New character creator

[Zantetsuken]

One thing the engine really seems to be missing is specular highlights in the shaders. (from some shots, it looks like there might be a bit, but only confined to a fresnel falloff)

Without those surface highlights, hair and leather all look rather dull and flat. Even skin ends up looking more like clay than real skin.

Compare the Miquote skin with Vaan from FFXII



Notice the little white dots on Vaan's nose and cheeks? Those little highlights (though faked via textures) helped to give some life and dimension to the character's skin.

This is the Alpha, and I'm sure there is much still in progress, but I hope by the end, we will have dynamic surface highlights (subtle ones) that will really make the visuals shine.

[Spy]

One thing the engine really seems to be missing is specular highlights in the shaders. (from some shots, it looks like there might be a bit, but only confined to a fresnel falloff)

Without those surface highlights, hair and leather all look rather dull and flat. Even skin ends up looking more like clay than real skin.

Compare the Miquote skin with Vaan from FFXII



Notice the little white dots on Vaan's nose and cheeks? Those little highlights (though faked via textures) helped to give some life and dimension to the character's skin.

This is the Alpha, and I'm sure there is much still in progress, but I hope by the end, we will have dynamic surface highlights (subtle ones) that will really make the visuals shine.

[Hulan]

Notice the little white dots on Vaan's nose and cheeks? Those little highlights (though faked via textures) helped to give some life and dimension to the character's skin.

It's clearly in there. The left collarbone displays a little specular highlighting, unless that's her bone sticking out of her skin. That being said, as a personal preference, I have always felt most games use too strong of a hand with specular lighting, especially with human skin. It's a poor-man's subsurface scattering (well okay, some specular highlighting exists naturally as well) and now that we're seeing real-time techniques for subsurface scattering, I hope people will start backing off of using specular highlights for skin.

[Zantetsuken]

It's clearly in there. The left collarbone displays a little specular highlighting, unless that's her bone sticking out of her skin. That being said, as a personal preference, I have always felt most games use too strong of a hand with specular lighting, especially with human skin. It's a poor-man's subsurface scattering (well okay, some specular highlighting exists naturally as well) and now that we're seeing real-time techniques for subsurface scattering, I hope people will start backing off of using specular highlights for skin.

Eh, I think what you are seeing on the collarbone is actual an artifact from the shadows. If the skin really had any specular shading, you'd see it on her shoulder.

Still, I like the overall softness of the skin, they did a great job with that. Just a subtle speck of highlighting would sell it perfectly IMO.

But even the skin would be fine unchanged as long as they give the hair a bit of highlighting love.

they do actually look very different. It was just an observation, by the way. Im not trying to make anyone cry again. Everything just looks more three-dimensional in the current version. Maybe that's what yoshi meant when he said they were embarrassed about the interiors of buildings in ARR which is why they never released any images so far, and the lighting wasn't finished, however, lighting can only do so much.

Anyways, it was just an observation. Deny if you must.

You are right about the interiors, but if you look back to the differences between the 1.0 Alpha and Beta interior lighting, you will see that the lighting in 1.0's Alpha was FAR worse than ARR's Alpha.



In addition to tweaking the lighting, I expect some final color-grading effects added to the game that will trigger on entering interior areas. (and thus greatly enhance the look)

[bobbygunz]

Eh, I think what you are seeing on the collarbone is actual an artifact from the shadows. If the skin really had any specular shading, you'd see it on her shoulder.

Still, I like the overall softness of the skin, they did a great job with that. Just a subtle speck of highlighting would sell it perfectly IMO.

But even the skin would be fine unchanged as long as they give the hair a bit of highlighting love.

In addition to tweaking the lighting, I expect some final color-grading effects added to the game that will trigger on entering interior areas. (and thus greatly enhance the look)

Yes, I suspect they will make improvements. But ... you can only ask lighting to do so much. It can't add poly-count to the intereriors of ARR buildings, nor change the fact that there's no 3-dimensionality to the room and the detail all looks drawn-on.

This is just an observation.

[Gramul]

Yes, I suspect they will make improvements. But ... you can only ask lighting to do so much. It can't add poly-count to the intereriors of ARR buildings, nor change the fact that there's no 3-dimensionality to the room and the detail all looks drawn-on.

This is just an observation.

Actually, good lighting should be able to draw out bump maps and details that should give the textures more depth and bring out a 3D look. I think I'll have to see more clear examples myself before I can judge either way. One unlit corner of a room isn't doing it for me.

[Fievel]

Yes, I suspect they will make improvements. But ... you can only ask lighting to do so much. It can't add poly-count to the intereriors of ARR buildings, nor change the fact that there's no 3-dimensionality to the room and the detail all looks drawn-on.

This is just an observation.

I don't understand what you're complaining about, I enjoy that ARR looks 2D, it gives it a better FF feel.

[Hulan]

Eh, I think what you are seeing on the collarbone is actual an artifact from the shadows. If the skin really had any specular shading, you'd see it on her shoulder.

Still, I like the overall softness of the skin, they did a great job with that. Just a subtle speck of highlighting would sell it perfectly IMO.

But even the skin would be fine unchanged as long as they give the hair a bit of highlighting love.

Agreed, the hair could definitely use a little tweeking, though not much honestly. Of course, my personal aesthetic choices are informed mostly by a youth watching too much anime. I prefer simpler, smooth aesthetics to hyper-realistic textures.

To bobbygunz, I doubt we can convince you of this - surely I didn't believe it until I started tinkering with modeling myslef - but lighting really does mean everything. Good lighting can completely transform apparently bland textures into fantastic, rough/smooth, surfaces. On the other hand, bad lighting can make textures that took days of painstaking work look like a 3-year-old drew them.

In addition to tweaking the lighting, I expect some final color-grading effects added to the game that will trigger on entering interior areas. (and thus greatly enhance the look)

Yes, I would love this. I have to say, on of the things they removed from 1.x early on was the bloom shift when going from indoors to outdoors. I'm not entirely sure when it disappeared, but that effect was extremely cool.