[ Graphical Update Feedback ] Examples of Darker Skinned Characters/Darker Lighting

[Turtledeluxe]

XIV does not go with artificial character lighting like say, Horizon's team specifically does with Aloy, regardless of skin tone.

I don't understand the posts ITT. Are you saying they need to add a light source to Ultima Thule? This has nothing to do with SE's portrayal of certain skin tones.

[SarriaKadijah]

XIV does not go with artificial character lighting like say, Horizon's team specifically does with Aloy, regardless of skin tone.

I don't understand the posts ITT. Are you saying they need to add a light source to Ultima Thule? This has nothing to do with SE's portrayal of certain skin tones.

They actually do have the Character Lighting setting, but even with that at max, it can be very hard to see darker skinned characters, and this is a failing of SE's testing and review phases of development. They need to be looking at both light and dark skinned characters as they're working on this next stage of the graphical update, and they need to test their cutscenes with darker skinned characters (and even just non-white/pale characters - there are red and green and blue characters too!) before go-live.

And maybe they should consider adding artificial lighting in cutscenes. A toggle in character settings maybe, so darker characters can actually be seen and paler characters don't get washed out horribly.

But the point is that all of the previews we've seen for the 7.0 graphical update have been pale characters, and SE really needs to show us some darker skinned characters so we can give timely feedback.

Edited to add that Character Lighting settings don't actually impact the cutscenes (at least viewed through the Unending Journey) - which means the control given to us to help us adjust for our own characters is also useless for the important parts. That would also be a nice fix, though tangential to the need to see darker characters in these previews.

[Turtledeluxe]

They actually do have the Character Lighting setting, but even with that at max, it can be very hard to see darker skinned characters, and this is a failing of SE's testing and review phases of development. They need to be looking at both light and dark skinned characters as they're working on this next stage of the graphical update, and they need to test their cutscenes with darker skinned characters (and even just non-white/pale characters - there are red and green and blue characters too!) before go-live.

And maybe they should consider adding artificial lighting in cutscenes. A toggle in character settings maybe, so darker characters can actually be seen and paler characters don't get washed out horribly.

But the point is that all of the previews we've seen for the 7.0 graphical update have been pale characters, and SE really needs to show us some darker skinned characters so we can give timely feedback.

Edited to add that Character Lighting settings don't actually impact the cutscenes (at least viewed through the Unending Journey) - which means the control given to us to help us adjust for our own characters is also useless for the important parts. That would also be a nice fix, though tangential to the need to see darker characters in these previews.

I actually never knew this. So the screenshot in the original post is character lighting set at 30?

Only asking because such a setting seems useless. They don't look lit at all.

Or I guess if she lowered it to exemplify cutscenes then yes, it needs to be added to cutscenes. I'm not sure it should go too high in cutscenes because it could create a very superficial image (as in Horizon) where the character is glowing compared to everyone else. Maybe they should add a separate slider for cutscenes.

[eternalmagic]

I actually never knew this. So the screenshot in the original post is character lighting set at 30?

Only asking because such a setting seems useless. They don't look lit at all.

Or I guess if she lowered it to exemplify cutscenes then yes, it needs to be added to cutscenes. I'm not sure it should go too high in cutscenes because it could create a very superficial image (as in Horizon) where the character is glowing compared to everyone else. Maybe they should add a separate slider for cutscenes.

The character lighting setting on the photos I took of the Au Ra, my character, and my friend's are all at 100%. I've seen several people on social media share screenshots from cutscenes where their dark-skinned characters are so poorly lit that you cannot see any facial features--because the effect just doesn't even turn on for cutscenes. All this is 100% why I made the post in the first place--people are rightfully worried about how their characters will look, given how things look for them currently.

This also affects major NPCs that are dark-skinned, too, like Raubahn and Sadu.

[SarriaKadijah]

So for lighting examples, here's my character in Ultima Thule. I just hid the UI so this isn't in gpose, this is just ambient area lighting. With the system setting Character Lighting at the following percentages:

0%


50%


100%


Kept the setting on 100% character lightning, and this is from a cutscene in UT:


And Sarria's not even that dark-skinned, as you can see in the picture on my profile. It's something people have talked a lot about on different social media, but I'm hoping CBU3 will finally address this, especially with the upcoming graphics update.