What's up with the 7.0 gear textures?

Overall I think the graphical update has been a success. There's already a thread about character model feedback, but I wanted to draw attention to another issue that has struck me as very odd.

I watched the technical panel during London Fanfest and at one point they showed the MASSIVE leap in texture resolution from the old graphics to the new.

https://i.imgur.com/J4vY6as.jpeg

This obviously had me very excited, but now that I'm actually playing Dawntrail I'm a little confused. The new material aspect they've added to the gear looks great for the most part, but the textures overall still look very low resolution and pixelated.

Here are a few examples, right click and open in a new tab for the full image:

https://i.imgur.com/nKRsC6a.png

Left - WHM Dawntrail job gear. Almost anywhere two materials meet is very pixelated.

Middle - WAR Dawntrail job gear, one of the worst offenders I've seen so far. Look at the chest area and the shoulder plate. If you told me this was gear that hadn't been updated yet from Stormblood or something, I'd believe you.

Right - The shoulder area from the raid fending chest piece released this morning.


I certainly don't expect the gear to be ultra high quality 4K textures straight out of a Horizon game or something, but I expected them to at least not have gigantic blocky pixels covering them anymore. In that regard they don't look any different than the gear we've had for the past ten years, they just have a layer of more accurate materials over them now. If it were only noticeable when zoomed in as far as possible I would say whatever no big deal, but the whole reason I noticed this issue to begin with is because it stuck out so wildly on other people from a distance away. The first two images are random people I was running past before noticing their gear. They're not zoomed in much at all, just cropped.

I appreciate all the hard work the devs have put into the update, especially with the new zones, but I hope this is an area they can continue to improve with time. Given how important gear is in an MMO, it would be nice if the resolution could perhaps be bumped up a bit in the future if possible.

Thanks for reading!

The texture update has been very inconsistent, quite disappointing. Good textures age well.

These are the devs who let Koana, a high profile npc, have that low res outfit. They didn't even bother to update it. So I guess they just don't care about stuff being low res.

Gear also still dyes shockingly blotchy – I haven't checked previously problematic things, but I just got the Neo Kingdom mage coat which should be so pretty when dyed but instead it has big patches of fabric that don't take the proper colour.

It's been happening for a while now with the things that have "updated" textures and I was really hoping it was things designed for the new graphics but stuck in the old system, but apparently it's just how they're designing things now. It defeats the purpose of dyeable gear.

Didn't they say the upgrades were a rolling out process? So they just need more time to get to them all.
I'd assume the gear from the raids released today were in fact modeled months and months ago and were not preemptively included.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Didn't they say the upgrades were a rolling out process? So they just need more time to get to them all.
I'd assume the gear from the raids released today were in fact modeled months and months ago and were not preemptively included.

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They're rolling it out to older gear in waves. New gear, like the sets in the example above, are all already in the new graphics.

I've noticed pixelated areas as well, even on new gear.

It seems there is just a massive issue with texture stretching and areas where two separate parts of a model "meet".

I know that without the Unreal 5 engine, games usually do plants/trees as sprites but, them being sprites sometimes ruin the whole graphics update as well, regardless of them being upscaled to 1080p.

Guess we can always rely on the devs to be consistently inconsistent.

Some things never change. When i looked at the plated Shoulder piece on my Warrior which has like 480p resolution i knew not to look tooooo close or i would ruin the future Sets for myself again.

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Originally Posted by Araxes

Some things never change. When i looked at the plated Shoulder piece on my Warrior which has like 480p resolution i knew not to look tooooo close or i would ruin the future Sets for myself again.

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Haha, I guess it's just more of the same gear we're used to up to this point so nothing to get worked up about. Just a little disappointing after such a big deal was made about the update.

Another user and I reported this and it got put into "not enough information"

Just. Freaking. Look. At. It.

You don't need PC logs, you don't need "zone information". Look at the freaking gear, it's absolutely broken. The textures are high quality but the colour mapping going over the light map gives it awful jagged edges on so many pieces of gear.

Well, I didn't see any changes on textures. It seemed equally pixelated for me.

Even square grapes is still square grapes and looks exactly the same.

Just to add I was a little surprised over dye..options. So many older outfits could have used the second dye channel for something more than like..a feather. Or buttons. Or a belt loop.

Then, on one that could use it well is not consistent.

Ex, the Isle Shepherd dress top, the secondary dye colors the orange stitchwork. Wonderful! But, it doesn’t also dye the orange shoulders….which are the same color as the stichwork.

Everything gets dyed but the orange shoulders. Shame.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

Almost anywhere two materials meet is very pixelated.

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I'm obviously not a FF14 dev (though I am a software dev) so take it with a grain of salt, but I think this (which I think is the main issue that makes things look terrible, honestly) is just something that's likely an unfortunate side effect of how the FF14 engine handles textures, and isn't something they can totally fix without a rework or massively bumping texture resolutions (and thus game size). (Also: In the OP, that image isn't really showing two images with wildly different resolutions, the new one just has better detail, though I guess it's hard to say 100% with stream compression. The jagged edges on the first one are likely unseen edges on the armor anyway).

From what I remember hearing, the material system in the game identifies materials via a numeric value encoded in one of the textures, interpreted as I believe materials 1-16, rather than say, a texture where RGB define the % influence of 3 specific dyes/materials (which some games do use, but is more costly). The issue there though is that it means the values can't be smoothly interpolated, because if you for example had material 1 and material 3 right next to each other, the blending would be interpreted as meaning there was a thin band of material 2 between them, which would show its own ugly artifacts (materials being where they shouldn't). So they have to go with nearest neighbor (pixelated) interpolation, which yields jagged edges like we have.

A lot of games don't actually have textures much better than XIV, it's just that when you actually allow the engine to interpolate/blur textures, they look measurably better even at the same resolution. It is pretty unfortunate though, and it'd be nice if they could do *something*, but I don't know if I want that to just mean dumping another 10gigs on 4k textures or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Akonyl

I'm obviously not a FF14 dev (though I am a software dev) so take it with a grain of salt, but I think this (which I think is the main issue that makes things look terrible, honestly) is just something that's likely an unfortunate side effect of how the FF14 engine handles textures, and isn't something they can totally fix without a rework or massively bumping texture resolutions (and thus game size). (Also: In the OP, that image isn't really showing two images with wildly different resolutions, the new one just has better detail, though I guess it's hard to say 100% with stream compression. The jagged edges on the first one are likely unseen edges on the armor anyway).

From what I remember hearing, the material system in the game identifies materials via a numeric value encoded in one of the textures, interpreted as I believe materials 1-16, rather than say, a texture where RGB define the % influence of 3 specific dyes/materials (which some games do use, but is more costly). The issue there though is that it means the values can't be smoothly interpolated, because if you for example had material 1 and material 3 right next to each other, the blending would be interpreted as meaning there was a thin band of material 2 between them, which would show its own ugly artifacts (materials being where they shouldn't). So they have to go with nearest neighbor (pixelated) interpolation, which yields jagged edges like we have.

A lot of games don't actually have textures much better than XIV, it's just that when you actually allow the engine to interpolate/blur textures, they look measurably better even at the same resolution. It is pretty unfortunate though, and it'd be nice if they could do *something*, but I don't know if I want that to just mean dumping another 10gigs on 4k textures or whatever.

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Interesting, that's very informative. So it's not an issue with the resolution, it's an issue with how the engine is smoothing out the textures? Am I understanding that right?

Small. Indie. Company.

But seriously, that is the vibe the keep giving us, with so many different aspects of the game.

And no, it's not an engine issue, as can be seen on YouTube modders have been improving the textures for years now.

The texture update is so inconsistent across the entire game I just gave up in full after they thought its ok to give me this in the 7.0 phys range role quest cutscene on the highest graphic settings.
https://i.imgur.com/YJCqKjH.png

Like , Idk , speechless tbh looooooool. What do you even say to something like that when they didn't stop shoving GrApHicAl UpdATe marketing down your throat every LL? This it Yoship? This my update right here?

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Originally Posted by GreenLeafy

The texture update is so inconsistent across the entire game I just gave up in full after they thought its ok to give me this in the 7.0 phys range role quest cutscene on the highest graphic settings.
https://i.imgur.com/YJCqKjH.png

Like , Idk , speechless tbh looooooool. What do you even say to something like that when they didn't stop shoving GrApHicAl UpdATe marketing down your throat every LL? This it Yoship? This my update right here?

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To be fair I don't think that particular piece has been updated yet. They're updating things in waves.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

To be fair I don't think that particular piece has been updated yet. They're updating things in waves.

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Still though , this is a quest line in the Brand New expansion they have just released. Why did they think this is an ok pass? Why would you put a new npc in your new expansion quest line in non-updated gear and give a zoom in shot to really hammer it in? Just like someone pointed out earlier - they didn't even have the courtesy to do that for a character that's part of the MSQ - Koana. Its just a very baffling choice. I can understand it for some old quest ( like it was for my experience finishing up some EW quests ) but actually making the concious choice to put this in your new expansion is mind-boggling. Especially when you consider they put some random guards at the very start of the MSQ in the most shiny rendered metal armour for them to legit never appear again much afterwards.

Yeah sure roll it out in waves for updating old things , but don't put this type of stuff in the new product you have people paying for under the advertisement that things will be updated.

Have to agree.
It would be better overall if CBU3 worked on completing at least one thing before jumping onto another project, rather than giving us these early access type of implementations that will not be complete for the next few years.
Particularly, Hats on Hroth/Viera, Dual Dye system & Gear Texturing as some of the obvious matters.

I'm going to assume they advertised the update with larger textures than they actually used for the final release, because the 6.0 PLD gear does not look nearly as good as they advertised it did post update.
The things that look good are getting carried with the better metal shader, the actual texture quality isn't all that improved.

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Originally Posted by Sunhwapark

Have to agree.
It would be better overall if CBU3 worked on completing at least one thing before jumping onto another project, rather than giving us these early access type of implementations that will not be complete for the next few years.
Particularly, Hats on Hroth/Viera, Dual Dye system & Gear Texturing as some of the obvious matters.

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Remember when the devs told us that "The mindset that the solution to every problem could be patched in a future update" was an "easy step to failure"? I guess they forgot, seeing as it was 10 years ago.

https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v...ca9/3steps.jpg

Just look at the Gunbreaker AF set compared to the Warrior one – they're like night and day. The GNB set actually has very crisp and HD textures, while the WAR set looks like something straight out of Stormblood.

https://i.imgur.com/YbR0ufG.png
https://i.imgur.com/W41mZue.png

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Originally Posted by GreenLeafy

Yeah sure roll it out in waves for updating old things , but don't put this type of stuff in the new product you have people paying for under the advertisement that things will be updated.

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I agree that outfits featured in the story or prominent quests should have gotten priority. Like why was Koana's outfit not updated?

Its really odd how some pieces seem to be really high res while others seem to be low res on the same gear set. For the Warrior 99 AF gear, the metal texture on the head, gloves and boots is really good, but the chest piece has really bad texture work in comparison, both the metal and the leather. I assume this will be patched, but its good to raise awareness because its very inconsistent. Compare the WAR chest piece to the PLD or GNB chests and its night and day.

I know they are updating older gear in waves, but I do find it strange that they didn't update the textures for gear that prominent NPCs will be wearing and have close-ups of, like Koana using the EW MCH set, you'd think they'd give that some extra love seeing as its going to be front and center in the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Akonyl

Snip.

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Basically this. All armor sets in FFXIV are in greyscale and the way they're colored is what causes the pixel look most gear have. Even if you ramp up the texture size to insane resolutions, there would still be "pixels" visible because the way color and materials are assigned to gear is through solid RGB codes in an image channel- with each code representing a colour stored in a "color palette" file which is modified by your dyes n stuff. I'm not surprised Dawntrail didn't actually fix this problem but that's just cause I'm aware of how this cursed game actually handles materials and textures.

I chalk this up to just being the "quirks" of FFXIV's dye system that we have to live with. It's unfortunate but it is what it is.

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Originally Posted by Siddiax

Just look at the Gunbreaker AF set compared to the Warrior one – they're like night and day. The GNB set actually has very crisp and HD textures, while the WAR set looks like something straight out of Stormblood.

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The GNB set relies heavily on normal maps to look good. The WAR set unfortunately has colour differences in the metal so that utilizes the "solid rgb image channel" I mentioned earlier in this post and that why it looks so crunchy.

I think a good chunk of the issue with the WAR AF top is less about the technical business of how the textures work but actually what we call texture density.

Generally speaking, you want the texture density (very simply put, how many pixels are allocated to x cm² of the mesh) to be uniform across all parts of a model with one main caveat - more detailed things and focal points should get more texture space, since they have more data to show. There's a few little tricks here and there, but those two are the general rules to follow.

The Agoge set... has incredibly poorly thought out texture density. The most detailed parts take up very small spaces on the texture maps, while the fabric belts and the plain leather skirt part at the back - you know, the part with just the faint creases and a handful of tiny scratches that aren't really integral details - have much larger allocations. It even looks like the tiny little clips on the front of the chest have as much texture space as half of one plate of the pauldron, which is... mad.

I think it's likely something to do with how the engine applies the actual fabric textures on top of the normal maps - since they're updating those textures to be super realistic (like the weaving on the blue parts of Alphinaud's gear) they want to give them plenty of space to shine... but on this gear piece specficially, I don't think that was the correct angle to take. Especially since there's no woven texture to the leather parts.

The fur seems to have had a fairly large allocation on the texture map as well, but I don't think that's unreasonable given that it's attempting to define so many strands. I think I personally would have given less space to the fur inside the skirt since it's not a focal point, but. to each their own.

It kinda feels to me like it was lacking the human touch of manually packing the UVs to ensure the texture density was sane and complimented the levels of detail in different areas of the gear in favour of just using an automatic UV packing program...

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Originally Posted by SuRge991

The GNB set relies heavily on normal maps to look good. The WAR set unfortunately has colour differences in the metal so that utilizes the "solid rgb image channel" I mentioned earlier in this post and that why it looks so crunchy.

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I'm not too sure about that, as the reworked lvl 90 PLD AF set clearly doesn't have the same issue after the graphics update - there isn't as sharp of a difference between the different shades of metal:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...7c35032316f1f&

I'd bet this is not intended at all and likely will be fixed in an upcoming patch. I mean the fact there's no texture filtering at all on a brand new armor set, especially when even games from 2004 have it is just bizarre...

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Originally Posted by Siddiax

I'd bet this is not intended at all and likely will be fixed in an upcoming patch. I mean the fact there's no texture filtering at all on a brand new armor set, especially when even games from 2004 have it is just bizarre...

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If you look at the official Dawntrail site the sets there look the same as they do in game. It seems intentional.

Highly disappointed still seeing pixelated textures on new gear and even some plant/foliage in dawntrail.
The game looks better for sure, but pixalated textures really makes one question what the whole graphics update was about.