Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[poooman]

i do also agree with the lighting causing a ton of issues. temporarily setting aside genuine shape changes for things like eyes, noses or lips for some, the fact older areas and (seemingly) portraits do Not have the updated lighting just creates a ton of unflattering lighting like we saw in the first benchmark. that 'triangle' highlight on the face causing the cheeks to look horribly sunk in is the greatest offender alongside the oddly prominent highlighting of the under-eye.

as i've said in previous posts i just think going for a more 'realistic' inspired shader on a more stylized game will create issues like this. real life shadows are not always flattering on real people, but i think when people play a game they usually want the characters to be lit in a way closer to a movie. while the nature of real-time calculated shadows is that you cannot and will not be able to account for every single lighting scenario, it just feels like there wasn't even an effort to do so? i don't care about the technical side of how hard my computer has to work to show me it, just put some thought into how it looks. insert pretentious comment about my personal preference being games that are technically 'worse' but heavily stylized to 'make up' for it

i have got to stop rambleposting but that's my onion

[Khryseis_Astra]

Not sure I agree with this. I think it's important to remember that a lot of the issues also stem from the new lighting that highlights different areas than before which is what makes some areas of the models look weird. Take hyurs puffy eyelids for example, they obviously don't look good but the old models also had them and the new lighting just makes them more obvious where previously they were not that noticeable. The best solution would have to actually edit the model itself and reduce the puffiness of the eyelids to account for the new lighting but in attempt to keep the models as close to original as possible, they opted not to change that area creating an even bigger disillusion.

Sure, some areas have been changed too much but and this thread is proof of that, however to think that everyone would be happy if the models were not changed at all and only textures and lighting were updated shows imo a lack of understanding on how delicate of a process it is to actually upscale models and the environment while retaining the original look.

Agreed… while I personally didn’t think the original graphics were bad at all, especially for the age of the game, I get that they’re trying to compete with newer games, as well as give their artists better tools to work with.

But like you said, they should’ve taken the time and care to realize just what the new lighting, textures, etc. were going to do to the faces and correct for that. The under-eye puffy bags are one example of that, as is the heavily emphasized philtrum on many faces. Although I suspect there are other issues at play, with regard to how the eyes and mouths function with emotes now, but I don’t have the technical knowledge to speculate on that, so I leave it to those that do.

In the end, all we really want is their initial goal: updated graphics without changing the overall look and feel of our characters. One of the selling points of this game is the ability to create your own character as the main character. So naturally people are very attached to their character(s). Just hoping we get some good news soon!

[Astronis]

I think we can all agree is that Square shouldn't have touched the character models AT ALL. Whatever the old settings they had for years clearly were working.

No, I think we cannot all agree on that. The 2.0 character models had issues that have been visible for years. In addition, they added a lot more bones to the models so they can animate better in the future. I also suspect they remade the models the way they did so future cross-race items will be easier to make for them, but that's just a guess.

[noumen0nn]

The best solution would have to actually edit the model itself and reduce the puffiness of the eyelids to account for the new lighting but in attempt to keep the models as close to original as possible, they opted not to change that area creating an even bigger disillusion.

I see your overall point, but I wanted to point out that this specific instance actually isn't an issue with the new lighting interacting with the model itself. Rather, the eyebag shadows are "drawn" onto the normal map of the face. If you remove the eyebag lines from the normal map, that region of the face would go back to looking smooth without needing to alter the geometry.

[Cyrtip]

No, I think we cannot all agree on that. The 2.0 character models had issues that have been visible for years. In addition, they added a lot more bones to the models so they can animate better in the future. I also suspect they remade the models the way they did so future cross-race items will be easier to make for them, but that's just a guess.

Could just be the particular face I use and scrutinized the most had no lingering problems pre 7.0, what with it being a 3.0 addition race and not a 2.0 race, but I had no problems with the old face models.
As an end user, facial animations looked so much better with the fewer bones the devs had to work with pre 7.0. Sure, 7.0 models might be a technical upgrade and better to animate in future because of additional bones, but the animations we have right here in the now are definitely worse than what we had in the past. I don't want to have to look forwards to a fix, for something that worked just fine three months ago. We've updated but backwards haha...
I've heard about the cross race gear explanation too, I think in LA Fan Fest they talked about auto-adapting headgear to fit different races. If its true that the face models were remade to cut development costs, quality be damned, then that's just saddening to hear.

[Astronis]

Could just be the particular face I use and scrutinized the most had no lingering problems pre 7.0, what with it being a 3.0 addition race and not a 2.0 race, but I had no problems with the old face models.
As an end user, facial animations looked so much better with the fewer bones the devs had to work with pre 7.0. Sure, 7.0 models might be a technical upgrade and better to animate in future because of additional bones, but the animations we have right here in the now are definitely worse than what we had in the past. I don't want to have to look forwards to a fix, for something that worked just fine three months ago. We've updated but backwards haha...
I've heard about the cross race gear explanation too, I think in LA Fan Fest they talked about auto-adapting headgear to fit different races. If its true that the face models were remade to cut development costs, quality be damned, then that's just saddening to hear.

I know that in one of the Fanfests, Yoshi-P took great pains to point out some of the issues lalafell had that they were correcting, and I know, playing a Highlander, there were issues there also, issues I've been very pleased to be rid of now. I can just imagine that he was playing his main and just being irked at the things he saw that couldn't be fixed...until now. Faces added after 2.0 probably didn't have those same issues. At least, I never saw the same kind of problems on my au ra alt that has the same face as yours judging by the horns.

And yea I can see people being unhappy with the current animations. Some of them need correcting as they didn't quite translate (I know some expressions cause a weird twitching on the eyebrows that absolutely should not be there).

I really, seriously disagree that it was "quality be damned", as I can see a great deal of care has gone into making the faces as close as possible while still maintaining the same feel. I know quite a lot of people disagree with that, but the faces do, in my eyes, still have the same aesthetics while being an upgrade. Faces either designed by or inspired by Tetsuya Nomura's work still look unmistakably like Tetsuya Nomura's work. I do think there's some work left yet--some faces have some crazy tall foreheads and there's some weirdness here and there, but no, the quality was not to be damned. If it was quality be damned, they wouldn't have gone through the effort correcting things from the first benchmark (and maybe second, though at least on my Highlander's face, if there was such a pass it was so minor as to be unnoticeable).

[Turnintino]

Faces either designed by or inspired by Tetsuya Nomura's work still look unmistakably like Tetsuya Nomura's work.

I hate to be that person, but small nitpick: the 1.0-2.0 races, at least, are based closely on Akihiko Yoshida's concept art. Kazuya Takahashi and Tsubasa Masao seemed to largely take over from there, as far as player character designs are concerned. The only designs Nomura's directly contributed (not counting crossovers, that is) have been for Gaia and Eden's Promise (the boss, not the entire series lol).

[Astronis]

I hate to be that person, but small nitpick: the 1.0-2.0 races, at least, are based closely on Akihiko Yoshida's concept art. Kazuya Takahashi and Tsubasa Masao seemed to largely take over from there, as far as player character designs are concerned. The only designs Nomura's directly contributed (not counting crossovers, that is) have been for Gaia and Eden's Promise (the boss, not the entire series lol).

Haha that's why I said "inspired by", because I wasn't sure who exactly designed them directly, though I can still see Nomura's 'fingerprints' all over my character. Probably because he's designed enough characters for Final Fantasies that it's become part of the DNA in the same way Amano's work has. Akihiko Yoshida has a very distinct style, which you can still see in some of the face models for sure.

Thanks for the correction!

[CidHeiral]

I think we can all agree is that Square shouldn't have touched the character models AT ALL. Whatever the old settings they had for years clearly were working.

I don't agree with that at all. There are issues here and there but overall it's a massive upgrade in my opinion.

I think it's important to remember that a lot of the issues also stem from the new lighting that highlights different areas than before which is what makes some areas of the models look weird.

I've noticed this as well. I recently rewatched Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (excellent movie) and there's a scene that takes place in an elevator with light directly overhead. When I reached this scene I had a good chuckle because I realized it looks exactly like so many pictures people have posted as examples of how bad the graphical update looks.



The game previously had a very rudimentary lighting solution and now it has a very good one. There are of course real issues that should be addressed with the models and lighting, I have an accepted bug report open on one of them right now, but I do think some people are just very surprised at how drastically the look of their character is effected by different environments and conditions, as it should be.

[faiarrow]

I understand people bringing up lighting being unflattering and causing 'more issues than are really there' but it's one symptomatic problem of the whole situation. Some of the actual model changes are detrimental regardless of lighting, and not only are problems with the standardisation of polygons shaving racial features (which, given they are readjusting this mesh to "match" the original faces you would think would've had more care given the PR regarding keeping impression the same) but genuinely makes it hard to feel that actual care for quality went into things.

Some faces straight up won the lottery while entire races look/feel very different.

I know I keep harping on about hellsguard - funny what having played one for 9+ years does there - but seeing us lose our traits and have our faces be slapped with a beauty filter (and straight up missing normal maps, a thing you would think would be carefully checked for QC, but got filed into 'not a bug' in ENG and JP forums) in addition to our eyes being DRASTICALLY changed being backed up by the countdown art made for DT featuring the same black pupil with overshadowed eyes, no nose ash, and finer features matching the benchmark looks was a real kick to the gut. It was like a hard confirmation of 'no this is the intended look for you now from our art team get used to it.'

Lighting is one culprit of an entire mess that could've been avoided with due care, tbh.