A Suggestion - How to Make Characters More Realistic

[Angel_Michelle]

There is a problem with the rendering of character: the skin texture looks like Gypsum. Human skin is oily, reflection effect is not right.



Infact, you already have the enhanced reflection effect. When character is all wet, the reflection is good and look more realistic.



You can just simply adjust this effect to a appropriate amount and maintained it so that the character becomes more realistic.

Hope this could be accomplished in 3.0 version.

[SleepyBee]

Um... I don't know... when I look at people irl, their arms/legs/whatever don't look wet or even the slightest bit oily to me.

[Fenral]

In 3D graphics parlance, where "reflection" refers to an image (or real-time render) applied to a surface and distorted based on viewing angle, the term for what you describe is "specularity." It's usually handled as either a single value or a combination of two values for hardness and intensity, and it's one of the cheapest effects 3D artists have to create a visible difference between two materials.

This game's specularity settings for most materials are very near photorealistic, but it's an effect that is only properly appreciated with contrast, and while in motion. This game, like most Japanese games, is not nearly as pretty in freeze-frame as it is while moving, but that doesn't mean they haven't carefully tuned the graphics to the best of their abilities.

[Gilraen]

Wait... wait, let me get this straight. The originator thinks characters look more realistic... with the rain/wet shader applied. As Bee said, I have never looked like that except when I'm, you know, wet from the pool, beach, rain, a shower, sweat, etc.. Yes, skin does have natural oils but not normally to the levels of excess that it's apparent. If your skin is that oily naturally, you might want to see a dermatologist. The only reason you see super-oiled characters (mostly women) in Korean MMOs is to accentuate their sexiness, not to be any kind of realistic.

[Angel_Michelle]

Thank for your reply. About the "oily", I did say "adjust this effect to a appropriate amount", I did not mention that the skin should look like in the second picture. Compared with many of the real photos in direct sunlight you will find that the skin has strong reflection effect, not like in the first picture.

[Kosmos992k]

I have to agree up to a point, the skin on characters does look a little too dull and lifeless, it could benefit from a little more sheen. The wet effect on character skin is not nearly pronounced enough, in a downpour we should look wet, our clothes look wet (sort of) but our skin barely has a sheen, it should almost glisten when very wet, certainly it should be shinier than it is.

[Bluevann]

I wish wet effect actually looked right instead. Hair remains the same, only becomes more lucid. Locks don't glue together, hair gravity isn't affected, no dripping anywhere, no water drops on surfaces (hat brims, etc).... The wet effect in this game feels pretty cheap, only a "let's turn everything into latex" effect on all your character and mount.

But honestly there are other graphical aspects that should deserve fixes even before that. Such as the sea remaining flat even during thunderstorms, lack of pools on rain, lack of filth in the Tangle where morbols lives and the Castrum dumps its sewer wastes...

[hamsteak]

it's most likely just a part of the art style (same reason men don't have visible areolas or body hair), FFXIV doesn't go for hyperrealism, it's pretty stylized.

[Gramul]

I think we actually had subsurface skin effects in 1.0. Or at least that's how it looked. I remember seeing my character's shoulder and noticing the detail caught by the lighting.

[Skeith-Adeline]

Err, I rarely see persons look shiny/oily at all. The second picture does look better than the first, but she still seems wet (shut up) . Also, pants are different O.o