Updated benchmark

[Azalea_Forest]

Here's my observation: Limbal rings give off actual light now. It's subtle, but look at the way the lighting around the eyes changes with and without the rings here:



However, it's only at night. Limbal rings in the daytime look a little brighter in shadow than direct sunlight, so that's where I've placed my character, but you can still tell there's no glow.



I'm assuming the glow is something that gets turned on at night in game, probably at the same time the background music switches from the day version to the night version. I think the glow is lovely, and of course, it looks much closer to the way my character's limbal rings look in the game right now. If the glow was on all the time instead of just at night, or we at least had the option for it to be on all the time, I'd be satisfied.

[RivenWasTaken]

Other than the eyeshadow, i'm happy.

[Sacae]

Holo looks great, I'm really happy.

[Rugno]

Unfortunately viera is low priority for Square enix; or that's the impression I always get. Let's hope they fix it. You're gonna have to spam the change you want in some of these threads.

Suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given that the race was a begrudging concession to begin with. Still is frustrating to know that, though your issues are just as legitimate, the character you play is always going to be a lower priority than something like a Miqote or Au'ra. (No hate to those players, mind. I'm happy that they're getting the changes they need) But please, I beg of you, a crumb of love. I'm going to have to tell people that a run-in with temple bees went south during a qarn run.

[Kacho_Nacho]

At first, Kacho's features seemed off and his eyes were soulless black pits.

Then, I realized that the Benchmark has a fisheye lens effect when you zoom in and the harsh lighting was casting very dark shadows over the top of his eyes. So, I zoomed out.



There's my boy!

So, overlooking my brief moment of panic, I think the devs did a great job on plainsfolk lalafell and I like how Kacho looks. Anyone who knows me in game would recognize my character instantly.

The only thing I found off was the hair. Now, it looks great close up. It's a definite improvement.

But, when you zoom out, it gains this weird appearance. It's like someone opened a screenshot of my character in Photoshop and used the smudge tool to blend the hair. I'm not sure if that's caused by the Benchmark or if that's a issue with the actual hair texture CBU3 is using.

[Chaika-Soulblaze]

Well, I am not particularly happy about the update (I liked my characters appearance since ARR era), but at least the new benchmark is better than the version before and it is "ok" now.
I don't really like the new mouth shape and the corners of it, but I don't think that will change anymore.
It seems I have also lost some eyelashes in all those battles in Endwalker, maybe they got burned off in some fire.
Fangs are still not as I wanted them to be but I rather take those than the other ones.

front view (EW benchmark - DT benchmark)
https://imgsli.com/MjY5NDcy

fangs (EW benchmark - DT benchmark)
https://imgsli.com/MjY5NDcz

benchmark (DT benchmark old - DT benchmark new)
https://imgsli.com/MjY5NDc0

same settings have been used for the comparison except I have not uncapped the FPS for the updated benchmark

[Remnance]

Talk about lazy, do you even look at how the races look?

https://imgur.com/a/Hw1AkIW

[Iscah]

It will take me some time to get through all my characters, so I've got two to show for tonight.

Firstly, my face 3 Midlander.



There have been some fixes from the previous benchmark, but not as much as I would like.

The eyelids on the first benchmark model are lowered from their current position, making her look sleepy and losing her wide-eyed look, and this has not been reverted for the second benchmark.

However, they have fixed the very heavy eyelid line that appeared in the first benchmark, which is a welcome change even if they're not going to properly put the eye shape back how it was. The eyelashes also seem back closer to the original shape.

Other particular issues I can spot right now are shadowy bags under the eyes (this seems to be extremely recurring across many characters) and that while the makeup on the upper eyelid is dark, the lower outer eyelid has lost the mild shading that helped to define the outer edge of the eye.

The overall expression is also... something unplaceable but not quite right. She feels less confident, I think? Which is not what I want for my bold Warrior of Light off on an adventure.

All the changes add up to make her look slightly ill compared to her current appearance.

The silver clasp on her shirt also stands out and seems to be looking progressively dirty and tarnished with each update. This is what I have been fearing all along, because every time we've gotten "HQ textures" on things they're so often ugly scratched textures and it feels like we're not allowed to have nice polished things any more.

[Taliriah]

The overall expression is also... something unplaceable but not quite right. She feels less confident, I think? Which is not what I want for my bold Warrior of Light off on an adventure.

She looks less o__o which I think is an improvement

[FrechDax]

i dont like the new benchmarkt tbh.
the shadows are a complete mess. looking at the hair shadow on the neck. left one looks so smooth and the right one almost unhealthy.
left is 1.0 and right 1.1