We need to compromise as a player base

[DiaDeem]

If you thought that my message was full of evil sarcasm, I assure you that this is not so. If this offended you, I sincerely apologize.

When I have the opportunity to bring here similar screenshots from these locations in 7.0, I will definitely do so.

It's alright then. The way the post was constructed to mimic what I did while showing images that weren't comparable just felt a bit petty to me, but I appreciate you clarifying.

And believe me: If character faces still look like clay in these specific scenes, I'll be the first one to lament the lack of improvement. What I've seen with the new light model makes me think this won't be the case, but I will accept that we don't know how these scenes will be impacted at this time.

But no hard feelings, truly!

[DiaDeem]

The benchmark doesn't have all the controls the current game has, or all the controls that were demonstrated in the LiveLetter.

What the Benchmark has is that weird Gamma Correction bar, which I think should be better highlighted by the program.






I didn't realize high Gamma Correction could murder contrast quality this badly, though low Gamma also shows how better (imho) dark shadows look on characters now.

I have no idea why the slider doesn't have a preview window like some of the other options in the Benchmark do.

Love the update, but all of that said, I hope the Character Lighting slider will remain in the options going forward, because without control of it, some characters truly look like dim lightbulbs in the middle of the night.

[AirisRay]

It's alright then. The way the post was constructed to mimic what I did while showing images that weren't comparable just felt a bit petty to me, but I appreciate you clarifying.

And believe me: If character faces still look like clay in these specific scenes, I'll be the first one to lament the lack of improvement. What I've seen with the new light model makes me think this won't be the case, but I will accept that we don't know how these scenes will be impacted at this time.

But no hard feelings, truly!

I completely agree that the lighting on our characters faces isn't the best right now. And I was always bothered by these hard shadows on the character's face that I had to remove in post-processing for my pictures.
But I also noticed the same hard shadows in the benchmark, so I was a little disappointed because I was expecting something softer, but I didn't write about it anywhere because I'm so bothered by my character's mouth and I can't think about something else.

I thought it was really funny how you accompanied your examples with these words and I wanted to do the same too And just show my fears that the light has not changed very much and has not become softer. Now I see that it didn't look the way I thought it would and it looks like I did something completely opposite of fun.
I corrected that message

[decomposer]

The benchmark doesn't have all the controls the current game has, or all the controls that were demonstrated in the LiveLetter.

In the current game, in System Configuration->Display Settings, there is a Character Lighting slider that applies an omnidirectional light just to your character so that your character is more brightly lit than other characters or the surroundings. I have that set to 84 out of 100. As far as I know, there is no such setting in the benchmark, so that may be why my characters are less brightly lit in the benchmark.

[EDIT: I just checked, and the Character lighting slider does apply to other characters, including NPCs.]]

I noticed this as well. I kept my base game at default (50 gamma, 50 character lighting) which I can only assume the benchmark is defaulting to, as well. But then I also tinkered with gamma and character lighting. I got a myriad of screenshots, have made multiple comparisons, and the skin is still lighter. Now, I can only assume this is because of how lighting is reacting to skin, and not necessarily a fault of one or the other. It's how they're working in tandem that I think is making things go awry.

I actually think the characters are (more) brightly lit in indirect sunlight. Which gives me hope for scenes in total darkness. However, the harsh shadows (like the opening cutscene) are harsher ; which brings me back to my same old fears. Only time will tell how the lighting in-game actually looks!

[OgruMogru]

Are we sure the benchmark isn't somehow pulling the character illumination setting over from the imported character data? I don't see how that could be possible tbh but just a thought as I always have mine at 0 and I was really lucky with how my guy looks. I thought it might be just because he's milkbottle white but I've seen a few examples of great looking charas with varying skin tones -_-

[Rueby]

Honestly, I think this whole graphical update came as a really nasty surprise for alot of people who didn't expect some things to change about their character- some were charm points. I think we should've gotten some kind of beta for this update that's not this close to expansion release- a section of the forums for feedback. The lack of communication and inclusion of the playerbase into an update that'll affect many is so...strange.

I think feedback from people who have spent alot of time with their character should be valuable- even if it's negative and that's how things get better. There's people who feel something is 'off' but don't have the means of communicating or putting their finger on it. To me some models were changed and some lost their 'vibe'/'feel' and turned into a 'generic pretty doll' look. Some fixes/changes were done while not paying any mind to the original shape- this is worthy of feedback.

Our characters are essentially the highlight of the game's main charm which is the story- we'd be staring at our character alot during cutscenes etc so I understand why people are upset by it.

[Luca_]

What I personally don't understand, is any argument that current lighting is better.

We need a compromise, not to throw away all the hard work from the dev team and the many improvements the update is bringing to the table.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I wasn't arguing that the current lighting is any better or the update needs to be scrapped entirely. It just needs a lot of polish before it's ready for the live game, not to mention the issues with player customization, and I'm very worried that we're too close to 7.0 to see any drastic improvements by then.

I was also trying to say it's really shortsighted and unhelpful to brush off complaints with "it's just the different lighting" as if people aren't aware the lighting has changed. The problem is that the lighting looks terrible on so many skintones, eye shapes, hair colors, etc. right now, and that's not helping anyone cope with drastic changes to their characters.

The potential is there. It looks incredible on a lot of characters with darker skin and larger eyes that can actually catch the light, but everyone else looks see-through (hence the waxy skin complaints) and dead due to the complete lack of eye shine. If the problems are this noticeable with such a small scope, I'm concerned with how the new system will interact with the entire game.

[Ath192]

The potential is there. It looks incredible on a lot of characters with darker skin and larger eyes that can actually catch the light, but everyone else looks see-through (hence the waxy skin complaints) and dead due to the complete lack of eye shine. If the problems are this noticeable with such a small scope, I'm concerned with how the new system will interact with the entire game.

I would argue characters with Darker skin could use a second look. Specially in the hair transitions and colors. The beard and hair are a bit far apart.

[Mercelia]

1. Ask any digital artist and they'll tell you that everything is interdependent. If you improve the shading, then you have to re-rig the lights, because the old light rigs have been designed around the specific limitations and idiosyncrasies of the old shading. And color perception everywhere will be affected. That's just how it is. All the visual elements work together, you can't change one without affecting the others.

I'm not a video game artist but I work with them and I can't tell you how often they have looked at me in horror whenever I ask dumb programmer questions like "do you really need to be able to preview X and Y with the exact same time of day/weather used in the actual ingame event where it is used?"

(This is why, lacking any evidence that the character creation backdrops have been reworked, it is probably irrelevant to complain about the lighting there)

2. In general, a graphic update consists in adding more information to shapes and textures to define them better. The thing is, when that extra information was missing, people were filling in the blanks, and they were doing that subjectively. That bit you perceive as integral to your character's look may be perceived as an ugly artifact by someone else.

Therefore there is no objective way to fill in the missing information.

Making old and new versions coexist as an option is also impossible, see point 1: the lighting and weather have to match with the character shading.

So, in light of this, should they not have done this? Hell no. There's a million things that look wrong in 6.0 and I don't think the game should be held back by conservatism. And since it's all so subjective, it means you'll get used to it anyway.

TL;DR: you'll get over it.

Sorry, but I'll have to disagree with this. Yes, the lighting does affect a lot of the overall character, but as people already stated: Some WoLs do look completely different regardless of lighting, simultaneous contrast etc. They probably did have to fill in the blanks of the missing information, but you can do so without losing this much fidelity to the original character. As someone who had to repeatedly upscale different types of images or graphics, it is possible, especially if you take a step back and look at the overall perceived shapes. Imagine doing this for upscaling / modernising the same company logo and losing a big chunk of (brand) recognition – you can't just ignore that, you should go back to the drawing board and try again. You can't just zoom in and fill in the blanks without looking at it from a bit further away / different perspective – you won't be able to see those clearly visible differences in general perception otherwise. Although those changes may seem objective, there must be something to it with this many people pointing out that there is something off. I feel like it might be a bit unfair to dismiss those emotions / opinions on the changes just because they are not able to word / explain it. And yes, if SE doesn't change anything and we want to continue playing, we will have to tolerate it – it's not the same as "getting over it" though.

Here are some examples, I tried as best as I could to show what I mean with "filling in blanks" and thus losing fidelity when it could be rectified (yes, I'm aware it will take time and no, it's not an easy feat):














I'm sure, many of the dissatisfied players wouldn't mind waiting just to see those changes happen. Again, this doesn't mean that the graphic update shouldn't happen at all, most of the changes made do look amazing, where they did a great job with upscaling e.g. gear. But looking at it from an either black or white perspective and whether the update should or should not happen is not really constructive.

[Mika_Zahard]

Considering I left two games that "updated" characters already, I have zero problem leaving a third (have never been on the sunk cost train). That said, given Japanese players are complaining about many of the same things, I will stick around long enough to see if they make changes.

Please dont leave Suri, i've yet to find you online to do roulettes again together!