Benchmark: Male Miqo Face 1 (it's not good)

[TheVegetable]

So I've been playing around with the benchmark character creator, and it's not good. There's a lot of things to talk about, but the most egregious issue is that although I always expected there to be certain unavoidable changes, my opinion is that my characters no longer feel like my characters. And having watched the presentations for the new models, I know that one of the things Squeenix has said they want to do is preserve the spirit of our player-characters whilst upping the graphics, so I'm gonna focus on what I think are the main details to address in that regard.





Here's two images of my main character (I have several, for reasons), benchmark on the left and current on the right. There's a big difference in the feel the character gives off, and the changes have made him feel very cold and dead on the inside, as opposed to the cutesy gremlin energy he's supposed to have.

A good chunk of this is caused by the eyes. Aside from the shine being absent because of how they've changed the way reflections work, there's also a subtle but impactful change in the shape of the eyes, particularly in the upper eyelid. The black part of the eyelid has also gotten a lot thinner for some reason. I also think the outer corner of the eye is a bit further down on the new model.
And there's no way to remedy this by changing any options, these are the most wide open eyes that you can get. From what I've seen, the eye issue is present with face 3 too.
On top of all this, the eye colour has gotten duller, and the pupils have gotten less dark, and the transition between the two has been made more blurry. This reduction in contrast ultimately makes the eyes duller, contributing to that cold, dead stare.

The lips are also worthy of mention. They seem to have lost a lot of their fullness and appear a lot more flat, particularly in the lower lip. If you look at it from the side, you can see that it protrudes outward, but in this lighting, you absolutely can't see it from the front. It also appears the lip texture itself also just doesn't extend as far down on the new model.

1/2