Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Iscah]

Some screenshots of G'raha as an example of what I think has been going on with all of the male Miqo'te eyes. I think it is a change that has been applied to all Miqo'te faces but it shows up most clearly on face 3 where the eyes are bigger to begin with.

My character is the same height as G'raha so I got the camera right up in his face to take comparison shots before and after the update.



Up close you can see that the eye shape has changed considerably between versions.

Original design

The original eye shape has quite wide-open eyes going by the shape of the eyelids, and the eyelashes go all the way out to the outermost corner of the overall eye shape. There is no makeup used on this face type.

There is an odd blank space under the eyelid that technically seems to be a stretched-down inner eyelid but design-wise just creates the impression of a dark shadow cast by the eyelids and lashes. Because of this space, there is no need to have any shadowing on the visible eye surface.

There is a clear division between the eye surface and the rim of the lower eyelid.


Dawntrail modified design

The position of the eyelid has been lowered, and heavy eyeliner has been added to the upper eyelid to disguise the shifted position. This has multiple negative effects: it alters the look of the eyes; it makes the upper edge look blurry instead of the sharp edge of the eyelid; and it also means that personality-wise this is now a character that wears makeup instead of one that does not.

The eyelashes are in a different position and the outer corner of the eye has shifted downwards. The eye is now primarily framed by makeup rather than the eyelashes.

The eyes seem to have additional shadow cast onto the eye surface from the lowered eyelid.

The eyelid rim is oddly lit and there is no clear division from the eye surface to eyelid, so the eye seems to stretch out even further horizontally as it blurs into the eyelid. (I had the same issue regarding my female Midlander so I suspect this is widespread across characters using pale skintones.)

The eyebrows have lost their colour.

Small wrinkles have been added below the eyes around the base of the lower eyelid - this is more detail than I want to see. The early announcement of the graphics update made a point that the devs were not planning to go overboard on realism.

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I think the artists have made the error of seeing the visible surface of the eye as the entire size of the eye, when actually the shape of the eyelid creates an impression that the eye is bigger than that.

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One interesting thing of having this happen with a major character is that we can also look at how they were interpreted for trailers.

G'raha's appearance in the Endwalker trailer was quite "off" and I think that was again down to them looking at the shape of only the visible eye surface and using that for the trailer model's eye shape. They reviewed their approach for Dawntrail and got a lot closer to the character's original appearance - ironically just as the appearance has been changed to something else.

To compare the Dawntrail trailer to the pre-Dawntrail eye shape: