assuming is a small error in the mapping.

I will say that she is indeed similar to eyes less used to paying attention to these things. But for you, myself, and many others, these tiny differences all adding up give an uncanny and different impression. Just focus on relaying your feelings to SE, and perhaps take a breath before doing so.

I know some people are responding with genuine confusion or curiosity, but there are a lot of people responding to anything like this in bad faith as well, regardless of one's attempts to "prove" themselves. It'll likely do your heart better to not interact with them or egg them on. I hope you're faring well, and just remember there are many people feeling the same way you do.

Thank you SO much for your kind support! I appreciate it very much

[AirisRay]

I suppose what I'm saying is that these images are very selectively chosen for their unflattering lighting. I can't say that I noticed it at all while running through the benchmark myself on my own alt before checking forums, but then I'm clearly more relaxed than others seem to be when it comes to the adjustments.

Of course, these images were chosen selectively. I chose those images in which this defect is best visible. In almost all my posts I talked about “light on her face”. If I had posted a picture from Gridania, where the defect is not visible at all, because there is no light falling on the face, I think I would have received even more responses in the style of “It's the same picture”.

This type of light is very common in the game. This is not “the light in CC is bad”. It's exactly like this in a huge number of locations, raids, dungeons, cutscenes. Near my house in Myst it's even worse. This means that very often this effect will appear on my character’s face. Should I stop approaching to my house so as not to see this? I also already said: I cannot constantly turn her so that she stands back to the light. She's not a vampire after all. I also mentioned that all Miqo faces are susceptible to this effect to varying degrees. The most damaged is face 3.
And I also added a few pictures in different lighting on my big post.

I really can’t write the same words in every topic and give the same explanations to every doubter. And most importantly, the point here is not the light. Light just shows this deformation very well.

In your “arguments” you have already reached the point where you are trying to accuse me of hoaxes. It's really incredibly funny. The question arises, which of us is taking things too dramatically here? Me, who points out the problem and asks for it to be fixed, or you, who in 3 large posts trying to prove that I'm deceiving someone with screenshots with directional light? Just unbelieveble.

I will follow the good advice I received and will no longer respond to these types of messages at all. It doesn’t matter who they come from. Honestly, I won't even read them.

[witchymumma]

Under certain lighting in the existing game, characters look bad. More than bad, they can look terrible. The same still applies in the benchmark to some extent, hence my most recent post - there are still some unflattering lighting angles which affects our characters appearance.

Oh yeah, some of the lighting angles in the benchmark are yikes. Like that face close-up on the boat.
As much as I am not a fan of the noticeable lip shape change on bun-girl face 4, and it didn't really feel like my girl anymore, I kept telling myself that it wasn't that bad, that the lips were literally the only thing I didn't like so I'm not gonna change faces and I'd just have to get used to it... that one close-up shot on the boat was the only time my automatic, visceral reaction was "WTF IS THAT?! yeah nah, thanks I hate it" hahaha

Aside from the fact that basically everyone looks like they're plotting world domination or something equally nefarious in that shot (strange choice of expression for the situation but ok lol) the way the light and shadow falls on my girl's new lips just looks... off, kinda creepy. she kinda looks possessed... I would even dare to say that the evil smirk she had that one time she actually was possessed looked much less terrifying rofl

(I then made the mistake of having a look at the other bun-girl faces in the trailer and comparing that one screenshot. They all still look they're up to no good but lips/smirk of face 1 is prolly the closest to how 4's is meant to look so it made me a little sad)...

Admittedly, I don't really remember much more of my reaction to her face outside of that one close-up. I kept getting distracted by the little details like various texture changes, squeeing over minions/animals, etc lol :P

[Arzalis]

Not sure why people keep saying the eyes not reflecting light in even the slightest shadow is "realistic." It's not at all.

[Luca_]

Not sure why people keep saying the eyes not reflecting light in even the slightest shadow is "realistic." It's not at all.

I swear the people saying this don't actually know how human eyes reflect light. They're very shiny! They pick light up from everywhere! Look at yourself in the rearview mirror of a car during the day. Even though you're in shadow your eyes will still reflect the ambient light around you very clearly.

Even if it was realistic, FFXIV isn't exactly shooting for realism. It just comes out looking uncanny.

[WiccaP]

I swear the people saying this don't actually know how human eyes reflect light. They're very shiny! They pick light up from everywhere! Look at yourself in the rearview mirror of a car during the day. Even though you're in shadow your eyes will still reflect the ambient light around you very clearly.

Even if it was realistic, FFXIV isn't exactly shooting for realism. It just comes out looking uncanny.

Non-nocturnal creature's eyes dont not reflect a ton of light, they typically do not possess the tapetum lucidum structure that gives the reflective shiny appearance that a cat or raccoons eyes do.

[OgruMogru]

Non-nocturnal creature's eyes dont not reflect a ton of light, they typically do not possess the tapetum lucidum structure that gives the reflective shiny appearance that a cat or raccoons eyes do.

I think people are complaining that the lighting is struggling to convey that eyes are round and wet, not that it is failing to make human eyes reflective like a possum caught eating trash in the driveway.

[witchymumma]

I know some ppl have made comments elsewhere about floppy-ear bun-bois, but I haven't seen the comments myself, and I don't remember seeing any mentioned on this thread yet... and while I don't doubt it's unintentional and will def get fixed at some point (and rightly so), I am still a little curious... how do our floppy-ear bun-bois here feel about their new glow-stick ears? :P

(in case some ppl don't know what I'm talking about, the male viera's floppy ear option has this weird kinda glow to them in certain lighting)



at first, I thought it was only happening on white/light shades of hair (the photos I've seen and my retainer above all had white/light hair) so I tested it on darker hair on another retainer and while not to the same extent/effect as the light shades, the colour difference is still really clear:

[Doopliss]

I swear the people saying this don't actually know how human eyes reflect light. They're very shiny! They pick light up from everywhere! Look at yourself in the rearview mirror of a car during the day. Even though you're in shadow your eyes will still reflect the ambient light around you very clearly.

Even if it was realistic, FFXIV isn't exactly shooting for realism. It just comes out looking uncanny.

At risk of sounding petty, I really, really do dislike when peoples' unspoken implication is that something looking more realistic = "better". FFXIV has a distinct artstyle with most (but not all, I know) races having way larger eyes than our own, often shaped in exaggerated ways. This goes for many facial features, really.

One of the only reasons I even felt compelled to post more on the forums is so that I could find any comfort in people feeling the same as me, outside of the circle of friends who I play the game with. A few days ago on reddit I saw a 400+ upvoted comment saying they think the new teeth placement for Lalafell is better because it's more "realistic". Some reply even spoke about how they raised their head in the mirror and found their teeth looked the same way. I couldn't help but think. Just. Whuh. Are you shaped like a Lalafell too? It's not uncanny to them!? I felt like a crazy person!

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

At risk of sounding petty, I really, really do dislike when peoples' unspoken implication is that something looking more realistic = "better". FFXIV has a distinct artstyle with most (but not all, I know) races having way larger eyes than our own, often shaped in exaggerated ways. This goes for many facial features, really.

One of the only reasons I even felt compelled to post more on the forums is so that I could find any comfort in people feeling the same as me, outside of the circle of friends who I play the game with. A few days ago on reddit I saw a 400+ upvoted comment saying they think the new teeth placement for Lalafell is better because it's more "realistic". Some reply even spoke about how they raised their head in the mirror and found their teeth looked the same way. I couldn't help but think. Just. Whuh. Are you shaped like a Lalafell too? It's not uncanny to them!? I felt like a crazy person!

I'm just gonna quote a comment from... omg lol 30 plus pages ago (this thread is really hot huh?!):

This is a good example of how something that is technically correct actually gives a worse result than something that is technically wrong. The eye glint texture is needed to avoid the uncanny dead look, it doesn't matter that the new system "is more realistic". It doesn't work with the brain's expectation of how it should look.