In a letter posted to the Final Fantasy XIV Lodestone, producer and director Naoki Yoshida raises issues with the Dawntrail benchmark character creator released on April 14 that his team is reworking. Yoshida explains that the problems stem largely from lighting elements that impact the character creation environment where the Dawntrail graphical update wasn’t applied. The existing benchmark software will be replaced once the character creator is patched and reflects Dawntrail’s graphical capabilities.
Yoshida calls out specific problems that the insertion of the graphical update will improve.
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“Lifeless” eyes due to a lack of highlights in the pupils
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Facial contours appearing flattened due to incorrect lighting conditions caused by backlighting
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A lack of gloss or excessive appearance of gloss due to character creation-exclusive weather conditions (i.e. the use of thunderclouds)
Additionally, the team is also implementing changes based on player feedback. Several players took to Final Fantasy XIV’s official social accounts to voice their disappointment with certain aspects of their “graphically updated” Warriors of Light. Yoshida identifies the culprit as a data processing issue due to their need to "modify an enormous amount of data.” It sounds like a fancy way of saying they missed some bugs but, nonetheless, he provides some examples of the visual irregularities picked up by players that the updated benchmark will fix.
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An issue with unimplemented high-resolution textures, including those for certain playable races.
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An issue pertaining to special data processes.
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An issue with necklines for playable races under certain circumstances.
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An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races.
There is currently no release date for the updated benchmark. However, Yoshida also noted that, while their goal is to release the best benchmark experience possible, there may be differences between the benchmark software and the launch version of Dawntrail’s character creator.
You can read Yoshida’s full letter on The Lodestone.