GRAPHICAL UPDATE

[R041]

My point is they can do all these great things. They just limit the texture and shader quality on purpose, which for some people, ruins it. Even when they improve these things, the quality from previous expansions remains.

Sure, I mostly agree with you. But the whole talk of upgrading and "The next 10 years" really came about when we knew XVI was in the works. Now you're telling me they switched engines, and we don't have the full story. It could be a bit of both, and they could see this as a co-dependency.

As a studio, you don't function off of destructive design pipelines. Shaders are a complicated topic because that's much more dependent on actual hardware limitations handling shader model versions, so they need to be careful with the range. It's not as simple as trying to fit a certain cap of texture data into active memory. But that CAN be a part of it.

When you're working with textures and models, the designers scale them down. You can say sure, there's only 1 version of 'Low Poly', but we're hardly complaining about character/asset polycount unless you mean the world design (Which is VERY rough for the most part). I mostly have an issue with environment polycount. But if SE isn't saving their hi-def/hi-poly then that's a really stupid thing to do, and I really don't believe that. Especially in the age we're in where cold storage is abundant. But it's also not feasible to always remake the low-poly regardless. That could all be stashed away for XIV 2.

Character/Asset Art and Environment Art often have a different workflow, where I make a character and fit the texture sheets and models TO it. The Environment art is the opposite, often creating the master sheets and designing the world/env assets around those. So I don't have a whole lot of hope for the environment outside of upscaling textures (foliage being one of these ofc), but I do for Characters/Repeat Assets.

What I'm more interested in is the tech that allow for dense environments and higher res textures by having better memory budgeting systems, and better overall shaders. But you could say the budgeting is also a part of that, because chances are the new shaders are using more sheets, like maybe they're doing PBR now. It looks like they're adding better Ambient Occlusion too.

I wouldn't say XIV is a 'fast paced' game, it widely takes place in single pockets of areas. But something like XVI might be more mobile and require quicker and better memory and light sheet management. We know that SE and Yoshi are extremely conservative with upgrades. We already know XIV has world streaming issues, it's why our maps are in a pocket and are strict zones.

The render/light pipeline itself could also be changing entirely. Like the fact that they even have good AO in those screenshots means they might be moving past a Deferred pipeline, or maybe a hybrid.

For the record, I work on games in the art dept, and I'm currently upgrading us from Unity Built-In to Unity URP - So we could talk shop. But we still have absolutely no idea wtf they're doing so everything is speculative. lol
It's just an interesting topic. I hope you don't take this as an argument at all, I don't want it to be. It's just fun to me.

[Erinellza]

I'm so excited for the graphics update! It's the reason why I'll get a new PC sometime this year. My 7-year-old potato PC is too slow and noisy at this point. I've been waiting for the graphics card prices to drop since 2020 but at this point I believe that will never happen so I'll just suck it up and pay.

[PEANUT]

I'm so excited for the graphics update! It's the reason why I'll get a new PC sometime this year. My 7-year-old potato PC is too slow and noisy at this point. I've been waiting for the graphics card prices to drop since 2020 but at this point I believe that will never happen so I'll just suck it up and pay.

Ooo, good luck! I'm happy you can get yourself a new PC! It's nice to see someone excited for the graphics update, since everyone else seems to be very pessimistic and negative about it and whining -_-...

[Starshower]

Expect any news regarding this to be revealed at fanfest, same with female hrothgar. We know it's coming next expansion but they need to save some surprises for the fanfest still.

[GTK0HLK]

I just wish monitor companies released monitors to my wants..,<they've largely shunned less than 30" monitors in the past years>
I'm stuck with a nonstandard less that 1080 tv.<my tower deserves better, way better.>
can't wait, but will have, to hear about the races visual upgrades/rothgal.

[SassyAssassin]

But, yay for the shallow crowd???

Eyerolling to my ass and back

[Atelier-Bagur]

Eyerolling to my ass and back

shallow crowd aka "this doesnt jell with what I want to see improved in this game, so anyone supporting it are just dumb"

[PEANUT]

shallow crowd aka "this doesnt jell with what I want to see improved in this game, so anyone supporting it are just dumb"

Good point! There's nothing wrong with wanting better graphics, it's been overdue for a very long time and if they want this game to continue to hold up(aka possibly invite more new players, etc.) then it is an important task to undertake, given graphics are one of the biggest selling points for a lot of video gamers, especially for RPG games...

[PEANUT]

Eyerolling to my ass and back

LOL! I thought she was calling me shallow for wanting better graphics - thank you for confirming that for me! x"D

[Alpheus]

They'll prob save a large amount of that info dump for the Fanfests they'll be holding, I'm assuming there's a chance the pacing of Fanfest info might change this go around given that the final one isn't until 2024 (tho tbh a 90% chance in my view the Fanfests will follow their usual cadence regarding info/reveals).