Is there something odd about the graphics?

[Salodin]

It's the animations for me. I don't know if if they created them by hand or used wonky motion capturing, but the animations aren't all very realistic and it does take me out of the immersion if I pay too much attention to it.

Zoom in and stare at your character breathing; the body just doesn't move naturally. Jumping is also weird, but that's to be expected because it's a jump useful for mmo. Compare that to a jump from say Assassins creed though and you see what I'm talking about. I'm sure these problems existed in ffxi, but because the graphics were obviously not aiming for as much detail and realism as ffxiv, it stands out more now then a decade ago.

[Purrrfect]

I'll agree that there was something more 'immersive' about xi that xiv does not have, while xiv is a great looking game. I did notice just looking at the game that it seems unusually bright at night out in Thanalan, dunno something like overall lighting might be part of the issue. I was also thinking about what Sylvrdragon posted, maybe xi was so obvious with it's polygons that we subconsciously accounted for that and here in xiv it is close enough to real that we don't make that distinction in our minds but its far enough off that it irks your brain.

[Crizto]

Ya'll are crazy, just leave it at that

[Niiro]

The lack of the "Field of View" camera adjustment from 1.0 makes for a poor perspective on your surroundings.

Things nearby don't look nearby and things far away don't look far away, it's bothered me since the beginning.

[Salodin]

I'll agree that there was something more 'immersive' about xi that xiv does not have, while xiv is a great looking game. I did notice just looking at the game that it seems unusually bright at night out in Thanalan, dunno something like overall lighting might be part of the issue. I was also thinking about what Sylvrdragon posted, maybe xi was so obvious with it's polygons that we subconsciously accounted for that and here in xiv it is close enough to real that we don't make that distinction in our minds but its far enough off that it irks your brain.

I think that's draw distance washing out colors Tbh. Ul day was a lot shaper before, but after launch for some reason my draw distance isn't as great, and the washed out colors look weird at night.

[Kuishen]

The textures are too smooth and the colors aren't very vibrant in a lot of places (that part is more realistic but when combined with the smooth textures it creates this weird level of "something's off").

Like if you compare the coloring in a game like GW2 to XIV it's a stark contrast. Even if the art styles are different you can tell how much of a difference the depth of the coloring makes.

[Don Katsu]

There is a reduced amount of textures in this game compared to 1.0. This is most noticeable on the Haubergeon's where in 1.0 they looked like metal in this version they look more cloth like. The game looks better overall, but they reduced the textures to make it easier on our video cards... and the PS3

[Halion]

For me it's always been the textures, largely the non-environmental textures. There's something overly smooth/shiny about them; though I'm not sure if it's better in 2.0 or if I just got used to it, as it doesn't bother me as much as it did in 1.0 beta and early game footage. Cloth especially always looked too much like a burlap>plastic filter in photoshop.

Another thing that might feel off is that in the overall graphics progression from FFXI with the enhanced realism (shadows flickering etc.) there wasn't an increase in what I would call fantasy ambiance (Or FOV detail for that matter). It looks beautiful, and may be more realistic, but when you compare to a screenshot from, for example, GW2 there is so much less ambient fog, distance blurring, ground cover that it simply looks less. When you look across a large expanse it's still the same repeated blocks of flat grass colored tiles as FFXI was and at this point is when the game looks its worst to me. GW2 has a bit of a different style and is colored more brightly but has imo a really detailed FOV that really shows how much care the artists gave to atmosphere.
Better served perhaps with examples:
14

Spoiler: show

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ps2785649b.png

GW2

Spoiler: show

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...psd698a2c1.jpg

[Shwtym]

Only thing I find odd/creepy at times are the teeth. >.> Everything else looks really good to me.

This x1000. Seeing my Miqo'te smile after winning a dungeon with a mouth full of wide gapped teeth just looks so weird.

[Aleth]

Eh, your guild-wars shot is taken at a shallow angle. The high-angle shot in XIV will always be more unforgiving to tiling textures. That said, I take your point. A bit more per-vertex blending between several different tiling textures would help break it up for sure.

As a 3D artist I always admired the texture-work in XI. Amazing what they did with such small textures.

The breathing issue is to do with rigging really. For realistic breathing you need more bones or a blend-shape. Both of these will increase the computational costs involved per character on screen. I always thought the breathing in XI was well done - Just clever animation of the back and collar-bones is usually enough to get the feel of breathing across. Not perfect for close-ups but decent enough.

Edit: Teeth are a conundrum. Like for 90% of the time you're never going to see them, so they're usually relegated to being a bent low-poly plane with virtually no UV space at all. However getting the size or placement wrong really makes an otherwise perfect character nose-dive into the uncanny valley.

[Berabouman]

Don't know about you guys, but 14 looks great to me. Probably uncanny valley affecting some of you.

Also remember that in 11 they had YEARS to improve on the graphics. I doubt it looked as good at launch. (though maybe it did, I started 11 with WoTG)

[Achitophel]

This game doesn't even approach the uncanny valley. Great graphics with room for improvement, but uncanny valley? No.

Remember, uncanny valley is when something looks so real (but is a little bit off) that it disorients and kinda/sorta insults you on a visceral level. FFXIV's graphics are good, but they're not THAT on point.

[Plow]

I see it to. I think it's just that everything looks way too clean. I mean in Uldah, for a desert city, everything just looks brand new.

along these lines, I think the problem some people are feeling may be that the colors are a bit oversaturated, or something

like, while stuff is drawn to look different sizes at different distances and stuff, just everything is so bright and colorful that it all kind of melds together so that like a cliff 50 feet away from you is no more or less detailed and stands out no differently from say a tree branch a foot away from you

[Spira]

ooh.. i totally get the field of view thing.. but then again my laptop rig / ps3 isn't exactly playing at optimal settings.. but its a compromise of visual quality vs performance. I do think its good enough tho. The level of artistic involvement in ARR is leaps and bounds ahead of XIV - no two areas within a region actually look identical when you take a closer look, which to me is impressive especially when you have 3 of the most common environment stereotypes. Coerthas is magnificent.

XIV does seem to be going less for photorealism as compared to say XIII. Crystal Tools does work very well in natural environments, but this new one does the job pretty well at a far less graphic intensive level. I'm guessing the cleanliness is a problem of high definition visuals where you need to intentionally add grit to areas.

I do love how they've tweaked the lighting tho. The lightning effects took be aback when I first encountered it.. but was a nice touch imo. I'm also particularly impressed by the lighting in Thanalan in the day - its harshness reflects the sandy dry atmosphere very well.

[blythe]

The devs were very vocal about the fact that they decreased the quality of the textures and some filtering in 2.0. 1.0 was gorgeous, but the engine was horribly inefficient - only the most powerful PCs could run it, let alone a PS3, draw distances were terrible, and who can forget copy-pasta?

Having a little less depth in terms of textures and coloration is worth it for me in order to have environments that are varied and dynamic, and being able to look out into the distance and actually see things. I don't even think it's uncanny valley, it's just that everything's very bright and lacks shadows. Again, none of this should have been a surprise, and I'm actually okay with it.

[Deadgye]

The emotes are the most human thing in this game. Your characters change facial expressions. My character can look sad, happy, angry, confused, scared. It's amazing.

I notice this too.
While the graphics in XIV are amazing.. just something about XI that is much more "real" or something, I cant really word it either. XI it just sort of feels you are a part of it from the inside, while in XIV it's like you're looking in from the outside. IDK.

This is, imo, due to the conveniences of the game. You see the quests you have to do on the screen. There's a mini map always present. Icons above NPCs. etc. In XI you didn't have things that told you about the game to help you. You were in the game, immersed in the game. You talked to NPCs to find out if they had quests. You didn't have UI clutter. etc.

FFS, when my friend was kidnapped in the quest chain right before Ifrit he told us he was trapped there and couldn't get out, that there was no exit. Then when I get in the very first thing I do is talk to the NPCs and one of them tells me this is the way out.

[Day]

I just wanted to say "uncanny valley" like everyone else.

I feel better.

[Spira]

"hahaha.. we're not realistic enough"

[g0dsgreen]

I have this feeling as well. It's not that the graphics look terrible, because they look freaking awesome. It's more of a sense like you know you're peering through the looking glass. As mentioned previously (& I tend to agree), a sense of ambiance is what feels missing. An almost visceral sense of disconnection with the game world at times. I actually tried to remedy this by decreasing my look sensitivity, but that did nothing. On the + side, it can only get better.

[Ksandra]

I have never heard the term "uncanny valley" until this thread.

I wiki'd it, and I couldn't help but laugh at the graph:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Valley.svg.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

ZOMBIES ARE SO UNCANNY.


To try to be more ontopic, the animations/looks don't really bother me, outside of jumping. The only game I felt where jumping looked ok was WoW, but I guess that has to do with the cartoonie look of the game. (Guess that's where this uncanny valley comes in.)

I actually think they did a really good job with a lot of the emotes, just the transitions from standing to emoting is kinda abrupt. But they are wayyy better than a lot of mmos I've tried. I wish I could remember which mmo it was that had the shittiest dance moves I had ever seen, but I don't recall...


[edit] holy shit that img looks terrible on black smart....