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

[Shiro-Marusu]

Thank you very much for your support! I really appreciate it!



Thank you very much for your support and for letting me know that my topic was moved again!

Yes, I'll try once more and indicate all these points like date and time and so on. Because I still see this not as an aesthetic problem, but as a bug/defect. The aesthetic problem in this case would be the lip shape itself, which does not match the original, but I'm mainly trying to solve the problem with the huge dent in the lower part of the face, which is an obvious defect made during the process of remodeling. The outline of the lips themselves is actually not as important as this. Although I can see their distorted shape, this is still not a bug, but an "cosmetic change". The lack of texture on the upper lip is also more likely not a bug, but a flaw, so in my last message I classified all this as additional points.

In general, I’ll try again to draw attention to the dent. It really won't do any harm, but at least I'll be sure that I did my best.

Yes I can see what you mean with the 'dent', creating the visible shadows. I think some other races have this to some extent as well (I can see it a little on the fem Au Ra with their overall blown up face) but it's very visible on miqo'te and even more so on female. To me it creates a strong effect of a babydoll mouth for female miqo, or something akin to that. In other ways, it also creates a (fake) smile and makes the mouth look larger. I see a similar problem in my own character, which I have highlighted in some of my posts.

[Loggos]

Yes, some people in this thread have been emotional and perhaps unreasonable but the responses these people get only breed frustration and contempt from both sides. It seems really simple 'just pull the ms paint and point at it' but what if they don't know exactly where to point? Something feels off and they don't know how to express it. I'd like to think these emotional responses stem out of a deep love for their character and I can't help but sympathize with them.

To put it bluntly, not many people have an eye trained for detail to be able to pinpoint exactly what is bothering them. When I first looked at my character I knew something was off immediately but I didn't know exactly what it was until I booted up the Bench and game CC and photoshop and spent way too long trying to get perfect shots. I have a pretty ok-ish background on art, and it's something I'm passionate about, someone else might not be able to pick on what I'm seeing or is struggling to put it in words or even diagrams.

Anyone chiming in going like 'just do it 4head' 'it's that simple' 'it's not rocket science' just causes frustration. While I encourage people to go into MSPaint or whatever free digital program to try and express their issues, I'm also sympathetic that not everyone has the means to. I was exhausted spending all day trying to fight the CC to try and make comparisons.

I mentioned it before, your eye (observation, eye for details) is essentially a skill that levels up combined with some basic knowledge about the human face/body/proportion/lighting/perspective people can pinpoint something that bothers them. Without that basic knowledge, I'd imagine someone might struggle and I can't fault them. Showing compassion to someone who is struggling to express themselves because they lack a skill- even if they're in an emotional state, can go a long way.

I could for example take two pictures but the angle is slightly different, and I start comparing them. The comparison isn't fair because things aren't kept constant. I don't know whether this is a prespective/angle change, or an actual change.

I completely agree with this.

Also, we've seen that just pointing at things in MSPaint still doesn't always get the point across, but precisely drawing in what is wrong is a lot more difficult with a mouse. I spent way too much time on meticulously lining the shapes of my char's features in both screenshots with my graphic tablet to make sure everything is as accurate as possible.
Because if it's too sloppy then you can't prove your point either.
But not everyone has a graphic tablet or an ipad with a pencil etc.

Then if you want to be even more thorough and add descriptive texts and create collages of individual features for better comparison you'll quickly spend 1 hour on that whole thing because all those small tasks add up.

Not everybody has the time for that though.
I think it's completely understandable when people, who just want to voice their concerns, post screenshots with a post/text decriptions of what they dislike.
I think diagrams/visual analyses and stuff are very helpful but not everyone should have to post those to be taken seriously.

[Loggos]

In general people really underestimate how much training your eye is as much a skill as training your hands. It's like expecting the average person to send even a mediocre bug report; there's a lot of learning involved in knowing what details are relevant and what is a problem because of something else (ie the early comments about the eyes looking wrong were in many ways because of how the highlights were altered, but you wouldn't know that if you only looked at those very early comments because it took someone who knew what to look for to pinpoint what they were picking up).

Also completely agree with that one. When you learn to draw you spent a considerable amount of time on learning just to see.
Sometimes you don't draw at all but instead spend time on lengthy visual analyses of shapes, anatomy, colour, light, perspective etc.
Motor skills are important but they only translate what you visually perceive in the first place.
There is a really interesting (older) book called "Drawing with the right side of the brain" that explores how the mere act of learning to see on its own completely changes your drawing results. (Can really recommend that book for anyone interested in picking up drawing btw.)

And anecdotally I can also say that even if I haven't drawn for a prolonged period of time I sometimes still make progress just because I practice lots of active observation during those "motoric down times".

There is actually so much practice and skill involved in visual and detail-focused perception.

Sorry, tangent over.

[AirisRay]

Yes I can see what you mean with the 'dent', creating the visible shadows. I think some other races have this to some extent as well (I can see it a little on the fem Au Ra with their overall blown up face) but it's very visible on miqo'te and even more so on female. To me it creates a strong effect of a babydoll mouth for female miqo, or something akin to that. In other ways, it also creates a (fake) smile and makes the mouth look larger. I see a similar problem in my own character, which I have highlighted in some of my posts.

Everything is exactly as you said. I would even say the mouth is like a puppet, which distorts any possible outline of the lips.
I may play with the other lips on her face and even get used to it and even find a peculiar beauty in it, because I cannot call outlines ugly. It's just different. And although I don't understand the decision to change it at all and I'm not happy about this fact, nevertheless I can get used to it.
But how can I get used to a defect on the face model itself? And most importantly, why try to get used to it or accepted this, if it can and should be corrected? Idk.

I wrote a new post with all the necessary information and I will hope for a positive result.

[Gaddes]

I posted this in the elezen feedback thread but I think this is probably gonna be a problem across the board for a lot of folks using certain shades of darker skintone...
My elezen's warm skintone in the benchmark goes suddenly grey and looks like he got dipped in oil when the outdoor lighting goes overcast. Something really wacky is going on here, never saw such a radical shift in the 10+ years with this skin color

[Anarnee]

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...cf949ef43bf580

They're going to do an update on the Benchmark everyone! Hopefully this addresses some of our issues.

[AirisRay]

Well, that's quite detailed information. I'll wait for the fixed version of Benchmark, hopefully it will appear soon.

[Reinha]

A.“Lifeless” eyes due to a lack of highlights in the pupils
B.Facial contours appearing flattened due to incorrect lighting conditions caused by backlighting
C.A lack of gloss or excessive appearance of gloss due to character creation-exclusive weather conditions (i.e. the use of thunderclouds)

So they will fix my character's dead eyes, flat skin color and missing lip gloss.

A.An issue with unimplemented high-resolution textures, including those for certain playable races.

This hopefully includes my duskwight face 1 eyebrows which went from black to blonde.

D.An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races.

And the above means they may fix the thinned lips too.

Which are all the complaints I had about my character's changed face. Looks like the devs agree those changes weren't insignificant.

[Hejligan]

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...cf949ef43bf580

They're going to do an update on the Benchmark everyone! Hopefully this addresses some of our issues.

Seems to address most things except for the actual change to some models, like eyelashes and eyebrows. Hope they will address that too.

[Anarnee]

Seems to address most things except for the actual change to some models, like eyelashes and eyebrows. Hope they will address that too.

I think that all of that stuff could def fall under the textures issues in the response.