Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Taranok]

The changes on face 4 au ra are a bit more noticeable.





6.58 on left, Benchmark 1.0 on right.





7.1

Of note we can see that the lips are fixed and don't have as harsh a shadow in the corners. However, the cheek/jaw shape was massively tweaked. Cheeks are puffier, jaw is wider, the angle between cheek and jaw is substantially different than it was in 6.58. This combined with the more emotive faces makes Au Ra look substantially puffier with extremely small facial features relative to the wide faces.

While a lot was done to fix some of the glaring issues with things like the lips, the face itself is still overall ruined.

Thanks for not even addressing the biggest part of the complaints.

[Doopliss]

[Snipped for Post Length]

I do want to say that, in spite of the problem I'm having on my Xaela, I don't think it should actually return to the original state of 7.0, either. I've often thought about your massive, lovingly done posts for Au Ra limbal rings, and I'm glad to see the beautiful color in yours is back.

I do hope this is just an error with the method rendering, like you said, and they don't go back entirely. It feels like it, because I noticed in the "Character Window" that my Xaela's limbal rings are a lot closer to the color I chose for them prior to 7.0 (although not perfect, still a little too white on just one side).

For reference, here's what her limbal rings looked like in 6.58 (again this is the darkest grey option):


And here's what they look like now, in the character creation menu, even in 7.1 (RGB value there for reference):


Yet, in the "Character Creation" window, which I assume is like, the colors' default states, her limbal rings now look far lighter (and closer to the original) than they did in 7.0. Unfortunately I only have 7.1 screenshot references for the "Character Window" change.

People can hopefully see what I mean in the screenshot below. Looks decent in the character window, but super uncanny and super white, randomly, in a sunny afternoon in Ul'dah.



Meanwhile, the inn room lighting gives me like, the perfect shade sometimes, lol...


I'm typing this all out in a very unorganized, very sleep-deprived state, but I hope this kind of shows what I'm trying to get out. I just feel like this is way too inconsistent to feel...intentional. Like way more inconsistent than ever before--at least on this color. However it feels like they are at least intentionally trying to get that more consistent glow back from 6.58 and prior. I do hope they can correct things, rather than give up, and achieve a nice glow for everyone...

The expansion has been making me feel really bad for having characters with weirder color schemes. The slightest change throws off the balance so intensely...

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

I just feel like this is way too inconsistent to feel...intentional. Like way more inconsistent than ever before--at least on this color. However it feels like they are at least intentionally trying to get that more consistent glow back from 6.58 and prior. I do hope they can correct things, rather than give up, and achieve a nice glow for everyone...

100% agreed.

I went a bit too technical with my last post, but basically I think that the problem is that they tried to go for a more "photorealistic" (and I guess more "industry standard") method of rendering, but without considering the already existing possibilities of the character creator, so in 7.0 it looked great if you went for a certain look (e.g. realistic limbal rings, or colors that blend together nicely), but for people who wanted to keep a stark contrast between the limbal ring and the iris while maintaining a bright vivid color, that was not possible anymore.
So in 7.1 they went "ah crap, we messed up, let's bump the contrast by changing this one parameter in the shader, that will make them happy"... but that one parameter threw things off for people who wanted a more realistic or muted look, and it also doesn't entirely fix the problem people like me were having either (in Yak T'el, under a spotlight, my limbal rings still disappear for some reason).
I haven't touched at shaders in a while so I can't say for sure that this is what's going on, but that's the hunch I have based on past experiences where I've encountered similar issues.
(maybe I'll open Unity one of these days and try to replicate it, it's hard to describe it in text...)

But you might be familiar with similar phenomenons if you've dabbled in character creation in other games before, like fashion games being developed with a white-skinned character by default, and only adding darker skin tones later in production, only for the existing makeup options to not work on those new skin tones because they were not designed to work together (so a black character becomes white-faced, etc).
That's the kind of lack of foresight and awareness I'm trying to describe.

But yeah, that's basically why I think exploring another method of rendering would be more beneficial for everyone in the case of limbal rings.
It's scrapping existing work and rebuilding it from scratch, which is definitely something the dev team wants to avoid, but at some point A Certain Someone Who Is Responsible For Production (and has already scrapped and remade existing work before and is world famous for it) has to understand that such decisions will be necessary if they intend to address the problems properly.
(but based on how abysmal and slow the official communication and reaction have been since the first benchmark, I'm afraid that might not be the case...)

[faiarrow]

Out of curiosity, seeing the lighting affecting the limbal rings in such a way, I wonder if the new lighting parametres for the limbal rings is tied directly to the ancient eyes which I believe got fixed in this patch? I haven't had a chance to investigate it myself but it might be a possible lead.

[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.

[magitekwitch]

Although I kinda liked the realistic approach on Au Ra limbal rings on 7.0, I felt like they lost an identity mark that made their eyes different and special from other races. I didn't expect this to be fixed, and so soon even, and I'm really thankful to have my old eyes back! I would really appreciate to have both options available tho.

I couldn't take comparison pics before the change but even with different angles I think the difference is very clear. The pupils are still bigger, but the new eyes look a lot closer to 6.55! (and thank you for the fixed glasses transparency!)


I went to the aesthetician to adjust the color since it's a little too bright now, and I noticed that the limbal rings look completely different on the aetherial background?? They look exactly like in 7.0! But in all the other backgrounds, they look like in 7.1. Is this because of a different lightning? Does that mean the impression of the eyes will vary between cutscenes? Or is it just that they haven't upgraded the chara creator screen with the 7.1 fixes? I don't know, it's very confusing.

Pics for reference, same eyes, same color, only changing from aetherial background to shroud background:

[OtherworldSeeker]

This is not something new to this patch but...

I really hate how huge the limbal rings are now. You can't even see her irises at all unless you're zoomed in in gpose. They're easily 3 times as wide as the iris and completely drown it out.

Could we have super wide irises be an optional thing? Please? I miss the red of my WoL's eyes. It used to be so nice and vibrant.

[Liamont]

Reading through all of this and also the JP thread, there's a few things that has been really bothering me about this whole endeavor.

1. Why are they going back and updating ARR zones when, arguably, the most important priority they should have right now is the characters? Since that is one of the biggest things that draw people in and keep people playing in FFXIV at least? As far as I know, very few people were complaining about the ARR zones?

2. In addition, don't they have the original old models? Surely it is not that difficult to put them side by side, or even overlay them to see the exact differences between the two? If we as customers can make GIFs overlaying two screenshots to point out some rather blatant differences between models, surely it would be easier for them—with the source material—to spot the difference?

It is frankly rather baffling to me that the customers are being called on to tell the management what needs to be changed. I don't understand, shouldn't their dev team be more attuned to minute details and have an eye for exactness compared to the customer? Why does it feel like many changes are done sloppily, or as if they can't see the difference at all? It should not be on the customer to be able to spot the differences that, while "minute", also change the entire feel and recognizability of a face.

3. It honestly is starting to feel more and more to me that they wanted to change things for the sake of changing them, because they themselves didn't like what they had before and wanted to "update" it. Completely disregarding the fact that many people spent literal years making memories of their character, and thus would not want to log in and see a stranger staring back at them. Even though I tried to be hopeful in my post earlier, but to be frank I am really tired of waiting with baited breath on whether or not my characters were changed back to what I remember then as. At this rate, it will possibly take literal years to get a final answer, and I don't know about you, but I think there's something wrong with needing to wait years for the chance of my characters returning.

So, I would really like some transparency on this issue. They give detailed notes for the rest of the patch, why is it just the character feature corrections that do not get detailed notes? Can we please get a timeline and a detailed list of what changes will be made, for what race, face type, mouth type, eye type, etc from now on? That way we are not kept in this state of constant suspense.

That said, I am thankful that the dev team is still making changes, and I hope that they will hire or assign people who are more detail oriented to the tweaking process. Because right now it feels like those types of people are sorely lacking in the department.

[sindriiisgaming]

wasn't there supposed to be some kind of graphical downscaling this patch? my character still looks like a jojo reject