Problematic Skin Tones: Character Creator vs. In-Game (Always Seem Off)

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Originally Posted by Averax

That's why they give you a bunch of different backdrops and a day/night option in the character creator. So you can test it against different forms of lighting.

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Those are not good options. I say that because the trees. The shade of the trees and leaves is misleading as well as only being able to face towards the sun, which is adding yellow on you, for a clear view. The room is too dark, and the aetheric one isn't representative of what you'll be seeing 99% of play time.

I believe a new option should be added of the wedding dressing room, an empty field of the Steppe or Coerthas Central. Especially the wedding room for neutral, opulent light.

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Originally Posted by Averax

That's why they give you a bunch of different backdrops and a day/night option in the character creator. So you can test it against different forms of lighting.

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If this were an accurate representation I wouldn't have made the topic. However, even when checking all of these different settings the skin tones still can look very different when you're in the real game. For some reason, the environments in the character creator don't pick up the orange/yellow/red tones the tan skin colors utilize.

Look, I get it is trivial and for some, you just won't get EXACTLY what you want. I just wish skin tone was part of the aesthetician's features and you didn't have to pay $10 to change it.

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Originally Posted by Gula

It's just the engine and options. What you're describing sounds like a very, very personal problem (inb4 racist, I'm as black as Hershey's chocolate). Something that can be solved with the option of an environment with no shade cluttering the sunlight. Like Coerthas or the Steppes. Very bright, and more what you'll be seeing over trees, trees, trees.

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Nah, it's actually, like I said, an issue of undertones. Unnatural ones. Like I said. But good tactic calling yourself a racist when you speak on things you clearly don't understand. Nice preemptive dodge there.

Edit: Like, there are shades that should occur with certain flesh tones in lighting changes. It's OK to not know what an undertone is. Especially if you don't use make-up or create portraits. It's knowledge you just don't have to have. It's not OK to pipe in and blame color swatches on an engine and deflect like you did. But, whatever. I seriously can't believe you looked at this game and noticed how well non humanoid shades of brown adjust to lighting and how PoC skin tones react to lighting and you just said "This is fine, it's the engine." This whole assumption that I would call "racism" on what looks like a clear lack of knowledge in what is and isn't how a flesh tone reacts to light is pretty silly and only serves to make us look petty to others.

The lighting in CC is way of from in game.. ingame its a lil more natural in CC it literally a flashlight being beamed at you even if you choose the scenery options in CC the lighting is still off. ive had skin tones that look amazing in CC but terrible in game and vice versa. they need to update CC lighting to more accurately represent the ingame lighting.

I'd love to be able to change skin tone with the Aesthetician, eye color would be nice too. It's so hard to get the colors you want just right in the Character creator. Gridania in CC seems like the most natural light but there's so many shadows being cast from the trees it's hard to get a good look. Limsa in CC is golden yellow light but in game it's bright clear light.

Im all in on eye/skin color and voice change at Aesthetician it could help to prevent all those abandoned chars created as a workaround to test voices, have a quest to give the Aesthetician an oculist and tan-skin permit and voice tune lessons

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

That’s why whenever I know I’m going to fantasia, I make an alt and run around as them and do quests for a couple of hours to know that it’s what I want.

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Yeah, that's what I do before switching using a fantasia. Another thing that I am doing when I'm not in a rush to fantasia is to have would-be characters as retainers. That way I can see their skin color in various lighting, location and weather.

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Originally Posted by Gula

Those are not good options. I say that because the trees. The shade of the trees and leaves is misleading as well as only being able to face towards the sun, which is adding yellow on you, for a clear view. The room is too dark, and the aetheric one isn't representative of what you'll be seeing 99% of play time.

I believe a new option should be added of the wedding dressing room, an empty field of the Steppe or Coerthas Central. Especially the wedding room for neutral, opulent light.

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You can rotate your character in the creator so that you can face towards, 3/4, away, whatever from the lightsource.

I may or may not have learned a long time ago that there is actually a limit to the number of characters you can create per day precisely because of this skin tone issue. That’s the hardest part of creating a character for me since they are always slightly off in the creator, so I always try to make an alt to see thr skin in game....and then make a bunch of alts because I’m having so much trouble getting it just right.... and then hit thr limit.

I've started using the benchmark to see how created characters actually look and animate in-game. It saves you from the character creation limit and you can even see them in a variety of armor sets.