Today's the earliest expected date for the Benchmark re-release

[Larirawiel]

What does that mean?

Normal mapping is a sort of improved bump mapping. It simulates structures on a flat geometry. It looks good when you look at it with a 90° angle but the illusion disappears if you look at it almost parallel to the surface. Then you will notice, that the structure is flat. The advantage of it is, it does not need much processing power of a computer. FF14 uses normal mapping everywhere. But the normal maps have to fit exactly to a geometry. If they don't then the lighting and self shadowing will look very weird in some situations.



Cheers

[Rekh]

I just hope they fixed how glasses sit on female viera's face, they're basically floating a feet away from their face.

[Valence]

What does that mean?

Normal mapping is textures that tell to the lighting how to apply over surfaces. They can for example include creases or other bumps or nooks and geometry that isn't modeled into the more macro-scale mesh geometry of a model. Edges and whatnot generated into normal maps will catch light and shine for example, while cavities will be darker.

[Taliriah]

Normal maps play a significant role in defining the curvature of a surface. As an example, a normal map can make a picture of a circle look like a sphere when lighting is applied.

[LuciaMirain]

Normal maps play a significant role in defining the curvature of a surface. As an example, a normal map can make a picture of a circle look like a sphere when lighting is applied.

Would that change these shapes? (Benchmark up, OG down)

[Mikey_R]

Would that change these shapes? (Benchmark up, OG down)

To my, admittedly, untrained eye. They look basically the same. I suspect a lot of issues you see are caused by lighting.

However, there is no point speculating. All you can do is get the updated benchmark when it is released and compare then. Even if you wanted to provide feedback now, they couldn't change anything due to a 2 day (planned) power outage on the building anyway. Just wait and see.

[LuciaMirain]

To my, admittedly, untrained eye. They look basically the same. I suspect a lot of issues you see are caused by lighting.

However, there is no point speculating. All you can do is get the updated benchmark when it is released and compare then. Even if you wanted to provide feedback now, they couldn't change anything due to a 2 day (planned) power outage on the building anyway. Just wait and see.

Just to illustrate the difference of the mouth: bottom lips are rounder, space in cupidsbow is smaller, mouth looks more pouty. Am looking forward to benchmark, come what may.

[Valence]

Would that change these shapes? (Benchmark up, OG down)

The lips is part of the whole texture package (notably the diffuse texture, which is the base image texture and it doesn't follow the same shape than OG). The dimples on the sides of the mouth however can be a combination of 3D mesh and normal mapping, hard to tell for sure. For the eyes, it's definitely the 3D mesh shape of the edges of the eye, if that's what you're pointing out here.

[Taliriah]

Would that change these shapes? (Benchmark up, OG down)

It could, yes.

[DynnDiablos]

The new screenshots and examples of the changes look fantastic. The eyes look even more alive now too. I am Yoshi P in today's update told people their characters may look different, so here is a fantasia. You aren't getting a one-to-one folks no matter how they update and tweak the graphics updates, so you either need to get onboard or redo your character. The absolute hell this team has been through addresses everyone's complaints is insane. They are probably working a terrible amount of crunch time for Dawntrail's release 6/28 and Yoshi P is not delaying this expansion after EW. Give them some grace.

In the end, you may just not be 100% satisfied and you need to simply get over it. From what I can see in the new screenshots, character details, lighting, eyes and textures look greatly improved. Lips especially seem to have returned to their illustrious self.