Updated benchmark

[azaleai]

The characters look great, they still look like themselves with more details and to effectively play the game everyone is zoomed out to the max, so why are we getting this upset? I don't understand.

I do agree with you that some things people are posting about are very minor nit-picks, but I do also want to point out that the game has a lot of cutscenes that zoom in real close on your character's face... The benchmark included. So getting the faces right is kind of important.

But also, I'm going to have to disagree with you on the 'more detailed' part, at least in the case of my face.



I believe this was a screenshot I took in the 1.0 benchmark not 1.1 but the normal map hasn't changed so this screenshot works fine.

A normal map is the texture that tells the engine to pretend light is hitting a face from a specific angle, used to give the impression of more detailed geometry with less of the processing power a high poly model would require.

If you zoom into the upper left screenshot, you can see in the current graphics that the light and shadows on the brow give the impression of creases in the geometry for not just the fold of the eyelid, but also extending further beyond the inner corner of the eye, an additional crease above it, and a definitive line across the bridge of the nose with faint hints of the actual brow muscle extending upwards. I've outlined them in the lower left.

Meanwhile on the benchmark face in the top right, they've added (admittedly misaligned) normal definition to the lips and cupids bow, but utterly removed it from the creases of the brow aside from the fold of the eyelid. Again, I've outlined the normals detail below. Instead, they've given us an unblended tattoo-like "shadow" on the diffuse (colour) map.

This doesn't look "great". Perhaps to someone who doesn't work in 3D modelling it doesn't seem that bad, but it's certainly not more detailed. I really don't know how to explain that there's literally a huge chunk of baked normal map information completely missing any clearer, not without getting ahold of the literal maps themselves.