Updated benchmark

[Astronis]

With all due respect, you are putting too much faith in SE that they will give any semblance of attention to male highlanders. The most likely scenario from this benchmark is that it will be left as-is, since highlander players are not much anyway.

I am very puzzled by this, because the evidence is right before my eyes that SE is paying attention to male Highlanders:

I will however keep pushing for as little change as possible, pharaphrased. If that's what SE meant, then they should stick with their gun and aim to not making big difference to the newer form.

I do believe they have achieved this as much as is possible without just giving up and re-using the low-poly models. The model has more polygons. The original thinness of the nose was a result of lack of polygons. That's been corrected. It isn't a big difference--yes, it's noticeable to those of us who have been using this face for years, but it's an improvement over a model that didn't have enough polygons to work with. The original honestly always looked too thin too me, so I am glad SE has fixed what always looked something like an unfortunate sacrifice to the low-polygon requirements. So...yeah, as one of the few players of male Highlanders, I am going to register my satisfaction with this!

As for the cheeks...they looks pretty damned close to me.

In wild scenario that they have limitless resource, it would be good that they make option for different creative directions instead of making players have limited option like this.

Options are always nice for sure.

[Iscah]

I've had a chance to sleep on it and that crease at his brow is a bigger problem for me than I was willing to admit. The crease is too exaggerated compared to what we see in 6.58. This is for Face 4 highlander.

I've noticed a similar issue on my female Roegadyn (face 1).

This screenshot is from the first benchmark but it didn't seem to have been fixed in the new one.



Specifically in this case it is the creases over the eye, which extend further inwards now. The blue arrows mark the end of the visible line.

She also has shadows under her eyes that weren't there before.

[Minali]

I do believe they have achieved this as much as is possible without just giving up and re-using the low-poly models. The model has more polygons. The original thinness of the nose was a result of lack of polygons. That's been corrected. It isn't a big difference--yes, it's noticeable to those of us who have been using this face for years, but it's an improvement over a model that didn't have enough polygons to work with. The original honestly always looked too thin too me, so I am glad SE has fixed what always looked something like an unfortunate sacrifice to the low-polygon requirements. So...yeah, as one of the few players of male Highlanders, I am going to register my satisfaction with this!

Honestly, I can imagine this is the "issue" with many little changes that add to making things warped just a little. In my opinion t's likely many of the changes are now creating the characters how they were always supposed to be, or closer at that, but in ARR they couldn't build them the way they wanted. However, because it took then years for technology and CBU3 to catch up and make adjustments closer to their original intention, we're so used to the less refined versions we're getting now.

That said...

Options are always nice for sure.

Agreed. I don't mind my character looking like this now, she's really damn pretty. It just doesn't give me the same vibes before because of some minor changes I can barely point out. I wish things like eyes being less far apart or smaller or not all eye possibilities being so super round in my case, would be additional options people can choose. Same as adjusting your eyelashes and other things criticized in this thread, or at least options coming close to that, considering the higher number of polygons won't go away (and that's a good thing).

Also, damn, your Highlander is really handsome!

[MsMisato]

For the lulz I opened the game on one screen and the benchmark on the other and made a direct comparison of old face 3 me and new face 3 me. I also rotated them away from the sun so this whole lower jaw and mouth situation is not influencing judging the shape.

She looks really similar to people who don't play the game as her I'm sure, and this is nothing I'd quit the game over or anything. However, I noticed something had changed with her eyes, making her look like she was trying very hard to get this Mountain Dew mount. I'll live, but I know I'm going to miss all the gpose moments where she's just relaxing somewhere, gazing into the distance, with this contempt resting face, happy and alert but calm. I can't even point to what the difference is, maybe it's the lack of dark eye lashes, one pixel being moved elsewhere, or the size being bigger and the eyes being further apart from each other, or at least giving the impression they would be further apart. Maybe all of that. So I checked how far I could get by recreating her with a different face, putting that free Fantasia, adjusting it just like we were asked to. That face 2 version was the closest I could get to, but it's still a rather different, idk, vibe? Face 1 would mean losing basically all of my fancy tiger stripes, and Face 4 looks to me more like a shy or anxious person, and this just doesn't suit her at all. It's a pity these stripes are glued to the face. I really wish they'd be optional features, so every face can have all types of stripes.



Not sure what I'm going to do when Dawntrail drops. Might not Fantasia right away in case there are going to be any tweaks in the first few patches or so, but whatever I choose, I'll need time to get used to that. I know that much.

(Then again, maybe the lighting decides for me, depending on if they fix that mouth situation or not, because these "dimples" are just absurd. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...51#post6470751 )

i think you should pop your current character without that that hairstyle and use the one that is on the new benchmark. that would be a better representation

[moodud]

Au Ra have special characteristic scales all over their bodies. Hrothgars have fur patterns of all kinds, and have an absurd lack of other options of customization with other means besides. That aside, plenty of gear and glam invites to showing off e.g. your chest, has been the case since ARR. And there are plenty of cutscenes where the body - covered or not - is very much visible. Updating the body is far from "unnecessary".

For textures, sure they will be updated for the whole body and everything else. But increasing polygons to make the body model rounder or smoother, is unnecessary.

[Sky7]

I like the new lighting and I'm glad they fixed the weird greasy skin appearance. However, there are a few things about my character's face that are different from the original that I'm hoping will get tweaked. My character uses face 2, jaw 2, eye 3, eyebrow 2, nose 4, mouth 4 and ear 3.



At first, it didn't look too different but as I kept looking, something seemed off about my character's face. I drew red lines on the eyelashes, left eye and nose to highlight the differences. Looking closely, I saw that in the benchmark, the top eyelashes are slightly longer with a shallower curve that ends curving more downward. There is a greater gap between the bottom eyelashes towards the end and the eye. The rounded parts on the sides of the nose are now flatter and slightly longer. The nostrils are flatter than the original. My character's ears are now slightly shorter. To maintain the current ear size, I would have to increase it by about 5. This isn't a problem for me personally but people who want the maximum ear size with ear 3 may be disappointed. I don't know if the other ear types are shorter too but ear 3 is definitely slightly shorter.

The last issue I have with my character is her smile in the cutscene. I can't pinpoint what exactly the issue is but something still seems weird about her smile. Specifically the bottom lip. There is something uncanny about it.



Other than the points I brought up, I like the changes and I am excited to see it in game in the near future. Thank you devs for working so hard to make the game look beautiful!

[potatsdevourer]

I do believe they have achieved this as much as is possible without just giving up and re-using the low-poly models. The model has more polygons. The original thinness of the nose was a result of lack of polygons. That's been corrected. It isn't a big difference--yes, it's noticeable to those of us who have been using this face for years, but it's an improvement over a model that didn't have enough polygons to work with. The original honestly always looked too thin too me, so I am glad SE has fixed what always looked something like an unfortunate sacrifice to the low-polygon requirements. So...yeah, as one of the few players of male Highlanders, I am going to register my satisfaction with this!

Actually this confuses me. SE wants to upgrade character face model with more polygons, yes, then why they remove the curvature on the nose bridge?

The newer one just look less curved, and if one look closely it still has very slight curvature, and it can be argued that there is more polygon to that.
I surely will live fine with the change but it just bugs me. The new model changes the silhouette (for the lack of the better word) of the face, and it can also be seen on the cheek: the 6.58 version has continuous line from cheek bone, while the newer one has it much shorter with added laughing line.
And we can only speculate how is their target look like to keep change minimal, but to me, changing face silhouette is not the point. It is also why my complain compass the harsh eyebrow ridge as well, since it really muddles the original face silhouette.

Also personally this nose form is one of the quirk that catch my eyes first time and made me choose highlander despite their lack of eyebrows. So to see the curvature removed is just sucks.

[Rikizza]

You still look cute, and beyond that, rest assured that several people have the same complaints as you and hopefully it will be fixed before or shortly after Dawntrail release

Thanks<3 lets hope.

[Iscah]

The last issue I have with my character is her smile in the cutscene. I can't pinpoint what exactly the issue is but something still seems weird about her smile. Specifically the bottom lip. There is something uncanny about it.

The lip is like one big semicircle rather than having the more natural shape it previously had. It's not the only face with this problem either.

It's like they've just take a really cartoony 2D lip shape, pasted it on the character and stretched it to match the mouth opening.

[Minali]

i think you should pop your current character without that that hairstyle and use the one that is on the new benchmark. that would be a better representation

I thought about doing this, but I already did this extra step for the first benchmark and later for a comparison for this mouth thing in my first post (although there I only used an extra short hairstyle so hair shadow wouldn't be in the way.) So I was tired of running to Jandeleine yet again. xD