Yoshida gives update on the benchmark/character creator

[Larirawiel]

With the caveat that I don't know enough about Blender to double check any of this, I saw an interesting twitter post that may explain why a lot of these differences are happening.

To be fair. The old faces do not have much details, that could be killed. And many details are caused by buggy normal maps. And since SQEX fixed the normal maps, many details will go away.


Cheers

[Rudje]

Sounds like they shouldn't "fix" the normal maps in a way that annihilates what the eye perceives as detail, then.

[Zeastria]

No mention about eyebrows is worrying

[TheCat]

How does shit bait like this get so many likes, literally neither of these are XIV models..
This looks like something some 1st year made in Blender for homework.

Nobody claimed they were ffxiv models, it's just an example to show you what they're talking about.

[Nebty]

To be fair. The old faces do not have much details, that could be killed. And many details are caused by buggy normal maps. And since SQEX fixed the normal maps, many details will go away.


Cheers

I agree that the old normals were buggy as heck and needed fixes, but it doesn't need to be an either/or thing. Which is why I'm glad the devs are listening to feedback and that a lot of people have pointed out exactly where these details - intended or otherwise - have been lost.

Smoother does not always equal better, but it's also not impossible to add that definition back through mesh or texture adjustments. And I don't blame the devs for not realizing just how detail-oriented their fanbase is. I guess I just find it interesting to speculate about why the changes might have happened. I may not even be correct here.

Nobody claimed they were ffxiv models, it's just an example to show you what they're talking about.

Even if I had access to the new face models why on earth would I post them on the official forum? You'd need modding tools for that. :P

[Plushy]

With the caveat that I don't know enough about Blender to double check any of this, I saw an interesting twitter post that may explain why a lot of these differences are happening.





This tracks with what I've observed about the new models. I don't think they've actually been 100% redone (though I think some of the mouth differences might be touch ups, and there's definitely new teeth in there, plus the previously mentioned 50 new bones). But they've been put through the Blender equivalent of a belt sander. It smooths out the polygons, but without additional detail work some of the character of the original sculpt gets lost.

The differences in the lips in the examples above is pretty stark once you're looking at it without any lighting or texture. The definition of the cupid's bow is much less visible because of the smoothing. Same thing with the shape and size of the nose/nostrils.

I've also noticed that the bugs that the original face meshes had (neck gaps, face seams) still seem to be there, to a greater or lesser extent.

This isn't what they did. Just simply adding a subdivision modifier would simply just stretch and distort the model due to low poly. There is a reason this post only shows the model with no textures. If you don't believe me, you can grab the model yourself (6.5) and do this and you would see this isn't what they done.
They updated the models properly with adjustments and more polygons. I understand people don't like the changes and so people are trying to figure out what went on but I personally think they just smoothed out rough edges and it changed a lot of things people liked/are used to.
https://twitter.com/BizuArt/status/1782292918608478594 UV's are the same with slight changes.
https://twitter.com/kailn_ffxiv/stat...69950204612815 More polygons and more details.