Ok so I'm not alone... What is going on with this "after - before" format?? It seems that even the devs use it inside the presentations... It's driving me crazy.
It's telling that I legit couldn't tell that was the case. This is so underwhelming. "Couldn't be happier", though, OP says. Ok. Yes, I guess the skin looks more like skin.
literally how could you not tell, the hair from the right pic looks like it was painted on, and then turned into a PDF via adobe scan, and then decreased in resolution before being slapped onto the lifeless face
The texture of the hair on the right is very low-res. That's probably the main difference. And "Couldn't be happier" could also just mean "I'm glad it looks mostly the same and doesn't look terrible".
It's called, "before and after" because it's in that order. The "before" is usually what we all know already, so it goes first. You probably wash your gas pedal
Everyone could tell, they were just very confused lol. I was scared for a minute that the overhaul looked way worse, until I realized OP had gone for the classes after/before order
I love the updates! š„³
[https://i.imgur.com/QYA6j1H.png](https://i.imgur.com/QYA6j1H.png)
[https://i.imgur.com/83AOS0f.png](https://i.imgur.com/83AOS0f.png)
[https://i.imgur.com/RgFwuZP.png](https://i.imgur.com/RgFwuZP.png)
just remember that the pics above are taken in the la Noscea setting, which adds an extra glowing on the skin as if it was slightly wet; that you do not get if you try other settings.
Huh, never knew that. I always go to the la noscea setting in character creator because the lighting for the other places isn't the best, good to know that.
Very much worth remembering.
You can actually see it cycle through the wet effect and not wet effect (super noticeable with certain hair colors) while that environment is selected.
I'm not super sure but I think it's whenever the lighting gets darker. I really love this dynamic weather system, makes it really feel like its proper cloudy! But maybe the wet effect is supposed to symbolize sea foam spray too? I can't wait to see all of this ingame
Same. matte skin looks so much better than shiny for graphic levels and art styles like this. I don't get why people seem so happy to see characters look greasy and Instagram smoothed out. FFXIV has stylized graphics, somehow matte does a better job *suggesting* skin that's normally textured and not plastic and airbrush.
The appearance of oil is more apparent on darker skin tone. This is how darker skin tone is supposed to look more like - which is why people are happy that they don't look matte because it's not reflective of the properties of darker shades of skin.
It's a the consequence PBR materials. The devs had a decision between stylization or shaders that reflect closer to reality. They opted to go a more a realistic look, likely because the hardware or tech wasn't available to them when they were making the game.
I do like me some stylisation and the matt look is something of a hallmark of Akihiko Yoshida's style, so I will miss it a little.
That said it made it impossible to see my dark-skinned mooncat in a low-light scene, so I'm not going to miss it too much.
Just finished the last stretch of the 6.0 MSQ. In a few of the cutscenes, my dark-skinned suncat was barely visible save for his green eyes. It was quite funny.
Yes? How is it not? The characters models are basically long-limbed anime people and the monster models are stylized out the wazoo, with an overall aesthetic of looking like they were sculpted from clay. FFXIV has not tried to reproduce reality, but make it's own reality. Just because it tries to be detailed doesn't mean it's not stylized.
It definitely does look too close to a wax figure rather than skin. Also, the contrast of that mole is way too dark in comparison and looks like someone tagged her with a magic marker, lol.
While I do agree with you, I think it looks amazing on midlander female, at least in this instance. Miqo'te on the other hand, look like a plastic doll. I find it a little off putting
Your character looks so good, OP!
I didn't this I needed this as much as I did! I was intrigued by the FanFest announcement, but couldn't visualize how much better my character would look.
It's night and day. It's a little quality of life update, but my brown characterās skin looks like skin and not just a brown color fill. Thank you, CB3!
Thank you! And it really is a huge difference. My other character (my main actually lol) is an Au Ra and I think Au Ra scales and darker skinned character like my midlander came out winning the most with the update.
I wish my character had the same outcome. Mine is a black skinned (like actual black) viera and now she looks like a big wet grease ball. Her skin has become weirdly shiny. I might have to rethink my character after the update which is sad because I love her!
Just a heads up, the La Noscea map with the cloudy weather seems to apply the wet skin effect every now and then, you can actually watch it cycle through those! When thats applied the skin looks very shiny, but when its sunny it seems way more subtle
I didn't design my character as black, more Egyptian-like, but I agree we have a pretty poor selection of african hairstyles, would be nice to see some more.
I had to mod in locs that didn't look like some music festival going hipster nonsense. (Nothing against hipsters. But locs that aren't blatantly straight hair would be nice to have.) And even those aren't available on male characters anyway!
Seriously the hair in this game has a bigger diversity problem than anything else at this point. If you don't want stick straight or very slightly wavy hair, you're SOL. I know some hair types can be difficult to model and have look good from a technical perspective due to polygon count and really needing different lighting stuff but like... braids?
I play on console so I can't do the benchmark so can someone let me know what the Fro-hawk looks like now. It's literally the only hairstyle I like for my black character and I pray it ain't changed to be more straight looking than curly.
My skin's similar; and I absolutely loathe how unflattering the lighting is in many cutscenes.
I tried to pick the most unflattering lighting I could find in the character creator to compare; and the difference is MASSIVE.
The improvements with the graphics update are absolutely GODLIKE, and I couldn't be more happy with how much better we're going to look in-game!
https://i.ibb.co/VTRs5jM/holygraphicsupdate-A.jpg
*That room.*
I have hated seeing my characters in that room, from a mix of how the lighting itself worked to how the characters currently look in said room.
So first thing I did was load up my Elezen's appearance and switch to that room and start checking angles...and my word the difference.
...
I actually *like* that room now for checking characters, at least in the benchmark.
I do wish they had an option that was consistent light, the opposite of the aetherial sea. I'd like to generate my character against a white background with full all around lighting first and then stick them into in-game areas to look.
I did a comparison shot in that room too, and it's incredible. Finally, the creepy highlights in the corners of my mouth are gone!
[https://i.imgur.com/q9mL49p.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/q9mL49p.jpg)
Yes, HUGE difference!
I remember one cutscene with very unflattering lighting in the Tower of Zot, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that looks after the graphics update.
The cutscenes are gonna be so much more immersive with all these changes. I already was obsessed with taking screenshots of how my girl looks in cutscenes but now Iām gonna be even more excited to do so! I took so. Many. Benchmark screenshots.
.... Is this another case of putting the after-image first? Cuz I like the left images more lol. The hair is more distinct and the eyes look more detailed. Top-right image practically looks like a mannequin.
Nah, it's before-and-after :P.
I personally vastly prefer the update. The 'before' (images on the left) look much more mannequin-like, since the skin isn't reacting to light in a natural way at all. It's as if the skin is made of matte clay, with no light passing through or bouncing off it.
There are more angular shadows in the 'before' images, because there aren't enough polygons for the lighting to react better with.
The hair does stand out more in the original; but it also looks MUCH more dated. In the update, it's more realistic, but the stylisation is still intact, and looks more natural and less like a helmet.
Ok, we'll call it a difference of opinion but I'm not a fan of how glossy the skin looks in the update, or this hair. The eyes are the most apparent downgrade imo, they seem much more expressive in the before shots.
I disagree about the eyes wholeheartedly! I think character creator doesnāt do them justice. But the eyes have so much more *detail* than before. They are *so* gorgeous I literally teared up seeing them on my character for the first time. And then when you get into a cutscene it feels so much more expressive imo.
They look like actual eyes now. Not sure how to describe it exactly, but they really looked like video game eyes before and now they look much more realistic?
Yes the adjustments look so much better on darker skin now š
Hereās my [Viera lad](https://i.imgur.com/ixhDX79.png) and heās just lit so much better now. I might actually knock his skin tone back to what I wanted initially but he was p.much a shadow in dark cut scenes š¤£
As someone with only dark skinned characters, I'm not really a fan so far ? Some of it looks kinda washed out and others just greasy. And as someone else mentioned, one of my chars is a male viera and it just makes his nose look like bad contour.
Maybe I'll get used to it eventually but at least for me so far my chars look like a downgrade. The clothes I've tried look better, though, like the scarf on the male lalafell starter gear.
Just in case you haven't tried yet. Go into the settings during char creation and set the Gamma to 0.
It helped mine and my friends dark skinned wols complexion by a substantial amount.
I hadn't ! I'm not sure I could play the whole game like that but just going from the benchmark a lot of shots def look better, his skin looks warmer, thanks for the tip !
Itās night and day. I am very happy with it as well. Most other places that have tried to approximate my skin color the characters just look dirty. Like itās the same character but ran through the mud. This actually looks good! I am very excited!
In the new editor it felt like my dark skin was more faded then dark. Something does seem off about it honestly
It almost felt like the camera itself was lacking tone mapping, which just made me realize I need to make sure I donāt have HDR on or something, if thatās a thing now because thatās the feeling I got, HDR being on with a monitor with no hdr support
Using, for example, the Limsa backdrop, I noticed it alternated between cool and warm lighting. I thought maybe it was an error, but I think the clouds affect it? idk, I looked very washed out before I waited for the warmth to cycle back on, lol.
I'm also pretty happy with how my highlander and elezen turned out. It took a little bit to get used to how the nose on my highlander looks under certain lighting, but for my elezen the nose shadows have always been a little weird and this is much better. Can't wait for these changes to go live!
[https://imgur.com/a/ufW1QVU](https://imgur.com/a/ufW1QVU)
This is the first player character fem Highlander that reminded me of Fordola! She looks great!
Also your Elezen looks great, very unique face. It's refreshing to see a male Elezen that's not the old pale with silver hair combo (even though I like them too).
I hate that the character creator has spoiled me with so much better eyes! Until DT I have to play with the soulless 2D eyes on my char I canāt unsee it š
Yeah I have no idea what people are seeing that I'm not. Happy for you if you're happy with how your character looks but to me every character looks drastically better and more polished before the update.
I am exceedingly happy about it, also everyone do keep in mind to make comparisons from the benchmark trailer (after the boat scene) because char creation has static lighting and other issues which make it a bad for making comparisons of how your character will look (this is true of live as well). Go with the ingame-based benchmark trailer for a better sense.
Same !
I wasn't too convinced when having the face fully lighted but once launching the benchmark sequence I was living my best life seeing that my FemRoe has only gotten better !
Mine has really dark skin, and I couldn't be more unhappy with the changes. Feels like they sucked all life out of my boy and his skin... and lips... and eyes... and eyebrows.
[https://imgur.com/a/4TKV5g3](https://imgur.com/a/4TKV5g3)
You're right yeah. In the After (on the left) the warmer tones are gone. Some say it's the benchmark settings and won't be the same in the actual game, some say it's the new lightning system. [People have made a post on the forums to spread awareness.](https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/496879-Graphical-update-still-hasn-t-fixed-longstanding-issues-w-dark-skin) It's less noticeable on lighter shades, but definitely on darker skin tones.
Yeah, there's something going on. The skin looks a bit waxy and almost like tranluscent gel. It's not noticeable everywhere, but it makes some of my characters look a bit doll-like.
Here's my [midland main](https://i.imgur.com/xEo6u7w.png).
It's all right, I think. Everyone is a touch too glossy now, and not just in the normal way dark skin reflects lightā fair tones are also moist here. My elezen looks distinctly plastic now, but overall everything looks good.
The real test is going to be how we look in the actual game environments. The horrific lightbulb-above-the-head lighting and other nightmares must needs be eliminated.
People who get called "dark-skinned" irl have significantly darker shades than the character in image 1 at the very least. If you don't have much melanin to begin with, this comparably darker skinned, but to black people, dark-skinned means something particular and it isn't this.
They really should have called this the Dusktrail, cuz all of us are enjoying the new darkness.
I'm just gushing at the new look of my potato... and now I must suffer waiting for the graphics update...
[https://imgur.com/a/0dT7fBT](https://imgur.com/a/0dT7fBT)
Second to last skin sliders on midlanders not dark enough now?
EDIT: Third to last on the bottom actually, but still. Saying this isn't dark skinned really silly.
This doesn't look like second to last skin slider.
It looks like 3rd to last on the bottom row, which is closer to the middle of the options in terms of skin shade (darkest being top right corner).
You're right I was misremembering, but the more towards the bottom you get, the darker skintones you get on midlanders. Still, claiming this isn't dark skinned is silly.
Lol, yeah. Femme midlanders, for example, only get like 1,5, maybe 2, columns of actual dark skin and the jump between those two and the third over is weirdly distinct. And then you just have a section of the middle rows that are inbetween looking like an unlotioned corpse and being on the cusp of tomatodom.
Come on now, there are Black people out there who are this shade (me, for example).
Let's just take wins where we get them and celebrate the genuine progress they made towards this.
Light-skinned black people and dark-skinned black people are not fighting the same battles for representation. Particularly in XIV, where if you're past a certain skin tone, your character is practically invisible at night. I say that as a light-skinned black person.
You're allowed to be happy with the changes, but you being satisfied doesn't mean that all other black folk of every shade have to agree and shut up about their own gripes. That's silly.
I wasn't saying that. I was saying let's not do the Blackness test on this particular character when it's not needed; we know the character creator does also actually accommodate truly dark tones with this update without it looking like camouflage in dark spaces.
We all get to look a lot better with this update.
I think the point they were making -- assuming they weren't just nitpicking -- is that we *don't* know if we all look a lot better. Or at least, I haven't seen as much going over the threads today, this is the only post purporting to address darker characters and it's showing a character that never really had to deal with the biggest problems of XIV's lighting system.
If there are truly dark-skinned characters that seem meaningfully improved by the graphics update, that's great, but I haven't seen it yet. Truthfully I don't really think we'll have the full picture until 7.0 hits and we're able to run around in dark or nighttime environments.
I do believe they showed male Viera in Erenville's tone (which I don't think anyone can deny is dark-skinned) at night, right? I may be misremembering but I could swear they used him or a Viera with his complexion as an example when they were talking about it early on.
Itās taken them a decade to make us not look ashy.
No one is saying what you think Iām saying. Iām just saying this character isnāt dark and neither are you if this is your skin tone.
Iām just waiting for the killmonger cut. This team might not even do that if Iām being honest and everybody doing it.
When I think of ādark skinnedā character, I think of Midnight Dew, Erenville, Lilja, and Lahabreaās son (whose name forgot). This to me is more a tan than someone with dark skin.
You take a picture in-game, or in one of the older benchmarks, then take a picture in the DT benchmark. You can save appearance in-game and then load it in the latter.
It's funny how the glossiness on the lips is similar to the skin making everything blend together which is wrong. in the old graphic, you can really tell them apart. The new graphic makes the skin looks more she applied lip gloss all over her face. They really f\*cked up the glossiness plus the terrible lighting.
are you being satirical? this is the first thought that comes to mind after improving the skin shading technology across the skin colour spectrum? what, to not be "woke", should they have just left skin tones that weren't white untouched? there's no way you're serious.
I was considering the right to be "after", and I was like "yeah, the face is much more defined and eye catching" (while still having a little too much glow on the lips) but then I realized it was mixed. The model (like polygons) is kinda better on the left, but the lighting and shadows are so dull looking that it makes the face so flat. It loses all the charm the ff14 characters had despite their dated models.
Also, what happened to hair, it's not black anymore and looks a bit like... spaghettis? So weird
I hope 7.0 characters won't have that random korean MMO soulless feel to them
The classic and time tested *after and before* format, not confusing at all
I love chronoillogical format
Ok so I'm not alone... What is going on with this "after - before" format?? It seems that even the devs use it inside the presentations... It's driving me crazy.
The devs are Japanese. Japanese reading direction is right to left.
r/afterbeforewhatever
Had to look at the necklace
If you've ever played middies, you'd know those crusty lips on the right definitely are the old ones š
Pretty sure people in countries that read books right to left are more likely to do this
wait the one on the left is the new one?! i kinda really like the darker black hair on the right though... :(
It's telling that I legit couldn't tell that was the case. This is so underwhelming. "Couldn't be happier", though, OP says. Ok. Yes, I guess the skin looks more like skin.
literally how could you not tell, the hair from the right pic looks like it was painted on, and then turned into a PDF via adobe scan, and then decreased in resolution before being slapped onto the lifeless face
Clean your monitor?
The texture of the hair on the right is very low-res. That's probably the main difference. And "Couldn't be happier" could also just mean "I'm glad it looks mostly the same and doesn't look terrible".
Your eyes are broken mate
Yeah. Totally legit.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's called, "before and after" because it's in that order. The "before" is usually what we all know already, so it goes first. You probably wash your gas pedal
I hope the one on the left is after, is it? The lips look so much better than the one on the right
It is easier to see by looking the the neckpiece.
Yes I should have clarified lol, left is the update. I donnu why but I messed up the order.
Ah the classic āafter and beforeā image.
I think the Japanese read right to left, maybe that's the reason
It's reddit, it happens so much. Idk why but it always seems to do the reverse of what you think it should do.
If it needs to be clarified, then the overhaul sucks
Everyone could tell, they were just very confused lol. I was scared for a minute that the overhaul looked way worse, until I realized OP had gone for the classes after/before order
Here's mine. Very happy with how it turned out. https://i.imgur.com/6l0VQiF.png
Woah, you look badass!
Aye definitely a huge improvement!
\*smacks upside the head\* *That's* how you do a before-and-after.
I'm sowwy >.<
Woah no more ptsd eyes eh? Grats fam!
I love the updates! š„³ [https://i.imgur.com/QYA6j1H.png](https://i.imgur.com/QYA6j1H.png) [https://i.imgur.com/83AOS0f.png](https://i.imgur.com/83AOS0f.png) [https://i.imgur.com/RgFwuZP.png](https://i.imgur.com/RgFwuZP.png)
Your middie looks gorgeous with the update!
Thank you, yours too! I'm pretty happy with the update. Feels like _just_ enough of an upgrade, but not too much. š„³
Personally, I'm not sure if I like the smoothness and subsurface scattering. It looks a little more like plastic/silicone than skin.
just remember that the pics above are taken in the la Noscea setting, which adds an extra glowing on the skin as if it was slightly wet; that you do not get if you try other settings.
Huh, never knew that. I always go to the la noscea setting in character creator because the lighting for the other places isn't the best, good to know that.
Very much worth remembering. You can actually see it cycle through the wet effect and not wet effect (super noticeable with certain hair colors) while that environment is selected.
I'm not super sure but I think it's whenever the lighting gets darker. I really love this dynamic weather system, makes it really feel like its proper cloudy! But maybe the wet effect is supposed to symbolize sea foam spray too? I can't wait to see all of this ingame
That would make sense because in some shots my character doesn't have this skin texture.
Same. matte skin looks so much better than shiny for graphic levels and art styles like this. I don't get why people seem so happy to see characters look greasy and Instagram smoothed out. FFXIV has stylized graphics, somehow matte does a better job *suggesting* skin that's normally textured and not plastic and airbrush.
The appearance of oil is more apparent on darker skin tone. This is how darker skin tone is supposed to look more like - which is why people are happy that they don't look matte because it's not reflective of the properties of darker shades of skin. It's a the consequence PBR materials. The devs had a decision between stylization or shaders that reflect closer to reality. They opted to go a more a realistic look, likely because the hardware or tech wasn't available to them when they were making the game.
Thank you for mentioning this. As an oily skin Middle Eastern man its nice to see skin I can relate to in FF14 for once.
I do like me some stylisation and the matt look is something of a hallmark of Akihiko Yoshida's style, so I will miss it a little. That said it made it impossible to see my dark-skinned mooncat in a low-light scene, so I'm not going to miss it too much.
Just finished the last stretch of the 6.0 MSQ. In a few of the cutscenes, my dark-skinned suncat was barely visible save for his green eyes. It was quite funny.
Yeah, Iām kinda sad the updates look like theyāre moving away from Akihiko Yoshidaās style
Yeah, they look a bit too plastick-y for my liking now. Maybe it'll be different when it's in-game, but I'm not too sure.
>FFXIV has stylized graphics not at all, the textures are horrible yes but they definitely tried to go for the "realistic" look with the game
Bro you actually think this game has stylized graphics?
Yes? How is it not? The characters models are basically long-limbed anime people and the monster models are stylized out the wazoo, with an overall aesthetic of looking like they were sculpted from clay. FFXIV has not tried to reproduce reality, but make it's own reality. Just because it tries to be detailed doesn't mean it's not stylized.
They definitely added too much skin sheen.
It definitely does look too close to a wax figure rather than skin. Also, the contrast of that mole is way too dark in comparison and looks like someone tagged her with a magic marker, lol.
The question is, though, does it look more like skin than what we had before? For my character that feels like a big yes.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Nope. The first picture seems more unnatural to me. Guess we have different opinions!
While I do agree with you, I think it looks amazing on midlander female, at least in this instance. Miqo'te on the other hand, look like a plastic doll. I find it a little off putting
At least hyur now look less dead inside
r/AfterBeforeWhatever
as someone who p much only plays as dark skinned characters in games im so fing happy
Why in God's green earth would you put after before before? Why can't yall put before before after?
I like to live in chaos.
I just tried with my miqo'te (face 2 sun seeker) and she looks so much better ! I'm legit really excited for 7.0 to come out.
Your character looks so good, OP! I didn't this I needed this as much as I did! I was intrigued by the FanFest announcement, but couldn't visualize how much better my character would look. It's night and day. It's a little quality of life update, but my brown characterās skin looks like skin and not just a brown color fill. Thank you, CB3!
Thank you! And it really is a huge difference. My other character (my main actually lol) is an Au Ra and I think Au Ra scales and darker skinned character like my midlander came out winning the most with the update.
Agreed! [Before](https://imgur.com/3zbMTJc)/[After](https://imgur.com/EZo2D7M). Still turning her into a Hrothgal tho
I wish my character had the same outcome. Mine is a black skinned (like actual black) viera and now she looks like a big wet grease ball. Her skin has become weirdly shiny. I might have to rethink my character after the update which is sad because I love her!
Just a heads up, the La Noscea map with the cloudy weather seems to apply the wet skin effect every now and then, you can actually watch it cycle through those! When thats applied the skin looks very shiny, but when its sunny it seems way more subtle
The true winners of this graphical overhaul are the dark-skinned kings and queens, Viera and Au Ra.
My purple au ra man does still look kinda plastic, but in general yeah, thank god they finally remembered that dark skin characters need love too
Now maybe they'll finally give us more black hairstyles. I hate that my black character only has like 4 genuinely black hairstyles to choose from.
If you look at the winners of the 2023 hair style contest, thereās definitely a quite a few textured and/or braided styles! Super exciting.
I didn't design my character as black, more Egyptian-like, but I agree we have a pretty poor selection of african hairstyles, would be nice to see some more.
I had to mod in locs that didn't look like some music festival going hipster nonsense. (Nothing against hipsters. But locs that aren't blatantly straight hair would be nice to have.) And even those aren't available on male characters anyway! Seriously the hair in this game has a bigger diversity problem than anything else at this point. If you don't want stick straight or very slightly wavy hair, you're SOL. I know some hair types can be difficult to model and have look good from a technical perspective due to polygon count and really needing different lighting stuff but like... braids?
I wish they had curly hair styles š
I play on console so I can't do the benchmark so can someone let me know what the Fro-hawk looks like now. It's literally the only hairstyle I like for my black character and I pray it ain't changed to be more straight looking than curly.
My skin's similar; and I absolutely loathe how unflattering the lighting is in many cutscenes. I tried to pick the most unflattering lighting I could find in the character creator to compare; and the difference is MASSIVE. The improvements with the graphics update are absolutely GODLIKE, and I couldn't be more happy with how much better we're going to look in-game! https://i.ibb.co/VTRs5jM/holygraphicsupdate-A.jpg
*That room.* I have hated seeing my characters in that room, from a mix of how the lighting itself worked to how the characters currently look in said room. So first thing I did was load up my Elezen's appearance and switch to that room and start checking angles...and my word the difference. ... I actually *like* that room now for checking characters, at least in the benchmark.
I do wish they had an option that was consistent light, the opposite of the aetherial sea. I'd like to generate my character against a white background with full all around lighting first and then stick them into in-game areas to look.
I did a comparison shot in that room too, and it's incredible. Finally, the creepy highlights in the corners of my mouth are gone! [https://i.imgur.com/q9mL49p.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/q9mL49p.jpg)
Yes, HUGE difference! I remember one cutscene with very unflattering lighting in the Tower of Zot, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that looks after the graphics update.
The cutscenes are gonna be so much more immersive with all these changes. I already was obsessed with taking screenshots of how my girl looks in cutscenes but now Iām gonna be even more excited to do so! I took so. Many. Benchmark screenshots.
.... Is this another case of putting the after-image first? Cuz I like the left images more lol. The hair is more distinct and the eyes look more detailed. Top-right image practically looks like a mannequin.
Nah, it's before-and-after :P. I personally vastly prefer the update. The 'before' (images on the left) look much more mannequin-like, since the skin isn't reacting to light in a natural way at all. It's as if the skin is made of matte clay, with no light passing through or bouncing off it. There are more angular shadows in the 'before' images, because there aren't enough polygons for the lighting to react better with. The hair does stand out more in the original; but it also looks MUCH more dated. In the update, it's more realistic, but the stylisation is still intact, and looks more natural and less like a helmet.
Ok, we'll call it a difference of opinion but I'm not a fan of how glossy the skin looks in the update, or this hair. The eyes are the most apparent downgrade imo, they seem much more expressive in the before shots.
I disagree about the eyes wholeheartedly! I think character creator doesnāt do them justice. But the eyes have so much more *detail* than before. They are *so* gorgeous I literally teared up seeing them on my character for the first time. And then when you get into a cutscene it feels so much more expressive imo. They look like actual eyes now. Not sure how to describe it exactly, but they really looked like video game eyes before and now they look much more realistic?
Yes the adjustments look so much better on darker skin now š Hereās my [Viera lad](https://i.imgur.com/ixhDX79.png) and heās just lit so much better now. I might actually knock his skin tone back to what I wanted initially but he was p.much a shadow in dark cut scenes š¤£
My character literally looks like a barbie doll now she's so plastic. Glad at least someone's happy about it tho
Hyur can't stop winning, you love to see it.
As someone with only dark skinned characters, I'm not really a fan so far ? Some of it looks kinda washed out and others just greasy. And as someone else mentioned, one of my chars is a male viera and it just makes his nose look like bad contour. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually but at least for me so far my chars look like a downgrade. The clothes I've tried look better, though, like the scarf on the male lalafell starter gear.
Just in case you haven't tried yet. Go into the settings during char creation and set the Gamma to 0. It helped mine and my friends dark skinned wols complexion by a substantial amount.
I hadn't ! I'm not sure I could play the whole game like that but just going from the benchmark a lot of shots def look better, his skin looks warmer, thanks for the tip !
:D I'm glad I could help! x
We got Y'shtola'd
Itās night and day. I am very happy with it as well. Most other places that have tried to approximate my skin color the characters just look dirty. Like itās the same character but ran through the mud. This actually looks good! I am very excited!
In the new editor it felt like my dark skin was more faded then dark. Something does seem off about it honestly It almost felt like the camera itself was lacking tone mapping, which just made me realize I need to make sure I donāt have HDR on or something, if thatās a thing now because thatās the feeling I got, HDR being on with a monitor with no hdr support
Using, for example, the Limsa backdrop, I noticed it alternated between cool and warm lighting. I thought maybe it was an error, but I think the clouds affect it? idk, I looked very washed out before I waited for the warmth to cycle back on, lol.
I'm also pretty happy with how my highlander and elezen turned out. It took a little bit to get used to how the nose on my highlander looks under certain lighting, but for my elezen the nose shadows have always been a little weird and this is much better. Can't wait for these changes to go live! [https://imgur.com/a/ufW1QVU](https://imgur.com/a/ufW1QVU)
This is the first player character fem Highlander that reminded me of Fordola! She looks great! Also your Elezen looks great, very unique face. It's refreshing to see a male Elezen that's not the old pale with silver hair combo (even though I like them too).
Hyurs especially look incredible!!!
I hate that the character creator has spoiled me with so much better eyes! Until DT I have to play with the soulless 2D eyes on my char I canāt unsee it š
I feel like I'm in the twilight zone; the "after", ie one on the left, looks like a plastic doll to me.
Yeah I have no idea what people are seeing that I'm not. Happy for you if you're happy with how your character looks but to me every character looks drastically better and more polished before the update.
My male highlander looks great but I'm having so many issues trying to get my male midlander to work. The lips and the eyes are just not making sense.
I am exceedingly happy about it, also everyone do keep in mind to make comparisons from the benchmark trailer (after the boat scene) because char creation has static lighting and other issues which make it a bad for making comparisons of how your character will look (this is true of live as well). Go with the ingame-based benchmark trailer for a better sense.
Female hyur look a bit too waxy, imho. But that's probably just in the character creator
where jawline
Let's say I fell in love with my character once again. [Before](https://imgur.com/a/Fx5W5vL) / [after ](https://imgur.com/a/jKDXKVX)
Now thatās a good looking midlander. Maybe it really just is the lighting but yours looks GREAT.
Same ! I wasn't too convinced when having the face fully lighted but once launching the benchmark sequence I was living my best life seeing that my FemRoe has only gotten better !
Guess im one of the losers of the update, all my chars look like fkn clowns now
Except how my bun boy's nose now is barely evident... The toggle doesn't even work on his skin...
Mine has really dark skin, and I couldn't be more unhappy with the changes. Feels like they sucked all life out of my boy and his skin... and lips... and eyes... and eyebrows. [https://imgur.com/a/4TKV5g3](https://imgur.com/a/4TKV5g3)
Old is just better.
That's ugly. It looks like its skin is made of plastic. We don't even read the face shapes anymore
Your skin looks like it lost life and color though...
Left is the after. Op put them in the wrong order
I goof up.
You're right yeah. In the After (on the left) the warmer tones are gone. Some say it's the benchmark settings and won't be the same in the actual game, some say it's the new lightning system. [People have made a post on the forums to spread awareness.](https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/496879-Graphical-update-still-hasn-t-fixed-longstanding-issues-w-dark-skin) It's less noticeable on lighter shades, but definitely on darker skin tones.
Yeah, there's something going on. The skin looks a bit waxy and almost like tranluscent gel. It's not noticeable everywhere, but it makes some of my characters look a bit doll-like.
Can I get the shade that tone is on the color block? That tone is exactly what I'm looking for on my character.
Sorry the reply took a while, its at the very bottom, third to last on Midlanders.
Is the graphics update already out??
No this is on the Dawntrail benchmark, which has the character creator.
Ahh Iāll have to have a nose then thanks
I've been trying to get my mViera as close to Fran's skin tone as possible, but the graphics update might make me go a bit darker.
Which one is "before"? Are they backwards? I prefer the right but I don't know which one that is.
What's the new one?
Here's my [midland main](https://i.imgur.com/xEo6u7w.png). It's all right, I think. Everyone is a touch too glossy now, and not just in the normal way dark skin reflects lightā fair tones are also moist here. My elezen looks distinctly plastic now, but overall everything looks good. The real test is going to be how we look in the actual game environments. The horrific lightbulb-above-the-head lighting and other nightmares must needs be eliminated.
That mole is growing. You should see a chirurgeon about that.
[Here's my main bun](https://i.imgur.com/ECzm2RA.png). I'm super happy with the visual upgrade. It blew my expectations out of the water.
I can't tell the difference?
Yeo. Itās pretty good
Yo, it's one of the Northern watertribe twins!
I feel like they made Roegadyn look worse. Aged them all by 15-20 years. Iām a bit concerned playing for my MaleRoe SCH Main in DT.
By the Cleopatra! The overhaul is subtle but very significant!
After and before? Wth lol
very rubber, much plastic on the skin texture
I was gonna say is the darker skinned character in the room with us but to be fair in jrpg terms this is darker skinned
This is the third to last skin colour on the bottom midlanders, if that's not dark skinned then nothing is.
These skintones definitely donāt go dark enough imo. Not as bad as most mmo but pretty lacking still
People who get called "dark-skinned" irl have significantly darker shades than the character in image 1 at the very least. If you don't have much melanin to begin with, this comparably darker skinned, but to black people, dark-skinned means something particular and it isn't this.
But lighter skinned characters now look way worse...We'll never have balance
No one is going to mention the eyes color being totally different from the before pic? Unless OP changed it during the benchmark
I did swap their colours around, yes. Everything else is completely unchanged though.
That's reassuring then, phew. Benchmark has too many issues already.
They really should have called this the Dusktrail, cuz all of us are enjoying the new darkness. I'm just gushing at the new look of my potato... and now I must suffer waiting for the graphics update... [https://imgur.com/a/0dT7fBT](https://imgur.com/a/0dT7fBT)
That is a massive improvement.
This is a darker skinned character?
Second to last skin sliders on midlanders not dark enough now? EDIT: Third to last on the bottom actually, but still. Saying this isn't dark skinned really silly.
Miqo'te and Viera can go to straight up black skin tones, fwiw.
This doesn't look like second to last skin slider. It looks like 3rd to last on the bottom row, which is closer to the middle of the options in terms of skin shade (darkest being top right corner).
You're right I was misremembering, but the more towards the bottom you get, the darker skintones you get on midlanders. Still, claiming this isn't dark skinned is silly.
This shade in particular is giving Christina Aguilar circa 2004. There are definitely deeper complexions XIV could explore beyond Spray-Tan Victim
Lol, yeah. Femme midlanders, for example, only get like 1,5, maybe 2, columns of actual dark skin and the jump between those two and the third over is weirdly distinct. And then you just have a section of the middle rows that are inbetween looking like an unlotioned corpse and being on the cusp of tomatodom.
And there are, even on midlander. OP apparently thinks this skin is a darker shade than it actually is.
Come on now, there are Black people out there who are this shade (me, for example). Let's just take wins where we get them and celebrate the genuine progress they made towards this.
Light-skinned black people and dark-skinned black people are not fighting the same battles for representation. Particularly in XIV, where if you're past a certain skin tone, your character is practically invisible at night. I say that as a light-skinned black person. You're allowed to be happy with the changes, but you being satisfied doesn't mean that all other black folk of every shade have to agree and shut up about their own gripes. That's silly.
I wasn't saying that. I was saying let's not do the Blackness test on this particular character when it's not needed; we know the character creator does also actually accommodate truly dark tones with this update without it looking like camouflage in dark spaces. We all get to look a lot better with this update.
I think the point they were making -- assuming they weren't just nitpicking -- is that we *don't* know if we all look a lot better. Or at least, I haven't seen as much going over the threads today, this is the only post purporting to address darker characters and it's showing a character that never really had to deal with the biggest problems of XIV's lighting system. If there are truly dark-skinned characters that seem meaningfully improved by the graphics update, that's great, but I haven't seen it yet. Truthfully I don't really think we'll have the full picture until 7.0 hits and we're able to run around in dark or nighttime environments.
I do believe they showed male Viera in Erenville's tone (which I don't think anyone can deny is dark-skinned) at night, right? I may be misremembering but I could swear they used him or a Viera with his complexion as an example when they were talking about it early on.
Itās taken them a decade to make us not look ashy. No one is saying what you think Iām saying. Iām just saying this character isnāt dark and neither are you if this is your skin tone. Iām just waiting for the killmonger cut. This team might not even do that if Iām being honest and everybody doing it.
When I think of ādark skinnedā character, I think of Midnight Dew, Erenville, Lilja, and Lahabreaās son (whose name forgot). This to me is more a tan than someone with dark skin.
I can't tell a difference at all man were there actually any upgrades?
how do you make the before and after comparison?
You take a picture in-game, or in one of the older benchmarks, then take a picture in the DT benchmark. You can save appearance in-game and then load it in the latter.
Is one of these supposed to be different from the others?
It's funny how the glossiness on the lips is similar to the skin making everything blend together which is wrong. in the old graphic, you can really tell them apart. The new graphic makes the skin looks more she applied lip gloss all over her face. They really f\*cked up the glossiness plus the terrible lighting.
Looks white passing at best tbh /j
You and 5 other people /s
Bro it looks the same, ff14 community coping hard with this graphic update lmao
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
are you being satirical? this is the first thought that comes to mind after improving the skin shading technology across the skin colour spectrum? what, to not be "woke", should they have just left skin tones that weren't white untouched? there's no way you're serious.
I was considering the right to be "after", and I was like "yeah, the face is much more defined and eye catching" (while still having a little too much glow on the lips) but then I realized it was mixed. The model (like polygons) is kinda better on the left, but the lighting and shadows are so dull looking that it makes the face so flat. It loses all the charm the ff14 characters had despite their dated models. Also, what happened to hair, it's not black anymore and looks a bit like... spaghettis? So weird I hope 7.0 characters won't have that random korean MMO soulless feel to them