Which is great people should go over there and say their piece then. The expansion isn't out yet and they are still working on it. This is why I'm not upset about anything.
I can't wait to see how the actual game looks because I was like "there's no way this is the full picture, there's no way this blurry ass skin texture is it." Because it looked so diff in the live letters xD
@@Aitherea i first noticed it because my viera's lips looked flat in the CC but when i got to the char select screen where you pick armor they looked glossy like light was reflecting off them.
@@Aitherea yeah that's why I asked you whether the TSCMAA rendering method was available cause my understanding is that'll fix things a bit. But then again, Yoshi P shows the difference on trees and flowers, not characters, so it's only speculation on my part.
Once again. Mods to the rescue, feeling kinda bad for console players. I know this isn't full picture, but even with full-ish picture we saw in fanfest, I still find old textures better on most races/gender combos. They feel more alive. Modded characters look like we aren't even playing the same game, so players still have that.
I hope they actually get these things fix. I cant even run the benchmark because Im on ps5. So… I HAVE NO IDEA how my aura is gonna look like 😭 (scared)
If I had to wager a guess, the character creator is still using old lighting data and so it's going to look wonkier. The same thing happened for my Miqo, but the moment I got into the benchmark itself, all the issues weren't noticeable.
For the life out of me I couldn’t find the option to turn up or turn down the character lighting like you can in Endwalker and I feel like people having the option to match their character lighting settings to benchmark would somewhat help
I had the same reaction to seeing my Au Ra in the benchmark. Even the updated benchmark didn't get it right. There's no life in her eyes. Her personality is gone. She's just a doll and I miss my character. I'll probably have to switch to Miqote at this point. Which is such a shame, because I've been an Au Ra since HW. :(
When I saw the graphics update stuff, I always thought the brightness of the eyes going down was a bad thing. The colors aren't even as vibrant as I want on current graphics, and now you'll have to zoom in to even see someone's eye color at all.
So the biggest problem with bun boys is that all Viera now use the Rava assets, check the Veena eyes, and you'll see they now use the Rava thicker iris. So i think its a big reason why they look off.
I was wondering why my Veena's eyes looked bigger! Between this and the lighting changes causing illuminated ears, I really hope they fix it before the main game comes out.
Male mooncat here, and I can definitely still see fangs in the character creation and benchmark trailer,. Certain angles make it hard to see but it's enough to keep me happy. I'm not sure if they nerfed it and made them more subtle, or if the smoothness of the new models simply makes it look smaller. The older models are more primitive and jagged, so the fangs might be more pronounced as a side-effect. Still, I agree with the character creation looking horrible. Benchmark trailer made it look a bit better, and the expressions are a hundred percent an upgrade, very expressive, but I still prefer the old "matte" skin texture :(
@@Aviii_ yeah, possibly with the teeth being more detailed they don’t stand out as much. The character creator definitely needs work. Some character models have been updated really well, while other models look entirely different. My catboy looks fine, but my viera girl looks just terrible
Talked about this with most of my fc and neither one really cares. Because they are all modding anyway like most they know in limsa. So i guess only people who cares are either on console or never touched mare. Thankfully im a sun cat and on console so i don't have a problem.
Honestly, I am so happy to see so many people complain about the new looks of their characters. I re-created my BF's character and thought he just looked a bit softer (Miqo male). To me it looked fine but he was like "this is not my character!!!!". Then I re-created mine and saw it for myself. My Miqo became a chubby hamster (cheek shape, mouth shape) and my Viera got a pig nose. The lips of my Lala are way too thin now and her nose consists of only two dots that supposedly are the holes to breathe through. All in all, except for my Au Ra every character I worked on to make them look as cute as possible was ruined. At first I thought I was just being over-dramatic, but seeing how unhappy everyone else also is gives me some peace of mind, cause that means something REALLY is not working out quite right and it‘s not just my imagination.
As people said could be because old engine clashing with new textures and stuff just have ti wait until the actual release. And they are apparently taking feedback from people so there is that.
graphics in the eyes are way better. same everywhere else except you might be cooking in the hair and lip shine point. However youre right in that everything did kind of change slightly sculpturally. That's the main thing.
Thank you so, so much for making this video. I thought I was going insane. I cried when I saw my WoL in the benchmark. And the gaslighters are out in force on the forums today, so I was feeling really alone, even with the countless other people voicing their concerns. Just hearing you talk about this made me feel so much better.
The lighting in Character customization in the Benchmark is like very weird. It constantly shifts, and its hard to gauge/adjust skintones/anything involving color when it's constantly changes like that. Look at : 10:20 to 10:26 When you choose 1 skintone, the one minute it will become very saturated and warm, the next minute it's pale and sickly.
Who knew that after watching an FFXIV review video of any kind, the one quote I won't get out of my head anytime soon is "Where's the moisture". Yep, didn't see that one coming.
I personally found my Dunesfolk Lalafell looking good for the most part. In comparison, the original model's hair looks greasy against the benchmark. I do agree that the eyebrows were a bit lighter than before, but my original eyebrows looked kind of scribbled on so getting actual eyebrows kind of outweighed that for me. Plus, the glassy look makes sense on the Dunesfolk, who have film over their eyes for protection from sandstorms, and they seemed more expressive than before in the CC imo.
look, i really like the new geaphics, they are amazing, but i have the same problem with my character, in the original ff my character looks happy, healthy.... in the benchmark? well... It looks like he hasn't had a night's sleep in over 5 years
To be honest the new looks better in every way... The old aura females were so dead, the "shine" you speak of on the old hair looks like Barbie doll plastic. She looks so much more alive in the new version. I think you guys are just so used to the old models your eyes are tricking you.
also never thought about moisture till now and the new character models indeed look drained. Someone in the game asked me if I was excited after trying the benchmark and I was not as enthusiastic as he wanted me to be I couldn't pinpoint it then but now I see it when I load my character save side by side.
i'm not sure if this is true but i remember hearing someone saying the lighting is unchanged in the character creator and switches to the improved lighting once you initiate the benchmark test, and i hope they're right about that and i'm sure everyone's criticism will be listened to in some form. i'd be surprised if there's no minor facial changes in dawntrail or its patches
everything just looks like it's either made of plastic or rubbed in oil i said this to my friends when they first showed off the character changes in hopes it was just a work in progress but nah this looks gross lol i'm hoping it's like the EW one and they make some major changes before release saw some stuff online with neck issues and moon cat's not having any fangs lmao.
My biggest problem with my au ra was the lips too! Like all the texture and shape was taken out and now instead of a tinted gloss she’s wearing overdrawn matte lips 😭
Personally I prefer the new graphics options, however I completely agree that the customisation options are extremely limiting :( *cries in male Au Ra with those horns*
sounds like the biggest issue is you don't like the new normal/specular maps for the mesh, especially since its less of a flat surface with the introduction to refraction on the skin.. (specular map being the b&w texture that determines shininess and reflectivity of a mesh object and refraction being the way the light is taken in and diffused when being dispersed). however objectively speaking as someone who does 3d rendering and sculpting this is huge leap into realism and extremely well done, tbf some characters are hard to look at as we've fallen in love with the characters we've seen almost everyday on and off for years.. also Au Ra and Miqote's were originally sculpted over 16 years ago, well before the release of 1.0, we shouldn't expect them to use the same low poly sculpt from well over a decade ago on graphical update, it would be impossible to refine sharp edges with retopology on those old sculpts and have it look identical. Vieras have a better outcome because they were made more recently and were already higher poly models... i totally see where your coming from, but im just trying to give you some extra information to assist in the copium
I feel your pain. My viera went from wide eyed cutie to benedryl addicted bun. 💀 it helped to change her eyes darker but yea… hate the eye shading they’ve added to the viera. They all look drugged as hell now.
Thank you for making this. I’m in the same boat, though my only real issue after some adjusting is my male rava’s ears being so out of place with the untouched textures. If feel bad for my veena friends and I’m on the deep compium train with you that these are just issues on the build used for the benchmark and not the final intention of the devs 🫠
There there. I guess as a Lalafell I didn't really notice. My complaint I suppose is they should have unlocked all hairstyles for this benchmark since I couldn't see what my Ramaza hair looks like.
the nose looks wet at certain angles and they made the cheeks look more puffy cause it is better rounded now... from certain angles we look like small animals now not that everyone notices that ... also the ears have been altered slightly though extra detail to hair was more noticed by people i think...
@@cadencesilvertale6310 I mean there's slight changes and I think as a Lala I look pretty darn handsome and cute :3 just want to know what my character looks like with my actual hair style cuz there's not really a good equvilant.
If you go into the my documents folder and copy your saved character appearance data from the main game over to the benchmark folder and renamed that.dat file, it will show up with the actual hairstyle, but you can’t customize the character It will be named something like character_01.DAT When you put it in the benchmark folder, you put bench at the end like other appearance.dat in that folder
I think if you have criticisms, you should always speak on them. I had some issues with my Highlander, as well. I ended up going into the character creator and tweaking some things, because he just didn't feel like the Highlander I loved. I did create a Highlander I like again, but I had to rework his features. It was a lesson in how even one minor change can completely throw off the look I originally went for. Having said that, I also created an Elezen that seriously looks like young Johnny Depp. It seriously has me thinking of rerolling.🤣Some are cursed, some are blessed, I guess.
I did the same thing, had to redo my characters from scratch and I achieved far better results than just loading their saved appearance. I tried doing that with my main and my alts and it's obvious that the graphics update, due to all the changes, means your character won't look the same if you use the exact same values for things that modify stuff like skin tone, eye/hair/makeup colour, etc. Because of the changes to textures, lightning, etc. the best approach is to re-create your character from scratch and you'll get something that more closely resembles your in-game character, probably not 100% but something that is pretty much very close if not the same but "HD".
@@BaghNakh1 that's why I'm glad they're throwing in a free Fantasia. I recreated my Highlander almost exactly the same, but some races got such a huge glow up it has me seriously considering a reroll. No joke, Elezen look amazing after the update, and I hear Au Ra also came out a winner in all this.
My bunny girl no longer looks the same. Her eyes are slightly farther apart, face is chubbier, and lips are somehow slightly squished and fatter at the same time. Nothing I changed made her look how I am used to seeing her😓
The only thing i know is that the character models have always looked bad in the character creation menu. They dont look the same in game even as of now
Have you seen new female Highlander in the benchmark trailer? Oh my fucking god. I've been Viera for the longest time, but those female Highlanders, I AM DROOLING ... and I'm a girl!
At first I thought you were doing a comedic vid.... Then I realised that, oh no, this is real. Tbh I found your miquo was better than the Viera. I found the latter's face was chubbier and the lips were squeezed horizontally. I think your "doll" description was a perfect way of describing things. I know you can't change this in character creation, but was there an option to use the new rendering method or is it FXAA by default? Maybe this is cope, but I'm hoping the new TSCMAA method will fix this. Also YoshiP said things weren't finalised. ...but now I'm scared to try the benchmark. I love my character... To the point that I haven't even used the free fantasia on her....
It's a little bit of both. I'm dramatic and that's fun for me and I'm sure it's fun for other people too. I'm serious, but I'm also not losing sleep over it c: I do genuinely feel taken aback at how my char looks with the graphics update. I think I'll get used to it, but I cant pretend that I wont feel any sense of loss once things change for good. I can only hope benchmark is the true issue. I'll see how things ACTUALLY look in Dawntrail, and if it bugs me well... I guess I'll be using that fantasia.
@@Aitherea Yeah it was a fun video; I should have started with that in my last comment, sorry! I'm not panicking about how it'll be in the actual release either, but the results were quite surprising. I guess now we know why SE used Lalas and female Hrothgars in their previews haha
@@idno4856 i dont think its gonna look as bad as the bench mark, i think theres something up with the lighting/rendering cuz it looked so much better in live letters xD. So i really cant know for sure how ill feel until DT is fully out. But it is sad to see how some of the features got tweaked and sometimes, kinda lost their charm. Everyone is getting straight boring lips now i guess =P
@@Aitherea Hahaha, yeah, and soulless eyes. But like you said in your vid... our characters have been through some stuff haha. But yeah, one other commenter said it's the old lighting engine, which makes sense. Also it's probably the old rendering method. Plus they aren't done and have tons of time to fix things as well. Out of all game devs, I'm willing to give these guys a chance and the benefit of the doubt
They just need to add a little more shine to some of the textures such as the lips, eyes, and maybe the hair. They're probably not done, but I recommend giving your thoughts or thumb ups* in the FFXIV general forums. They HAVE made changes based off those threads. There are a lot of threads right now talking about these same issues; so whatever you can get out there; it'll help the dev team make better changes. Still, I think they are not done with this whole thing. It'll probably take a lot longer than 7.0 itself, so let's just hope they'll focus on this so we can enjoy our characters in 7.0.
I agree the new avi textures look flat and plastic like. Hopefully it is because of an incomplete something in the benchmark. Though I'd expect the benchmark lighting and shaders to be a finished component.
There's enough variation from the old look that your brain is going to find the new look jarring, but not enough variation to keep your brain from total dissociation. Look at your models for a bit under different lighting; spin them around, and then take a break for a day and come back. You might find yourself a little creeped out to realize that your brain has bridged the dissociative gap and filled in the differential holes to an extent that they suddenly DO look like your characters. As far as character model updates I've experience in MMOs this might be the most tame one I've ever gone through.
When i saw the footage in live letters, I was impressed because the changes looked subtle -- like they basically just made things high res. Once applying it to my character in benchmark though, it feels quite jarring and I'm able to see that they didnt just upscale textures and make us look more crisp, they straight up changed the shape/look of certain features. I think what ill miss the most is the lips and the way the lipstick appeared on them QQ. I absolutely hate the new lipstick style Q_Q
@@Aitherea Yeah I think as they update textures and shaders it's just an inevitable consequence that some things are going to be more / less pronounced. Honestly we should all flood the forums with our suggestions, I doubt there is a better time for the CBU3 to be receptive to feedback. We really do need more options (and unlocking of existing options) in CC.
I was perfectly happy with the way my char looked when I imported it into the benchmark, like stepping into old shoes somebody had repaired and polished to a shine. BUT having said that, I can see your complaints about your Au Ra are valid. The mouth IS different. Objectively. The shading and lighting I believe as others have mentioned is just the old lighting system in char creator so that will probably get "fixed" in Danwtrail. I also remember Yoshi-P mentioning somewhere that they had trouble with one specific eye style for the Au Ra (I think it was the 2nd Fan fest on Dawntrail?), said style being the dead/soulless eyes, which I understand to be the exact eyestyle your char uses. Mouth slightly different, eyes not matching up and thats 40% of your characters defining features in-engine being... "wrong". The mouth I would imagine has a good chance to be fixed if the devs see a post with both side by side, but if my admitedly questionable memory is correct, those eyes are the best they got. How you would go about getting the devs attention on this however is another story entirely... One more thing that came to mind as I was watching ahead, the "blur filter" might actualy be an ingame graphics setting like motion blur (I know, should not affect anything here) or an overzelous Anti-aliasing or something like that. Might be worth adjusting any settings related to any type of blur or anti aliasing and see how that looks?
Looked into the settings before but didnt see anything special, I can check again for something like anti aliasing. I dont expect it to look that blurred in the actual release of DT cuz there's just no way based on all the footage weve seen from live letters. For me, I think I'll be okay with the eyes if they can add a better reflection. I WOULD prefer a smaller pupil, but they main issue is just kinda the lifelessness of them xD I think in terms of the actual details of the iris and the vibrancy of the color they look good.
@@Aitherea m!VeenaViera face 3 player here... a lot of people have issues with this face in particular but one thing here is they actually scaled up the iris size and made the pupils of the Veena smaller to be the same as the Rava, and a lot of people including myself are rightly upset about it. Also the mole/beauty mark facial feature that I consider to be a core personality feature, a trait that I've grown to love on him, has been replaced by a small line on his cheek, it has been wholly unaffected for rava on the otherhand, so I can only hope and pray that this is some sort of texture bug. Other than those two things, I'm actually happy with how my boi turned out, but that said, those two things are actually MAJOR things imo... so... idk, I'm conflicted.
Really, this whole thing just shows us that we need a better character creator. Lip gloss? Should be a slider for that. Eye size? Slider. Tattoos and makeup? Only one layer each is beyond terrible by today's standards, and the list could go on. We need to scream about this if we want it updated.
@@Aitherea I created a character in Black Desert Online last night. So many sliders, I actually got confused as to what was happening. There's one that I was moving all over the place and nothing changed. Anyway, I middle ground would be nice. Something between what we have and what BDO offers.
@@JamesRogers1983 I find BDO incredibly overwhelming. I think there IS such a thing as too much customization, and BDO is exactly that. But FFXIV could really improve with some sliders lol.
I have mixed feelings on my bun boy. I think he mostly looks fine but there's a couple, relatively small things that I hope they will fix before release (like nose and lips being too dark). And if they don't.. well I'll probably get used to it 🤷♀️
Exactly, same with my bun boy, he had a pretty small bunny nose with cool shading and now his nose just looks like he has dirt on it and is 3x bigger ! But I really like how it looked in profile, so I don't want to change his nose :') And idk what to do to make the lips look better, it's either too dark or nothing...
@-toki1567 The lip shape is also pretty bad across the board, like for every race. They just totally flattened them out and changed the lines of them and I do not understand how that was even possible so I am telling myself that maybe they aren't finished with mouths yet 😂 I think if they fixed the mouths a lot of the other changes would be more acceptable
I hope gently that this is still an in progress thing, I do agree on the eyes (with certain lighting they look GORGEOUS but without lighting it's just empty), and with my own main WoL the hairline is actually floating slightly above the forehead which now has more wrinkles, but seeing some people having more drastic changes like this is worrying, I hope things work out at least!
i think the most disappointing thing about all this is that they stated multiple times during fanfest that they weren't gonna make any dramatic changes to ppl's toons and yet that's exactly what's happened. i really hope they look at all this feedback from the benchmark and fix it before launch... >.>
i also agree that seeing my bun-girl in the benchmark trailer did nothing to change my mind. they completely changed the shape of the bun-girl face 4's lips and that close-up smile on the boat just looks terrifying >.> i think the only positive i took from the whole thing is that her forehead gem is now shiny haha
My biggest gripe with how my character looks in benchmark has nothing to do with lighting or moisture, but the size of her pupils 😭. I play Veena Viera and they have bigger pupils than Rava in the game now, in benchmark however they have the same size smaller pupil that Rava have. This one small change turned my cute bunny into very serious and sophisticated lady and as beautiful as she is, she is not herself anymore. I truly hope this is a bug or something that will get fixed because I feel incredibly sad with this change 😢
I think this is gonna be one of those things where some find it amazing and some find it tragic but are able to adjust to a new race or adjust settings on their current one to get that look back in a sort of way, I am of the belief that the Dawntrail version looks better than what we currently got. I don't see the plastic or dead behind the eyes thing if anything I think they look that way now in EW and look much more alive in DT. Unsure if its to do with the eye makeup if not (not sure if that's an Au'Ra thing or not since I play Viera). Put it this way EW looks like before makeup was put on vs with it on with DT version.
I think the biggest issues comes from loading your in-game character appearance into the benchmark. I did that and I was super dissapointed because my Elezen lady looked so different from her in-game version so I decided to recreate her by memory from scrach using the benchmark tool and my hopes came back up, although I've heard from a lot of people that probably Elezen are probably one of, if not, the biggest winners with the graphics update. I recommend that people re-create their characters from scratch. Because of the changes to the graphics engine, it stands to reason that the same values for colour-related things won't be the same so your current in-game appearance isn't correctly "translated" into the new graphics, so it made sense to me that re-creating my character from scratch and selecting new colour-related values for things like skin, hair, eyes, lips, makeup, etc. pretty much solved the most important concers I was having at the start. You have to recreate your character from memory, if you go side-by-side comparing in-game with benchmark you'll never achieve the same results because your character exists in two different graphic engines, you'll never ever recreate exactly the same, you kinda have to go with it and accept that some things will look different which is not necessarily a bad thing. Despite this, some of the feedback I've seen I totally support, things like Miqo'te missing their canines, the shape of the lips or anything else that is not just something you can blame on the new graphics engine but stuff that are more related to artistic choices. Removing Miqo'te canines would be equivalent to give Elezen shorter necks. I personally want to believe that this are just oversights or mistakes that happened because of the nature of the benchmark tool itself and probably the Miqo'te canines aren't getting removed or anything, I don't think it stands to reason that SE decided to do things like removing Miqo'te canines on purpose. I don't think the things we're seeing on the benchmark are final but probably the biggest and most important core changes that are already set in stone like texture-related and polygon-related things, like Au'ri scale/horn texture, jaw/chin/nose/ear shapes, character lightning/shadows, etc. Always remember to be respectful with the feedback. Though the benchmark tool is something that has existed previously, now that we're seeing a big updates to the graphics engine, one of the things they probably want to hear, other than players commenting on the general looks and performance, is player feedback regarding their characters since they're still on time to change details like the shape of the lips that you and others have mentioned and other details that players consider to be important. As an Elezen player I'm very happy and satisfied with how my character looks. I think in general I would say that the fact that most of the feedback has to do with very small details regarding the changes shows that the FF14 team did a very good job overall and I hope they're already with their hands at work collecting data and feedback and change the things that resonate the most across the community.
I had to change around my characters face a lot for the first benchmark, her eyes were like bugged out and her lip shape was wrong. I do really like the limbal rings now, but I do agree on the reduction of I guess brightness in their face.
I don't get why they gave the benchmark the same terrible lighting as the live game. In character creation, the beginning closeup, and the rest of the benchmark, my character looks like 3 different people. One thing I did notice is that in the live game there is a "character lighting" slider that makes you low and I think the benchmark has that maxed out and it's causing some crazy effects and shades. I think it will look far better once it comes out but I'm glad they're taking feedback and still making changes. I have been playing three MMOs that did a character model update (some very drastic) and there were always things that I just had to adjust to and accept. It's impossible for a system to get updated and be the same at the same time. Unfortunately we won't know what they REALLY look like until release.
You should always complain if you have issues with it, that's how things get fixed. I may be of the mind that a lot of the complaints come down to a matter of taste (moon cats losing their fangs is a crime, though), but I'm also insulated to minor changes to my character cause I made the decision like three years ago that I was switching to Hrothgar when femHroth dropped, so I look absolutely nothing like I used to. XD
More to the point of the video, I agree a more robust character creator would be really great. Just more options is always good. The ability to change more things around would be great.
Ive def noticed some people very happy with their models whereas others report similar issues to me. I think it's absolutely a mixture of personal taste but also just the specific race/features you had chosen for your char. I think my bunnygirl looks basically the same just more HD. I even kinda like the lipstick better. It's difficult because obivously they cant please everyone. It just makes me wish that we had better customization, because with how limited the options are, now that the update forces her look to change, i feel like I cant customize it in a way i like because there just arent enough options available.
I kinda hope they do what they did in everquest2 when they updated the models. They kept the old models in and you could toggle between the new and old models on a race by race basis.
For players with male characters or older looking characters I think it can even look more jarring when facial hair is involved. I’ve been playing as a white hair Hyur midlander male with face preset #7 which has a stubble by default and seems around 30 ish. The same face in the benchmark looks a lot more weathered and aged. With the white hair and stubble my WoL looks really aged 😭 Also, the stubbles are so muted now and looks so much different than they used to. And I agree that the shine of edges of the lips are gone and same with some contour effects and shadow. I’m huffing copium at the moment thinking that when the actual release comes it’ll look much better 😅
I fully agree with what you're saying. In part my Au Ra has a "glass eye" so the lack of shine (along with the limbal ring) works fantastic for that eye, but now my characters non glass eye looks even more dead than what I tried to make look like a false eye. We need to be able to add the gloss to the lips again, it seriously feel like you cannot have gloss anymore on the lips. I would've also liked it if they added a toggle for these features, and like some additional shine for the hair to make it look more in line with the old graphics. I feel like for a lot of characters it's a big downgrade in the personality of the features. The Hrothgar changes, for the most part, look great but for everyone else it looks so much worse imo. We just need a lot more customization which I doubt Square will ever agree to because FFXIV is built upon spaghetti code and duct tape is the only reason it's not falling apart so I doubt they'd ever try to update the Character Customization.
The problem with the new skin is that they're using new rendering techniques that are more realistic in terms of how light works on real skin, but on a character that doesn't have realistic skin textures and other things that are required to make the end result actually look good. The tuning of the parameters also seem a bit off. The old shading is very simple but that's what makes it work. Basically, give us more options. And regardless of what they did, change is of course going to make a lot of people upset.
I noticed that they tried to make the highlight in the eyes "dynamic." When your char moves, the lights in the eyes move. While it's a good idea in theory, it doesn't work in the context of this game -- at least not in the bench mark. Because, whenever there isnt much light available or you turn your back to the light, your eyes cease to have any reflection at all. And then they look ESPECIALLY soulless xD
for me it looks like the idle expression is now... idle 🤷♂️ the old mouth looks like a model stuck in a photo shoot, especially the slightly open mouth lol
My Viera's skintone got changed int he benchmark, and now her skin looks either like rust or very dry/pallid with no proper way to get the warm brown color again without some extremely strong undertones
It’s the bad implementation of DLSS, which is why it’s blurry. I couldn’t find a way to turn it off but I think the game will allow us to when it’s released
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I loaded up my Miqo'te in the Benchmark and I immediately shouted "That's not me!" I have rich brown skin (think milk chocolate), vibrant purple eyes, and bright purple highlights in my black hair. The new graphics have me with very dark almost pitch black skin, dull blackish purple eyes, and greyish hair you can barely see the purple in. When I tried to lighten up my skin back to my rich brown, their wasn't even a color palate for it. You either had really dark skin, or lighter brown skin that was tinged with yellow. The closest color to my original made me look jaundiced. I hope that the actual game is WAY better than this. If this is what the game is going to be like, then everyone should be given a free Fantasia.
the thing I noticed is the dynamic reflection on the eyes.. but that's it. As a Samurai, I wish that they bring back Kaiten or else we gonna Spam Shinten for 2 more years
I copied my cat over to the benchmark and mine looks pretty good, seems really crisp, can see the pores on her face at 4k maxed. The lighting is better because you can see some light coming through her ears at certain angles which is more realistic.
quick qustion for you, it's about the lighting and the shadows, did you make sure that you run it on windows 11 and under System>Display>Graphics>Default graphis settings You have everything, you can skip Auto HDR, enabled? If you don't the shading is visable only on fullscreen Also about the fangs, from what i read, it is a bug
I think I am even more critical. Not only do I agree with most of your points, but your viera also has a more round face in stead of a more chiseled one. Which I also find less attractive. Difference is pretty small tho.
I don't want to discourage anyone from giving their opinions about the changes out there, as it's all very subjective and personal. I will say however, there is a huge amount of people pointing out dramatic changes between their old and new characters where I just don't see it. I can see where the differences are, but I just can't agree with the descriptions people use such as saying they now have "souless eyes" or that their character is "ruined". I think this just goes to show how complicated it gets changing somethings appearance when personal preference is involved. What changes one person sees as an upgrade another is going to perceive as a downgrade. There isn't going to be a one-size-fits-all resolution to this problem and it's not the kind of problem you can really know about until people get their hands on the game with all the changes and experience it for themselves. Another thing to keep in mind is the development team has been working with these updates for over a year now, all these character changes would look normal to them by now. We're looking at it with fresh eyes so we're going to be way more attuned to the differences between old and new. I do believe a lot of this initial backlash is going to be temporary and come a year or two into Dawntrail people will have either adjusted to the new look, changed up their look via fantasia, and any lingering issues will be addressed via updates.
I totally agree with you about the preference thing, but here's the thing -- to an outsider, the changes may seem small. But for the person who's been playing that char for months or years, this is a very personal thing and we've grown a bit attached! So for us, even a small change makes a really big difference. Think about girls IRL putting on catwing eyeliner. It is just a small change, but some girls look quite different, no? At the end of the day, i think what this upgrade highlights is the lack of customization the game has. If there were more options, i think more people could fix up their characters in ways that they like that work with the new graphics update. But we just dont have that. The lack of customization has been a flaw of this game since it's conception id imagine, but I think we're suffering from it even more now that things are changing.
i expected them to ADD some things to the creator not just change the things we already had, and it’s making me nervous about how my char will look. the brows & keeper fangs really upset me, especially because brows can change a face SO MUCH. give us more brow options & let us dye themmmm this could fix so much with that issue. there’s so many things wrong with the benchmark, praying they listen & fix what they can….
I do you find it funny that the characters look better in that trailer that they posted about the graphical changes that they're making compare to the benchmark that they released
i'm surprised nothing was said about them low res scales. I dunno if it's a graphics setting but my character's scales now look like pixelated stickers on her skin lol
they did say that they are taking feedback for the benchmark on the forums though so changes can still be made
Which is great people should go over there and say their piece then. The expansion isn't out yet and they are still working on it. This is why I'm not upset about anything.
Pre-Rehab
Post-Rehab
She went through some shit.
The cats losing the fangs is the biggest L of the century.
As people said just the angle and they reworked their teeth to add more polys to it I think...less jagged I suppose
This has been fixed now to my knowledge, or it will be for the next benchmark.
Weird, I felt like the quality looked better without compression butchering it from UA-cams side
the CC is still using the old lighting engine so it clashes with the new textures
Thanks. This confirms my suspicions.
I can't wait to see how the actual game looks because I was like "there's no way this is the full picture, there's no way this blurry ass skin texture is it." Because it looked so diff in the live letters xD
@@Aitherea i first noticed it because my viera's lips looked flat in the CC but when i got to the char select screen where you pick armor they looked glossy like light was reflecting off them.
@@Aitherea yeah that's why I asked you whether the TSCMAA rendering method was available cause my understanding is that'll fix things a bit. But then again, Yoshi P shows the difference on trees and flowers, not characters, so it's only speculation on my part.
Once again. Mods to the rescue, feeling kinda bad for console players. I know this isn't full picture, but even with full-ish picture we saw in fanfest, I still find old textures better on most races/gender combos. They feel more alive.
Modded characters look like we aren't even playing the same game, so players still have that.
my FC mates made the observation that the characters look like a plastic barbie dolls
I see it :x
We lalafells got lucky I guess. I also wish there was more shine on the lips though.
The lalas were left the most recognizable, so yes you got lucky
I hope they actually get these things fix. I cant even run the benchmark because Im on ps5. So… I HAVE NO IDEA how my aura is gonna look like 😭 (scared)
If I had to wager a guess, the character creator is still using old lighting data and so it's going to look wonkier. The same thing happened for my Miqo, but the moment I got into the benchmark itself, all the issues weren't noticeable.
i felt like my au ra still looked wonky in the trailer :c miqo looked a bit better though, less psychotic LOL
For the life out of me I couldn’t find the option to turn up or turn down the character lighting like you can in Endwalker and I feel like people having the option to match their character lighting settings to benchmark would somewhat help
I had the same reaction to seeing my Au Ra in the benchmark. Even the updated benchmark didn't get it right. There's no life in her eyes. Her personality is gone. She's just a doll and I miss my character. I'll probably have to switch to Miqote at this point. Which is such a shame, because I've been an Au Ra since HW. :(
When I saw the graphics update stuff, I always thought the brightness of the eyes going down was a bad thing. The colors aren't even as vibrant as I want on current graphics, and now you'll have to zoom in to even see someone's eye color at all.
So the biggest problem with bun boys is that all Viera now use the Rava assets, check the Veena eyes, and you'll see they now use the Rava thicker iris. So i think its a big reason why they look off.
I was wondering why my Veena's eyes looked bigger! Between this and the lighting changes causing illuminated ears, I really hope they fix it before the main game comes out.
I swear the lips on my veena contrasts with the skin more than it used to... its really bugging me it almost looks like he is wearing lipstick
Catgirls losing their fangs is jarring.
well moonkeepers, but yeah. Sunseekers don't have them
I just used the benchmark and could definitely still see fangs.
Male mooncat here, and I can definitely still see fangs in the character creation and benchmark trailer,. Certain angles make it hard to see but it's enough to keep me happy. I'm not sure if they nerfed it and made them more subtle, or if the smoothness of the new models simply makes it look smaller. The older models are more primitive and jagged, so the fangs might be more pronounced as a side-effect.
Still, I agree with the character creation looking horrible. Benchmark trailer made it look a bit better, and the expressions are a hundred percent an upgrade, very expressive, but I still prefer the old "matte" skin texture :(
@@Aviii_ yeah, possibly with the teeth being more detailed they don’t stand out as much. The character creator definitely needs work. Some character models have been updated really well, while other models look entirely different. My catboy looks fine, but my viera girl looks just terrible
Talked about this with most of my fc and neither one really cares. Because they are all modding anyway like most they know in limsa. So i guess only people who cares are either on console or never touched mare.
Thankfully im a sun cat and on console so i don't have a problem.
Honestly, I am so happy to see so many people complain about the new looks of their characters. I re-created my BF's character and thought he just looked a bit softer (Miqo male). To me it looked fine but he was like "this is not my character!!!!". Then I re-created mine and saw it for myself. My Miqo became a chubby hamster (cheek shape, mouth shape) and my Viera got a pig nose. The lips of my Lala are way too thin now and her nose consists of only two dots that supposedly are the holes to breathe through. All in all, except for my Au Ra every character I worked on to make them look as cute as possible was ruined. At first I thought I was just being over-dramatic, but seeing how unhappy everyone else also is gives me some peace of mind, cause that means something REALLY is not working out quite right and it‘s not just my imagination.
As people said could be because old engine clashing with new textures and stuff just have ti wait until the actual release. And they are apparently taking feedback from people so there is that.
@@PrincessofKeys And we just got the confirmation that they‘ll update the Benchmark software, so here‘s hoping it really changes stuff. 🙏
graphics in the eyes are way better. same everywhere else except you might be cooking in the hair and lip shine point.
However youre right in that everything did kind of change slightly sculpturally. That's the main thing.
Please communicate on the forums if you havnt already
Thank you so, so much for making this video. I thought I was going insane. I cried when I saw my WoL in the benchmark. And the gaslighters are out in force on the forums today, so I was feeling really alone, even with the countless other people voicing their concerns. Just hearing you talk about this made me feel so much better.
where's the M O I S T U R E?
haha coping crying what did they do to our characters
The lighting in Character customization in the Benchmark is like very weird. It constantly shifts, and its hard to gauge/adjust skintones/anything involving color when it's constantly changes like that.
Look at : 10:20 to 10:26
When you choose 1 skintone, the one minute it will become very saturated and warm, the next minute it's pale and sickly.
the CC is always been like that. ( i don't mean it not bad, just not anything new)
Havent they specifically said that they actually tried to maintain the "dead look female AuRA"? I think they did
Yeah, that's why half of us play Au'ra lmao, no thoughts head empty
I love the resting bitch face on my character
Yup they sure did
i honestly love the new au ra look...the eyes are gorg ;-;
Who knew that after watching an FFXIV review video of any kind, the one quote I won't get out of my head anytime soon is "Where's the moisture".
Yep, didn't see that one coming.
WHERE'S THE M O I S T U R E ?
@@Aithereain Balmung
@@venti9925 *spits coffee out*
I personally found my Dunesfolk Lalafell looking good for the most part. In comparison, the original model's hair looks greasy against the benchmark. I do agree that the eyebrows were a bit lighter than before, but my original eyebrows looked kind of scribbled on so getting actual eyebrows kind of outweighed that for me. Plus, the glassy look makes sense on the Dunesfolk, who have film over their eyes for protection from sandstorms, and they seemed more expressive than before in the CC imo.
look, i really like the new geaphics, they are amazing, but i have the same problem with my character, in the original ff my character looks happy, healthy.... in the benchmark? well... It looks like he hasn't had a night's sleep in over 5 years
My Jaime looks like she wants to have a bar fight.
Thank you. I mention the same issues and got called out.
To be honest the new looks better in every way... The old aura females were so dead, the "shine" you speak of on the old hair looks like Barbie doll plastic. She looks so much more alive in the new version. I think you guys are just so used to the old models your eyes are tricking you.
100% agree with you on all your points made here
Agree
+1
also never thought about moisture till now and the new character models indeed look drained. Someone in the game asked me if I was excited after trying the benchmark and I was not as enthusiastic as he wanted me to be I couldn't pinpoint it then but now I see it when I load my character save side by side.
i'm not sure if this is true but i remember hearing someone saying the lighting is unchanged in the character creator and switches to the improved lighting once you initiate the benchmark test, and i hope they're right about that and i'm sure everyone's criticism will be listened to in some form. i'd be surprised if there's no minor facial changes in dawntrail or its patches
everything just looks like it's either made of plastic or rubbed in oil i said this to my friends when they first showed off the character changes in hopes it was just a work in progress but nah this looks gross lol i'm hoping it's like the EW one and they make some major changes before release saw some stuff online with neck issues and moon cat's not having any fangs lmao.
It's amusing you want the big shine on hair while others go "wow old hair looks like clay"
My biggest problem with my au ra was the lips too! Like all the texture and shape was taken out and now instead of a tinted gloss she’s wearing overdrawn matte lips 😭
Personally I prefer the new graphics options, however I completely agree that the customisation options are extremely limiting :(
*cries in male Au Ra with those horns*
sounds like the biggest issue is you don't like the new normal/specular maps for the mesh, especially since its less of a flat surface with the introduction to refraction on the skin.. (specular map being the b&w texture that determines shininess and reflectivity of a mesh object and refraction being the way the light is taken in and diffused when being dispersed). however objectively speaking as someone who does 3d rendering and sculpting this is huge leap into realism and extremely well done, tbf some characters are hard to look at as we've fallen in love with the characters we've seen almost everyday on and off for years.. also Au Ra and Miqote's were originally sculpted over 16 years ago, well before the release of 1.0, we shouldn't expect them to use the same low poly sculpt from well over a decade ago on graphical update, it would be impossible to refine sharp edges with retopology on those old sculpts and have it look identical. Vieras have a better outcome because they were made more recently and were already higher poly models... i totally see where your coming from, but im just trying to give you some extra information to assist in the copium
So the miqote's and au ra models are made from scratch in the new graphical update??
Au'ra was introduced in Heavensward, though. I don't think they're pre-1.0 models.
What about the curve of the lips? How can they improve that?
Sure, but that does not explain how light colors on lips still look horrendous, like its painted in MSpaint without a gradient or anything
I feel your pain. My viera went from wide eyed cutie to benedryl addicted bun. 💀 it helped to change her eyes darker but yea… hate the eye shading they’ve added to the viera. They all look drugged as hell now.
Thank you for making this. I’m in the same boat, though my only real issue after some adjusting is my male rava’s ears being so out of place with the untouched textures. If feel bad for my veena friends and I’m on the deep compium train with you that these are just issues on the build used for the benchmark and not the final intention of the devs 🫠
Well, mine looks better in the benchmark. Im happy
There there.
I guess as a Lalafell I didn't really notice. My complaint I suppose is they should have unlocked all hairstyles for this benchmark since I couldn't see what my Ramaza hair looks like.
the nose looks wet at certain angles and they made the cheeks look more puffy cause it is better rounded now... from certain angles we look like small animals now not that everyone notices that ... also the ears have been altered slightly though extra detail to hair was more noticed by people i think...
@@cadencesilvertale6310 I mean there's slight changes and I think as a Lala I look pretty darn handsome and cute :3 just want to know what my character looks like with my actual hair style cuz there's not really a good equvilant.
If you go into the my documents folder and copy your saved character appearance data from the main game over to the benchmark folder and renamed that.dat file, it will show up with the actual hairstyle, but you can’t customize the character
It will be named something like character_01.DAT When you put it in the benchmark folder, you put bench at the end like other appearance.dat in that folder
Until the lalafel smiles. They look psychotic. Due to the teeth being much smaller than the skull.
I think if you have criticisms, you should always speak on them.
I had some issues with my Highlander, as well. I ended up going into the character creator and tweaking some things, because he just didn't feel like the Highlander I loved. I did create a Highlander I like again, but I had to rework his features. It was a lesson in how even one minor change can completely throw off the look I originally went for.
Having said that, I also created an Elezen that seriously looks like young Johnny Depp. It seriously has me thinking of rerolling.🤣Some are cursed, some are blessed, I guess.
i’m glad the elezen were done justice with this graphic rework. they used to look really wrinkly and overall odd
I did the same thing, had to redo my characters from scratch and I achieved far better results than just loading their saved appearance. I tried doing that with my main and my alts and it's obvious that the graphics update, due to all the changes, means your character won't look the same if you use the exact same values for things that modify stuff like skin tone, eye/hair/makeup colour, etc. Because of the changes to textures, lightning, etc. the best approach is to re-create your character from scratch and you'll get something that more closely resembles your in-game character, probably not 100% but something that is pretty much very close if not the same but "HD".
@@BaghNakh1 that's why I'm glad they're throwing in a free Fantasia. I recreated my Highlander almost exactly the same, but some races got such a huge glow up it has me seriously considering a reroll.
No joke, Elezen look amazing after the update, and I hear Au Ra also came out a winner in all this.
@@BaghNakh1 Good point
To be fair I’m on ps5 and I’m terrified at how my aura is going to come out 😢
Why is the mouth in the down-trail so fuzzy? Looks like they put a 300% soft filter on the lips area and yea, the eyes are rather soft too..
My bunny girl no longer looks the same. Her eyes are slightly farther apart, face is chubbier, and lips are somehow slightly squished and fatter at the same time. Nothing I changed made her look how I am used to seeing her😓
My kindred spirit c:
I mean the whole dead look wasn’t anything new
I always seen people describe Auri girls as the “Eastern Porcelain doll.” Like aesthetic
Great video! I think it inspired the blog post Yoshi P wrote since they also referenced the "Lifeless eyes'"
My character looks like they are in a movie, it turned out great for me. Seriously can’t wait.
My midlander looks fantastic. I am so excited.
@@camillaturner1610the hyurs are finally winning! I might play as one!
Notes to Yoshi-P:
1. Where's our lip gloss, huh?!
2. Why lips straight no curve, huhh?!?
3. Eyebrow goneeee!?!?!?!?!?
4. Huuuhh??!?!?/?
There will be revision for the benchmark, there's still hope for the moisture! xD
Meteor himself looks jarring in the benchmark
I THOUGHT SO TOO xD I think I'm too used to seeing him in the super HD trailers. I was like my mans looks made of playdough what is happening xD
In my 5 years of playing this I've learn to never expect too much out of FFXIV so I'm not even mad anymore lol
I’m so glad you pointed out the lips… there was no shine on it when i tested it lol. F3 Au Ra looked different in the benchmark too :/
The only thing i know is that the character models have always looked bad in the character creation menu. They dont look the same in game even as of now
Have you seen new female Highlander in the benchmark trailer? Oh my fucking god. I've been Viera for the longest time, but those female Highlanders, I AM DROOLING ... and I'm a girl!
At first I thought you were doing a comedic vid.... Then I realised that, oh no, this is real. Tbh I found your miquo was better than the Viera. I found the latter's face was chubbier and the lips were squeezed horizontally. I think your "doll" description was a perfect way of describing things.
I know you can't change this in character creation, but was there an option to use the new rendering method or is it FXAA by default? Maybe this is cope, but I'm hoping the new TSCMAA method will fix this. Also YoshiP said things weren't finalised.
...but now I'm scared to try the benchmark. I love my character... To the point that I haven't even used the free fantasia on her....
It's a little bit of both. I'm dramatic and that's fun for me and I'm sure it's fun for other people too. I'm serious, but I'm also not losing sleep over it c: I do genuinely feel taken aback at how my char looks with the graphics update. I think I'll get used to it, but I cant pretend that I wont feel any sense of loss once things change for good. I can only hope benchmark is the true issue. I'll see how things ACTUALLY look in Dawntrail, and if it bugs me well... I guess I'll be using that fantasia.
@@Aitherea Yeah it was a fun video; I should have started with that in my last comment, sorry! I'm not panicking about how it'll be in the actual release either, but the results were quite surprising.
I guess now we know why SE used Lalas and female Hrothgars in their previews haha
@@idno4856 i dont think its gonna look as bad as the bench mark, i think theres something up with the lighting/rendering cuz it looked so much better in live letters xD. So i really cant know for sure how ill feel until DT is fully out. But it is sad to see how some of the features got tweaked and sometimes, kinda lost their charm. Everyone is getting straight boring lips now i guess =P
@@Aitherea Hahaha, yeah, and soulless eyes. But like you said in your vid... our characters have been through some stuff haha. But yeah, one other commenter said it's the old lighting engine, which makes sense. Also it's probably the old rendering method. Plus they aren't done and have tons of time to fix things as well. Out of all game devs, I'm willing to give these guys a chance and the benefit of the doubt
Yeah the color in my aura's lips is just nonexistent, they look sickly compared to before, among other things
They just need to add a little more shine to some of the textures such as the lips, eyes, and maybe the hair. They're probably not done, but I recommend giving your thoughts or thumb ups* in the FFXIV general forums. They HAVE made changes based off those threads. There are a lot of threads right now talking about these same issues; so whatever you can get out there; it'll help the dev team make better changes. Still, I think they are not done with this whole thing. It'll probably take a lot longer than 7.0 itself, so let's just hope they'll focus on this so we can enjoy our characters in 7.0.
I hope that people are posting their complaints about the benchmark on the FFXIV forums. They DO read them when it comes to these kinds of things.
Im gonna assume this is a demo until release
i really hope this isn't the final product
just downloaded the benchmark today i cant unsee it now
the eyes look better but the lips are a no from me
You are correct, F the people downvoting, they are idiots
I agree the new avi textures look flat and plastic like. Hopefully it is because of an incomplete something in the benchmark. Though I'd expect the benchmark lighting and shaders to be a finished component.
There's enough variation from the old look that your brain is going to find the new look jarring, but not enough variation to keep your brain from total dissociation. Look at your models for a bit under different lighting; spin them around, and then take a break for a day and come back. You might find yourself a little creeped out to realize that your brain has bridged the dissociative gap and filled in the differential holes to an extent that they suddenly DO look like your characters.
As far as character model updates I've experience in MMOs this might be the most tame one I've ever gone through.
When i saw the footage in live letters, I was impressed because the changes looked subtle -- like they basically just made things high res. Once applying it to my character in benchmark though, it feels quite jarring and I'm able to see that they didnt just upscale textures and make us look more crisp, they straight up changed the shape/look of certain features. I think what ill miss the most is the lips and the way the lipstick appeared on them QQ. I absolutely hate the new lipstick style Q_Q
@@Aitherea Yeah I think as they update textures and shaders it's just an inevitable consequence that some things are going to be more / less pronounced.
Honestly we should all flood the forums with our suggestions, I doubt there is a better time for the CBU3 to be receptive to feedback. We really do need more options (and unlocking of existing options) in CC.
I was perfectly happy with the way my char looked when I imported it into the benchmark, like stepping into old shoes somebody had repaired and polished to a shine.
BUT having said that, I can see your complaints about your Au Ra are valid. The mouth IS different. Objectively.
The shading and lighting I believe as others have mentioned is just the old lighting system in char creator so that will probably get "fixed" in Danwtrail.
I also remember Yoshi-P mentioning somewhere that they had trouble with one specific eye style for the Au Ra (I think it was the 2nd Fan fest on Dawntrail?), said style being the dead/soulless eyes, which I understand to be the exact eyestyle your char uses.
Mouth slightly different, eyes not matching up and thats 40% of your characters defining features in-engine being... "wrong". The mouth I would imagine has a good chance to be fixed if the devs see a post with both side by side, but if my admitedly questionable memory is correct, those eyes are the best they got. How you would go about getting the devs attention on this however is another story entirely...
One more thing that came to mind as I was watching ahead, the "blur filter" might actualy be an ingame graphics setting like motion blur (I know, should not affect anything here) or an overzelous Anti-aliasing or something like that. Might be worth adjusting any settings related to any type of blur or anti aliasing and see how that looks?
Looked into the settings before but didnt see anything special, I can check again for something like anti aliasing. I dont expect it to look that blurred in the actual release of DT cuz there's just no way based on all the footage weve seen from live letters. For me, I think I'll be okay with the eyes if they can add a better reflection. I WOULD prefer a smaller pupil, but they main issue is just kinda the lifelessness of them xD I think in terms of the actual details of the iris and the vibrancy of the color they look good.
@@Aitherea m!VeenaViera face 3 player here... a lot of people have issues with this face in particular but one thing here is they actually scaled up the iris size and made the pupils of the Veena smaller to be the same as the Rava, and a lot of people including myself are rightly upset about it. Also the mole/beauty mark facial feature that I consider to be a core personality feature, a trait that I've grown to love on him, has been replaced by a small line on his cheek, it has been wholly unaffected for rava on the otherhand, so I can only hope and pray that this is some sort of texture bug. Other than those two things, I'm actually happy with how my boi turned out, but that said, those two things are actually MAJOR things imo... so... idk, I'm conflicted.
I'm struggling to like it, because my au'ra's face looks completely different to meeee. cries. trying to stay positive lol.
Really, this whole thing just shows us that we need a better character creator. Lip gloss? Should be a slider for that. Eye size? Slider. Tattoos and makeup? Only one layer each is beyond terrible by today's standards, and the list could go on. We need to scream about this if we want it updated.
YES YES AND YES. People are out there like "just tweak the settings" but I can't. The options left for me are too limited xD
@@Aitherea I created a character in Black Desert Online last night. So many sliders, I actually got confused as to what was happening. There's one that I was moving all over the place and nothing changed. Anyway, I middle ground would be nice. Something between what we have and what BDO offers.
@@JamesRogers1983 I find BDO incredibly overwhelming. I think there IS such a thing as too much customization, and BDO is exactly that. But FFXIV could really improve with some sliders lol.
@@Aithereavery much so. I almost pressed randomise. There’s far too many options.
I have mixed feelings on my bun boy. I think he mostly looks fine but there's a couple, relatively small things that I hope they will fix before release (like nose and lips being too dark). And if they don't.. well I'll probably get used to it 🤷♀️
Exactly, same with my bun boy, he had a pretty small bunny nose with cool shading and now his nose just looks like he has dirt on it and is 3x bigger ! But I really like how it looked in profile, so I don't want to change his nose :') And idk what to do to make the lips look better, it's either too dark or nothing...
@-toki1567 The lip shape is also pretty bad across the board, like for every race. They just totally flattened them out and changed the lines of them and I do not understand how that was even possible so I am telling myself that maybe they aren't finished with mouths yet 😂 I think if they fixed the mouths a lot of the other changes would be more acceptable
@@maddragonqueen_ yeah exactly, I hope that they will fix this, but I think if everyone points it out they will fix it
I hope gently that this is still an in progress thing, I do agree on the eyes (with certain lighting they look GORGEOUS but without lighting it's just empty), and with my own main WoL the hairline is actually floating slightly above the forehead which now has more wrinkles, but seeing some people having more drastic changes like this is worrying, I hope things work out at least!
yeah this graphical update is not good...
better be handing out some fantasias because everyone looks all wrong now
i think the most disappointing thing about all this is that they stated multiple times during fanfest that they weren't gonna make any dramatic changes to ppl's toons and yet that's exactly what's happened. i really hope they look at all this feedback from the benchmark and fix it before launch... >.>
i also agree that seeing my bun-girl in the benchmark trailer did nothing to change my mind. they completely changed the shape of the bun-girl face 4's lips and that close-up smile on the boat just looks terrifying >.> i think the only positive i took from the whole thing is that her forehead gem is now shiny haha
My biggest gripe with how my character looks in benchmark has nothing to do with lighting or moisture, but the size of her pupils 😭. I play Veena Viera and they have bigger pupils than Rava in the game now, in benchmark however they have the same size smaller pupil that Rava have.
This one small change turned my cute bunny into very serious and sophisticated lady and as beautiful as she is, she is not herself anymore. I truly hope this is a bug or something that will get fixed because I feel incredibly sad with this change 😢
i think your new au ra looks amazing!
But 100% different just need to get used to i hope XD also more sliders pls SE!!!
Maybe we can pray they'll give us sliders for 8.0 xD
I think this is gonna be one of those things where some find it amazing and some find it tragic but are able to adjust to a new race or adjust settings on their current one to get that look back in a sort of way, I am of the belief that the Dawntrail version looks better than what we currently got. I don't see the plastic or dead behind the eyes thing if anything I think they look that way now in EW and look much more alive in DT. Unsure if its to do with the eye makeup if not (not sure if that's an Au'Ra thing or not since I play Viera). Put it this way EW looks like before makeup was put on vs with it on with DT version.
I think the biggest issues comes from loading your in-game character appearance into the benchmark. I did that and I was super dissapointed because my Elezen lady looked so different from her in-game version so I decided to recreate her by memory from scrach using the benchmark tool and my hopes came back up, although I've heard from a lot of people that probably Elezen are probably one of, if not, the biggest winners with the graphics update.
I recommend that people re-create their characters from scratch. Because of the changes to the graphics engine, it stands to reason that the same values for colour-related things won't be the same so your current in-game appearance isn't correctly "translated" into the new graphics, so it made sense to me that re-creating my character from scratch and selecting new colour-related values for things like skin, hair, eyes, lips, makeup, etc. pretty much solved the most important concers I was having at the start. You have to recreate your character from memory, if you go side-by-side comparing in-game with benchmark you'll never achieve the same results because your character exists in two different graphic engines, you'll never ever recreate exactly the same, you kinda have to go with it and accept that some things will look different which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Despite this, some of the feedback I've seen I totally support, things like Miqo'te missing their canines, the shape of the lips or anything else that is not just something you can blame on the new graphics engine but stuff that are more related to artistic choices. Removing Miqo'te canines would be equivalent to give Elezen shorter necks. I personally want to believe that this are just oversights or mistakes that happened because of the nature of the benchmark tool itself and probably the Miqo'te canines aren't getting removed or anything, I don't think it stands to reason that SE decided to do things like removing Miqo'te canines on purpose. I don't think the things we're seeing on the benchmark are final but probably the biggest and most important core changes that are already set in stone like texture-related and polygon-related things, like Au'ri scale/horn texture, jaw/chin/nose/ear shapes, character lightning/shadows, etc.
Always remember to be respectful with the feedback. Though the benchmark tool is something that has existed previously, now that we're seeing a big updates to the graphics engine, one of the things they probably want to hear, other than players commenting on the general looks and performance, is player feedback regarding their characters since they're still on time to change details like the shape of the lips that you and others have mentioned and other details that players consider to be important.
As an Elezen player I'm very happy and satisfied with how my character looks. I think in general I would say that the fact that most of the feedback has to do with very small details regarding the changes shows that the FF14 team did a very good job overall and I hope they're already with their hands at work collecting data and feedback and change the things that resonate the most across the community.
My F Midlander Face 5 shape looks different especially the eyes. It's gonna take while for me to get used to it. I hope they can still fix it. 😢
I had to change around my characters face a lot for the first benchmark, her eyes were like bugged out and her lip shape was wrong. I do really like the limbal rings now, but I do agree on the reduction of I guess brightness in their face.
I don't get why they gave the benchmark the same terrible lighting as the live game. In character creation, the beginning closeup, and the rest of the benchmark, my character looks like 3 different people. One thing I did notice is that in the live game there is a "character lighting" slider that makes you low and I think the benchmark has that maxed out and it's causing some crazy effects and shades.
I think it will look far better once it comes out but I'm glad they're taking feedback and still making changes. I have been playing three MMOs that did a character model update (some very drastic) and there were always things that I just had to adjust to and accept. It's impossible for a system to get updated and be the same at the same time. Unfortunately we won't know what they REALLY look like until release.
You should always complain if you have issues with it, that's how things get fixed. I may be of the mind that a lot of the complaints come down to a matter of taste (moon cats losing their fangs is a crime, though), but I'm also insulated to minor changes to my character cause I made the decision like three years ago that I was switching to Hrothgar when femHroth dropped, so I look absolutely nothing like I used to. XD
More to the point of the video, I agree a more robust character creator would be really great. Just more options is always good. The ability to change more things around would be great.
Ive def noticed some people very happy with their models whereas others report similar issues to me. I think it's absolutely a mixture of personal taste but also just the specific race/features you had chosen for your char. I think my bunnygirl looks basically the same just more HD. I even kinda like the lipstick better. It's difficult because obivously they cant please everyone. It just makes me wish that we had better customization, because with how limited the options are, now that the update forces her look to change, i feel like I cant customize it in a way i like because there just arent enough options available.
I kinda hope they do what they did in everquest2 when they updated the models. They kept the old models in and you could toggle between the new and old models on a race by race basis.
For players with male characters or older looking characters I think it can even look more jarring when facial hair is involved. I’ve been playing as a white hair Hyur midlander male with face preset #7 which has a stubble by default and seems around 30 ish. The same face in the benchmark looks a lot more weathered and aged. With the white hair and stubble my WoL looks really aged 😭
Also, the stubbles are so muted now and looks so much different than they used to. And I agree that the shine of edges of the lips are gone and same with some contour effects and shadow. I’m huffing copium at the moment thinking that when the actual release comes it’ll look much better 😅
I fully agree with what you're saying. In part my Au Ra has a "glass eye" so the lack of shine (along with the limbal ring) works fantastic for that eye, but now my characters non glass eye looks even more dead than what I tried to make look like a false eye. We need to be able to add the gloss to the lips again, it seriously feel like you cannot have gloss anymore on the lips. I would've also liked it if they added a toggle for these features, and like some additional shine for the hair to make it look more in line with the old graphics. I feel like for a lot of characters it's a big downgrade in the personality of the features. The Hrothgar changes, for the most part, look great but for everyone else it looks so much worse imo. We just need a lot more customization which I doubt Square will ever agree to because FFXIV is built upon spaghetti code and duct tape is the only reason it's not falling apart so I doubt they'd ever try to update the Character Customization.
With regards to the bun looking the best: you know a graphics update is fucked when the best looking part of it is changed the least from the original
The problem with the new skin is that they're using new rendering techniques that are more realistic in terms of how light works on real skin, but on a character that doesn't have realistic skin textures and other things that are required to make the end result actually look good. The tuning of the parameters also seem a bit off. The old shading is very simple but that's what makes it work.
Basically, give us more options.
And regardless of what they did, change is of course going to make a lot of people upset.
I noticed that they tried to make the highlight in the eyes "dynamic." When your char moves, the lights in the eyes move. While it's a good idea in theory, it doesn't work in the context of this game -- at least not in the bench mark. Because, whenever there isnt much light available or you turn your back to the light, your eyes cease to have any reflection at all. And then they look ESPECIALLY soulless xD
My lalafells skin is yellow 😭
I like the new look, loved the huge density of animals as it ran across the screen
ngl those rock creatures looked cute af
@@Aitherea yess and the lil sheepy looking things
for me it looks like the idle expression is now... idle 🤷♂️ the old mouth looks like a model stuck in a photo shoot, especially the slightly open mouth lol
My Viera's skintone got changed int he benchmark, and now her skin looks either like rust or very dry/pallid with no proper way to get the warm brown color again without some extremely strong undertones
It’s the bad implementation of DLSS, which is why it’s blurry. I couldn’t find a way to turn it off but I think the game will allow us to when it’s released
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I loaded up my Miqo'te in the Benchmark and I immediately shouted "That's not me!" I have rich brown skin (think milk chocolate), vibrant purple eyes, and bright purple highlights in my black hair. The new graphics have me with very dark almost pitch black skin, dull blackish purple eyes, and greyish hair you can barely see the purple in. When I tried to lighten up my skin back to my rich brown, their wasn't even a color palate for it. You either had really dark skin, or lighter brown skin that was tinged with yellow. The closest color to my original made me look jaundiced. I hope that the actual game is WAY better than this. If this is what the game is going to be like, then everyone should be given a free Fantasia.
We ARE all getting free fantasia c: but it sucks because even with that, like you said there might not be an option that matches what you had before.
the thing I noticed is the dynamic reflection on the eyes.. but that's it. As a Samurai, I wish that they bring back Kaiten or else we gonna Spam Shinten for 2 more years
I copied my cat over to the benchmark and mine looks pretty good, seems really crisp, can see the pores on her face at 4k maxed. The lighting is better because you can see some light coming through her ears at certain angles which is more realistic.
quick qustion for you, it's about the lighting and the shadows, did you make sure that you run it on windows 11 and under System>Display>Graphics>Default graphis settings
You have everything, you can skip Auto HDR, enabled?
If you don't the shading is visable only on fullscreen
Also about the fangs, from what i read, it is a bug
My Highlander's neck is clipping through his own hair and I think I burst a blood vessel when I saw it
I think I am even more critical. Not only do I agree with most of your points, but your viera also has a more round face in stead of a more chiseled one. Which I also find less attractive. Difference is pretty small tho.
My cope is that it's the lighting
Another great video! I love listening to rants but your voice just makes it so much better!! 😁
I do have this conflicted feeling with the new models and I just can't put my finger on what exactly
I agree. The second I saw how my character looked I cringed a little. Here's hoping the full release looks better.
I don't want to discourage anyone from giving their opinions about the changes out there, as it's all very subjective and personal. I will say however, there is a huge amount of people pointing out dramatic changes between their old and new characters where I just don't see it. I can see where the differences are, but I just can't agree with the descriptions people use such as saying they now have "souless eyes" or that their character is "ruined".
I think this just goes to show how complicated it gets changing somethings appearance when personal preference is involved. What changes one person sees as an upgrade another is going to perceive as a downgrade. There isn't going to be a one-size-fits-all resolution to this problem and it's not the kind of problem you can really know about until people get their hands on the game with all the changes and experience it for themselves.
Another thing to keep in mind is the development team has been working with these updates for over a year now, all these character changes would look normal to them by now. We're looking at it with fresh eyes so we're going to be way more attuned to the differences between old and new. I do believe a lot of this initial backlash is going to be temporary and come a year or two into Dawntrail people will have either adjusted to the new look, changed up their look via fantasia, and any lingering issues will be addressed via updates.
I totally agree with you about the preference thing, but here's the thing -- to an outsider, the changes may seem small. But for the person who's been playing that char for months or years, this is a very personal thing and we've grown a bit attached! So for us, even a small change makes a really big difference. Think about girls IRL putting on catwing eyeliner. It is just a small change, but some girls look quite different, no?
At the end of the day, i think what this upgrade highlights is the lack of customization the game has. If there were more options, i think more people could fix up their characters in ways that they like that work with the new graphics update. But we just dont have that. The lack of customization has been a flaw of this game since it's conception id imagine, but I think we're suffering from it even more now that things are changing.
i expected them to ADD some things to the creator not just change the things we already had, and it’s making me nervous about how my char will look.
the brows & keeper fangs really upset me, especially because brows can change a face SO MUCH. give us more brow options & let us dye themmmm this could fix so much with that issue.
there’s so many things wrong with the benchmark, praying they listen & fix what they can….
I do you find it funny that the characters look better in that trailer that they posted about the graphical changes that they're making compare to the benchmark that they released
i'm surprised nothing was said about them low res scales. I dunno if it's a graphics setting but my character's scales now look like pixelated stickers on her skin lol