Dawntrail Benchmark Feedback - Female Miqo'te

[howltia]

I wanted to give my feedback for the changes I've seen with my female face 4 miqo'te in the benchmark, and thought it might be worth posting a new thread as I hadn't seen any general female miqo'te ones. I appreciate all the work the devs have gone through for this graphical update, and I think miqo'tes have gotten some of the better upgrades compared to most races, but there are many elements I find myself unhappy with and she doesn't feel the same anymore.

EW 6.58 left, DT benchmark right


My main thoughts are that I feel like many areas are being blended and softened and made incredibly shiny without thought for the general shape, in doing this losing all the quirks and traits that we all love of our warriors of light.

Nose - Currently her nose has a fairly large and flat shape and she has rounder nostrils, something I have always loved about her when many in-game noses tend to be smaller. In the benchmark has been blended into a shapeless, shiny form, nothing about the general shape of it remaining. She looks like she has had botched plastic surgery, and also been made into wax. Her nostrils look less defined, her nose in general smaller with smaller nostrils, and its overly way too shiny (something that seems to be apparent for all skin for some reason).

Eyes - Something I'm seeing often brought up is updated eyes looking dead and lifeless, which is apparent here too, plus very dark and full fake looking eyelashes. I feel like the new eyelashes are a downgrade, they feel way too intense and unrealistic and the originals have a far more natural look.

Lips/mouth - This is something I've seen many complaints about, as the new lips look somehow considerably flatter and the shape of the lip in general has completely changed for many people, my miqo'te included. Her current lips well defined puffy w shape with prominent round tubercles with her mouth being partially open and her teeth showing through. This has always been something I loved about these lips, giving them shape and volume, and I love that her mouth is a little open. Its now been reduced to a flat set of lips with basically a straight line between them, the original shape again lost, and the texture and depth seems to be less realistic, and they don't blend into the face in the same way and appear almost separate, like they have lipstick on.

Lighting/colours - For some reason I had issues with colours going very grey for her in the benchmark creator at times as seen below:



I really do appreciate all the work they've done, but many choices seem strange for the character upgrades, and as many of you know being with a character for 2000+ hours makes you love how they look a great deal

[howltia]

This is the first screenshot I took comparing them, as I was very unhappy with the differences! But they do tend to look better in the benchmark and this area seems to be the worst for lighting. But I really do find the skin to be far too glossy and fake looking, it looks like a doll, shiny and made of plastic.

[Hejligan]

I agree with a lot, though I would add that quite a few eyebrows are changed, which of course quite heavily impacts the feel of someones facial expression.

With the changes to eyebrows, eyelashes, mouth and skin, it almost looks like my character has applied heavy amounts of cheap make-up. There is a kind of lack of eye-contact which seems to almost make my character look high, though that might be much more lighting and angle dependant than before, so I rest my judgement on that part a bit.

Still, my wishes were not for my character to look like she is high and has applied a lot of cheap-make up, which partially looks like a vain attempt to look more sultry, especially with the eyelashes (if I am allowed to be a bit less prosaic in my criticism haha).


Left is old, right is new.

[AirisRay]

Thanks for this topic.

So, my thoughts, which I have already described in other topics. Only this time there are more comparison images.

I believe that something happened to the very model of the face of all the miqo in the lower part. I won’t even write about the lips themselves, their shape and texture, everything is more than obvious here and this has already been said in many topics.

There is a complex problem here: the mouth + those around it.
Here you can see that a horizontal dent has appeared, passing through the mouth itself and affecting the corners of the lips + cheeks. In directed light it looks terrifying.




I made a small collage in different locations and under different (but directional) light and at different camera angles.

Here you can see exactly where this dent begins and where it ends. Nothing like this had ever been seen on any Miqo face before.




Many people say "oh, it's just bad light, look at the benchmark."
Well. I looked at the benchmark many times and I want to say that everything is even worse there.

I would also like to note that I have not seen anything like this in any other race.

The light falls on her face and ugly hollows appear on it.



Some people say "correct the gamma". No, it's not a gamma issue. It's not a question of skin color. It's not a matter of choosing the type of lips. It's not a question of bad light. This happens in any light, if it is directional.

Of course they might tell me “don’t put she in the light.” But I don't want to hide her from the light, is she a vampire? I want to continue to admire her in any light. I want to take screenshots with directional light, it's my favorite type of light. I don't want to turn away from the monitor screen when the light falls on her face. I just want this to be fixed before 7.0 comes out.

This is a really serious error. Please, SE, pay attention to this.

[SaraNeko]

Hi! Wanted to share this of face 4 on Miqo'te catgirl. <3
Overall, I think it's nice, a softer look - I'll write a few notes below!


Things I like more: Thicker lashes, eyebrow colour matches hair, sharper clan marks!

Things I like less: Flatter shadows feels less dynamic, less hair shine feels less healthy, missing strong white flare in eyes feels less alive, lipstick could blend more into skin than hard edges.


Before


After

[celestiyall]

I also have noticed that nontraditional skintones, such as grey shades on Keepers which originally had more blue or neutral undertones, now have red undertones, to the point that in most cutscene lighting in the benchmark, they end up with jarring red coloring to the point it made me feel like my char had allergies. I also miss, among my teeth being nerfed and my cute lil lip gap being gone like y'all were demonstrating, that the lighting covers up the nose smudge on face 4 keeper the minute you enter into literally any source of light. I had a thread about the nose specifically on grey tones here that I started.

[GrizzlyTank]

Eyes looking dead and souless is because of the issue i brought up here. Least for eyes in general.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-from-the-eyes

Basically they change how the reflection in the eyes works from a static dot that follows the camera, to multiple dots that follows the position of the sun.

Meanwhile plenty of eye options for all races have had their slant changed a bit... Often from stern looks being changed to sultry.

The contrast between the pupil and iris seems to have been reduced as well.

[cutestfox]

Thanks for this topic.

So, my thoughts, which I have already described in other topics. Only this time there are more comparison images.

The massive horizontal crease is just too much, it completely destroys the face in every lighting, every expression, every angle
it looks absolutely deformed. I can't look past it, it's so prominent

[celestiyall]

Oh, I'd also like to +1 that I wish the eyelash fullness was a toggle, as I don't really like how much thicker they are on my character. She used to have a more resting neutral or bitchy face, and now she looks all cutesy in a way that is very disconcerting.

[Khiana]

Thanks for this topic.

So, my thoughts, which I have already described in other topics. Only this time there are more comparison images.

I believe that something happened to the very model of the face of all the miqo in the lower part. I won’t even write about the lips themselves, their shape and texture, everything is more than obvious here and this has already been said in many topics.

There is a complex problem here: the mouth + those around it.
Here you can see that a horizontal dent has appeared, passing through the mouth itself and affecting the corners of the lips + cheeks. In directed light it looks terrifying.




I made a small collage in different locations and under different (but directional) light and at different camera angles.

Here you can see exactly where this dent begins and where it ends. Nothing like this had ever been seen on any Miqo face before.




Many people say "oh, it's just bad light, look at the benchmark."
Well. I looked at the benchmark many times and I want to say that everything is even worse there.

I would also like to note that I have not seen anything like this in any other race. I checked absolutely everyone, I looked at the benchmark for each race and no one else has anything like this.

The light falls on her face and ugly hollows appear on it.



The lower part of her face is broken. Honestly, I don’t know where to write so that those who can fix it can see it.
Some people say "correct the gamma". No, it's not a gamma issue. It's not a question of skin color. It's not a matter of choosing the type of face or lips. It's not a question of bad light. This happens in any light, if it is directional.

Of course they might tell me “don’t put she in the light.” But I don't want to hide her from the light, is she a vampire? I want to continue to admire her in any light. I want to take screenshots with directional light, it's my favorite type of light. I don't want to turn away from the monitor screen when the light falls on her face. I just want this to be fixed before 7.0 comes out.

This is a really serious, critical error. Please, SE, pay attention to this. Please, fix this.

I think this has always been the case, but the new shaders just make it more apparent. Think of how Prae makes your face look in some cutscenes.

You can see the indent next to the mouth casts a shadow on both. Some polygon tweaks sure, but I think it comes down to Miqo having "fuller" cheeks than some others, so their models curve in more toward the bottom. I do think it is even more apparent on mouth 4 though, as the mouth is narrower so widens that "dip", thus giving you a constant puckered look.