Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[azaleai]

(Here I am rejoining this thread after being JP only for feedback for a while...)


Eyes aren't fixed (pupils at least, the overshadow is fixed), nose smudge is a bit darker........ AND OUR SCULPT SHAPE IS FIXED. No wonky random philtrum when we never used to have one.

Normal maps aren't 100% but Sko for SURE is actually *Sko* again. 90% of the way there.

I'm so happy to be rid of the bizarrely straight and completely misaligned philtrum. I personally feel like they went a little too far in the opposite direction and practically erased the philtrum completely, but better too faded than clear and misplaced, honestly. I do still think the textures are a little misaligned - if you get in real close the texture of the lips from the normal map seems to exceed the edge of the lip on the diffuse map, but... I'll take what I can get, I suppose.


^ This image shows it quite well on the closest peak of the top lip. Other races I've looked at have the normal texture fade before the lip colour edge or just have... less 'creasy' lips so it's not as obvious (miqo'tes, for example, but maybe I was only zooming in on those with makeup or something).

I honestly didn't realise the ash mark was darkened until your comparison. It still looks barely there on my skintone... I would very much like to see it back as dark as it was before. That said, I would also very much like to see it added as an optional feature so those who aren't fond of it can turn it off.

I still feel like the lip shape isn't quite right... the bottom lip used to be... more rounded in profile, a little more pursed looking...? I'm really not sure how to convey what I mean with words and I don't have any old top-down screenshots, so here's a quick slightly exaggerated sketch of what I mean.



The old lower lip was a little more square shaped when viewed from above and the normal map data gave it a fuller, plumper impression (there weren't really creases on it, but there was shape and a bit of texture). The new lips have the creases completely straight instead relying solely on the shape of the 3D mesh to give the impression of fullness and it kinda... doesn't from most angles. It looks a little flat by comparison. I think all races might suffer from this to an extent...

Regardless, I know that point is a little nit-picky, so I won't complain if it never gets addressed. consider it more just a quirk of the new models and textures I've observed.

My biggest gripe still remains though - the creases of the eyebrows are completely absent from the normal map making them look plasticky and weird, the awful painted-on "shadow" still looks terrible, the forehead still seems to curve in far above the eyebrow making the eyes look really sunken or like black eyes in some lighting, completely messing with the impression of the underlying bone and muscle structure.



I nabbed a new screenshot from that same old cutscene (not sure if the lighting in this location or rendering of darker skintones have been changed or if it's just edits to my settings and shaders but I'm glad she looks less blotchy now) and did another drawover and it's... no different. The misaligned normal/diffuse map on the lips is still there, they've just severely blurred/lowered the opacity of the lip line so it's not as glaringly obvious. Which is... disappointing, considering it's something that could be fixed in like five minutes with a liquify tool, and I don't even have the original sculpts to work with.

So... all in all, I feel like it's a step in the right direction, but there's still a fair way to go to get it right...

[Sylvanae]

The lips are the biggest change I'm noticing for face 1 fem midlanders. Really not a fan of them right now.

[Heavenchild]

Aura face 2 mouth still looks bad. Still the wrong shape and lower lip is still bending unnaturally upwards, instead of being just a round shape like it used to be and like it is with most other mouth's.
That really bothered me because in cutszenes the characters are very often shown from an angle where we see that weird bending all the time. Gladly I am back to my Miqo boy and don't need to see it anymore. :x

[ShiroLialeth]

Has anyone noticed any changes with Male Miqo’te Face 1? It does look the same, but I can’t shake off the feeling that something did change. Are the facial animations/ emotes any different? (It was mostly /ponder that seemed different to have different lips, though I don’t use it as much to actually notice a change)

[Keiizah]

Has anyone noticed any changes with Male Miqo’te Face 1? It does look the same, but I can’t shake off the feeling that something did change. Are the facial animations/ emotes any different? (It was mostly /ponder that seemed different to have different lips, though I don’t use it as much to actually notice a change)

I don't have screenshots to compare but they did made all male miqo'te lips smaller. Face 1 was pretty much the same before and after 7.0 the only difference was the sudden lip filler they gave to everyone which is now gone. And my guess they tweaked face textures a little? They probably saw the complaints about wax skin

[Aco505]

Has anyone noticed any changes with Male Miqo’te Face 1? It does look the same, but I can’t shake off the feeling that something did change. Are the facial animations/ emotes any different? (It was mostly /ponder that seemed different to have different lips, though I don’t use it as much to actually notice a change)

I don't have screenshots to compare but they did made all male miqo'te lips smaller. Face 1 was pretty much the same before and after 7.0 the only difference was the sudden lip filler they gave to everyone which is now gone. And my guess they tweaked face textures a little? They probably saw the complaints about wax skin

I personally didn't notice any changes. I got the feeling that some emotes made the upper lip extra thin but I compared with some screenshots and found that it was already the case... I think.

I am happy they didn't change anything, to be fair. I'd rather they add options than ruin us until they decide to introduce more lip or face types... but I do feel for those who wanted lips to be closer to their pre-update stage, particularly the lip 4 users.

My main gripes though are still there: low resolution areas on different parts of the face: the markings below the eyes, the dark spots around the eyes and particularly the lower eyelid, the sides of the face and the blemishes they mentioned in the post but didn't seem to fix.

And of course the fact that the bodies are still low resolution...

[ShiroLialeth]

I’m also really happy they didn’t change anything as I’ve gotten really used to my DT look. Agree that it would be better to have new options instead of tweaking the old ones too much.

[ShiroLialeth]

Has anyone noticed any changes with Male Miqo’te Face 1? It does look the same, but I can’t shake off the feeling that something did change. Are the facial animations/ emotes any different? (It was mostly /ponder that seemed different to have different lips, though I don’t use it as much to actually notice a change)

Update: I compared them again and noticed that they did change something. The philtrum got wider around the nose-area.
comparison (all face settings on 1):

[Taranok]

Update: I compared them again and noticed that they did change something. The philtrum got wider around the nose-area.
comparison (all face settings on 1):

I wouldn't describe that as wider. I'd say it got a new texture. You can even follow the left/right philtrum line from the top corners of the lip all the way to the nostrils at the same spots. The area between them just looks like it has a new texture.

But that is also a change I wouldn't notice directly, but would know something is wrong. Kind of like the slight resculpt of the face shape of au ra. Even tiny difference can cause major problems, and it can take a while to realize what the issue is exactly. Hell, I'm not 100% sure it's just a face resculpt ruining face 4 au ra for me. It could also be that combined with the render engine being changed to make things that used to exist to be substantially more noticeable.