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

[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.

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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
Slider 2
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.