Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

[BelgianRofl]

Those three lights, as they are implemented now, just need to look good in their lighting effect, no other tweaks are needed. Setting their intensity and direction is very simple, because the effect you want to attain is simple.

Now say that the three lights have to involve dynamic shading and lighting. You need to manually reset every single intensity and direction, because now the lights have a completely different environmental and aesthetical effect than they did. They cast shadows, they interact with each other. They may be too intense and actually hide details of the environment that you don't want to hide, or even be too much "in the face" of the camera, detracting from the whole scene. You may also have to tweak the color, because it's very possible that the original color doesn't interact well with the textures of the environment.

You cannot just toggle "lights on!" and leave it like that. The result would be ugly. If a novice programmer could easily do that (it's not even just a matter of coding, it involves art direction and coordination with the art department), I'm afraid that novice programmers would find jobs in the industry much easier.

It's not random that development studios have dedicated artists just for lighting.

This is a valid point and a good one. I will cut SE some slack on the shading portion. Since they didn't design the game to have shadows originally, it would take a lot of work for them to implement them now when there are bigger fish to fry.

I hope they take the time in the future to add this effect. It will further futureproof this game beyond your wildest dreams!


I still stand firm that adding reflection to the water is a no-brainer, and light on the system resources.

[Abriael]

T
I still stand firm that adding reflection to the water is a no-brainer, and light on the system resources.

I would bother implementing it only once the hardware can actually hold reflection of the environment *and* characters.

There's a big problem with implementing just reflection of the environment, and that's that FFXIV has several areas in which characters can actually step into the water.
personally, I find seeing the water reflect the environment, and not the character that's sitting right on it rather distracting and aesthetically shoddy.

Environment-only reflection works well only in those games in which getting *into* the water isn't allowed, in my opinion.

[BelgianRofl]

There are people with PCs that could accommodate such reflections. They should just make it an option now. Pissin' me off!

[Abriael]

There are people with PCs that could accommodate such reflections. They should just make it an option now. Pissin' me off!

The fact that your PC can accomodate them on MMOs that have a low-poly environment doesn't mean that it would with a MMO with such a high-poly environment (and high resolution textures, that's important as well) as FFXIV. I have a quite powerful computer (dual GTX 460, Athlon 64 X4 965 be, 8 gigs of ram), and I seriously doubt FFXIV would run with an acceptable framerate on it with those effects on.

Personally I think that Square Enix did the right choice focusing on making an high-poly, high-detail environment with less effects, as opposed to a low-poly, low-detail environment with more effects, for two reasons:

1: MMORPGs are Hedonistic enviroments, most people are more interested in looking good than in anything else. At least graphics-wise.
2: (much more important than point 1) It's more futureproof. Adding effects down the line as hardware evolves is *relatively* easy. Adding detail to characters and environments, via the implementation of higher poly models and higher resolution textures requires a lot more work, an almost entire redesign of the game. There have been several issues of developers that tried to this to their game, and it resulted in striking inconsistencies between models that had been reworked and models that didn't receive improvement or received too little. With the fact that MMORPGs last very long in the market, this will mitigate aging of the graphics by quite a lot.

[BelgianRofl]

While there's only one way to tell how much toll reflections in FFXIV will burden a PC, it still doesn't change the fact that Limsa Lominsa looks like SH* Thousands of ppl built top-o-the-line PC's just for this game. The option should be available, and that's that.

[Abriael]

While there's only one way to tell how much toll reflections in FFXIV will burden a PC, it still doesn't change the fact that Limsa Lominsa looks like SH* Thousands of ppl built top-o-the-line PC's just for this game. The option should be available, and that's that.

I honestly disagree with the notion that LL looks that terrible. They actually nailed the color of the water to make it look very deep, and that mitigates a lot the lack of reflection. I don't even notice it.

[Riv]

Well, i'd agree that the cliffs in Limsa look pretty bad. It's easy to see when they go from low res to high res or w/e, even with AA and depth of field on. It annoys me running around town. That's the only town that has those problems though, and i'm convinced it's because you can see so far in the distance unlike Ul'dah and Grid. And the water does look pretty meh.

[BelgianRofl]

Maybe if they fixed how crappy the cliffs looked, the city wouldn't get so much negative attention.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

honestly, light refective off water or mirrored land scape off water. Never look good. Ive been playing two world 2 that does what mama boy troll wants it sux. It is so painfully bright. and looks fake. Less is more

[Abriael]

As I tried to explain before (but looks like it's passed by the middle of the heated discussion) I think Total War Shogun 2 is a good example of the adverse effects of adding too many effects into the melting pot.

here's the full story:
-A few months ago, the developer announces that the game's going to have full DirectX11 support, shader 4 and 5, great effects, tassellation, reflections, deferred shading and all the panoplia. Everyone rejoices and expects an incredible looking game.

-A couple weeks ago they suddenly come up with the news that DirectX 11 won't be in at launch, and that direct X9 systems won't even support Antialiasing, because it conflicts with deferred shading. Many say "meh", the ones with direct X9 system panic (because they won't have something as basic as AntiAliasing), and the others say "bad for you, you should update your PC".

-Today the game is released, we install the game all happy and suddenly notice that on ALL computers, including those that are perfectly compatible with DX 10 and 11, the game rins on DX9, shader 4 and 5 are grayed out, AntiAliasing is absent because it STILL conflicts with deferred shading, and the game looks like an absolutely crappy jaggedy mess.
The ones with a DX9 system have a bitter laugh, everyone else (rightfully) picks up pitchforks and torches, and the developer doesn't even apologize but posts a nice wikipedia page explaining how deferred shading works and that it can conflict with AntiAliasing (rite, thank you dev, like we didn't know or notice) and gives us a smug "it still looks great!" (yeahssure).

Morale of the story: don't bite more than what you can chew.