Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[MoonNoire]

You might've seen me complain about "the eyelids" a couple times now, and I'll explain what exactly is borked because it's just baffling. Previously (as in pre 7.2), characters narrowed their eyes when their gaze followed something beneath their eye level. This was very noticeable and useful in gpose and also in the making of portraits with detailed expressions. Since 7.2, that feature has been broken. Eyelids do narrow when your character has a neutral facial expression, but try applying any expression within gpose (/smile, /beam, etc) and then guide your character's gaze (not the entire head) down.

Presto, your character now looks like they belong in a list.
Here's my viera as a visual.



Your guess as to why this happens is as good as mine, but my money's on them unintentionally fixing the eye meshes in place whenever your character performs a facial expression.

Broken for almost 9 months by the way. I have two theories in regards to why this is still the case:

A. They just don't care and figure only a couple people like myself are going to complain about this, so why spend any of their shoestring budget into fixing it? That's money they can funnel into the FF7 remake, baby

or

B. They know, they care (hard to type that with a straight face) and they're waiting for 8.0 to fix it.

The fact B sounds like Military-grade Copium makes me think A is much, MUCH more likely.
I will, however, be posting about this periodically so that even if they don't fix it (which they probably won't), I'll go down in history as the one guy ever who cared about this thing™

[Argantaelle]

on a bit of a random note, would anyone happen to have a compilation post or thread or anything that showed differences between M!Viera face 4 for ew/dt comparison?

I've seen multiple posts in the Japanese thread, but searching in Japanese is impossible for me, as I don't know the language. People were complaining about softer features (the 4th face used to be the most masculine in EW) and the different eye and mouth shapes.

It's kind of funny, btw, that in the 1st and 2nd benchmarks the mouth were completely different, but SE restored some of its defining features almost asap. I guess because bunnies are really popular and others can wait... and wait… and wait...

[LlymlaenGreene]

A friend of a friend sent me a couple more screenshots. I want to take a closer look at them.
Well, what can I say, that's what we get when we directly compare the old EW version, the current 7.3 and 7.3 mod from the people's creator of this face mod. It can be seen that he did not just use the old textures and meshes of the face, but raised them (textures) to an acceptable level, and interestingly, the eyelashes as a whole are even more detailed! It turns out that he not only kept his original appearance, but also did exactly what we (who are not particularly happy or at all happy with this graphical update) have been asking developers since the release of the first benchmark (more than a year and a half). I've only reviewed the appearance of hyurs female midlander, all five options, and they're all literally a 1 in 1 ew version with enhanced texture. It's probably the same with other races. There will be several gif animations next. Developers, please implement this into the game in some way (preferably a switch so that both sides are happy) Thanks

The whole picture


face

EW to 7.3 to 7.3 edit


7.3 to 7.3 edit


EW to 7.3


EW to 7.3 edit

nose

EW to 7.3 to 7.3 edit


7.3 to 7.3 edit


EW to 7.3


EW to 7.3 edit

mouth

EW to 7.3 to 7.3 edit


7.3 to 7.3 edit


EW to 7.3


EW to 7.3 edit

eyes

EW to 7.3 to 7.3 edit


7.3 to 7.3 edit


EW to 7.3


EW to 7.3 edit

[Astronis]

That guy: I made your faces like it was in EW.
What else can I add?

Did that guy redo the bones too?

I will, however, be posting about this periodically so that even if they don't fix it (which they probably won't), I'll go down in history as the one guy ever who cared about this thing™

I think they'll fix this. It's a really obvious, egregious bug. Kinda surprised they haven't yet, tbh, but if it doesn't get fixed by the time they're done releasing post patches, I'll join you in raising hell about it.

[Alice_Rivers]

Unfortunately I agree that they probably don't care, given the turn around time on things they did care about, if they wanted to fix it then it would have been fixed months ago.

[Glitchima]

I lost a lot of my old screenshots on my hd but I still have the EW benchmark to compare.

I liked face 4 because it looked like a jjba face, it got yassified in DT lol

Thank you so much for this! Yeah oh my goodness the eyes are so very different. The features overall feel softened but I believe they worked on some of that (?) for the bunnies? Like based on what was said here so far the lips got some good changes but idk about the rest. I guess I might spend some time going over the few screenshots I have and see if I can make a comparison post... thank you again!

[Glitchima]

I've seen multiple posts in the Japanese thread, but searching in Japanese is impossible for me, as I don't know the language. People were complaining about softer features (the 4th face used to be the most masculine in EW) and the different eye and mouth shapes.

It's kind of funny, btw, that in the 1st and 2nd benchmarks the mouth were completely different, but SE restored some of its defining features almost asap. I guess because bunnies are really popular and others can wait... and wait… and wait...

I really wish everyone got the same amount of care put into them :/ Considering how much time has passed, I wonder if the team believes that for some of the races they are done & satisfied with the updated look.

From what I've seen with all the new patches, not much had changed even for the races that did get some updates? It's mostly minor things like editing the textures, but from my understanding, Dawntrail also featured some form of re-modeling of the faces, did it not? I wonder what happened there since I'm not exactly familiar with the process or what they were planning, but it seems like a lot of the subtle detailing is lost, and many of those, to me, felt like a very important detail for each different race.
Seeker eyes for example to me were meant to always be rather striking, but now they feel sort of dull and it seems like their defining feature is being lost. That's just one example at the top of my head, and i know there are so many more...

Hard to say what part was intentional vs. what the team considered a technical limitation that they wanted to "fix", since we aren't exactly getting any extra information when there were changes being implemented with every major patch.

[Astronis]

From what I've seen with all the new patches, not much had changed even for the races that did get some updates? It's mostly minor things like editing the textures, but from my understanding, Dawntrail also featured some form of re-modeling of the faces, did it not? I wonder what happened there since I'm not exactly familiar with the process or what they were planning, but it seems like a lot of the subtle detailing is lost, and many of those, to me, felt like a very important detail for each different race.

Yeah, all of the faces were remodeled so they share the same base mesh and UV mapping (though au ra have some added for horns), and they all have new bones added for movement. Can't say why they did it; there's some good reason they went through the effort, probably it will help save dev time somewhere else down the line. As a result though, it's impossible for them to perfectly 1:1 match the old meshes and yeah, some subtle detailing got lost.

[Kharn]

Might be worth reporting that in the bug forum. It may be intended due to the shape of the hoods, but could be an oversight also. Can't hurt in any case.

I have the same issue with my hairstyle (on hats as well), if you report it they would say it's intended (speaking from experience). Some older hairstyles just don't get to have their bangs show due to clipping. It's very inconsistent though, there are hairstyles with some clipping that I see showing their bangs. I understand the frustration because there is a particular item I really want to wear but my bangs being cut off ruins it.

Reporting back to say that my report got marked as 'Working as Intended' to which I return to this thread in the hopes that the devs are reading this and take the earnest feedback that I'd love to see older ARR hairstyles get brought up to the visual fidelity, whether hatless or in a hat/hood, as the other modern hairstyles with their unique features showing visibly.

[LlymlaenGreene]

Did that guy redo the bones too?



I think they'll fix this. It's a really obvious, egregious bug. Kinda surprised they haven't yet, tbh, but if it doesn't get fixed by the time they're done releasing post patches, I'll join you in raising hell about it.

hi, if I understand the animations that I saw correctly, then the creator of the mod literally put ew textures on top of the new structures, because all animations look exactly like in version 7.3.
You can see some screenshots of the comparisons on the 325 page or here . But one of the reasons why the faces supposedly look different now is the new bone grid, but as you can see, this is not entirely true.
That is, the character now has a smile of version 7.3, not ew (since the bones directly affect the animations), but with the same old 6.0 face, it's still my character who smiles with the same lips, eyes, nose, and etc, but slightly different. (actually, I need to check the old screenshots to be sure, yeah)