Can we have some colorgrading?

Dear readers,

First and foremost I would like to express my enjoyment in the game thus far.
Coming back from WoW the difference in community is like night and day, XIV reminds me what MMO's were/should be all about and that is having an active, lively and engaging community :o.

The graphics on the other hand are a night and day difference as well..
I'n not talking about the art style.
WoW is obviously very cartoony and exaggerated while XIV takes a more realistic approach, which is fine that is not the issue for me. No what shocked me the most are the colors!
Comic back from such a colorful and lush world it felt like a slap in the face, at times I felt like I was splaying MGS4 back on my PS3 with all the browns and saturated colors.

So I tried some tweaking using the built in Nvidia Game Filter (ALT+F3 if enabled in Geforce Experience)
As you can see below the difference is huge with zero effort, at least in my opinion.


NEW Vanilla vs Geforce Game Filter comparisons

OLD Vanilla vs Geforce Game Filter comparisons


Now it's far from perfect but personally I think the more vivid colors fit the game better, just look at the XIV CGI trailers..they have the same vivid colors and bloom
but somehow they did not touch their color grading profile in game at all it seems.:confused:
What do you guys think? I just hope some dev picks this up, I mean I can go on all day making comparison shots some scenery gets extremely nice with a color boost.

Use ReShade, bro.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Use ReShade, bro.

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I don't think Reshade is officially allowed, and is in the kind of position that meters are.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

I don't think Reshade is officially allowed, and is in the kind of position that meters are.

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Of course, of course - I would never advocate the use of ReShade. Or parsers.

I have clearly expressed myself improperly!

Yeah I'm aware of Reshade/SweetFX and stuff like that. But that's just putting a band aid on an existing "issue".
The game is really off-putting (for the people I know at least) because of this issue,
the games' visuals in it's unedited state are just very dark, brownish gray and very unappealing in a lot of areas.
And that's just a shame because the game can be beautiful.

Even though my post is based on pure anecdotal grounds, it's not like there's been a major poll or research done what most players want,
I do believe it hold some merit.

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Originally Posted by PantsuKing

Yeah I'm aware of Reshade/SweetFX and stuff like that. But that's just putting a band aid on an existing "issue".
The game is really off-putting (for the people I know at least) because of this issue,
the games' visuals in it's unedited state are just very dark, brownish gray and very unappealing in a lot of areas.
And that's just a shame because the game can be beautiful.

Even though my post is based on pure anecdotal grounds, it's not like there's been a major poll or research done what most players want,
I do believe it hold some merit.

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wot?
Just tweak your color profile ffs

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Originally Posted by Daralii

I don't think Reshade is officially allowed, and is in the kind of position that meters are.

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I will need to search the source, but I remember somebody asked Yoshida about it and he said that Reshade is not prohibited and it's not against ToS. He said, hovewer, that if something will go wrong in the game because of Reshade - team will not be responsible in this case. So while it's not "officially allowed" - people actually can freely use it.

Which image is supposed to be the "improved" one? The first version looks better to me - they colours look 'right' and realistic. The second image has a red shift to the image, and seems rather hazy or out-of-focus.

Parsers aren't allowed because they access restricted game data without authorization. Reshade only changed the output of your video card, it doesn't access any restricted game data.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Which image is supposed to be the "improved" one? The first version looks better to me - they colours look 'right' and realistic. The second image has a red shift to the image, and seems rather hazy or out-of-focus.

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I was thinking the same thing.

The first image looks better, the second is too 'light and red', meanwhile OP is complaining that the native colours are too 'dark and brown'.
I'm thinking either the first images are the 'corrected' images and he's expressed himself poorly in the description, or OP is colourblind.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I was thinking the same thing.

The first image looks better, the second is too 'light and red', meanwhile OP is complaining that the native colours are too 'dark and brown'.
I'm thinking either the first images are the 'corrected' images and he's expressed himself poorly in the description, or OP is colourblind.

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Of course it all comes down to taste, but it is beyond question that some filters can easily and objectively improve image quality. Namely contrast, AA, blurring, lighting, bloom, sharpening, etcetera. The op did not include those things in the pics.

WITHOUT:
https://imgur.com/mNYacBR.jpg


WITH:

https://i.imgur.com/lnu5JgA.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/PZUnV9F.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/OUTn7rh.jpg

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Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

Parsers aren't allowed because they access restricted game data without authorization. Reshade only changed the output of your video card, it doesn't access any restricted game data.

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Reshade, as far as I'm aware, is a .DLL injector. There are definitely devs out there that will try to be restrictive about those to keep potential floodgates shut.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Reshade, as far as I'm aware, is a .DLL injector. There are definitely devs out there that will try to be restrictive about those to keep potential floodgates shut.

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Please note that ReShade needs to be whitelisted by developers for it to work. In fact, for some games, it does not physically work.

It's not hard, from the dev perspective, to block its use - if they really wanted to.

If people don't want to play FF14 because they are too posh for the color choices in the game then they won't really enjoy the whole of it. I don't think I have ever seen a game with the option to change this other than BDO and we all know how bad that game ended up being. This game started development in like 2004, it's a very old game and even in 2.0 around 2013? Where the entirety of the game was completely redone from the ground-up, it still wasn't spectacular. In fact, 1.0 looked better which was one of its major flaws (too graphically intensive for its time / not optimized). But the game is very enjoyable and the last game I played before coming to FF14 was BDO so it was a huge graphical downgrade and all it took was maybe a week or two to really get used to it and I was hooked. But I knew that visuals wasn't everything and this is one of those games where gameplay is worth the visual sacrifice.

I was gonna agree with some other posters as well that the "altered" images just look like the Red tint was jacked up. I prefer the original.

But if warming the color palette is more pleasing for the OP then I'm glad he found a way to better enjoy Eorzea.

As for ReShade, it's a great tool, imo. Using it to improve the saturation on the colors, among other things, has a very appealing effect. However, ReShade can also tank your FPS a little if your computer's not up to it. So there's a give and take. (depends on how much "extra" graphical effects you're throwing on)

I do agree that the developers should look into a sort of graphical upgrade, or at least an option for it so as not to push out customers who barely get by already. But it seems like the Dev team themselves barely get by these days with all the work they're trying to do. And improving graphics quality for what's already considered a very beautiful MMO isn't high on the list...

I personally feel bad for the graphics team because there's a lot of signs that they're overworked. I really don't think the team intentionally tries to deliver poor textured items (cough Seiryu weapons cough), but they only have so much time and corners have to be cut somewhere. I hope FFXIV gets a substantial budget increase for employees, not just servers. It deserves it, and frankly, needs it.

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

If people don't want to play FF14 because they are too posh for the color choices in the game then they won't really enjoy the whole of it. I don't think I have ever seen a game with the option to change this other than BDO and we all know how bad that game ended up being. This game started development in like 2004, it's a very old game and even in 2.0 around 2013? Where the entirety of the game was completely redone from the ground-up, it still wasn't spectacular. In fact, 1.0 looked better which was one of its major flaws (too graphically intensive for its time / not optimized). But the game is very enjoyable and the last game I played before coming to FF14 was BDO so it was a huge graphical downgrade and all it took was maybe a week or two to really get used to it and I was hooked. But I knew that visuals wasn't everything and this is one of those games where gameplay is worth the visual sacrifice.

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That's a bit of a strawman argument. No one said that the game is not good or does not deserve playing - just that there can be easy ways to give players' choice to improve its looks.

As a matter of fact, it's already in the game! It's called /gpose. Lots of filters there, and guess what - most people who use /gpose end up taking screenshots with filters on - because they make things look better overall.

Some people leave some snarky esque comments, which is a shame but I ain't gonna bite.
Having said that, It's like I said, I'm still tweaking and yes the color temp is a bit too warm/red-ish.
My point being is OF COURSE the game hasn't got some sick Global Illumination (GI), bounce light, and all that good stuff going on.

Hence I tried to fake that in post processing, that's why the brighter and more vivid colors, some bloom and bit more brightness goes a long way.
And it's not some drastic engine lvl change, it's all post processing and it just made me wonder why the devs kind of never experimented with it.
Color temperate aside (which is personal taste) I sincerely do believe the game could look better with some postfx tweaks.

Walking around in Gold Saucer is just a night and day difference, there are so many lights and illuminated things in there how and why is it still so dark?
Because there's no GI and stuff like that should be addressed in post.

Look, I'm not throwing shade at the game, I love it! Played the pre ARR version even for a while (until the UI made me depressed).
But I do get the feeling that some people kind of take this personally, like I'm trying to strangle their favorite pet.

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Originally Posted by PantsuKing

Some people leave some snarky esque comments, which is a shame but I ain't gonna bite.
Having said that, It's like I said, I'm still tweaking and yes the color temp is a bit too warm/red-ish.
My point being is OF COURSE the game hasn't got some sick Global Illumination (GI), bounce light, and all that good stuff going on.

Hence I tried to fake that in post processing, that's why the brighter and more vivid colors, some bloom and bit more brightness goes a long way.
And it's not some drastic engine lvl change, it's all post processing and it just made me wonder why the devs kind of never experimented with it.
Color temperate aside (which is personal taste) I sincerely do believe the game could look better with some postfx tweaks.

Walking around in Gold Saucer is just a night and day difference, there are so many lights and illuminated things in there how and why is it still so dark?
Because there's no GI and stuff like that should be addressed in post.

Look, I'm not throwing shade at the game, I love it! Played the pre ARR version even for a while (until the UI made me depressed).
But I do get the feeling that some people kind of take this personally, like I'm trying to strangle their favorite pet.

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They implemented that into the /gpose system, where you can put on filters that saturate the image or add a certain theme or effects to them.
Otherwise, for a permanent solution you have to look for reshade on these options.

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Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

Parsers aren't allowed because they access restricted game data without authorization. Reshade only changed the output of your video card, it doesn't access any restricted game data.

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From what I understand of how parsers work....
They typically read the combat logs and 'parse' that data into an easier to digest format.

Nothing in the combat log is restricted.

FFXIV's palette relies heavily on the weather. I fish a lot so the zones I'm in are usually affected by some gloomy weather and it dulls everything (still cool, just bleak) but on a Clear or Fair Skies day any zone looks amazing and vibrant and colorful. It's really beautiful and it works.

I don't think WoW's colors work here, those edits are extremely jarring to me. It's neat for a stylized screenshot but I could never play like that, I'd have to adjust my monitor.

I have to wonder how much of this thread's perception is affected by partial/colorblindness too because I imagine that would heavily affect opinions on what looks best.

It also depends on what kind of monitor/tv you are using. Some have better contrast and sharpening than others. That can make a big difference in visuals. I, personally, think the graphics look great, especially compared to other MMO's out there (looking at YOU wow). My only gripe is the contrast, but I am pretty sure it's just my tv

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Originally Posted by PantsuKing

And it's not some drastic engine lvl change, it's all post processing and it just made me wonder why the devs kind of never experimented with it.

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They dropped PS3 support not quite yet two years ago. At the time, it was a matter of accessibility.

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Originally Posted by Sated

FFXIV's palette relies heavily on the weather. I fish a lot so the zones I'm in are usually affected by some gloomy weather and it dulls everything (still cool, just bleak) but on a Clear or Fair Skies day any zone looks amazing and vibrant and colorful. It's really beautiful and it works.

I don't think WoW's colors work here, those edits are extremely jarring to me. It's neat for a stylized screenshot but I could never play like that, I'd have to adjust my monitor.

I have to wonder how much of this thread's perception is affected by partial/colorblindness too because I imagine that would heavily affect opinions on what looks best.

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In the JP fanfest they showed background artist work and in FF14 they don't make objects have any light it is entirely based no the weather from what I recall ( may be wrong) which is why a lot of the time the environments look so horrible and drab is because they lack the weather light to make them pop.

Colors are fine for me... as someone said, in clear weather, the colors pop, and fade a lot when it is cloudy. Which is how it is in the real world. Would be bizarre to have colors “pop” during a cloudy day, but to each their own. IMO, the OPs images just end up looking very washed out.

I've been using the new Nvidia filters as well but OP's examples don't look good to me. The only things I adjust and SLIGHTLY adjust are contrast and shadows. It's makes the game look less hazy to me.

https://imgur.com/a/dUhouqG

Also night time is darker but looks cooler. The lights in towns look more realistic.

I've been tweaking some PS4 screenshots in Microsoft Office Picture Manager (don't judge me), and I'm finding that turning up saturation, contrast and "mid-tones" by one notch each give a more defined look to the images without messing up the colour balance.