Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Eilous]

It is impossible for me to take the exact same picture with the exact same lighting and background for comparison. 7.0 Female Elezen smile is different. Her sharpness is gone. Her expression looks concerned (I used "simper" for both 6.5 and 7.0). It really feels like the developers have altered the animations and facial features so much that they do not look the same anymore, in a bad way. This is so upsetting.





Ingame Portraits

[aiqa]

Since fem hyur face #1 wasn't changed since the latest benchmark. These older screenshot still apply and I am still very very unhappy with the changes to female hyur.

[RulerKelso]

Hi, just adding my voice to the choir. I appreciate the work that went into the graphics overhaul and the new textures look amazing in the overworld. My main grievance are the significant changes made to the faces. I tried giving it a few days to see if I would warm up to my WOL's makeover but three days on and I still can barely bring myself to look at her in cutscenes.

I have three main issues with my WOL's new face: 1) Darkening of her upper eyelid to the point where she looks like she's in a perpetual ಠ_ಠ face, 2) complete lack of depth on the eyebrows, and 3) entirely new shape of lips and smile. Here's a before pic:



... and after pic (both taken on PS5--not sure why the antialiasing is so bad in gpose):



Her eyes were heavily shaded before, but there was still a softness to the irises that made her eyes bright and open. Without that softness, it just looks like her eyes are half-shut in every cutscene:



The lack of shading on her eyebrows makes them blend into her skin. It's visible everywhere but it's especially bad in low lighting. And her upper lip is shaped completely differently than the same set of lips pre-7.0. Instead of having a soft smile with a full upper lip, the combination of a differently shaped upper lip with only the corners turning up in a smile gives her a C: smile rather than a (:




All in all, she used to have such a soft, lovely face. I was prepared for some differences but this is such a drastic change and I feel the end results are much more severe than I was expecting. Different lighting/shaders giving different effects I could understand, but I'm not sure why an entire reshaping of certain facial features (like lips) was necessary. One last before pic for good measure:



Thanks for hearing me out. I really did try to give the graphics upgrade a fair shake but the faces just aren't sitting right with me.

Your character is really gorgeous. Even after the update. You are right in differences, those looks more like a twins than the same person (similarity like Alphinaud and Alisaie)
I guess the lighting and slightly changed lip shape is the worst offender.
New lighting engine is very harsh on our charcters, maybe it will be adjusted in the future, or added to system option like character lighting with the slider.

-In flat lighting (char/equipment window, barbier), face on my Fviera looks almost the same as my old Endwalker face. With right colors and face contours.
-During gameplay it depends on a light source direction. Areas, where before the character looked great under all circumstances, can now looks like a clown depending on daytime and lightsource.
-It also affect hair color and skin tone, which are rarely rendered in right color during gameplay.
For example Im using pitch black hair color and it mostly looks grey or dark brown in most lighting settings

About the animations, mine also looks different, like really different. Vieras had the most cute smiles and smirks, all gone now. I hope devs will adjust this too It would be shame otherwise.

[Arlessa_Ezzy]

My Au Ra (face 2) is barely recognisable - round face shape gone, eyes look dead, mouth choices are pursed lips or look inflated. Overall it looks like they had an allergic reaction, I don't know why they changed it so much unnecessarily, especially since I've played this character for years. With re-editing, I could make her look a bit better, but she's not at all the same character I loved before.

[Len_]

It is impossible for me to take the exact same picture with the exact same lighting and background for comparison. 7.0 Female Elezen smile is different. Her sharpness is gone. Her expression looks concerned (I used "simper" for both 6.5 and 7.0). It really feels like the developers have altered the animations and facial features so much that they do not look the same anymore, in a bad way. This is so upsetting.





Ingame Portraits

Oh this one really made my heart sink. That's a beautiful character that the update does not do justice at all.

[Basteala]

I'm just glad they got rid of the matte lips from the early benchmark. I personally *like* the update, but I think it's very YMMV depending on what race you're playing. Sharper contrasts are going to work better with some races than others. Fem Highlanders are looking good with them I've found.

Also male Roe of all things had a massive upgrade. Good god. They actually look like people now!

[P360Crispy]

The widening of the mouth types makes them look worse on the face in this graphical update compared to before. It seems like they were only widened horizontally and weren't thickened vertically, making them look very odd and unnatural. Type 4 mouth is the only one that looks somewhat "normal", but even that is a major disappointment. It feels like there's now no real variety between them whereas before the update at least they all fit the face decently.

The jaw and face overall looks like it was widened as well, or the facial features are now smaller so there's more face to be shown

Now my female viera's face just doesn't look "right" and I bought a fantasia to make the change to another face, but even the other faces look weird now in the eye shape and mouth departments too. It's like the features are either too large or too small in whatever combination that I try and none of them create the same "beautiful", "gorgeous", or "heroic" feel when I looked at my viera in my profile picture. It honestly makes me not even want to play the game since the first experience with an FFXIV expansion is extremely precious.

The eye shapes also look like they've lost definition. Eye shape 3 looks less "sharp" and instead makes her look a bit "dead" in the face.

Other than these, textures are an improvement. But with that said, I'd much rather have the mouth and eye shapes to resemble what they were before the graphical update. So, as a request, please revert the face feature shaping back to what they were before the graphical update.

[Basteala]

The widening of the mouth types makes them look worse on the face in this graphical update compared to before. It seems like they were only widened horizontally and weren't thickened vertically, making them look very odd and unnatural. Type 4 mouth is the only one that looks somewhat "normal", but even that is a major disappointment. It feels like there's now no real variety between them whereas before the update at least they all fit the face decently.

Now my female viera's face just doesn't look "right" and I bought a fantasia to make the change to another face, but even the other faces look weird now in the eye shape and mouth departments too. It's like the features are either too large or too small in whatever combination that I try and none of them create the same "beautiful", "gorgeous", or "heroic" feel when I looked at the character before the update.

The eye shapes also look like they've lost definition. Hardly any difference between type 1 and 3 eye shape.

Other than these, textures are an improvement. But with that said, I'd much rather have the mouth and eye shapes to resemble what they were before the graphical update. So, as a request, please revert the face feature shaping back to what they were before the graphical update.

Wait why did you buy a fantasia? There's a quest in Ul'Dah near the retainer vocate for a free one now.

[Adrameliya]

Before and after. Same cutscene, same outfit, same facial expression. And he looks weird now.

I’m trying really hard to get used to it but it’s bothering me so much.

There’s sometimes during cutscenes where he looks good, but it’s when light shines super brightly on him. So I think this weird look is mainly because of the new lighting. I could turn the character lighting to max (it’s currently at 30) but that would make him look like a lamppost lol, and that’s ridiculous.

[P360Crispy]

Wait why did you buy a fantasia? There's a quest in Ul'Dah near the retainer vocate for a free one now.

I had no idea honestly. I'm kind of a solo player I guess? So, there's a lot of things I don't know and I rarely come to the forums for anything. Only reason I had posted today was because this update made me so disgruntled that I felt like I had to make a post to add to the pile of requests for a reversion, or some type of change. But thanks for that info! I'll definitely go and grab that