Graphical update still hasn't fixed longstanding issues w/ dark skin.

This is my first forum post so I'm not sure about how to format this complaint, but I've noticed a lot that dark skin in this game, regardless of lighting, ends up looking weirdly grey? My character uses one of the more saturated tones on an F Highlander, but she still looks weirdly grey. Even moreso, the new lighting that looks fine on paler skin has instead made her dark skin to look like she's a waxy, plastic Barbie. I enjoy a lot of the changes, but it's sad that something that's been such a longstanding issue, between dark skin not being visible in low-lighting cutscenes to having F model characters having paler skintone ranges than M model, has changed so little. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLJHyrEW...png&name=small

Part of the issue is that the Benchmark has the gamma set weirdly high by default, but yeah even with the gamma reduced I'm still seeing problems that ether have been in the game or were brought up as concerns in the previews.

Darker skin colors are generally somewhat of an issue in this game. In the benchmark, my character has a more gray-ish/green-ish tint to it, and looks just worse.

The new skin shader desaturates every skintone. And there seems to be very little sub-surface scattering making everything look plastic and waxy.

A couple things here, gamma correction washes out colours really bad. Turning it down helps a lot if you have dark skin. Also character creator lighting is really harsh and it makes you look much worse than you do in game. In more natural benchmark lighting you will look better.

But also yea, lighting in this fame still has issues with dark skin, and bright lights would make you look super vaxy. This is especially noticeable in the last shot of the benchmark when you're flying towards the screen.

I've been having the exact same issues. Gamma correction does help, but it also makes some shadows harder to make out, so I'd really want to see adjustments to the shader itself personally.

I agree that while the lighting is improved significantly, that the undertone IS more gray now. The vanilla looks a bit more warm.

Graphics Update:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/34b4277d...217300f109.pnj

6.58:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/0c6b1db8...840b23bc24.pnj

I've noticed this as well! Skin looks way too shiny and looks like plastic in some instances now, especially in limsa cc. It's on all skin, but waaaay more noticeable on dark skin. I really hope this lighting quirk doesn't show up in game or is fixed by release. Skin just kinda looks bad in general. It's either washed out or looks like plastic. And yes I bumped down gamma correction a lot and it still looked bad.

I posted this in a previous thread, but I figure because this one is talking about dark skin, that it was worth posting here, too.

The in-game lighting already had an issue with sucking some of the defined color out of darker skinned characters. Not only is it grey, it's a warm, muddy grey.

The benchmark lighting made this much worse. The red undertones are completely gone, rendering my should-be purple-grey duskwight nearly green.

I made a small chart detailing it, including with gamma correction [the benchmark is set at 50 at default, but so is the base game]

https://jmp.sh/KKN2p16v+

Because the text is for ants, here is the full sized image! I'm really hoping they take this all into consideration. Some very few people with dark skinned characters won the lottery with this benchmark, while so many others are suffering ):

joining the chorus here to say that my wol's skin looks. weird. with the new textures and lighting. he looks okay in most of the benchmark itself (for the most part), but this side by side in both CC's with the gamma at default 50 shows how much more gray he comes across. (not even bothering the bizarre momentary times in CC where he looked blue????)

https://imgur.com/a/DWDbRkR

I plan on taking his skin a shade darker to see if that comes across better/closer to the times I've really liked how current in-game lighting looks for him, but I feel bad for anyone who doesn't have that option because they're already using the darkest tones available :( overall the consensus I seem to be getting is that both in the more "human" skintones and "fantasy" skintones, the red/purple undertones seem to have been totally neutralized.....

I think my wol escaped the worst of the waxiness and has all her features intact (maybe her cheeks are a bit narrower?) which is a huge relief because her skintone is very dark. (Sometimes I have trouble being able to tell subtle changes in depth, color, etc graphics. I should see an optometrist someday.) All in all I'm optimistic for my wol but I think Square should DEFINITELY rethink what they smooth out and de/saturate because it seems like the wols that don't use the extreme end on either side of a tone are the ones that suffer the most. A lot of the wols I've seen have lost out on their charming narrowness and shading (see examples above). I think everyone should get to look forward to seeing their wols in the expansion as much as I am.
https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...380cf01996.jpg

Even with the gamma adjustment, it still looks pretty awful. They even made my character lighter and took away her undertone.
https://64.media.tumblr.com/76a6b198...4c6ddbc931.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/ff8ba017...56a78c0d66.pnj
Granted, I'd LOVE it if girls could get the darker tones that guys got, because they - for some reason - thought it was a good idea to genderlock skintones and make it so girls are lighter than guys :') because colorism, but could they at least not make me lighter? the game washes me out enough as is.

I generally like the smoothness of the skin and I think overall my boy cat didn't end up too bad, but I have to say that some of the light does not look good on darker skinned characters. The previews they showed at the Fanfest all looks very washed out because of the stark white lighting and it looked like the "material" used for the skin doesn't work properly (re: the subsurface scattering on Elezen ears?)

Current, 6.0
https://64.media.tumblr.com/de9861dc...04f18fcd7f.pnj

Benchmark, graphics update
https://64.media.tumblr.com/e1ac5d81...7cc6c21f00.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/eb247b6f...f589887cb5.pnj


Also here's another thread about issues with dark skinned characters, both natural and unnatural skin colors

This is what it does to my character, she really lost the upgrade lottery completely.
Completely unrecognizable very sad.

https://i.imgur.com/6TgkQva.png

https://i.imgur.com/MsZGeLp.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/DJOY8wC.png

Also, I noticed my Viera is pretty ashy-looking in CC but it got better in the benchmark. He just seems to be more gray/green now than before but not sure the exact reason.

https://i.imgur.com/iSlwgqD.png

Overall I'm very happy with my WoL's new look - I love the detail and how his features look!

The only thing I have issue with is that his skin tone is less warm now, and the light is making his skin and hair look waxy and grey.

https://i.imgur.com/Ix3K36h.png

I'm hoping that this is an issue with the character creator (which has very bad lighting for previewing characters regardless of which background is used) and that it will appear better in actual gameplay but character creator seems to preview ok in 6.x version so I worry it's how the lighting hits skin now that is adding white and making characters look grey and washed out.