FFXIV: Graphics Update To Characters - Side By Side Comparisons

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[@forestgirlasha]

I'm most hyped for this update on darker skin as someone who plays a darker skin miqote for 10 years. Just the fact that they finally understand or can make darker skin shine like my own dark skin does in rl its amazing.

[@Dieci-9]

Same. I play an Au Ra with a dark skin too and with the lighting before the face looked horrible in areas where light was contrasting more. I can't wait to see him in 7.0.

[@recklesskam3169]

Same here my miqote is gonna look absolutely fire

[@pokemon05100]

I'm hoping that more exotic skin colors like greens or reds look better too. I have a red Au Ra, and sometimes the skin color is really hard to really see.

[@VojtechSrb]

Nobody cares about your skin color omg

[@BabyShenanigans]

I'm very disappointed with female Viera. The skin looks amazing, the hair looks amazing, but... where is my bunny nose?? The little patch of coloration on the end/underside of the nose, that makes them really look like they have a bunny nose - where did it go?? I don't want to lose my bunny nose. :(

[@SorasShadow1]

A reminder that Yoshida said everyone is getting a free Fantasia to adjust to the changes, just remember that to use one you have to log out and log back in so maybe do that very early morning during initial launch. If the cloud servers were any indication, the login queues those first couple days and weeks are going to be just as bad or worse than EW because people are logging out and back in.

[@rangersmith4652]

Ha ha. When 7.0 goes into early release, I'll be finding something else to do--for a couple of weeks at least. I'm still working through 5.3, and I doubt I'll be ready for 7.0 when it launches.

[@PetrolJunkie]

I wise person would just wait a couple of months to make those adjustments.

[@fairlyenjoyable]

I fully expect and plan to not play for the first few days to a week after the patch hits. It sucks, but them queues are killer since my schedule is tight.

[@rangersmith4652]

@@PetrolJunkie And he or she would be a careful observer of other character models, maybe politely asking the player whose character strikes a high note what settings he or she has used, before using a Fantasia. Nothing ever looks quite the same in game as it does in the various character builder scenes.

[@sadmiqoxiv]

Just pop one early and log out naked. A free one is nice, but buying one supports the game.

[@an81angel]

I'm really upset about the female Viera changes. Where did my female bunny nose go? The original image you can clearly see the "bunny" nose details, but the second image it's completely gone. WHY? Give me back my bunny nose.

[@howtheheck8639]

I don’t think it’s gone I have a high resolution photo of that image and the bunny nose is still there, it’s just that the colors on the top and bottom are much closer now and with the dark skin tone it’s harder to tell

[@PieniPingviini]

I hope they adjust the signature bunny nose for female viera and make it more visible. it's barely there especially with that dark skintone

[@metallrose]

Also something I noticed. I really do hope they make it more visible.

[@kataku8609]

Usually don't care about Viera, but they need to give them back the nose. Very happy that they finally payed some attention to the darker skin characters. Hrothgars look very fluffy, I approve!

[@howdomaddie]

9:50 very, VERY glad they're showing skin colors this dark for examples. there was a thread on the official forums asking for these to be showcased and reassure people playing dark-skinned WOLs, and CBU3 really delivered on that request, and bringing up how bad it was for them in dark lighting. that thread had characters with really dark skin tones being basically invisible in places like Ultima Thule, and i'm glad that it was at least acknowledged!

[@fairlyenjoyable]

It was nice to see them add those in! I would have loved to see a slide of dark and a slide of light skin colors for each race so we can see all the details, but that's just my needy self speaking. xD

[@ChadT-n9q]

I really liked the original change to the AuRa horns, they looked glossy and amazing, then they took it away cause people complained about the "color", they should just allow both, it's not fair :"(

[@AlleluiaElizabeth]

You know, I liked Yoshi's presentation of this, but I am finding myself liking your commentary even more. And regarding G'raha: lots of us were thinking it (just IMAGINE the Exarch with the new textures), but it was weird hearing Yoshida say it. XD Like, he's not wrong, but its still kinda embarrassing that he knows.

[@LittleMissLanna]

My friend and I are excited, but they have a concern: when you look at the dark-skinned miqote fem for example, the original's skin tone is a warmer shade than the new one. Really hope we don't lose those warm undertones and/or get more color options to match what we had before more 1:1!

[@JojoDigitalArtist]

Thing is if you look at all the skin tones they all end up getting washed out so it might just be an overall lighting change but of course it's a work in progress.

[@PrincessofKeys]

I think it also depends on the lighting in general and where you are your skin can look lighter or darker, warmer or cooler in tone I guess afterall.

[@LittleMissLanna]

@@JojoDigitalArtist For sure!! That's my hope, too. I hope we get onnnneee more update before the final version that shows them in motion!

[@LittleMissLanna]

@@PrincessofKeys Yeah! I'm hoping that is the case and am excited to see!

[@GeekEntertainmentConsumer]

They could have done better than this. What they shown is not even close to what they showed the first time around.

[@Crazedviewer]

I don’t know if People noticed, but during the gear set showcase, we did see a new beard option for Male Hyure. Which kinda tells me the new graphical update will include new customizable options, and the implication that we can “do more” with eyes once the update is out. I don’t think we’ll get a full HUD redesign, but maybe better lighting backdrops. Super excited for it!

[@LittleMissLanna]

The Au Ra male with dark blue skintone also appears to be darker than the darkest blue currently in the game, so REALLY praying we get more color options in cc!! It would make sense!

[@standingbylife]

@@LittleMissLanna I totally get that! I hope they've expanded the cc, even a little! Especially since rn you get different skin tones depending what specific tribe you pick.

[@ek9750]

where exactly did you see the new hyur beard option? I watched the whole thing and I cant find it

[@Halwyn_Parrish]

​@@ek9750That's cuz there isn't one. Idk what their eyes saw 😂

[@typemoon7748]

Very impressive... now let's see how they look in the Nero cutscene in Praetorium

[@Lineyakitty]

I'm a little nervous about how some of the female viera bunny noses are going to turn out. They are one of my favorite features

[@ConsciousCatastrophe]

I look forward to Dawntrail and the way they have/ plan to update the characters while preserving the essence of their design. And finally we get Hrotgals!

[@riberium1739]

hope we'll get more hairstyle and char editor in general, cause let be real there's lack of options

[@meatybtz]

the change to the elzen eyes are also where she is looking. The focal point is different. one of the problems with the dead eye'd femzen was where the eyes were looking. Straight ahead w/o really "seeing the world". The new model appears to actually be looking at something.

[@ncBadrock]

I also cannot wait for the Benchmark and the character creator. It does make sense they haven't released it yet. They probably want to be 100% finished with the character updates before they hand the benchmark to us players.

[@thomas00129]

i like the graphical updates but i do miss some of the glowing eyes we have for some races

[@MrRamo14]

The dark skin improvement is fantastic because this game really did a roughjob with dark skin tones. It was always just a totally matte skin tone so in any dark scene they'd be almost invisible. The scene in shadowbringers when you return from the first in the infirmary and SO many scenes in Endwalker were so bad

[@mismismism]

The graphics update and the dye channels are very exciting for me, I'm a sucker for glam and spend way too much time already making glams so this is great. The hair and eyes is a huge inprovement and glad darker skin tones look so much better in-game as well.

[@PetrolJunkie]

I'll be honest I don't care for the look of the Hrothgar females. The males look good, but something just looks off about the female model. for one the head looked kind of small on the body. A cat's head is usually large enough that it if doesn't fit through an opening the rest of it's body wont either. It's like a witch doctor shrunk their head. lol

[@o.o4566]

I'm an au-ra player. I love the horns but I do like the current 60's sort of makeup look and am a little disappointed in the new makeup being more subtle. I liked the matte face and darker eyeliner

[@saltiestcrystal]

I don't why for some reason they didn't want to show what all the au ra faces look like under this update, they didn't really show what dark/blue horns look like with the new graphics update unless you want to count the female au ra wearing the gnb level 100 gear. Over all I at least hope by Japan fanfest we would have seen all types of faces instead of showing mostly the same ones from NA and EU fanfest. I really cannot unsee the new au ra scales look more 2d than the one from older model. The improvements overall look nice but it does make me a bit worry for other faces we still have not seen.

[@zugetzuzu]

Yeah, the scales look much more like they're flat and plastered on. I'm also not a fan of how the scales got whitened with additional, white highlights at the edge, compared to bone yellow it has now. As another sidenote, I WISH we could have a slider/choice of scale intensity. I feel like fem au ra has to few scales for me while the male might have to many scales for others. That's one of the reasons I got mods for the scales (both to upscale the 5 pixel scales and to get greater number of scales across the face and body).

[@BaithNa]

The graphics update looks great but I'm still hoping we get a few new additions to the character creation menu as well.

[@joaovitoralves4755]

THIS! 👆 More customization pls!!!

[@PrincessofKeys]

I think ot was briefly mentioned they would be working on that

[@Zakjuh]

YoshiP mentioned that twice so far in Dawntrail's development cycle. He said they've been in talks about it and that it's planned for the future. When? I'm not sure. I would assume 8.0, but he just said "in the future." We'll have to wait and see. But at the least, it's something that they've been looking into.

[@AthenaAtlantis]

I hope that the benchmark is using the graphics update that way you can know how you're going to change your character or at least how you're character is going to look

[@akumamakima2280]

The female viera nose looked completely different in the updated version. It's the most disappointing change imo.

[@loki555]

The cheeks are pixelated because of freckles...

[@tyverus89]

The biggest and best thing imo (yes, I admired the wall too) is that currently certain hairstyles appear painted on, with the graphics update we get 3D hair; you can tell there's a gap between the hair and forehead. I also noticed, or didn't notice, there's no separation between a character's face and the nose; the skin is smoother and the nose is attached to the face rather than having a noticeable seam

[@ablox1166]

I'm happy with all of the changes shown here- but I have noticed a few things. Most of the models have less noticeable eyebrows and some of the lips (Roe female and Aura female for example) have less contrast. I guess everything is still a work in progress. Once the graphical update is complete, I am looking forward to seeing more character customization. I am excited for the model upgrade on all of our characters :)

[@genevievelok9496]

I definitely think the clincher on the femme Hroths is gonna be the hair - they’ve absolutely gone for showing shaggier hairstyles, and I’ll be SO excited to see how they look with something more soft Excited so far though for sure!!!

[@AlleluiaElizabeth]

I'm just noticing this now, but Hrothgal ears are kinda adorable. I'm sticking with my female Highlander (I never fantasia her, too attached), but I might make an alt. I definitely look forward to seeing the Hrothgals running around.

[@laurakane2252]

The limbal ring is a must if you want to change your eye color. I love it. You can have brown, black, blue, green, purple just by changing the ring and that you can do at the bell. I started as Aura and switched to Cat girl but I miss my Dragon girl eyes. I may have to use my Christmas sale Fantasia... lol They all look beautiful! thanks for sharing.

[@Doctor_Yiggles]

As someone who plays an Au'Ra Female I am super impressed with the changes! I am so in love with how they look now and they are very beautiful with all the details from the example they showed us!

[@TheGphillip17]

I would argue that the flush that you're mentioning under the cheeks of the lala are the same effect they're showing in the cheeks of the female Roe. I find the female Row to look much more charming and alive than before. Skin imperfections are something that FFXIV has never been brave enough to show and I think this is a step in the right direction. FFXIV suffers from lack of character customization as a whole. Every option is the best, most attractive, aesthetically ideal option that it feels unrealistic imo. Heightening the texture and reflection on darker skin is a great step in the right direction, I hope they eventually give us more body diverse and skin pigmentation options in the future.

[@fairlyenjoyable]

I'm incredibly excited for these graphical improvements! They did an excellent job on every race, in my opinion.

[@Nickrauhl]

wow it looks amazing 🤩

[@ryanadams2671]

I can’t wait to see the updates to some of my glamour pieces more than anything however I’m excited for the world and character texture updates also. Haven’t played much lately but I feel it’s time to start getting myself hyped.

[@benjaminfast5496]

The Fem Roe example really got the shaft, as Fem Roes usually do. They chose one of the least used faces that need the most work, and gave a poor show of how they can improve it. I wish we had gotten Face 2 or 3 for this example. The Male Roe was super impressive though! So many great details, and the skin texture alone made a huge difference! The Fem Hrothgar are almost exactly how I had envisioned them. Similar build to Fem Roes (hard to know how similar without side by side comparisons); cat like, fierce, but appealing faces; not tiny little dragon girls like they did with the Au'ra; not hunch backs like the Male Hrothgar. I'm glad they stuck to the Ronso look from FF10!

[@craigpridemore7566]

Hair. There are at least 2/3 of hairstyles I currently won't use because of no movement. I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing the new physics on old hairstyles.

[@chrisrounds1242]

It just dawned on me. The graphics feature for FF 14 is similar to Y’jhimei from Final Fantasy 15. Her characterization from the game is just like the enhancements that is coming up for the next expansion. I feel that FInal Fantasy 15 is a preview of what is to come for our avatar’s creation.

[@genisay]

I do appriciate that the changes to the models were more subtle things, not *drastic*. You get very attached to the way your character looks when you have been with them for a long time, and while I am super excited to see my character with improved lighting and textures, I stil want him to look like himself. Also, they are using flat white lighting in the side by side images. I can not wait to see what these are going to look like with actual colored lighting and enviromental lighting like sunshine and torches nearby. The one thing I don't like about the female viera example is that she seems to have lost the lighter coloration under her nose that gave her the distinct bunny look. It could just be because of the improved shadows on the face, but I hope they don't actually get rid of the bun bun nose effect on the female viera.

[@Deeren97]

The Hrothgar mommies and the graphical upgrade is what's gonna bring me back into FFXIV, I haven't played since Shadowbringers.

[@SkullyX99]

25:53. Where the hell is the bunny nose on the female Viera? No. No. No. Put it back. I refuse for ears to be my only distinctive feature. Graphical updates, man. Messing up stuff.

[@KarnageKollectibles]

It looks better but it’s so subtle. I wish they went even higher quality since the game needs it and looks quite dated. Like when WoW did its character model updates they were such a huge upgrade. I doubt most returning players will even notice they updated the graphics.

[@AdrienBackSteel]

if theses improvements are 80% hope they will push it to 100% before the launch of the new expansion bc we wont get improvements for textures till years i feel like after that one (especially i feel like its not super revelant for some races/gender combo.)

[@tyriaxepheles7996]

Im kind of concerned about how different the eyes are. I love using really bright colors for the eyes because they are hard to see when you are normally zoomed out. With the shading, all of the eye colors seem a lot more subtle. My character has beautiful bright purple eyes. I hope they wont become hard to see unless super zoomed in

[@Nathiest2]

It doesn't look legit. It looks like somebody spent five minutes in photoshop with each face to generate these before after images. I think all of this is a 2 year long troll.

[@rippeh8942]

animations need alot of work too. the game will look and feel alot better if they upadte the more general animations and maybe they can add animation when you are doing an attack and moving, your character just floats most of the time and it looks so bad

[@michaelgroah5707]

The part I think that maybe missed is there's too little shadow under all the chins, to separate what is head and neck, but I know they are working hard so I hope for the best.

[@benconrads6547]

As soon as ff14 graphics finally looks good, I will switch from BDO back to ff14

[@ek9750]

i love the new horn textures for aura my only complaint is that the male aura looks less angry with the graphical update

[@cali4806]

Guess i wont be using fantasia for 7.0, my male viera seems to be okay next expansion

[@drbiohazmat]

I'm so glad i wasn't the only one who kept being impressed by the damn WALL lmao

[@Leo.de69]

Cant wait to see my highlander's wrinkles and muscles in the update.

[@amv8365]

barely looks any different, its like 5% more detail... woopty doo

[@raevenent751]

The female Au Ra difference actually might make me switch to one

[@vethir]

i still think a lot of the textures look bad, i really hope they keep working on those

[@TheThambert]

I am just happy to see the Au Ra Limbal ring is saved, the images from previous fan fests had me genuinely said over how they had just disappeared.

[@zugetzuzu]

I really like it as well. Current Limbal ring looks like plastered on PNG of a Octagon/Decagon at the outer edges of the eyes. Kind of makes it impossible for eyes to not look goofy/out of place

[@TolgaAtamtuerk]

i think the new characters look stupid

[@kimfry4019]

Female viera lost their bunny nose

[@snaek12]

As AuRa player iam really happy)

[@accelerator8558]

So since i was unable to watch, when those updates will come???

[@liyifenn]

With Dawntrail's release in Summe 2024

[@accelerator8558]

@@liyifenn so we are close them

[@Dojan5]

Think my biggest gripe with the hrothgar updates is that the skin no longer looks like skin. The lips and the nose should have specular highlights and look glossy. Never seen a cat (or a dog) whose lips and nose are covered in a light peach fuzz. I think that'd go a long way to improve the looks of Hrothgar.

[@rotisseriepossum]

I never realized how much the og skin looks like ur wearing too much matte foundation/powder. I’m so sad they got rid of the femviera nose highlight

[@LarkyLuna]

I noticed that none of the dark skinned character have prominent fringes, all their foreheads are showing apart from some small side bangs I wonder why The bunny boy was the darkest skin they showed with one I wonder if this was to show more skin or if they are still finalizing shadows on dark skins The bunny went from angy to emo with the extra shadows

[@nerdychocobo]

I play male viera but honestly I'm most excited for the femroes, they have imo the most drastic improvements and they just look so gorgeous now

[@biddybatnana5029]

Gosh this update is so needed ! No more blocky weird faces. Finally proper skin texture/lighting, and dark skin love ♥

[@SockOrSomething]

I think the darker skin color is true I had a viera and wanted to darker than I was at some point. In creator it was fine but then often in game it just wasn’t as good with the lighting I couldn’t see certain stuff and I didn’t understand what the problem was so this is good

[@wowhead123xx]

I play female Au'ra and i love the changes, and when I heard i could keep my "dead, soulless eyes" I knew they are going to be perfect.

[@Gofr5]

Hard to tell if my character will be changed the way I want it as I play a very pale viera, so when they used the complete opposite for female viera, it made it a bit hard to assess, though I think it was the same face which helped a bit. However based on everything I saw overall, I am definitely looking forward to it. And even though I tend to always play paler characters, so it won't apply to me, I do really like the improvements to darker skin tones. All looks great, going to have a lot of fun with the benchmark to see my main and a bunch of alts I have laying around and seeing how they all look.

[@Noanatsuka]

One of the major things I've noticed with most of these faces, is just how more 'full' they are, it's like they've been shortened/widened to a degree that makes them look more 'full'. That and the necks (especially for the elezen) are thicker/shorter as well, but that's a good thing.

[@rahf225]

To me it looks like they shortened the Elezen necks. No more giraffe!! I may actually make an Elezen alt.

[@ObsidianCrane]

The Fem-Roe cheeks "pixilation" on the new one is actually blood vessels under the skin. ( That is how it is supposed to be read, you can see it on the Hyur as well.)

[@celphalonred1999]

Cant. Fucking. Wait.

[@lucalycan]

I play a dark skinned male viera, as dark as the female viera shown in this video. It's great to finally see them implement lighting that will work with him.

[@silverskall1432]

Great changes to the faces, I just hope they do some work on the hairs, bodies and armors too, not just texturing but also model reworks.

[@tjreed7797]

I'm hoping there'll be a free login period during release. If not, then I hope I'll still be able to claim the free fantasia whenever I decide to get dawntrail

[@imafirenmehlazer1]

MEEEOOONIIII LETS GO

[@nekotranslates]

Looking forward to saying goodbye to our old looks Monday and saying hello to our new looks Tuesday

[@youngimperialistmkii]

I play a dark skinned Viera. And will be very happy with these improvements.

[@PrincessofKeys]

Can't wait for this update but at the same time I don't have a decent pc to play it on!

[@jamierose9095]

I can't wait to see how Staribbon looks in 7.0! So excited!

[@MushadX]

When is the expansion coming out ? We have a date ?

[@k3stea451]

"SLOPPEH" has never looked so good

[@Cleindori]

Both very excited for skin/hair/eye luminosity and slightly concerned the viera example they showed is even less bunny looking than before, why change the nose/mouth shape

[@snonyabeeswax]

hair looks more like floof got added

[@snonyabeeswax]

less flat looking

[@MalcomMalediction]

Geez yall on too much copium in the comment section. This was a lazy upgrade in the graphics of the characters. How long did we wait for this? over 2 years???

[@Aurwenn]

Is not only on the characters is basically an HD pack for the entire game, that's why it took long

[@Zakjuh]

we just have working eyes

[@maeda01]

are we finally getting the Butt slider?

[@lushdontu4015]

why do we need it?

[@kkatpheiz]

wow it looks the same

[@ArchangelG2000]

Yeah, I was afraid this is gonna be the "big" graphical update...a small built in shader change...I mean I guess this is gonna be an ok update for console players, but the game already looks much better than this on the pc if you use custom reshade...so one of the main feature of this new expansion is pretty mute...that's not a good sign...

[@Aptonoth]

Female Elezen was the big winner. If they mess up my particular Viera's face at least I have a backup race now. I mostly don't like the female Viera on the right she looks kind of ugly now.

[@plfernandes88]

When they first announced the overhaul they shared pictures that were completely different… like the upgrade was notable Now you can barely tell the difference

[@zoelleo]

I prefer the matte face with shiny hair that we currently have…

[@Nodnarb59]

Buns lose their nose though

[@Mystical_Goddess]

The new lips on all of them look like they have too much blur on them, The male lala, and male Hyur's eyes look worse in my opinion

[@AlleluiaElizabeth]

That might just be the result of video compression. These shots aren't officially released as screenshots, but taken from the streamed video. I think we will have to wait till the benchmark is out to judge.

[@Mystical_Goddess]

True I didn't think about that @@AlleluiaElizabeth

[@anonimosd.2872]

a darker color can fix that, so I'm not so worried about it

[@carolinemccall6748]

As a player with 7 of my 8 toons being Viera males, I really don't want to lose the bunny nose. It is one of my favorite things. It looks diminished in this example so I wait with bated breath. Overall the changes are so amazing and having depth to the eyes have made all of the races look so much more realistic and given them emotional depth. Looks like another playthrough of the story!

[@gregmashore4361]

Looks the same , just shaded different. Can get the same effect from reshade or the GeForce program. Pretty lazy…

[@Zakjuh]

no you can't... reshade is just a photoshop filter

[@plainsalt]

Out of all the things they've shown Reahsde can only do ambient occlusion (darkening the edges where 2 objects meet). Even then if you do have it turned on it's visible through all bright effects so it's ugly. It can't make shadows higher res. It can't add subsurface scattering or physics based hair and eye highlights either. It can boost colors but the latest and upcoming zones are more colorful anyways. A single shader cannot make every area look equally good. Some turn out way too warm or way too cold or too saturated or just the wrong color altogether. You can sharpen what you see but that also can't replace better textures and maps. Some mods can but they can also differ from the game's established style. Even then if you still don't like it you can still use it. No mods can add volumetric fog.

[@bevinkacon4099]

Lol the cope on these FFXIV fans, this is the most nothing update ever. Still looks outdated as shit.

[@uknz1537]

graphic update = lol seems like when your engine is shit everything about graphics is shit that's what happen when you have devs that don't know shit aka spaghetti code aka i put 50k pixels for a jar but not for a wall texture xDD The game is fucking great , but damn thoses guys need to know that at that time unreal engine 3 or 4 was a thing.... a 30 min video for a character graphic "update " damn .......when i'm raiding idgf a bout my face i wants an overhaul graphic updates on decorations