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

[Papayatar]

And this is from Benchmark (copied 1 to 1 from saved appearance feature in login screen):

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I’m curious if the waxy like skin is a result of certain PCs not being able to handle the graphics update so you get Dark Souls looking faces more than a graphical upgrade?

Because it seems to be inconsistent if people get wax skin or matte skin in the CC. I don’t know if that changes if you play the benchmark trailer with your character though.

[RossC90]

I’m curious if the waxy like skin is a result of certain PCs not being able to handle the graphics update so you get Dark Souls looking faces more than a graphical upgrade?

Because it seems to be inconsistent if people get wax skin or matte skin in the CC. I don’t know if that changes if you play the benchmark trailer with your character though.

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 first picture is the typical Matte look everyone hates and this stems from The Black Shroud.

The second picture is the La Noscea which is the most curious one of them all. All the locations have simulated cloud shadows which darkens and brightens the environment. For some reason, La Noscea applies a wet filter over your character and makes them far more jarringly shiny and wax like. Considering La Noscea is the first option you can pick for a background right next to the default Aetherial Sea background I'm pretty sure most people chose this background and were incredibly confused with the heavy wax like look to their character's skin.

As far as I can tell, La Noscea is the only location that clearly has something weird going on with it where it makes a character's skin extra shiny. The Black Shroud gives the matte look and Thanalan is somewhat the better option of the two as it feels like a blend of the two.

Meanwhile, the Aetherial Sea background makes my character look pretty much perfect.:


Something really needs to be tweaked with those location's lighting situations. That being said, many of the criticisms and feedback are still valid such as the fuller lip shapes and various other actual model problems. But these lighting issues aren't doing anyone any favors.

[EliaStormblade]

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 lighting is absolutely busted. The aetherial sea is the only one remotely usable, while the others just make your character look sickly. I think it's because they didn't actually change the environments at all? Including the lighting. It's quite clearly not meant to interact with the new character models and shaders the way the actual benchmark portion does.

As you can see in the backgrounds of the CC locations, nothing was actually changed. The ground textures are old, the buildings are old, the foliage is old. Kind of shooting themselves in the foot by showing new models in old environments that should be better when Dawntrail actually released. But they might've done so to avoid adding extraneous data? I dunno. It's unfortunate.

EDIT: As an aside, these shaders are by their design made to react more to light, so if your character has no light on their face, or barely any, it'll look way different, whereas on the live client, the skin and eyes don't respond as much to light. Right click and drag on the creation screen to change the lighting direction. It won't fix big problems, but it'll look better than having a light shining on the back of your character while you're looking at the faces. Also, the character creation screen seems to have a changing time of day, because the lighting definitely changes when I tab back in after a moment of being tabbed out, even with no other changes made.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I’m curious if the waxy like skin is a result of certain PCs not being able to handle the graphics update so you get Dark Souls looking faces more than a graphical upgrade?

Because it seems to be inconsistent if people get wax skin or matte skin in the CC. I don’t know if that changes if you play the benchmark trailer with your character though.

I had to run the benchmark once more to make sure I'm just not gaslighting myself lmao. Without a shadow of doubt, it's not a PC spec issue if I can score this high on maximum:


Here's how my man looked in the opening:


"Oh my man =((( What have the world done to you????"

Ahem...

Maybe slightly better? A LITTLE BIT??? I guess... Yet still, he has lost A LOT of the "Mr.Goodie two shoes/Innocent"-look character that pre-benchmark version of him exudes which was one of the main drive of my attachment to this character---he's just straight up a different character in the benchmark. Besides, if I'm going to play the game, I'm not going to be watching a CS 90% of time like visual novels, am I not? lol.

"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