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

[noumen0nn]

I will say... I get why people are unhappy, but it's really frustrating to see comparisons that don't have matching light conditions.

Sachiko's comparisons are really good, Mara's are not.

It's frustrating because it makes some of the comparisons feel misleading and if I didn't know better, I'd think they were made in bad faith. Many people are posting correct comparisons to talk about their grievances, so why are some people not really bothering to do so? If this is important to you and you want to give the best feedback, take the time to make sure your comparisons are accurate.

Can you please elaborate on this? Both of these screenshots were taken in the character creator of the benchmark and current game, and I made sure to match the angle and orientation to the environment as closely as I possibly could. I also have the same graphics settings in both. What should I change to get a more accurate comparison?

[DiaDeem]

Can you please elaborate on this? Both of these screenshots were taken in the character creator of the benchmark and current game, and I made sure to match the angle and orientation to the environment as closely as I possibly could. I also have the same graphics settings in both. What should I change to get a more accurate comparison?

Oh! Sure!

See, the new character creator has this weird rotating light cycle. The sun like... gets covered by a cloud or something, but it basically causes general lighting to change in the Shroud/Thanalan/Noscea areas of the character creator every few seconds. If you let your character just sit there for a moment, you'll notice this weird effect taking place. Your second screenshot was taken when the sun wasn't hitting your character directly, so the comparison is a bit off.

If you see Sosoma and Thais's posts, you'll see how they're waiting for the sun to hit the character in the same way as the old character creator.
You can also use the Inn or the Crystal areas, which don't have the weird rotating light cycle. The Inn is kinda nice too because it also lets you match the background making sure your character is exactly in the same position.

All your second shot needed really was to wait for the sun to get in the right place once again. Mind you, I don't expect this to 180 your opinion, but it will give you a better before and after look of your character.

Cheers!

[noumen0nn]

Oh! Sure!

See, the new character creator has this weird rotating light cycle. The sun like... gets covered by a cloud or something, but it basically causes general lighting to change in the Shroud/Thanalan/Noscea areas of the character creator every few seconds. If you let your character just sit there for a moment, you'll notice this weird effect taking place. Your second screenshot was taken when the sun wasn't hitting your character directly, so the comparison is a bit off.

If you see Sosoma and Thais's posts, you'll see how they're waiting for the sun to hit the character in the same way as the old character creator.
You can also use the Inn or the Crystal areas, which don't have the weird rotating light cycle. The Inn is kinda nice too because it also lets you match the background making sure your character is exactly in the same position.

All your second shot needed really was to wait for the sun once again. Mind you, I don't expect this to 180 your opinion, but it will give you a better before and after look of your character.

Cheers!

Thank you! I'll try the inn and post the update in a moment.

[noumen0nn]

All your second shot needed really was to wait for the sun to get in the right place once again. Mind you, I don't expect this to 180 your opinion, but it will give you a better before and after look of your character.

Cheers!

Here she is in the inn, and I also tried to retake my la noscea shots with as close to the same time of day as I could.






This is a little better, if only in that her skin doesn't look like wax anymore. That said, too much about her just looks different. The subtle things add up. Her eyebrows are thinner and lighter, the shape of her eyeliner is different and less dramatic, her eyes look a lot more flat and dead without the static shine, and her lips are just... awful. If I zoom out, it looks like she's gone back a console generation.

I think what's bothering me too, is that in the current version of the game, Mara looks like herself no matter what lighting she's under. Even in the incredibly unflattering top-down lighting of places like the Waking Sands, I never look at her and think "this is wrong." In the benchmark, why does she look dramatically different depending on the lighting, environment, etc? Should I spend 7.0 avoiding sunny areas so that my skin doesn't turn to wax and my features don't get erased in the light?

I don't know. Obviously some amount of change is going to be inevitable, and I want to be okay with that. But I have to be honest to my feelings right now, and in its current state, this is just making me feel bad.

[DiaDeem]

Here she is in the inn, and I also tried to retake my la noscea shots with as close to the same time of day as I could.

These are good! The weird rotating light cycle is honestly a bit annoying, but as long as you keep an eye on it, you can rotate your character and see how she looks from different angles.

I think you have a nice looking character. More realistic lighting can cause more variance on how your character looks. I can tell you that I like it better, but I can't tell you which one works better for you. I often bring up the Occular as one of the worst lit areas in the current game. Everyone's faces look super weird. I know they won't anymore after the update.

Also, the Gamma correction is reportedly really weird, and people are recommending to set it to 0 to get better shadow contrast, so you can try that too. I'm not sure if it affects just the Benchmark or also the character creator portion. I haven't tried myself.

That said, we like what we like. On one hand, I hope SE keeps most of these changes, and on the other, I hope there can be a compromise and adjustments so more people can feel happy about their characters.