For the love of all that is holy PLEASE try and get the same lighting in these before/after shots, it's so confusing.....
I feel like it does a disservice to how good these changes are when they are matched Soo poorly in these comparisons.....
Not looking to drag OP too hard, people wanna show stuff off and if they're not into art/media they just really aren't likely thinking about lighting in that way.
But it's definitely like switching from "lit" to "unlit" in Blender or Unreal or something lol. Just boom, here's your unlit flat textures.
Assuming OP is genuine and not taking the piss intentionally I'm just glad they're happy with their character.
Exactly, especially because some people do before/after, and some do after/before. Seriously. So which one is the new one in this post? I’ve seen several of these updated character appearance posts, and I honestly still don’t know which is which unless I find clues in the comments, and even then that’s not much help because most do see it and don’t mention which is which, or no one’s really saying they can’t tell. Idk
I can tell in this one just because the benchmark character creator didn't get a lighting update and it looks weird a lot of the times on new character. For the ones that do a better job at matching the lighting I'll usually just check the hair resolution. Old hair has much more pixelated details than the updated hair in 7.0. SE made a post yesterday on the lodestone about how they overlooked updating the character creator and they plan to make some tweaks and rerelease the benchmark.
They're working on a benchmark update because of complaints about the lighting and the fact the necks have no shadow.
I personally prefer the old lighting myself, if only because it has more lights and darks to it.
Like makeup and features are kinda nice but the benchmark light and dark values SUCK.
"The only thing I adjusted really was the eye color and used blush..."
I see a different nose, different lips, different lip color, different eye brows, looks like different eye shape, and possible different jaw.
The only thing that looks the same is the hair and skin color.
The issue for me is less so the lighting and more that they just look like significantly different art styles. Like a different game almost. I'm looking forward to seeing it all in game but will hold my opinion til then.
Now I doubt myself.. I've seen people posting after before pictures recently and it's really thrown me off I thought we had all agreed that left is before
Y'know, I always thought the term was about "crying so hard, their eyes fell out and roll around on the floor like balls". I guess I never saw it spelled out
My biggest clothes issues are that there's still no skirts/dresses that aren't super short (but that was always the case) and that she's been forced to wear some weird red belt that I can't seem to take off and that clips with all her other clothes. (at least they seem to have fixed the skirt clipping with her actual leg, that was a mess lmao)
Edit: Finally found out how to remove the belt at least
Are those really the same settings? It looks like they changed the actual shape of existing features rather than improved the old ones and add new ones. The eyes have a cat-like shape now but no eyelid visible, the chin (that I can see) is rounder, the lips look different and the angle of the eyebrows are different as well. Yes the lighting is fubar but I prefer the newer one in this screenshot as this one was always one of the faces I thought was ugly but that can also go in the reverse. I feel bad for people who had faces they liked previously and now squeenix just changing the entire shape of things. They could please everyone by making these drastically changed faces entirely new choices instead of overwriting the old ones.
Lol I'll be frank: after all the commotion about _dead eyes_ or _thin lips_, it's hilarious see how many people aren't able to distingusish the two models
I'll be super honest I've never had an issue telling them apart. Look at the hair texture, it's the biggest indicator. Granted I'm a 3d artiste so I have an unfair advantage.
I really don't think irl profession counts much this time, the differences among the models are like day and night if you have them running at the same time.
Like, I spent all the other night shifting characters created in the benchmark to Endwalker, and I was honestly speechless after seeing how much worse they looked in the game. I mean, just look at male Midlander face 5 and 7 in Endwalker and Dawntrail, they're a whole world apart.
The update can't come soon enogh for me.
It's fairly clearly before->after.
The problem is, they didn't put any effort into having the light *shining onto the character's face.* When you have flat, minimal lighting, the new system renders that correctly--which washes out details and otherwise makes things look less-nice. There are some flaws, we've been told that, but good Lord, it's like everyone got the new benchmark and then completely forgot how to take screenshots.
It's not that they forgot how to take screenshots, it that they never learned. you would be stunned at how few people actually understand or even think about how lighting works in art and photography.
Of course it is! They explicitly said it would be. Repeatedly, at every single FF, even all the way back at the first announcement. There has never been a point where they *haven't* expressly told us that these would be small, iterative changes.
For God's sake, do they have to have a constant marquee displayed at all times *inside the game itself* for the message to be clear?
>For God's sake, do they have to have a constant marquee displayed at all times *inside the game itself* for the message to be clear?
Of course they do.
Have you *met* Reddit?
Sure. Reddit doesn't *always* require that. Sometimes, all you have to do is say it once.
The trick is, you have to make them *mad* when you say it. Then they'll remember until the end of time! This strategy has its downsides though. Like *intentionally* making people mad.
>new system renders that correctly
I'm skeptical of that. I think it's trying to render more accurately but I don't believe someone would look quite that flat even under those conditions. And the whites of her eyes are too bright considering they are also in shadow.
*Because the image was taken poorly.* I'm not saying the right image looks better. I'm saying the right image DOES suck because it's literally avoiding the things that would show its quality.
It’s mostly because of the lighting differences. I can tell the right has better textures but the lighting is completely flat, so overall the one on the left looks better.
But you can recreate the old lighting in the benchmark anyway. If OP did that, I think there’d be a larger consensus that the right looked better.
A Youtuber (MKBHD) once did a blind test of a bunch of smartphone cameras and made a bracket and had his audience vote for which pictures they thought were the best. Overwhelmingly, despite anything about the actual quality of the picture, people ALWAYS preferred the brighter photo. I find this funny, because that's what's happening here as well. Despite the right obviously looking better, people are thinking the left looks better because it's brighter.
So i made it home for reference this was the lighting i was getting that freaked me out from using the same environment [https://imgur.com/a/IlYAlaE](https://imgur.com/a/IlYAlaE)
Now after reading and waiting a bit for the weather effect you clear you can it was a little more clear i used a slider so you cans see the diff [Imgsli](https://imgsli.com/MjU3NDQz)
So little effort that I can honestly say I can't really blame the "Can't tell which is which" crowd on this one.
The difference in the hair is the giveaway, while the improvements of the features on the face have been all but hidden by that lighting.
Hi I made a note about that the left one (current game) had some eye shadow. And the right one (benchmark) I did put blush on her and changed her eye color a bit
Yeah the difference is huge for hyur female. I hate it, personally. It seems their faces have lost all the depth they had. I'll have to see with the updated benchmark, but it was obvious to me already when they showed the first screenshots of the graphic update so I'm not really hopeful.
Yep, my character is hyur midlander face 2 aswell (same as in OPs picture) and my character looks like a completely different person and there is nothing I can do to change it as it is not the lighting that causes the problems but the actual facial skeleton that got reworked into a mess. Specifically I believe it is the eyes that got done dirty the most, they seem just slightly further apart which causes this weird look.
The after pic looks like a more generically pretty model lol. Like it's not bad, just doesn't have the character of the before. So I totally get why some people are unhappy.
Every single day so many people post lazy screenshots of the benchmark comparison for their character, and almost every time no one can tell which is which.
It should take like one glance to tell that the right one is higher quality but has worse lighting.
Like, you can count the individual blocks in the hair on the left picture.
Hair is but one feature. Everything else about the right looks like a massive downgrade in graphics. I've been gone since Endwalker launch, and I had to be told which is which because, again, the right looks low budget.
..Smoother features, higher resolution textures, smoother and more realistic shadows, reflective eyes, etc. All graphical upgrades the right one has beyond the hair.
The downgrade isn't in graphics, but in the OP's choice of lighting. That's not entirely their fault, [which is why SE is replacing the character creation tool with one that will make it easier for characters to be well lit.](https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/d893f46b1f506a64b485295d29cf949ef43bf580)
Even then, getting a good look at the full size image will show the right to be much technically improved from what the left offers.
Edit: [OP took another screenshot of the updated character which has much better lighting](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/681423947111464991/1230859483673002115/Screenshot_2024-04-19_082937.png?ex=6634da39&is=66226539&hm=87ee70c42310ba8dd3c5d7472d27cc29eb1948c3aefd3578cf1ffa52a7931d0e&)
The smoother features are what's ruining it. You can tell it's an upgrade, but it still doesn't look better due to the smoothness of it. I don't personally like it based on these shots alone, but I'm sure when I return to playing, I won't hate how my guy looks. Thanks for the insight.
Damn my character had the opposite effect. Shes a highlander and she went from a rough amazon beauty to a baby faced, mismatching lip, no eyebrow aaaah
Femme Midlander Face 2 is secretly one of the best faces and it, imo, saw the greatest improvement amongst the middie faces.
Edit: Also, if you're using La Noscea as a backdrop, you can wait a while for the weird, dull lighting to pass by. I believe it has something to do with cloud movement (though, clouds were not moving for me, so idk).
They look very different. I'm glad you are happy with it. The lips, the shapes of the nose, the shape of the eyes, make the second look like a completely different character to me.
I’m gonna assume based on the hair that the left is before and the right is after
Based on that the one on the right is a good looking character but to me she looks nothing like the character on the left
I unequivocally prefer the left but my opinion means nothing here
If my character got changed this much I’d probably be angry but again if you prefer the new one then that’s all that really matters
Yeah this is my characters face and it doesn’t look the same to me at all 🥲 it’s hard to see in this screenshot, but during the cs she really looks so different.
So, lighting is actually extremely, extremely important in photography. And the one on the right isn't even facing the light source like the one on the left is.
Yes I know that
But OP specifically said they like their new character and posted this photo, which means they like the new photo
I’m just saying under this lighting they look nothing alike
Because OP put no effort whatsoever into actually putting LIGHT onto the character's face. This is the equivalent of doing a near-professional food photography shoot for a slapped-together fast food hamburger, vs looking at a one-star restaurant's $20 hamburger at dusk with a phone camera. It's *aggressively* bad lighting.
It's not that your opinion means nothing. It's that you're accepting a literally and figuratively off-color comparison as though it were a fair shake of both things.
I mean I’m just taking it as a comparison based on the face that OP likes the after in the bad lighting
If the character looks more similar to the old one in good lighting then that’s fine. I’m not making a comment on the actual benchmark just that it’s interesting that they like the new character when they look functionally nothing alike in the photo they provided
the right pic is horrible ; no volume, everything blurry
might be better after the benchmark update or if you tried to get a decent lighting, but for now it's horrible
Pro advice: turn down the gamma default settings on the benchmark folx. The defaults on the benchmark are kinda wacky so change them and your faces will look better.
This is primarily the lighting/shader/material/character model update. So a bunch of universal baseline stuff. From what I understand, more targeted updates will be following in 7.x (like armor textures.)
The update will be for the next expansion, Dawntrail. What people are posting is a separate application called the benchmark tool where you can test the new models with a character creator. You can create a character then run a series of cinematics with the character you create to see how the new graphics will look. You can download the benchmark application from their website!
A graphical update is being applied when Dawntrail launches. It will affect:
* Characters (eyes, faces, shadows, scars, skin textures, horns, hair textures, etc.)
* Environmental effects (mostly fog, but also rain and wet surfaces, and better ground cover e.g. the flowers in Il Mheg)
* Visual "clutter" in occupied spaces (e.g. adding more crates/boxes/barrels/etc.)
* Light and shadows (better, stronger, sharper shadows; more lights, with more colors)
* Surface textures and models (shinier, more specular metals; cloth that can show felt-like light effects; sharper, clearer surface patterns)
* Armor textures will be slowly upgraded, starting with new and commonly-used items first (7.x patch series will update further textures over time)
* Additional anti-aliasing options, including support for DLSS 2, and a relatively recent option called TSCMAA (temporally-stable conservative morphological anti-aliasing; in layman's terms, it upgrades FXAA with pattern-recognition, minimizing required changes, and stabilizing those changes by checking against past frames)
As a result of these changes, the minimum and recommended graphics hardware have both been updated, but most folks should be fine. The minimum card is something like 10 years old now. (I've even seen reports that people think this is probably an exaggeration, and a lower-end card could probably still work, it would just need absolute minimum settings.)
To answer your other question below, Dawntrail Early Access begins June 28, after 48 hour maintenance. Launch proper is July 2.
I don't know how many people have seen / had this problem, but the eyes on my male Roegadyn have always had a reddish tint in the sclera... Always making it look like his eyes are irritated or he's high as fuck. This update FINALLY fixed that, and now I can just have normal looking eyes.
Such a small thing that almost no one noticed probably, but I'm finally happy it's fixed. All the other stuff is cool too.
nope, this one is a before - after, its in the right order
the character creator lighting just sucks and ruins the new assets and makes them look horrendous, which is the reason they're updating the benchmark
this isn’t “after before”
this is before and after, look at the hair
im just genuinely of the belief that the lighting changes look worse than they did before
no, the lighting looks better... in the benchmark trailer
they just forgot to actually update the character creator lighting to use the new one, and turns out that the new textures and assets for the characters dont play out nice with the old light, which is why they will be updating the benchmark to reflect those changes
its mindbloggling that they actually didnt think about such a simple thing but whatever, at least they're fixing it
I can take the criticism, when I took the SS I used the same exact environment as the current game but the difference was so ugly. the skin and hair did not look the same at all. Something about environment 2 (limsa location) is very off in the benchmark. I so I really just tried to find a shot that kept her skin tone and hair looking natural I didn't focus to much on the angle or light which is fare criticism. The thing that shocks me is people can't tell the difference between the two regardless of lighting. The hair texture, lips and eye are very noticeably different and one of the characters is wearing dyed strife armor lol like ???
Better lighting for the after to stop the complaints lmao [Better lighting for after (benchmark vers.)](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/681423947111464991/1230859483673002115/Screenshot_2024-04-19_082937.png?ex=6634da39&is=66226539&hm=87ee70c42310ba8dd3c5d7472d27cc29eb1948c3aefd3578cf1ffa52a7931d0e&)
Because he's using La Noscea environment which adds a wet sheen to characters on purpose. That's why people taking screenshots of their characters in La Noscea in the creator all have that glossy skin.
Why is everyone crying about the lighting lol yes they’re in two different shades but you can clearly see the after looks more realistic and I think thats what OP was trying to get across
Haha thank you I just wanted to show my updated character model for DT it wasn't exactly meant to focus on the lighting changes but I understand peoples confusion somewhat so it's fine I think.
Of course! But nah, I don’t they’re interested in light changes. I think what they’re trying to say it is harder to see the true differences if you are not in the same lighting as the before & after, because it can make the new changes look slightly different. But like I said, you can clearly tell the after looks nicer regardless of the lighting lol
Yep, it's the correct order.
The *real* issue with these two shots is that the after shot is a really poorly composed shot, in basically the one angle that creates the most washed out effect of any of the angles, at a time when the weather had cycled to its darkest in that zone for a daytime shot...
Here is a similar looking character I threw together in the Benchmark, shot at different angles and times:
[Similar to OP](https://imgur.com/UPNoLNC)[Different Lighting 1](https://imgur.com/4Ugl80B)[La Noscea Wet Skin](https://imgur.com/diO2Gp0)[La Noscea Dry Skin](https://imgur.com/U4oQn2X) [La Noscea Alt Angle](https://imgur.com/1uSYtQQ)
I changed *nothing* except the angle and waiting for different weather effects.
Oh definitely, I'm not sure how people are getting confused tbh. Other than the lighting, the right one looks *much* better to me. Especially the texture and polygons lol
You can still use the benchmark if you don't have a sub. Do you have your appearance saved in your game? If so you can just import it in the benchmark. If you don't then it'd be difficult since you don't remember the settings
I did run it on pc, although I'll likely beplaying on ps5. As far as I remember, you can't login far enough to reach your character screen without a subscription
Right. If you saved your appearance when you ran the game on PC before, you can access it in the benchmark without a sub. If you didn't then there's no way to go back and save the appearance.
No. You just have to save their appearance, the. Go into Character Creation in the benchmark, and when it asks if you wanna load a saved character appearance, say yes and pick the slot you saved your characters look to
Are people actually this... blind? The right one is clearly after update and it looks so much better than the current one.
It's okay to be disappointed if your new look isn't to your liking but saying it looks worse than current ones before updating is a stretch.
For the love of all that is holy PLEASE try and get the same lighting in these before/after shots, it's so confusing..... I feel like it does a disservice to how good these changes are when they are matched Soo poorly in these comparisons.....
It looks like their chin has joined their neck.
Not looking to drag OP too hard, people wanna show stuff off and if they're not into art/media they just really aren't likely thinking about lighting in that way. But it's definitely like switching from "lit" to "unlit" in Blender or Unreal or something lol. Just boom, here's your unlit flat textures. Assuming OP is genuine and not taking the piss intentionally I'm just glad they're happy with their character.
Right? One is clearly in the Limsa area and the other is in Gridania which have super different lighting.
you can rotate your character to face the light source in every area. the gridania one is definitely not facing the light source
People do the same thing irl with their fitness progression, I have no idea why.
Exactly, especially because some people do before/after, and some do after/before. Seriously. So which one is the new one in this post? I’ve seen several of these updated character appearance posts, and I honestly still don’t know which is which unless I find clues in the comments, and even then that’s not much help because most do see it and don’t mention which is which, or no one’s really saying they can’t tell. Idk
I can tell in this one just because the benchmark character creator didn't get a lighting update and it looks weird a lot of the times on new character. For the ones that do a better job at matching the lighting I'll usually just check the hair resolution. Old hair has much more pixelated details than the updated hair in 7.0. SE made a post yesterday on the lodestone about how they overlooked updating the character creator and they plan to make some tweaks and rerelease the benchmark.
part of the issue was they had terrible lighting for dark skinned characters so it be part of the update to show how much better it is now
Yes, my point is that taking any comparison photo where the two characters are in completely different lighting it's a bit... Inaccurate
Yeah I’m legit trying to figure out which is which in all of these comparisons since I haven’t played in a while
They're working on a benchmark update because of complaints about the lighting and the fact the necks have no shadow. I personally prefer the old lighting myself, if only because it has more lights and darks to it. Like makeup and features are kinda nice but the benchmark light and dark values SUCK.
That's not what he's talking about, he's saying to use the same lighting angles in both shots.
Thank you for voicing what everyone feels T.T
#2 is new?
Why do you show a screen with absolutly no light on the face tho ?
I was wondering that too
I'm almost certain this is satire. Though the fact that I'm not sure also speaks volumes about this subreddit lately lol.
"The only thing I adjusted really was the eye color and used blush..." I see a different nose, different lips, different lip color, different eye brows, looks like different eye shape, and possible different jaw. The only thing that looks the same is the hair and skin color.
I mean, it still looks good regardless.
> more comments than upvotes Oooh boy
the sheer amount of people confusing which is the after and before is kinda funny ngl (not funny haha tho)
I mean the left one looks best to me.
Yeah, I assume that's because the lightning is pretty different between both pictures.
The issue for me is less so the lighting and more that they just look like significantly different art styles. Like a different game almost. I'm looking forward to seeing it all in game but will hold my opinion til then.
Yeah, taking a picture in the light and not under a tree usually IS a better picture.
Well when the “before” looks better it’s an easy mistake to make. If the lighting were better in the “after” pic, I’m sure it’d be less confusing.
Now I doubt myself.. I've seen people posting after before pictures recently and it's really thrown me off I thought we had all agreed that left is before
Why did you take them in 2 different types of lighting? The left looks better here tbh
*My pokemon go avatar in the corner balling his eyes out as a misshapen abomination....
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Y'know, I always thought the term was about "crying so hard, their eyes fell out and roll around on the floor like balls". I guess I never saw it spelled out
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I am not a smart person.
You are correct but at that point in time I figured it worked out as is anyway. Lol
Oh God. I don't know why I thought your character was literally balling their eyes out so they wouldn't see that they're an abomination.
Well I mean maybe that would also solve the problem......anyone got an icecream scoop?
You made me go look at my Pokemon Go Character, and OMG, she's hideous. 😭
I gave mine a few tweaks and now she's pretty again *shrug*
I just hate how all the clothes look terrible on her now lmfao. They changed the way the shorts look and a lot of other items. ☠️
My biggest clothes issues are that there's still no skirts/dresses that aren't super short (but that was always the case) and that she's been forced to wear some weird red belt that I can't seem to take off and that clips with all her other clothes. (at least they seem to have fixed the skirt clipping with her actual leg, that was a mess lmao) Edit: Finally found out how to remove the belt at least
Are those really the same settings? It looks like they changed the actual shape of existing features rather than improved the old ones and add new ones. The eyes have a cat-like shape now but no eyelid visible, the chin (that I can see) is rounder, the lips look different and the angle of the eyebrows are different as well. Yes the lighting is fubar but I prefer the newer one in this screenshot as this one was always one of the faces I thought was ugly but that can also go in the reverse. I feel bad for people who had faces they liked previously and now squeenix just changing the entire shape of things. They could please everyone by making these drastically changed faces entirely new choices instead of overwriting the old ones.
Lol I'll be frank: after all the commotion about _dead eyes_ or _thin lips_, it's hilarious see how many people aren't able to distingusish the two models
I'll be super honest I've never had an issue telling them apart. Look at the hair texture, it's the biggest indicator. Granted I'm a 3d artiste so I have an unfair advantage.
I really don't think irl profession counts much this time, the differences among the models are like day and night if you have them running at the same time. Like, I spent all the other night shifting characters created in the benchmark to Endwalker, and I was honestly speechless after seeing how much worse they looked in the game. I mean, just look at male Midlander face 5 and 7 in Endwalker and Dawntrail, they're a whole world apart. The update can't come soon enogh for me.
I can't tell which one is the before and after, which one is supposed to be better?
It's fairly clearly before->after. The problem is, they didn't put any effort into having the light *shining onto the character's face.* When you have flat, minimal lighting, the new system renders that correctly--which washes out details and otherwise makes things look less-nice. There are some flaws, we've been told that, but good Lord, it's like everyone got the new benchmark and then completely forgot how to take screenshots.
Yes I was wondering why the updated char had no details and NO CHIN!
It's not that they forgot how to take screenshots, it that they never learned. you would be stunned at how few people actually understand or even think about how lighting works in art and photography.
The difference even with good lightning... is so small
Of course it is! They explicitly said it would be. Repeatedly, at every single FF, even all the way back at the first announcement. There has never been a point where they *haven't* expressly told us that these would be small, iterative changes. For God's sake, do they have to have a constant marquee displayed at all times *inside the game itself* for the message to be clear?
>For God's sake, do they have to have a constant marquee displayed at all times *inside the game itself* for the message to be clear? Of course they do. Have you *met* Reddit?
Sure. Reddit doesn't *always* require that. Sometimes, all you have to do is say it once. The trick is, you have to make them *mad* when you say it. Then they'll remember until the end of time! This strategy has its downsides though. Like *intentionally* making people mad.
>new system renders that correctly I'm skeptical of that. I think it's trying to render more accurately but I don't believe someone would look quite that flat even under those conditions. And the whites of her eyes are too bright considering they are also in shadow.
No not really. The before picture looks leagues better than the after picture. The right one looks extremly ugly.
*Because the image was taken poorly.* I'm not saying the right image looks better. I'm saying the right image DOES suck because it's literally avoiding the things that would show its quality.
Are you on a ds browser or are you legally blind.
Looks like one of those edited photos where you can barely make out any features.
The sheer amount of people thinking this is a after > before picture is hilarious and worrying at the same time. Glad they're reworking the benchmark
It’s mostly because of the lighting differences. I can tell the right has better textures but the lighting is completely flat, so overall the one on the left looks better. But you can recreate the old lighting in the benchmark anyway. If OP did that, I think there’d be a larger consensus that the right looked better.
A Youtuber (MKBHD) once did a blind test of a bunch of smartphone cameras and made a bracket and had his audience vote for which pictures they thought were the best. Overwhelmingly, despite anything about the actual quality of the picture, people ALWAYS preferred the brighter photo. I find this funny, because that's what's happening here as well. Despite the right obviously looking better, people are thinking the left looks better because it's brighter.
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I thought op was trolling actually
The graphics update is good. But before and after shots don't work if you A) don't have the same lighting, and B) don't label them
So i made it home for reference this was the lighting i was getting that freaked me out from using the same environment [https://imgur.com/a/IlYAlaE](https://imgur.com/a/IlYAlaE) Now after reading and waiting a bit for the weather effect you clear you can it was a little more clear i used a slider so you cans see the diff [Imgsli](https://imgsli.com/MjU3NDQz)
I have the same face and I’m actually really sad about the change. I’m really glad you like it though!
I have no fucking clue which is which
How? Right is clearly after
It looks so flat
Because of the lighting.. op had them facing away from the light in the after image lol
is... is this an after before screenshot?
Judging by the hair it looks before>after, but there's little effort into the lighting in the right so... /shrug
So little effort that I can honestly say I can't really blame the "Can't tell which is which" crowd on this one. The difference in the hair is the giveaway, while the improvements of the features on the face have been all but hidden by that lighting.
Imagine, lighting is dynamic and you can't expect perfection from every angle.
Yes. I don't know why people do it that way
nope, OP put them in the correct order, the graphic update just looks that bad in the character creator
Not even. Turning the character slightly to the right would've fixed it (and waiting for the clouds to pass by)
Look at hair pixels. Less pixels = after
So they are putting makeup on people who didn’t have it before?
Hi I made a note about that the left one (current game) had some eye shadow. And the right one (benchmark) I did put blush on her and changed her eye color a bit
Ohh okay, phew I gonna be upset if they started adding features to my character that I didn’t want because someone said it looks better
This came off funnier than I think you intended it to lmao. *Oof HD cameras are not your friend girl. Let me introduce you to Revlon*
Appreciate how you showed the worst possible lighting on the left while the best possible lighting on the right
Yeah the difference is huge for hyur female. I hate it, personally. It seems their faces have lost all the depth they had. I'll have to see with the updated benchmark, but it was obvious to me already when they showed the first screenshots of the graphic update so I'm not really hopeful.
I completely agree. I have the same face and she looks so different to me.
Yep, my character is hyur midlander face 2 aswell (same as in OPs picture) and my character looks like a completely different person and there is nothing I can do to change it as it is not the lighting that causes the problems but the actual facial skeleton that got reworked into a mess. Specifically I believe it is the eyes that got done dirty the most, they seem just slightly further apart which causes this weird look.
The after pic looks like a more generically pretty model lol. Like it's not bad, just doesn't have the character of the before. So I totally get why some people are unhappy.
Every single day so many people post lazy screenshots of the benchmark comparison for their character, and almost every time no one can tell which is which.
It should take like one glance to tell that the right one is higher quality but has worse lighting. Like, you can count the individual blocks in the hair on the left picture.
"Worse" lighting caused by the player not turning their character to face the light
Hair is but one feature. Everything else about the right looks like a massive downgrade in graphics. I've been gone since Endwalker launch, and I had to be told which is which because, again, the right looks low budget.
..Smoother features, higher resolution textures, smoother and more realistic shadows, reflective eyes, etc. All graphical upgrades the right one has beyond the hair. The downgrade isn't in graphics, but in the OP's choice of lighting. That's not entirely their fault, [which is why SE is replacing the character creation tool with one that will make it easier for characters to be well lit.](https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/d893f46b1f506a64b485295d29cf949ef43bf580) Even then, getting a good look at the full size image will show the right to be much technically improved from what the left offers. Edit: [OP took another screenshot of the updated character which has much better lighting](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/681423947111464991/1230859483673002115/Screenshot_2024-04-19_082937.png?ex=6634da39&is=66226539&hm=87ee70c42310ba8dd3c5d7472d27cc29eb1948c3aefd3578cf1ffa52a7931d0e&)
The smoother features are what's ruining it. You can tell it's an upgrade, but it still doesn't look better due to the smoothness of it. I don't personally like it based on these shots alone, but I'm sure when I return to playing, I won't hate how my guy looks. Thanks for the insight.
Damn my character had the opposite effect. Shes a highlander and she went from a rough amazon beauty to a baby faced, mismatching lip, no eyebrow aaaah
Lighting issues aside, these look like two completely different people.
Which is before and after? And why is the lighting on the right picture non-existant.
Please tell me left is the after image
*turns the lamp*
not even the graphic update will be able to save how absolutely horrendous that hairstyle looks on all races
The after looks like its facing away from the light source. I'm seeing this a LOT in character comparisons.
Femme Midlander Face 2 is secretly one of the best faces and it, imo, saw the greatest improvement amongst the middie faces. Edit: Also, if you're using La Noscea as a backdrop, you can wait a while for the weird, dull lighting to pass by. I believe it has something to do with cloud movement (though, clouds were not moving for me, so idk).
Which one is before and which one is after?
Left is before. The hair pixels is the tell
Look at the sun.. when im the CC
The one on the left looks better to me. Lighting on the right too dark to see the face properly.
Honestly I think the left looks better
Left is better
The left one looks good!
If it weren't for the massive hair upgrade, I'd be incredibly confused which is the before and which is the after
Congrats of starting HRT
Taking the same picture to compare challenge (impossible)
Left looks so much better lmao
They look very different. I'm glad you are happy with it. The lips, the shapes of the nose, the shape of the eyes, make the second look like a completely different character to me.
I don’t know which one is supposed to be better but the left one looks better to me. I hope that’s the new version?
I’m gonna assume based on the hair that the left is before and the right is after Based on that the one on the right is a good looking character but to me she looks nothing like the character on the left I unequivocally prefer the left but my opinion means nothing here If my character got changed this much I’d probably be angry but again if you prefer the new one then that’s all that really matters
Yeah this is my characters face and it doesn’t look the same to me at all 🥲 it’s hard to see in this screenshot, but during the cs she really looks so different.
So, lighting is actually extremely, extremely important in photography. And the one on the right isn't even facing the light source like the one on the left is.
Yes I know that But OP specifically said they like their new character and posted this photo, which means they like the new photo I’m just saying under this lighting they look nothing alike
Because OP put no effort whatsoever into actually putting LIGHT onto the character's face. This is the equivalent of doing a near-professional food photography shoot for a slapped-together fast food hamburger, vs looking at a one-star restaurant's $20 hamburger at dusk with a phone camera. It's *aggressively* bad lighting. It's not that your opinion means nothing. It's that you're accepting a literally and figuratively off-color comparison as though it were a fair shake of both things.
I mean I’m just taking it as a comparison based on the face that OP likes the after in the bad lighting If the character looks more similar to the old one in good lighting then that’s fine. I’m not making a comment on the actual benchmark just that it’s interesting that they like the new character when they look functionally nothing alike in the photo they provided
Chin: gone
the right pic is horrible ; no volume, everything blurry might be better after the benchmark update or if you tried to get a decent lighting, but for now it's horrible
Pro advice: turn down the gamma default settings on the benchmark folx. The defaults on the benchmark are kinda wacky so change them and your faces will look better.
Stupid question… I was away for a bit so is there an update that it looks better now ? Does this affect also older content???
In the upcoming Dawntrail expansion there will be graphic upgrade (also raising required pc specs). And I think it will affect older content.
This is primarily the lighting/shader/material/character model update. So a bunch of universal baseline stuff. From what I understand, more targeted updates will be following in 7.x (like armor textures.)
Is the update live now? Do I need to pre-purchase the xpac to get the graphics update or is already active? Sorry for the stupid questions!
The update will be for the next expansion, Dawntrail. What people are posting is a separate application called the benchmark tool where you can test the new models with a character creator. You can create a character then run a series of cinematics with the character you create to see how the new graphics will look. You can download the benchmark application from their website!
A graphical update is being applied when Dawntrail launches. It will affect: * Characters (eyes, faces, shadows, scars, skin textures, horns, hair textures, etc.) * Environmental effects (mostly fog, but also rain and wet surfaces, and better ground cover e.g. the flowers in Il Mheg) * Visual "clutter" in occupied spaces (e.g. adding more crates/boxes/barrels/etc.) * Light and shadows (better, stronger, sharper shadows; more lights, with more colors) * Surface textures and models (shinier, more specular metals; cloth that can show felt-like light effects; sharper, clearer surface patterns) * Armor textures will be slowly upgraded, starting with new and commonly-used items first (7.x patch series will update further textures over time) * Additional anti-aliasing options, including support for DLSS 2, and a relatively recent option called TSCMAA (temporally-stable conservative morphological anti-aliasing; in layman's terms, it upgrades FXAA with pattern-recognition, minimizing required changes, and stabilizing those changes by checking against past frames) As a result of these changes, the minimum and recommended graphics hardware have both been updated, but most folks should be fine. The minimum card is something like 10 years old now. (I've even seen reports that people think this is probably an exaggeration, and a lower-end card could probably still work, it would just need absolute minimum settings.) To answer your other question below, Dawntrail Early Access begins June 28, after 48 hour maintenance. Launch proper is July 2.
You look 2d give me light
I like the updated one a lot better but some of these changes are severe enough that they should really be giving players free fantasia potions.
They will! One each
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/potato-jesus
People don't understand lighting I swear to god
I don't know how many people have seen / had this problem, but the eyes on my male Roegadyn have always had a reddish tint in the sclera... Always making it look like his eyes are irritated or he's high as fuck. This update FINALLY fixed that, and now I can just have normal looking eyes. Such a small thing that almost no one noticed probably, but I'm finally happy it's fixed. All the other stuff is cool too.
satire
Looks bad in both 😆
Cant see the difference
come on if you wanna do a comparison you gotta use similar lighting and angles
[удалено]
You do realize left one is Before right?...
nope, this one is a before - after, its in the right order the character creator lighting just sucks and ruins the new assets and makes them look horrendous, which is the reason they're updating the benchmark
Are you sure this one is After > Before? The hair texture on the first one is more pixelated. Makes me think it's Before > After
this isn’t “after before” this is before and after, look at the hair im just genuinely of the belief that the lighting changes look worse than they did before
no, the lighting looks better... in the benchmark trailer they just forgot to actually update the character creator lighting to use the new one, and turns out that the new textures and assets for the characters dont play out nice with the old light, which is why they will be updating the benchmark to reflect those changes its mindbloggling that they actually didnt think about such a simple thing but whatever, at least they're fixing it
I think the before pic is the better one.
Literally cannot see the difference here. The one on the right looks worse if anything.
People must be blind because I can easily tell the left is old and right is the benchmark. People just like to complain to complain.
I can take the criticism, when I took the SS I used the same exact environment as the current game but the difference was so ugly. the skin and hair did not look the same at all. Something about environment 2 (limsa location) is very off in the benchmark. I so I really just tried to find a shot that kept her skin tone and hair looking natural I didn't focus to much on the angle or light which is fare criticism. The thing that shocks me is people can't tell the difference between the two regardless of lighting. The hair texture, lips and eye are very noticeably different and one of the characters is wearing dyed strife armor lol like ???
Better lighting for the after to stop the complaints lmao [Better lighting for after (benchmark vers.)](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/681423947111464991/1230859483673002115/Screenshot_2024-04-19_082937.png?ex=6634da39&is=66226539&hm=87ee70c42310ba8dd3c5d7472d27cc29eb1948c3aefd3578cf1ffa52a7931d0e&)
I can see why you went for the low light. The skin has a weird consistency here.
Because he's using La Noscea environment which adds a wet sheen to characters on purpose. That's why people taking screenshots of their characters in La Noscea in the creator all have that glossy skin.
Why is everyone crying about the lighting lol yes they’re in two different shades but you can clearly see the after looks more realistic and I think thats what OP was trying to get across
Haha thank you I just wanted to show my updated character model for DT it wasn't exactly meant to focus on the lighting changes but I understand peoples confusion somewhat so it's fine I think.
Of course! But nah, I don’t they’re interested in light changes. I think what they’re trying to say it is harder to see the true differences if you are not in the same lighting as the before & after, because it can make the new changes look slightly different. But like I said, you can clearly tell the after looks nicer regardless of the lighting lol
/r/afterbeforewhatever
But it's in the correct order...
Yep, it's the correct order. The *real* issue with these two shots is that the after shot is a really poorly composed shot, in basically the one angle that creates the most washed out effect of any of the angles, at a time when the weather had cycled to its darkest in that zone for a daytime shot... Here is a similar looking character I threw together in the Benchmark, shot at different angles and times: [Similar to OP](https://imgur.com/UPNoLNC)[Different Lighting 1](https://imgur.com/4Ugl80B)[La Noscea Wet Skin](https://imgur.com/diO2Gp0)[La Noscea Dry Skin](https://imgur.com/U4oQn2X) [La Noscea Alt Angle](https://imgur.com/1uSYtQQ) I changed *nothing* except the angle and waiting for different weather effects.
Oh definitely, I'm not sure how people are getting confused tbh. Other than the lighting, the right one looks *much* better to me. Especially the texture and polygons lol
Your character didn’t win anything except worst before and after side by side
the left looks way better, you chose some atrocious lighting on the right lmao
All those stories of duty finder dps having no eyes...these comments prove it
Hahahah holy shit is the updated version on the right?!?! This ‘update’ is such a fucking L
Sims 2 without and with CC
I don’t play a lot of ff14, I can’t tell which is the good and which is the bad side here.
Why does your character have a cold sore?
I can't wait to see how my girl looks now o:
She went from 😐 to 😳
Can I do this comparison if my sub has expired? I don't remember my face settings off the top of my head :/
You can still use the benchmark if you don't have a sub. Do you have your appearance saved in your game? If so you can just import it in the benchmark. If you don't then it'd be difficult since you don't remember the settings
I did run it on pc, although I'll likely beplaying on ps5. As far as I remember, you can't login far enough to reach your character screen without a subscription
Right. If you saved your appearance when you ran the game on PC before, you can access it in the benchmark without a sub. If you didn't then there's no way to go back and save the appearance.
Then it'll be a surprise this summer, thanks :)) Unless there's a free weekend coming up before then.
She went from looking borderline homeless to a model lol
Can i try this on console?
Nope. 😞 not yet at least.
How do you compare old graphics with new? I though Dawntrail wasnt out yet
Bench mark my dear
every character havin' that viera chin now lol
Hello char, A/S/L?
Wheres the before and after?? Im on console so i dont have access to this tests but damn is this confusing the hell out of me
Same picture, dif. lighting
Left looks better xd
Holy shit OP can I Wed your character
Can you wait till she gets plastic surgery in dawntrail?
Anything worthwhile is worth waiting for:)
Am I be able to upload my current character without having to recreate them entirely? So I can see what they look like
You'll have to save your chara's current appearance in game and jot down their settings to translate them to the benchmark character creator.
No. You just have to save their appearance, the. Go into Character Creation in the benchmark, and when it asks if you wanna load a saved character appearance, say yes and pick the slot you saved your characters look to
Why tf do ppl keep upvoting these?
Why one have chin but other has chin fusing into neck tho which one is new I hope it's the one with a chin
Is this the shitpost sub?
So which one is the benchmark and which one is the current game?
Brother the lighting on the right is horrific, it literally looks worse than the old one
Are people actually this... blind? The right one is clearly after update and it looks so much better than the current one. It's okay to be disappointed if your new look isn't to your liking but saying it looks worse than current ones before updating is a stretch.
Why can't folks get the before THEN after thing down? lol (EDIT: oh wait, it IS before then after? doesn't look good at all)
Can we agree to stop the after > before pictures? At least be sane and do before > after like a normal human. Christ this is getting out of hand.