A Suggestion - How to Make Characters More Realistic

There is a problem with the rendering of character: the skin texture looks like Gypsum. Human skin is oily, reflection effect is not right.

http://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acci...8a3afdac5c.jpg

Infact, you already have the enhanced reflection effect. When character is all wet, the reflection is good and look more realistic.

http://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acci...d82.jpghttp://

You can just simply adjust this effect to a appropriate amount and maintained it so that the character becomes more realistic.

Hope this could be accomplished in 3.0 version.

Um... I don't know... when I look at people irl, their arms/legs/whatever don't look wet or even the slightest bit oily to me.

In 3D graphics parlance, where "reflection" refers to an image (or real-time render) applied to a surface and distorted based on viewing angle, the term for what you describe is "specularity." It's usually handled as either a single value or a combination of two values for hardness and intensity, and it's one of the cheapest effects 3D artists have to create a visible difference between two materials.

This game's specularity settings for most materials are very near photorealistic, but it's an effect that is only properly appreciated with contrast, and while in motion. This game, like most Japanese games, is not nearly as pretty in freeze-frame as it is while moving, but that doesn't mean they haven't carefully tuned the graphics to the best of their abilities.

Wait... wait, let me get this straight. The originator thinks characters look more realistic... with the rain/wet shader applied. As Bee said, I have never looked like that except when I'm, you know, wet from the pool, beach, rain, a shower, sweat, etc.. Yes, skin does have natural oils but not normally to the levels of excess that it's apparent. If your skin is that oily naturally, you might want to see a dermatologist. The only reason you see super-oiled characters (mostly women) in Korean MMOs is to accentuate their sexiness, not to be any kind of realistic.

Thank for your reply. About the "oily", I did say "adjust this effect to a appropriate amount", I did not mention that the skin should look like in the second picture. Compared with many of the real photos in direct sunlight you will find that the skin has strong reflection effect, not like in the first picture.
http://imgtest.meiliworks.com/pic/_o...27_346_460.jpg

I have to agree up to a point, the skin on characters does look a little too dull and lifeless, it could benefit from a little more sheen. The wet effect on character skin is not nearly pronounced enough, in a downpour we should look wet, our clothes look wet (sort of) but our skin barely has a sheen, it should almost glisten when very wet, certainly it should be shinier than it is.

I wish wet effect actually looked right instead. Hair remains the same, only becomes more lucid. Locks don't glue together, hair gravity isn't affected, no dripping anywhere, no water drops on surfaces (hat brims, etc).... The wet effect in this game feels pretty cheap, only a "let's turn everything into latex" effect on all your character and mount.

But honestly there are other graphical aspects that should deserve fixes even before that. Such as the sea remaining flat even during thunderstorms, lack of pools on rain, lack of filth in the Tangle where morbols lives and the Castrum dumps its sewer wastes...

it's most likely just a part of the art style (same reason men don't have visible areolas or body hair), FFXIV doesn't go for hyperrealism, it's pretty stylized.

I think we actually had subsurface skin effects in 1.0. Or at least that's how it looked. I remember seeing my character's shoulder and noticing the detail caught by the lighting.

Err, I rarely see persons look shiny/oily at all. The second picture does look better than the first, but she still seems wet (shut up) . Also, pants are different O.o

Tbh if they did take the water effect and turn down the shine abit, it would reflect skin more realistically. Atm there is no real reflections in the first image, which skin normally does shine a tiny bit.

For skin simulation, we use a technique called subsurface scattering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsurface_scattering

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Originally Posted by tymora

For skin simulation, we use a technique called subsurface scattering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsurface_scattering

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Maybe with the DX 11 they will improve the texture mapping to match the new shaders.

Actual subsurface scattering would be a massive resource drain that simply couldn't be done with so many characters on screen. I do agree, however, that skin is a bit too 'dry' and flat in this game. The 'wet' shader is a step in the right direction I suppose, but still not right (for wet or dry). Dry skin should have about as much specularity as the wet shader shows, but with less gloss (the highlights should be almost as strong but more dispersed). Wet should have a bit more specularity and much more gloss (nearly pure white highlights that are very small), ideally aided by an animated normal map of water running down the skin, but that might be reaching too far.

I'd like to see our characters sweat, as disgusting as that sounds. In Coerthas, we know it's cold, not just from with snow everywhere but we can see our characters breath. Compare that to hot regions such as Thanalan and Costa. In Thanalan, during a heatwave, we may see heat rising from the ground, but there's no physical effect on our characters like in Coerthas.

While in Thanalan and UD, while at rest, we may be sweating a little bit after awhile of being there. AFter fighting for awhile, we may be sweating more heavily than just sitting around UD.
https://nba2kblog.files.wordpress.co...14_01_1080.jpg

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Originally Posted by Bluevann

I wish wet effect actually looked right instead. Hair remains the same, only becomes more lucid. Locks don't glue together, hair gravity isn't affected, no dripping anywhere, no water drops on surfaces (hat brims, etc).... The wet effect in this game feels pretty cheap, only a "let's turn everything into latex" effect on all your character and mount.

But honestly there are other graphical aspects that should deserve fixes even before that. Such as the sea remaining flat even during thunderstorms, lack of pools on rain, lack of filth in the Tangle where morbols lives and the Castrum dumps its sewer wastes...

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Couldn't agree more, but I do believe this and any other graphical deficiency of this level can safely be traced back to "PS3 limitations" (or heck, even "bandwidth restrictions", for all we know). Meaning it's unlikely to happen until SE drops PS3 support and upgrades its network infrastructure (and forget that we don't live in the 90's anymore). :/


(Yet another post that had to be edited because it was a staggering 6 characters over the pointless 1k limit.)

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Originally Posted by tymora

For skin simulation, we use a technique called subsurface scattering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsurface_scattering

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This.

It would further increase processing cost though.

I believe there are some things in the game that already have SSS like the round hanging lamps in Gridania.

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Originally Posted by Angel_Michelle

Thank for your reply. About the "oily", I did say "adjust this effect to a appropriate amount", I did not mention that the skin should look like in the second picture. Compared with many of the real photos in direct sunlight you will find that the skin has strong reflection effect, not like in the first picture.
http://imgtest.meiliworks.com/pic/_o...27_346_460.jpg

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Super models put oil on their skin tho

Also, I don't think they are going for an ultra realistic look for this game. But Somewhere in between cartoony and realistic. I personally like it the way it is but that's just me..

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Originally Posted by Darlan_Ashwood

Also, I don't think they are going for an ultra realistic look for this game. But Somewhere in between cartoony and realistic. I personally like it the way it is but that's just me..

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This. You can't draw the line too close to the "edge" or else you get the uncanny valley. Look at other games that go for the "glossy" look and end up having everything look like it's made of plastic.

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Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

Couldn't agree more, but I do believe this and any other graphical deficiency of this level can safely be traced back to "PS3 limitations" (or heck, even "bandwidth restrictions", for all we know). Meaning it's unlikely to happen until SE drops PS3 support and upgrades its network infrastructure (and forget that we don't live in the 90's anymore). :/

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People really need to stop blaming the PS3 for all of FFXIV graphic deficiencies.

Firstly, PS3 aren't the only "low spec" machines out there. Low end PCs have to be taken into consideration too.

Secondly, SSS for realistic skin is very much an "optional" feature - like full reflection for water. SE already allow significant visual differences between PC and PS3 which will only get larger with the release of the DX11 client adding parallax mapping for the ground and tessellation for water.

make it like DoA 5 LR

http://i60.tinypic.com/15qrxpt.jpg

Bigger pic
http://thegeekculture.com/wp-content...15/02/Dead.jpg

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Originally Posted by Bishop81

People really need to stop blaming the PS3 for all of FFXIV graphic deficiencies.

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Just as soon as SE stops referring to it as an excuse for not doing/adding things.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bishop81

People really need to stop blaming the PS3 for all of FFXIV graphic deficiencies.

Firstly, PS3 aren't the only "low spec" machines out there. Low end PCs have to be taken into consideration too.

Secondly, SSS for realistic skin is very much an "optional" feature - like full reflection for water. SE already allow significant visual differences between PC and PS3 which will only get larger with the release of the DX11 client adding parallax mapping for the ground and tessellation for water.

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That is why they invented the magical, Low, med, high and ultra settings for textures which would just simply load different resolutions, so yes we could have detailed skin maps for those with high end pcs, while those on low end still get the same results but with less resolution, meaning the files are smaller and the system doesn't use as much to load a smaller file.