Updated benchmark

[Evermomo]

For me, the large pupil is a problem because the limbal rings cover the brightest part of the eye texture. Now the texture around the pupil is dark. So if you want a bright iris color like yellow, the best you can get is a greyish color, which makes her eyes look brown instead. So every eye color has become significantly darker, which is unfortunate.

I'm guessing that's why the old texture was designed the way it was. But nearly everybody uses the same texture now, except for lalafell, cats, one of the viera clans, and for some reason male roe face 2. I like the graphical update, and I'm okay with subtle changes when things are made more high-res, but I don't think the uniqueness between races & clans should go away. Entire assets getting overwritten or removed is kind of a bummer.

As for the cuteness, mooncats should be cute. Au Ra should be lizards, and I love the aloofness that comes with a pinned, bird-of-prey pupil. But that's just like, my opinion, man.

[Plushy]

For me, the large pupil is a problem because the limbal rings cover the brightest part of the eye texture. Now the texture around the pupil is dark. So if you want a bright iris color like yellow, the best you can get is a greyish color, which makes her eyes look brown instead. So every eye color has become significantly darker, which is unfortunate.

?
You have to purposely TRY to mask the iris by picking certain colors and that's kinda always been the case with using limbal rings but even with doing that, you can see the iris fine...also....au ra's are cute by default.
They're literally 5'2 - 4'9 dragon girls with cutey emotes.
Heck...one of their retainers acts like a tsundere and type 4 au ra is the most anime looking design out the whole game with their really sharp unnatural eye shape.
I couldn't find the concept art design philosophy but female au ra's were created to be cute basically, because they saw how popular miqo'te was so they made female au ra cute and petite while being mysterious which is why they have a hint of shyness/reservedness in a lot of their emotes (heck even their walk animation is like a little princess walk with how they're bending their wrist a bit and clenched fingers to appear more dainty) So to try to think au ra are not cute (or not as cute as miqo'te) naturally is simply not true if you ACTUALLY play au ra because all their animations makes it clear. Compare it to something like viera, femhorth, highlander and elezen animations its obvious what they were going for with female au ra.

Look how the female raen model is standing next to the more opposing male au ra, the female au ra is giving off a sense of cuteness and gentleness.

also
here are the endwalker versions


Sure you can see the iris bit more it but that's because the limbal rings in the old version is super skinny + smaller pupils and the limbal rings in the old version doesn't blend with the iris as well (like limbal rings are actually suppose to do.) Look at the black and see how it just looks someone just placed someone on her eye instead of looking like a natural part of it.

In the end its a preference but I think its disingenuous to say you can't see the iris due to the bigger pupil and using that reason to try to get something changed when its not true at all. You can see the iris fine.

[Iscah]

I admit I've been tending to forget about the benchmark trailer itself, being basically six minutes of explosions and random NPCs to get a few glimpses of your character in action, but having looked at it I'm basically even more confused as to why my character looks so ill and dead-eyed in the basic resting pose.

The images below are both from the benchmark and yet don't look like they're using the same settings. It's no good for the character to only be looking pretty in cutscenes or when emoting. The resting face is super important because that's what the character is going to look like during gameplay and in basic conversations.



I also did a comparison of the face expressions in the benchmark to the current game:



Now, to be clear, in some of these screenshots she does look really pretty in the new version and it's possible that I haven't picked the right emotes to match every expression. But overall I am still concerned because I can see how every expression has narrower eyes and often the shadows on the eye bags. In particular, the two pairs of screenshots on the lower left -- if that is indeed her resting "straight face" now, and going by the character creator it seems likely, she looks so bored now.


Meanwhile, I've been trying to work out exactly what's going on with the eye shapes:



And the eyelid rims (I think I need to re-edit this with some clearer current images):

[Fleur]

I admit I've been tending to forget about the benchmark trailer itself, being basically six minutes of explosions and random NPCs to get a few glimpses of your character in action, but having looked at it I'm basically even more confused as to why my character looks so ill and dead-eyed in the basic resting pose.

The images below are both from the benchmark and yet don't look like they're using the same settings. It's no good for the character to only be looking pretty in cutscenes or when emoting. The resting face is super important because that's what the character is going to look like during gameplay and in basic conversations.

My Hyur female has face #5 and I noticed the same thing: she looks dead-eyed and bored with her resting face, but looks amazing in the benchmark trailer. But most of the time when we see our character's face, it is the resting face.

Now, to be clear, in some of these screenshots she does look really pretty in the new version and it's possible that I haven't picked the right emotes to match every expression. But overall I am still concerned because I can see how every expression has narrower eyes and often the shadows on the eye bags. In particular, the two pairs of screenshots on the lower left -- if that is indeed her resting "straight face" now, and going by the character creator it seems likely, she looks so bored now.

And the eyelid rims (I think I need to re-edit this with some clearer current images):

Thank you for mentioning the issue with the "eyelid rims" (those little triangle areas on the lower outer corners of the eye that you highlighted). This is also an issue on midlander female face #5 and I've seen some face #1 players complaining about it as well. If the character model was a doll, I would say that the eye wells hadn't been sculpted properly and were too thick, leading to a weird gap between the eyeball and the eye well. This isn't as bad if you choose upward tilted eyes (usually eyes #3), but it looks especially awful if you choose the downturned eyes (usually eyes #2) and isn't great for larger, rounder eyes either.

Other unrelated issues I'd mention:

1. On face #5 midlander Hyur, mouth #1 used to appear slightly upturned due to the little dark mouth corners. It does not have these any longer, which has a big impact on the character's resting expression. I miss the little smile.

2. The default eyeshadow seems lighter, and the optional eyeshadow in the facial features section is quite light as well. This is very noticeable on face #1, but also on face #5.

That said, I'm not expecting any huge changes before launch, but the fleshy looking lower eyelid rims at least really seem like something that should be fixed (rather than being a "stylistic choice").

[MrMordio]

Is this something you'd be willing to repost as a bug report, or do you mind if I use some of your assets to create a bug report? I use a very similar face and couldn't put my finger on what was wrong like you did.

[Iscah]

Is this something you'd be willing to repost as a bug report, or do you mind if I use some of your assets to create a bug report? I use a very similar face and couldn't put my finger on what was wrong like you did.

I've posted a couple of bug reports tonight, please do chime in on them while they can be replied to.

[Evermomo]

x

I think it's the pupil & iris texture, not the limbal rings.

[Plushy]

I think it's the pupil & iris texture, not the limbal rings.

Ahh I see.
Yeah honestly that should tell you even if they did shrink it. The iris still wouldn't look the same since the texture is updated and you probably wouldn't like how it looks because the eyes would still be a bit darker due to the different texture use of the iris and also pupil since the old pupil is like...sorta greyish and the old iris is way brighter and blurry.

[Evermomo]

Ahh I see.
Yeah honestly that should tell you even if they did shrink it. The iris still wouldn't look the same since the texture is updated and you probably wouldn't even like how it looks because the eyes would still be a bit darker due to the different texture use of the iris and also pupil since the old pupil is like...sorta greyish.

It definitely depends on what a new asset would look like. Only time will tell.

I do genuinely hope both options become available, one way or another.

[Iscah]

I've been trying to do comparisons of all my characters with the trailers. I'll try to get those properly organised tomorrow.

For tonight, one thing that has stood out to me is that while my face 3 Miqo'te in many ways looks very good in the new graphics, it is ruined (to me) by the addition of heavy eyeliner to a character who previously wore no makeup at all. It's out of character for him.

At a more general, less character-specific level, it creates a very fuzzy edge to the dark shadow under the eyelid, which previously just gave the impression of thick eyelashes, and I think it is detrimental to the look of the character.

Additionally, the length of the eyelashes has been much reduced, which I think is disappointing and it also further ruins the illusion of long, thick eyelashes created by the shadow under the eye. In the current appearance, when he shuts his eyes and you can see the long eyelashes clearly against his cheeks, it reinforces that impression that those long lashes are the cause of the shadow, when actually it's a lot of trickery going on with the model.

This also applies to G'raha since he uses the same face, so I'm worried about what he will look like too, and I believe it may have been applied to the other male Miqo'te faces but I haven't directly compared them yet.


Comparison of my character:



And as I have previously posted in another thread, a photoshopping of what I think actually needs to happen with the Miqo'te eyes - don't add blurry makeup, but fill in the missing part of the eye, and use the eyelashes to cast shadow on the eye.

Blue and yellow lines indicate the position of the eyelid and the edge of the visible eye surface in each image.