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

[LittleImp]

"Actually test on a wide range of player options" is not, in fact, a wild ask, especially when we have examples of decent lighting in places (and honestly? even with a pale character, Ultima Thule is just really badly lit). A lot of these samples could just be solved by use of more indirect lighting, which is something they've already stated they're adding to the engine, so asking that all options are actually kept in mind during testing not only isn't unreasonable, it's the expected baseline of testing in a game with heavy character customization.

This discussion is interesting because it strongly parallels real-life issues.

Chemical photography was plagued by this very problem for many years. Light skin was treated as the baseline when formulating and using color chemistry, and it wasn't until (this is not a joke) complaints from the chocolate and furniture industries piled up that they set about formulating films that were better for dark/brown tones. Kodaks calibration cards that were distributed to labs didn't even have multi-racial representation until the mid 90's, right before consumer usage of color films was about to become a thing of the past.

Modern developers would certainly benefit from creating the digital equivalent of a shirley card.

[Ayche]

Well if Erenville is in any scene, they will be forced to tune the lights.

[crystallineAbyss]

This discussion is interesting because it strongly parallels real-life issues.

Chemical photography was plagued by this very problem for many years. Light skin was treated as the baseline when formulating and using color chemistry, and it wasn't until (this is not a joke) complaints from the chocolate and furniture industries piled up that they set about formulating films that were better for dark/brown tones. Kodaks calibration cards that were distributed to labs didn't even have multi-racial representation until the mid 90's, right before consumer usage of color films was about to become a thing of the past.

Modern developers would certainly benefit from creating the digital equivalent of a shirley card.

Came to see how this thread was doing, and oh hey I know this one!
Yeah that issue didn't stop with digital photography whatsoever. Because while traditional did see that adjustment, digital cameras use a database for auto correction of light. And those databases are populated with like predominantly - if not almost completely - white people. Not even light skinned people of other races, just predominantly white people. Which is why if you try to take a photo with people of multiple skin tones - especially someone who is particularly pale next to someone who is very dark - it adjusts for the palest person while removing all detail and lighting on the darkest. You have to specifically learn how to light people of these skin tones in professional photography and videography because the reference databases haven't been updated in decades. You can see this with youtubers and their lighting setups, too. Your white ones still have lighting setups, but they're not nearly as involved as black youtubers due to problems with camera autofocus, light diffusion, etc.
And because 3D games take much from photography and film, many of the same problems apply as they don't account for light diffusion on dark skin. So while it's an industry wide issue, XIV is especially egregious since there are tons of indie games that have better lighting systems than them.

[MsQi]

Modern developers would certainly benefit from creating the digital equivalent of a shirley card.

Surely they would.

[eternalmagic]

We're in the final days before FF Tokyo, and I know that things are probably already finalized for the presentations we'll be seeing, but I want to ask one last time--devs, please show us dark skinned character models when talking about the graphics update.

[Rolder50]

I wonder how it will look with my character's skin tone. Heck knows I have a hard time getting good lighting/shading as it is.

[RavLandslide]

Let's keep our fingers crossed for the Fanfest. Hoping they show characters with darker skintones for every race too.

[CaptainLagbeard]

We will probably get the Benchmark tool to play around with in the near future, which will actually be relevant again on a technical level as with the new graphics will probably come higher system requirements and it's not just an extra peak of content that may or may not end in the game... But you can import your character into it and see how they'll look with the new graphics.

[Halivel]

For me I doubt the situation can get any worse (I'm probably unbeatable on the "This character is not unlocked" chart, I'm sorry), but I sure hope it will get better at least somewhat. Benchmark tends to have all sorts of lightnings in it from dark to bright, so it should give a general idea of how things will (or will not) change.

[Zomkei]

nothing like watching a cutscene where you can barely see your character, am i right?