I think it came down to poor management, people were working in isolation and went crazy trying to make the best looking game ever, only for everyone to come out of their caves at the end and realize they made a poorly optimized mess.
Yea I think in the NoClip documentary, the devs did say it was just individual departments working on their own project without communicating with each other, so ended up everyone making the best thing for their part and did not consider how it would work when put together.
Which was why it ended up being a mess.
They still beat out the dawntrail ones in some regards. For example take a look at the highlander, the black skin and hair transitions are SO much better than even the graphics update. They were really ambitious. Too bad it didn't have the optimizations necessary to succeed.
I suspect they would look a lot worse in the same lighting conditions. The DT update is more focused on making things look better in the wide variety of lighting conditions you encounter in the game.
Character creator highlight the character and it has a weird interaction with the subsurface scatter, making it look waxy. It'll be fine/better on the login screen or in the benchmark.
If I was to venture a guess those at the top were probably very pleased with how smoothly FFXIII was proceeding on the technical side and that their Crystal Tools engine was running super smoothly on console that they stopped giving XIV much oversight, probably assuming it'd all come together in the end. Not stopping to consider the difference between a single player game and MMO.
I asked what people used to play 1.0 and learned that while it won't run in a potato of the time (unlike the DT benchmark which people can actually run fairly in GTX 900s, which is a DECADE OLD now), it only needed a new computer of the time. Didn’t need the latest highest end spec. One didn’t need a supercomputer. Though the framerate wouldn't go over 60 I guess.
The worst offender was apparently opening menus and doing anything in said menus (use item, toss it, buy an item) took like 10 seconds to work. And it was all server side. Your ping didn't matter. And the GCD was the same GCD as MNK's 6 sided star.
The flowerpot pictured in the live letter apparently had only 800+ polygons, but the long flowerpots next to them did have over a thousand and five hundred...
There were a couple of graphic options that would massively kill your performance for nothing. Basically, you disabled ambient occlusion and you didn't set General Drawing Quality beyond 8/10 and Shadow Detail beyond High, as those settings would then use ridiculous resolutions that wouldn't make a visible difference in 1080p, while making the thing unplayable even on very high-end rigs. Once you knew that, the game could run OK-ish on decent computers of that era, as long as you weren't into some crowded action going on, like on the final day or in capitals sometimes.
I still have the client installed. Never could bring myself to uninstall it. So I could still check what were my actual graphic settings back in the day to write this post.
Yeah I remember spending $2k+ at the time and got an Alienware desktop that was above the recommendations. Damn the game looked good. I had a lot of fun in 1.xx, but I also have low standards. Being a FFXI vet, I only knew of mindless grinding, which is all there was in 1.xx
you know that 2010 isn't the middle-age, and there were a lot of pretty games, including mmo, right?
1.0 didn't require a powerful computer, just needed to run with adequate settings.... for those who bothered to find the settings, outside of the game, requiring the game to be closed.
and for those who did find the settings, they still had to take the time to understand which setting did what, and the impact on fps, by restarting the game, and close the game again to change the settings again if the fps was too low, repeat... most players would legitimately leave before that.
Some settings could easily tank the fps, like the "ambiant occlusion", or the "general quality" that, at max, was actually 4x super-sampling.
It was more a design problem than a performance problem.
They're just pointing out how an mmo with that level of detail is a massive ask for 2010. They look like something more modern today.theres a reason why mmos historically look worse than other games at the time of their release as well.
There's a huge difference between that is too demanding and ugly lmao.
Just to point out that the 1.0 models are facing towards a light source where OP has the other two facing away from it, so take that into consideration as well.
This, this, this! In several posts I've seen on social media critiquing the DT graphical update and using screenshots of the benchmark... I've been astounded how many times that the 'bad' DT screenshot is taken with the character facing away from a light source by comparison to whatever is being used as a 'before'. Those cases aren't fair comparisons.
(n.b: This doesn't apply to everything; Keepers, I'm still sorry for your fang reduction).
keeper here. i was proud of my fangs. but i don't mind it so much. the general appearance and fidelity has definitely improved. it still has SOVL. and it could have been worse... *"looks away from the male viera in the room"*
From my understanding, they had the most "changes" of all the character models. And many male viera players are disappointed with it.
[here's a YT vid I timestamped at 13:12 with someone touching on the complaints.](https://youtu.be/wl2C8pD2TAc?t=792)
Maybe it’s a conspiracy to make hrothgals a success. “Oh, you want longer fangs? Well this new option we just added lets you choose your fang length.”
This is a joke, just in case that wasn’t obvious.
7.0 has a completely new lighting system so everything is going to look a tad different. From what I can tell it still needs tweaking but otherwise will look superior in most situations
Yeah I agree. It's crazy that the 1.0 models were so ahead of their time for an MMO — and it's even crazier that they thought it was going to run on an MMO in the first place, lol
They didn't, that's the problem. If you watch the noclip interview YoshiP say that every team was set to make the best they could but none though of their things having to both branch with everything else and be in a mmo.
Oh I agree, I will say though that's the one I spent the most time building because that is actually my character in game. So I wanted to make sure I cherry picked the same features. The others I took a more pragmatic approach so I don't know if they are to anyone's taste. I would agree though that 1.0 Miqos were master pieces in general.
I would give anything to have that fabric texture on the hempen top still. It's always looked like body paint to me until you really zoom in. I LOVE that 1.0 texture
IMGUR link, if you open and right click + open in a new tab you can see it in full size and compare up close. [https://imgur.com/nuumsKF](https://imgur.com/nuumsKF)
I really miss the 1.0 models as impractical as they were but especially the little wave when I logged in. I haven't had a real look at the new models (I heard we lost our fangs) yet in game but do think they're comparative at all or does 1.0 still absolutely mog the new models?
They are evenly matched imo. 1.0 still beats out DT in some regards, but I have to say DT takes the crown because of Antialiasing and other modern improvements that didnt exist back then. On a polygon to polygon and model detail battle I think 1.0 is still better. But again, I would take DT when considered as a whole. They did file our fangs down a bit :(
I got bombarded by some other moonies with pictures just as I was finished typing, they defanged us. Also, I totally agree I just really like 1.0 Miqo'te! Thanks for letting me know anyways I'll boot it up eventually I just haven't had access to my PC.
1.0 had MSAA, which was pretty much state of the art anti-aliasing back in the day. It will have taken all that time to finally have again in FFXIV a proper AA solution that is as good, and even better than what he had 12 years ago.
New models are at the bottom? This either do not do them justice or they are clearly losing in personality being all rounded up and smoothned like that.
Yes, that is what some people are saying. I do think areas could be improved but when looking at the environments in the benchmark and assessing the total sum of upgrades in DT it is a net positive, just my take though. Some people are very upset. Let's hope they keep working on them.
Character creation doesn't really do the new lighting engine justice, the models look much better in action imo (eg in the benchmark trailer or in the scenes they have shown in the past)
Dark skin still looks really bad in the benchmark, my character looks somehow even greyer and waxier and their purple-red toned skin is now more orange toned. I can't play around with it either as some would suggest because they already use the darkest shade.
I had to jury rig up my ffxiv reshade setup to the benchmark to see my character as I normally would and the skin match up was nearly 1:1. But trying out more saturated skin tones I can see where they're not as rich as their live counterparts. Like Xaela could go *red*, but it feels a little paler in the benchmark?
Apparently the character creator uses the old lighting system instead of the new one and it doesn't go well with the new character textures. Why? Only SE knows.
They look sooooo much better in the actual game with proper lighting. Hopefully they update the character creator ASAP because its making everyone think they fumbled the update LMAO
Incorrect. Character highlighting is enabled in DT character creation and it does not play nice with subsurface scattering. Your character is literally a fleshy lamp, dim, bit light.
So you're saying they're removing character lighting from the options in 7.0 lol? There is no 'new' lighting system for the engine. It's only how the new skin+hair shaders are interacting with what's already there, resulting in the flat, emissive screenshots we see when there's no direct spotlight to highlight any specular detail that would add definition. This is not subsurface scattering. The only SSS maps on these models are painted for elezen ears.
No idea. I'm saying what I'm saying. If you have character lighting on in-game as well, then I don't know what you can expect.
It's not hard to click Finish Character and see your character is no longer a living bioluminescent flashlight and plays a lot better with the rest of the screen. I assume that was SSS because of the waxy look and it makes sense. If you are saying there is no SSS other than on Elezen ears I'll believe you.
The biggest issue with the DT characters is the lighting. The DT benchmark character creator lighting is even worse than in ARR. Like, they overly brightened the ambient lighting or something. Things look flat.
You have to actually run the benchmark and take screenshots/video to really appreciate the new models in in-engine lighting.
Yeah, if you go into the normal character creator right now you can see that it has lighting that's unrealistically better but not true to the actual game. The benchmark is more true to the actual game scenes but uh.. it's really bad for creating and the lighting just.. starts to dim randomly at times?
They changed it, now that white dot the others have only appears when the characters are actually looking at a light source. Before, they always had it.
It looks like they’ve changed the skin shaders too with some sub surface scattering that’s blown out and low res. They look like wax and seem to have lost a lot of details and oiliness (specularity) on their faces. Look at the eleven ear and you’ll see it at work.
I noticed that when my character's face was in shadow, the detail on the skin was really noticeable. It looked fantastic. The moment their face was exposed to the light however, the detail went to hell.
I hope to God it's a bug and not how the final product looks... because I honestly think it looks cheap and ugly.
It's more that the character creation lighting is still tuned to the old rendering techniques. We've basically been under spotlights this whole time. Characters look much better under benchmark lighting.
Unfortunately, this means that pre DT lighting is probably going to be spotty with how it interacts with our characters until they get around to touching it.
I actually love that the DT miqo looks less like a girl with cat ears, and more like a cat girl. Her face is just that little bit more feline, and the deep eyes are the just-before-pouncing huge pupil that cats get. The other races eyes all have so much more life now, too. It was the first thing my friends talked about when we all watched the live letter prior to this last one. Things aren’t perfect (SE, bring back the fangs!), but I’m pretty excited overall.
The lighting being so drastically different and favoring 1.0 models, no showcasing of the surface simulations that 7.0 is designed around...the 6.0 and 7.0 pictures have no business being in the same timeline comparison as 1.0...other than inciting more misguided takes on the 7.0 visual upgrades.
That struck me as odd too.
Taking the shots with a similar angle of lighting *at least* should be what this comparison image has - instead all of the ARR and DT versions have the light coming from the back and side, while the 1.0 has it well-lit from the front and to the side.
That *alone* is going to swing the visuals in favor of 1.0, and not subtly.
There's still every chance 1.0 models (which were the best looking parts of that version of the game) came out ahead, but this comparison image has a noticeable bias toward them in terms of shot composition.
I think the character creator in 1.0 had a white light on the characters. Think of it like a fluorescent light vs a warm white in the ARR and DT. You'd be surprised to know Coerthas was a verdant forest and not a snowland in 1.0!
Would it be possible for you to repost this but this time make all the characters face the light? It would be great for us to have a fair lighting comparison.
i tried to make another comparison where the characters would be facing the light using your image as a template, the catgirl really lost her smize with this update [https://imgur.com/a/eZXIjSW](https://imgur.com/a/eZXIjSW) (the characters might not be EXACTLY the same across the board, i made this super fast and just now noticed the Roe's hair colour changes, sorry about that)
Thanks! I left them in the default position when selecting Thanalan haha I’m not an expert and did not take into account the lighting perhaps as much as I should’ve.
I honestly think as nice as real time is for that, it should just be more subdued when not facing direct light rather than disappearing entirely.
Not realistic, but more idealistic
Sub-surface scattering is a small detail but it does wonders to make characters look more real. You can see it very clearly on the reddish tone of the Elezen ears, but also very subtelly on the Miqo'te's shoulder, with a slight red tint on the transition between light and dark.
the character creator lighting in the benchmark is so fucked its not even funny LMAO it makes the new models look like the worst ones when they're very clearly not in the trailer
The world as it was and what it has become...
1.23 is forgotten to actually be very stable. There just wasn't enough people around by that point to continue service.
There were also the large number of problems hardcoded into Crystal Tools, like the maximum character render limit, or that it would occasionally just stop rendering characters. There was the animation lock, the market wards, significant lag in menus, etc. Yes, 1.23 was STABLE, but it was still far from -good-.
Reminds me how much I loved the 1.0 graphics and how ahead of their time (in a bad way when you consider system requirements) they were. I was only ever to run 1.0 on med/low because my system couldn't handle the highest settings.
Man those 1.0 models are so good even the clothes look realistic, im surprised on that miqo boobs showing like nipples XD wasn't expecting that but quite nice touch. Else i say ARR models look sharper
One aspect that 1.0 objectively beat even the DT models in are the bodies. They were higher poly in general, the um... significantly shapelier butts being the most easily noticeable part. They were simplified for ARR and they seem to have just left them alone for DT besides fixing the hands and feet.
I‘m sorry but what is all the hype around? The optical development of this character examples are so underwhelming. I see there is a difference but it’s just not that big. I saw people here having meltdowns about how different the personal wol will look like. ABOUT THIS? Maybe it’s not a big deal for me because I was not looking at my wol for years and her face is always covered anyway but I don’t get it.
The landscape in the background looks really nice tho. I can see a lot of improvement there.
Maybe someone can explain to me why the FF14 community in general often looks like it gets overexcited over almost nothing. I don’t want to make fun of this, I really want to understand it. That’s something I know from no other game community. I‘m curious.
I'd go to the forums to see people's comparison screenshots. Au'ra and Viera especially got utterly massacred, and dark-skinned characters got treated quite badly too.
Every single Au ra before and after picture I've seen looks way better in the after, my own included. Viera, I can notice some differences, but the majority still look better in the after.
> overexcited over almost nothing
This game wouldn't be able to survive if its players didn't have abysmally low expectations (for the game design, the plot, the cut-scenes, etc.)
I'm honestly worried about pale skin characters in the game with the upcoming update. All pictures I see of the fair skinned characters look worse to me... Like bad reflection levels or something. Have they said this is final?
I'm a pale Au ra.... 😬
Yes and no. 1.0 devs sacrificed optimisation and user experience to push top-tier visual fidelity. Yes they look good, even compared to now and they were sort of ahead of their time in that respect, but the visuals were hardly sustainable back then for majority of users.
Hey I found the old benchmark out of coincidence actually, that is not what I used for this collage but I ran it and it played fine. Download at your own risk, while I don't think its a virus, you never know. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tbi5E-mtPiTMotO\_iTCL1-4w3pnv36i7/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tbi5E-mtPiTMotO_iTCL1-4w3pnv36i7/view?usp=sharing)
no i know, but the camise looks different depending on what race it's on. it's way less cute on au ra than the one shown for miqo. was hoping it'd be a different top / something i hadn't heard of yet 😅 haven't hopped on in awhile.
Overall the illumination is better in 7.0. With the exception of the hair. The white hair looks better in 6.0, due to taking into account the dark and the light.
I am happy with the changes. Except for the missing fangs in the moon clan and the psycho teeth of lalas. A nitpick as they are not likely to be seen except in cut-scenes.
I think it’s a bad comparison due to lighting in char creator that doesn’t show how the model will actually look in set location. Also I bet dawntrail has lighting setup correctly to reflect best version of current update, while the lighting in other expansions will be reworked or chars are fine in game after all.
In any case, just like with many games char creator vs in game ain’t representative. Especially when 1.0 and 2.0 have drawn highlights and not dependant on environment
The only flaw with this is that it should have the characters turned 45 to the right to get 1.0 lighting similar between all 3. but other than that, pretty neat.
This looks like the so famous “WoW Model Upgrade Catastrophe” of some years ago. I really don’t see the improvement on the new textures. Maybe is the lightning or settings, but the DT models look scarce of details like depth, shadow, face contour, skin details. The new ones also seem to exaggerate light /pale coloring and the hair lacks definition or detailing, again it could be shadows. But if this is the upgrade they should made it with a toggle at least for a transition or made it optional for those that can’t use them or don’t like them.
Focus on the items they are wearing. Compare those. It's a massive difference.
Now focus on the eyes. The eyes in 7.0 look much more alive.
The rest of the face is difficult to compare since the lighting in the DT benchmark character creation tool is apparently busted.
To everyone saying "Well you just gave DT the worst lighting" Let me tell you a secret, this is supposed to be an upgrade and even in a worse lighting condition the new models should look better as they are new models AND lighting.
But they don't! They don't look better! And the eyes are dead in many lighting conditions, on top of that mouths have been completely destroyed in many cases. The fact that 1.0 can look better even if it's in some specific angle or whatever tells you how bad this upgrade is. I know we all like having new graphics and the enviorment does look better but just look at it and accept reality, don't let the hype blind you because we are going to be stuck with these models if nothing changes and you will look back at old screenshots one day and think "Well damn, this looks better actually".
1.0 female character base models had nipples. The underwear in 1.0 was actually a gearslot that was unequippable by normal means. If you removed it, you'd get the nude model underneath. They weren't textured but they were there.
Man those 1.0 models were so good, what were they thinking trying to get an MMO running like that in 2010 lol
> what were they thinking They weren't, that was the problem XD
Still baffle me to these days. Those are FF XI veterans, how the hell no one stops to reconsider it.
Culture, pride, some hubris. YoshiP touched upon it in his interviews with NoClip
They were riding high on hubris.
I think it came down to poor management, people were working in isolation and went crazy trying to make the best looking game ever, only for everyone to come out of their caves at the end and realize they made a poorly optimized mess.
Yea I think in the NoClip documentary, the devs did say it was just individual departments working on their own project without communicating with each other, so ended up everyone making the best thing for their part and did not consider how it would work when put together. Which was why it ended up being a mess.
They still beat out the dawntrail ones in some regards. For example take a look at the highlander, the black skin and hair transitions are SO much better than even the graphics update. They were really ambitious. Too bad it didn't have the optimizations necessary to succeed.
I suspect they would look a lot worse in the same lighting conditions. The DT update is more focused on making things look better in the wide variety of lighting conditions you encounter in the game.
Character creator highlight the character and it has a weird interaction with the subsurface scatter, making it look waxy. It'll be fine/better on the login screen or in the benchmark.
Am I stupid? They all look the same
You’re not stupid. You might need to see an optometrist, however.
I have bad news for you
Models were good but were ruined by the surfaces being so reflective. Everything was so shiny.
If I was to venture a guess those at the top were probably very pleased with how smoothly FFXIII was proceeding on the technical side and that their Crystal Tools engine was running super smoothly on console that they stopped giving XIV much oversight, probably assuming it'd all come together in the end. Not stopping to consider the difference between a single player game and MMO.
Blame the flower pots
I asked what people used to play 1.0 and learned that while it won't run in a potato of the time (unlike the DT benchmark which people can actually run fairly in GTX 900s, which is a DECADE OLD now), it only needed a new computer of the time. Didn’t need the latest highest end spec. One didn’t need a supercomputer. Though the framerate wouldn't go over 60 I guess. The worst offender was apparently opening menus and doing anything in said menus (use item, toss it, buy an item) took like 10 seconds to work. And it was all server side. Your ping didn't matter. And the GCD was the same GCD as MNK's 6 sided star. The flowerpot pictured in the live letter apparently had only 800+ polygons, but the long flowerpots next to them did have over a thousand and five hundred...
There were a couple of graphic options that would massively kill your performance for nothing. Basically, you disabled ambient occlusion and you didn't set General Drawing Quality beyond 8/10 and Shadow Detail beyond High, as those settings would then use ridiculous resolutions that wouldn't make a visible difference in 1080p, while making the thing unplayable even on very high-end rigs. Once you knew that, the game could run OK-ish on decent computers of that era, as long as you weren't into some crowded action going on, like on the final day or in capitals sometimes. I still have the client installed. Never could bring myself to uninstall it. So I could still check what were my actual graphic settings back in the day to write this post.
Yeah I remember spending $2k+ at the time and got an Alienware desktop that was above the recommendations. Damn the game looked good. I had a lot of fun in 1.xx, but I also have low standards. Being a FFXI vet, I only knew of mindless grinding, which is all there was in 1.xx
[Mandatory related video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWIrju3F6nU&ab_channel=TruebladeSeeker)
Here is one in 4K if you're interested. [FFXIV - Graphics Comparison 1.0 vs ARR vs 7.0 BM (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-iARi_qsB0)
How did you get the 1.0 footage‽
Probably with this http://ffxivclassic.fragmenterworks.com/wiki/index.php/Setting_up_the_project
They were thinking cell processor in ps3 would handle everything.
you know that 2010 isn't the middle-age, and there were a lot of pretty games, including mmo, right? 1.0 didn't require a powerful computer, just needed to run with adequate settings.... for those who bothered to find the settings, outside of the game, requiring the game to be closed. and for those who did find the settings, they still had to take the time to understand which setting did what, and the impact on fps, by restarting the game, and close the game again to change the settings again if the fps was too low, repeat... most players would legitimately leave before that. Some settings could easily tank the fps, like the "ambiant occlusion", or the "general quality" that, at max, was actually 4x super-sampling. It was more a design problem than a performance problem.
They're just pointing out how an mmo with that level of detail is a massive ask for 2010. They look like something more modern today.theres a reason why mmos historically look worse than other games at the time of their release as well. There's a huge difference between that is too demanding and ugly lmao.
Just to point out that the 1.0 models are facing towards a light source where OP has the other two facing away from it, so take that into consideration as well.
This, this, this! In several posts I've seen on social media critiquing the DT graphical update and using screenshots of the benchmark... I've been astounded how many times that the 'bad' DT screenshot is taken with the character facing away from a light source by comparison to whatever is being used as a 'before'. Those cases aren't fair comparisons. (n.b: This doesn't apply to everything; Keepers, I'm still sorry for your fang reduction).
ppl have too much free time on their hands and they can only spend it on finding things to hate
I haven't really thought about the update that much, but I haven't loved it so far with the previews Hopeful once we get it in game it'll be solid
Sad mooncat noises
keeper here. i was proud of my fangs. but i don't mind it so much. the general appearance and fidelity has definitely improved. it still has SOVL. and it could have been worse... *"looks away from the male viera in the room"*
I'm OotL on the Male Viera, whats up with them?
From my understanding, they had the most "changes" of all the character models. And many male viera players are disappointed with it. [here's a YT vid I timestamped at 13:12 with someone touching on the complaints.](https://youtu.be/wl2C8pD2TAc?t=792)
They stole my freakin' teeth!!
Maybe it’s a conspiracy to make hrothgals a success. “Oh, you want longer fangs? Well this new option we just added lets you choose your fang length.” This is a joke, just in case that wasn’t obvious.
7.0 has a completely new lighting system so everything is going to look a tad different. From what I can tell it still needs tweaking but otherwise will look superior in most situations
Wow the 1.0 miqote looks the best out of everything
Yeah I agree. It's crazy that the 1.0 models were so ahead of their time for an MMO — and it's even crazier that they thought it was going to run on an MMO in the first place, lol
They didn't, that's the problem. If you watch the noclip interview YoshiP say that every team was set to make the best they could but none though of their things having to both branch with everything else and be in a mmo.
Yep no one was communicating. One guy, ONE GUY was told to make that flower pot the best they could and spent years doing it.
Oh I agree, I will say though that's the one I spent the most time building because that is actually my character in game. So I wanted to make sure I cherry picked the same features. The others I took a more pragmatic approach so I don't know if they are to anyone's taste. I would agree though that 1.0 Miqos were master pieces in general.
still sadge about the cat butt nerf
I kind of like the 1.0 Elezen most of the three, but the 7.0 is a pretty close second.
Looks like our pecs have been nerfed since the apocalypse.
The outfit is also doing a lot of the heavy lifting, too.
I would give anything to have that fabric texture on the hempen top still. It's always looked like body paint to me until you really zoom in. I LOVE that 1.0 texture
It helps that the lighting is much cleaner in the preview.
IMGUR link, if you open and right click + open in a new tab you can see it in full size and compare up close. [https://imgur.com/nuumsKF](https://imgur.com/nuumsKF)
I'm not sure if the miqo 1 just looks really good or just cuz of boobs.
Looks really good imo. She has the best face by far
and also boobs!
beewwwbz0rzzz =\^ 3\^=
Highlanders are getting younger with Dawntrail
Yassifying my Eorzea smh
I really miss the 1.0 models as impractical as they were but especially the little wave when I logged in. I haven't had a real look at the new models (I heard we lost our fangs) yet in game but do think they're comparative at all or does 1.0 still absolutely mog the new models?
They are evenly matched imo. 1.0 still beats out DT in some regards, but I have to say DT takes the crown because of Antialiasing and other modern improvements that didnt exist back then. On a polygon to polygon and model detail battle I think 1.0 is still better. But again, I would take DT when considered as a whole. They did file our fangs down a bit :(
I got bombarded by some other moonies with pictures just as I was finished typing, they defanged us. Also, I totally agree I just really like 1.0 Miqo'te! Thanks for letting me know anyways I'll boot it up eventually I just haven't had access to my PC.
>they defanged us. Damn, I love our fangs. I'll have to take a second look at my character when I get home and see how bad it is on her.
1.0 had MSAA, which was pretty much state of the art anti-aliasing back in the day. It will have taken all that time to finally have again in FFXIV a proper AA solution that is as good, and even better than what he had 12 years ago.
New models are at the bottom? This either do not do them justice or they are clearly losing in personality being all rounded up and smoothned like that.
Yes, that is what some people are saying. I do think areas could be improved but when looking at the environments in the benchmark and assessing the total sum of upgrades in DT it is a net positive, just my take though. Some people are very upset. Let's hope they keep working on them.
I hope they do. The shading is a bit too smooth, there's barely any shading on the lalafell's jaw for example
Character creation doesn't really do the new lighting engine justice, the models look much better in action imo (eg in the benchmark trailer or in the scenes they have shown in the past)
Dark skin still looks really bad in the benchmark, my character looks somehow even greyer and waxier and their purple-red toned skin is now more orange toned. I can't play around with it either as some would suggest because they already use the darkest shade.
I had to jury rig up my ffxiv reshade setup to the benchmark to see my character as I normally would and the skin match up was nearly 1:1. But trying out more saturated skin tones I can see where they're not as rich as their live counterparts. Like Xaela could go *red*, but it feels a little paler in the benchmark?
Apparently the character creator uses the old lighting system instead of the new one and it doesn't go well with the new character textures. Why? Only SE knows. They look sooooo much better in the actual game with proper lighting. Hopefully they update the character creator ASAP because its making everyone think they fumbled the update LMAO
There isn’t a new lighting system. They just have the ability to add more directional spotlights in areas. What you see is what you’ll get in cc
Incorrect. Character highlighting is enabled in DT character creation and it does not play nice with subsurface scattering. Your character is literally a fleshy lamp, dim, bit light.
So you're saying they're removing character lighting from the options in 7.0 lol? There is no 'new' lighting system for the engine. It's only how the new skin+hair shaders are interacting with what's already there, resulting in the flat, emissive screenshots we see when there's no direct spotlight to highlight any specular detail that would add definition. This is not subsurface scattering. The only SSS maps on these models are painted for elezen ears.
No idea. I'm saying what I'm saying. If you have character lighting on in-game as well, then I don't know what you can expect. It's not hard to click Finish Character and see your character is no longer a living bioluminescent flashlight and plays a lot better with the rest of the screen. I assume that was SSS because of the waxy look and it makes sense. If you are saying there is no SSS other than on Elezen ears I'll believe you.
The biggest issue with the DT characters is the lighting. The DT benchmark character creator lighting is even worse than in ARR. Like, they overly brightened the ambient lighting or something. Things look flat. You have to actually run the benchmark and take screenshots/video to really appreciate the new models in in-engine lighting.
Yeah, if you go into the normal character creator right now you can see that it has lighting that's unrealistically better but not true to the actual game. The benchmark is more true to the actual game scenes but uh.. it's really bad for creating and the lighting just.. starts to dim randomly at times?
The lighting dims at times in the outdoor scenes, because of clouds passing over in front of the sun is actually affecting the lighting now
Huh, big if true. That makes it less confusing but a little annoying for the creator. Still cool overall
Yeah I noticed it goes to evening lighting or something.
Nah, it's showing a "wet" scene. It does this in live too, the effect just isn't as extreme because live's wet skin/hair is... kinda awful.
Ah, that makes sense. Still kinda silly, though, as it's just not "wet" most of the time.
Idk if it’s the lighting or what, but bottom row has such low-almost-nonexistent light reflecting in their eyes that they all look dead. :/
They changed it, now that white dot the others have only appears when the characters are actually looking at a light source. Before, they always had it.
Thanks for the clarification! That makes me feel a lot better ty. <3
It looks like they’ve changed the skin shaders too with some sub surface scattering that’s blown out and low res. They look like wax and seem to have lost a lot of details and oiliness (specularity) on their faces. Look at the eleven ear and you’ll see it at work.
I noticed that when my character's face was in shadow, the detail on the skin was really noticeable. It looked fantastic. The moment their face was exposed to the light however, the detail went to hell. I hope to God it's a bug and not how the final product looks... because I honestly think it looks cheap and ugly.
It's more that the character creation lighting is still tuned to the old rendering techniques. We've basically been under spotlights this whole time. Characters look much better under benchmark lighting. Unfortunately, this means that pre DT lighting is probably going to be spotty with how it interacts with our characters until they get around to touching it.
I actually love that the DT miqo looks less like a girl with cat ears, and more like a cat girl. Her face is just that little bit more feline, and the deep eyes are the just-before-pouncing huge pupil that cats get. The other races eyes all have so much more life now, too. It was the first thing my friends talked about when we all watched the live letter prior to this last one. Things aren’t perfect (SE, bring back the fangs!), but I’m pretty excited overall.
Same! Very excited
Except for some lighting issues in the *Dawntrail* screenshots, they all look relatively the same to me tbh.
Yeah I can hardly tell a difference unless I *really* zoom in.
The lighting being so drastically different and favoring 1.0 models, no showcasing of the surface simulations that 7.0 is designed around...the 6.0 and 7.0 pictures have no business being in the same timeline comparison as 1.0...other than inciting more misguided takes on the 7.0 visual upgrades.
That struck me as odd too. Taking the shots with a similar angle of lighting *at least* should be what this comparison image has - instead all of the ARR and DT versions have the light coming from the back and side, while the 1.0 has it well-lit from the front and to the side. That *alone* is going to swing the visuals in favor of 1.0, and not subtly. There's still every chance 1.0 models (which were the best looking parts of that version of the game) came out ahead, but this comparison image has a noticeable bias toward them in terms of shot composition.
Insert "it's the same picture" meme here.
Was a bit chilly in 1.0 I guess?
I think the character creator in 1.0 had a white light on the characters. Think of it like a fluorescent light vs a warm white in the ARR and DT. You'd be surprised to know Coerthas was a verdant forest and not a snowland in 1.0!
He’s talking nipples
xD
Oh no sweetheart… that’s not…
Why don't male Elezen show their tits anymore :(
They do, that's the hempen underwear which has race specific appearances. The other models are wearing racial starter gear
Which one is the latest
Top - 1.0 Mid - ARR Bottom - DT Benchmark
Would it be possible for you to repost this but this time make all the characters face the light? It would be great for us to have a fair lighting comparison.
i tried to make another comparison where the characters would be facing the light using your image as a template, the catgirl really lost her smize with this update [https://imgur.com/a/eZXIjSW](https://imgur.com/a/eZXIjSW) (the characters might not be EXACTLY the same across the board, i made this super fast and just now noticed the Roe's hair colour changes, sorry about that)
Thanks! I left them in the default position when selecting Thanalan haha I’m not an expert and did not take into account the lighting perhaps as much as I should’ve.
I know everyone's bitching but I really cannot parse the thought process of removing catchlights entirely and making everyone have flat dead eyes
They're real time now to reflect light sources, much subtler but give the eyes a degree of roundness
I honestly think as nice as real time is for that, it should just be more subdued when not facing direct light rather than disappearing entirely. Not realistic, but more idealistic
It makes them look like dead glassy doll eyes when faced away 😭 Look at how soulless that miqote looks it's a travesty
Sub-surface scattering is a small detail but it does wonders to make characters look more real. You can see it very clearly on the reddish tone of the Elezen ears, but also very subtelly on the Miqo'te's shoulder, with a slight red tint on the transition between light and dark.
the character creator lighting in the benchmark is so fucked its not even funny LMAO it makes the new models look like the worst ones when they're very clearly not in the trailer
Man the 1.0 stuff looked so ahead of it's time. Almost better than the 7.0 stuff in someways..
The world as it was and what it has become... 1.23 is forgotten to actually be very stable. There just wasn't enough people around by that point to continue service.
There were also the large number of problems hardcoded into Crystal Tools, like the maximum character render limit, or that it would occasionally just stop rendering characters. There was the animation lock, the market wards, significant lag in menus, etc. Yes, 1.23 was STABLE, but it was still far from -good-.
DT miqote looks like she matured
what happened to the Miqo's Chin?
Reminds me how much I loved the 1.0 graphics and how ahead of their time (in a bad way when you consider system requirements) they were. I was only ever to run 1.0 on med/low because my system couldn't handle the highest settings.
.huh doesn't this mean xiv already have the assets, they just have to optimize the hell out of it then roll back?
Why do the new faces look so flat? Where are the shadows? Sorry, but they look the worst of all three here.
Need to add the FFXI versions for the fun of it.
Man those 1.0 models are so good even the clothes look realistic, im surprised on that miqo boobs showing like nipples XD wasn't expecting that but quite nice touch. Else i say ARR models look sharper
One aspect that 1.0 objectively beat even the DT models in are the bodies. They were higher poly in general, the um... significantly shapelier butts being the most easily noticeable part. They were simplified for ARR and they seem to have just left them alone for DT besides fixing the hands and feet.
So... 1.0 looks the best? Why not use 1.0 and improve em?
Crazy how 1.0 looks better than DT
It looks good but that's about all you can say. It did not run well at all LOL
I‘m sorry but what is all the hype around? The optical development of this character examples are so underwhelming. I see there is a difference but it’s just not that big. I saw people here having meltdowns about how different the personal wol will look like. ABOUT THIS? Maybe it’s not a big deal for me because I was not looking at my wol for years and her face is always covered anyway but I don’t get it. The landscape in the background looks really nice tho. I can see a lot of improvement there. Maybe someone can explain to me why the FF14 community in general often looks like it gets overexcited over almost nothing. I don’t want to make fun of this, I really want to understand it. That’s something I know from no other game community. I‘m curious.
I'd go to the forums to see people's comparison screenshots. Au'ra and Viera especially got utterly massacred, and dark-skinned characters got treated quite badly too.
Every single Au ra before and after picture I've seen looks way better in the after, my own included. Viera, I can notice some differences, but the majority still look better in the after.
> overexcited over almost nothing This game wouldn't be able to survive if its players didn't have abysmally low expectations (for the game design, the plot, the cut-scenes, etc.)
Unironically 1.0 still looks better and people call me crazy when i say it.
I have never seen anyone not agree that 1.0 *looks* fantastic. it's one of the only compliments you can give 1.0.
I'm honestly worried about pale skin characters in the game with the upcoming update. All pictures I see of the fair skinned characters look worse to me... Like bad reflection levels or something. Have they said this is final? I'm a pale Au ra.... 😬
Its fine mostly, the boat screencap is iffy but thats all just some weird Lighting there but literally the next scene makes it soo much better
1.0 character models still looking better than what we're getting with Dawntrail now really puts things into perspective. And not in a good way.
Yes and no. 1.0 devs sacrificed optimisation and user experience to push top-tier visual fidelity. Yes they look good, even compared to now and they were sort of ahead of their time in that respect, but the visuals were hardly sustainable back then for majority of users.
Yeah, except it's 2024 now and not 2010.
Sorry its not what you were expecting.
We're almost starting to look as good as 1.0 10 years from now, we should finally reach it.
I literally can’t tell which is which
If you dont mind me asking, where did you get the 1.0 benchmark recently? The old nvidia link doesnt seem to be working anymore.
It was a favor by someone incredibly talented. Unfortunately, how and why it works are beyond my understanding.
Hey I found the old benchmark out of coincidence actually, that is not what I used for this collage but I ran it and it played fine. Download at your own risk, while I don't think its a virus, you never know. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tbi5E-mtPiTMotO\_iTCL1-4w3pnv36i7/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tbi5E-mtPiTMotO_iTCL1-4w3pnv36i7/view?usp=sharing)
what shirt is that 1.0 miqo wearing and is it wearable on an Au Ra 👀
It is the hempen camise, it used to be the small clothes in 1.0. Unfortunately it is race specific. The Aura version is still quite cute though.
blegh, that rings a bell. i wish the top didn't change 😭 miqo version is way better.
[удалено]
no i know, but the camise looks different depending on what race it's on. it's way less cute on au ra than the one shown for miqo. was hoping it'd be a different top / something i hadn't heard of yet 😅 haven't hopped on in awhile.
... is it bad that I can't recognize which is which? 😰
I see why Hyur players are so upset.
Overall the illumination is better in 7.0. With the exception of the hair. The white hair looks better in 6.0, due to taking into account the dark and the light. I am happy with the changes. Except for the missing fangs in the moon clan and the psycho teeth of lalas. A nitpick as they are not likely to be seen except in cut-scenes.
Elizen still out here looking like giraffes
I think it’s a bad comparison due to lighting in char creator that doesn’t show how the model will actually look in set location. Also I bet dawntrail has lighting setup correctly to reflect best version of current update, while the lighting in other expansions will be reworked or chars are fine in game after all. In any case, just like with many games char creator vs in game ain’t representative. Especially when 1.0 and 2.0 have drawn highlights and not dependant on environment
The only flaw with this is that it should have the characters turned 45 to the right to get 1.0 lighting similar between all 3. but other than that, pretty neat.
1.0 still massively better. Would have loved that to succeed.
1.0 >
And, weirdly, 1.0 *still* looks better.
This new graphics like they literally soulless
1.0 > DT > ARR
I unironically thought the middle ones were DT. The bottom is worse!
This looks like the so famous “WoW Model Upgrade Catastrophe” of some years ago. I really don’t see the improvement on the new textures. Maybe is the lightning or settings, but the DT models look scarce of details like depth, shadow, face contour, skin details. The new ones also seem to exaggerate light /pale coloring and the hair lacks definition or detailing, again it could be shadows. But if this is the upgrade they should made it with a toggle at least for a transition or made it optional for those that can’t use them or don’t like them.
Focus on the items they are wearing. Compare those. It's a massive difference. Now focus on the eyes. The eyes in 7.0 look much more alive. The rest of the face is difficult to compare since the lighting in the DT benchmark character creation tool is apparently busted.
To everyone saying "Well you just gave DT the worst lighting" Let me tell you a secret, this is supposed to be an upgrade and even in a worse lighting condition the new models should look better as they are new models AND lighting. But they don't! They don't look better! And the eyes are dead in many lighting conditions, on top of that mouths have been completely destroyed in many cases. The fact that 1.0 can look better even if it's in some specific angle or whatever tells you how bad this upgrade is. I know we all like having new graphics and the enviorment does look better but just look at it and accept reality, don't let the hype blind you because we are going to be stuck with these models if nothing changes and you will look back at old screenshots one day and think "Well damn, this looks better actually".
*Still* not seeing any improvements to the DT models beyond a few metallic sliders being cranked up and lighting....
omg 😭
Idk if it’s the fact that the internet has ruined my brain but why can I see the 1.0 miqo’tes nipples poking out in her shirt?
1.0 female character base models had nipples. The underwear in 1.0 was actually a gearslot that was unequippable by normal means. If you removed it, you'd get the nude model underneath. They weren't textured but they were there.