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  1. #1
    Player
    AbrahmEden's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2024
    Location
    Gridania
    Posts
    7
    Character
    Graff Ironchest
    World
    Zalera
    Main Class
    White Mage Lv 100

    Dual Dye Channel Feedback

    I don't generally post on forums (this is literally my first post ever here), but I was motivated enough that I hope someone might read this and consider it, if people in the community team monitor threads like these... please be kind, I'm not accustomed to publicly voicing my opinions on forums.

    As someone who cares a lot about how his character looks, and cares about expression of fashion and coordination, when multiple dye channels being added for older gear was announced, I was ecstatic-- but I've so far been troubled by the implementation. Take the Adventuring Sweater, for instance.

    https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...m/fc7cf521da2/

    With the default colors, it has a green shawl over a gray sweater, but when it had a single channel, the entire garment was dyed, the shawl a darker variant and the sweater a lighter one. So naturally, when the dye channel expansion was announced, I expected to be able to dye these elements separately, which I was very excited about!

    However, the primary dye channel remains the same, while the second channel dyes the bit of cord on the metallic ornament...

    This doesn't augur well to me. There are many sets that dye the entirety of a garment's materials where a split between two channels would give them great additional potential for glamour application (sets like Replica Dreadwyrm, where the leather-look scales and the fabric dye in parallel and make them look cheap, along with most sets from Heavensward which suffer a similar problem). I was looking forward to these sets in particular having their materials separated into individual dye channels.

    My hypothesis for why this isn't being done is, the developers may be concerned or sensitive about people who purchased cash shop dyes or rare dyes off the marketboard, and used them on items, only to have the dyes changed-- to this I say, why not have the existing single dye apply to both channels when an item is upgraded from one to two dye channels? Is this a realistic reason to keep a large number of the game's gear pieces, which will be having their textures and mapping upgraded in the upcoming 7.x patches anyway, looking cheap or ugly when dyed?

    In my personal experience as a 3D artist, if work is already being done to improve the visual fidelity, it should be a relatively simple matter of creating black-and-white masks for the dye channels on these new high-resolution elements, provided the workflow is similar to the industry standard.

    I'm not here to disparage it as "laziness", as work is work, no matter how trivial it would seem, and the undertaking has been enormous this expansion... but while the team is working on the textures and masking for roughness/specularity/metallic/etc, wouldn't it be prudent to consider reworking the dye channels at the same time, instead of simply reusing the existing ones?

    Splitting existing channels on items like the Adventuring Sweater would make me very happy!
    (4)

  2. #2
    Player
    GrizzlyTank's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Posts
    1,696
    Character
    Livia Bloodletter
    World
    Phoenix
    Main Class
    Dancer Lv 100
    So many dye channel choices have been... questionable.

    Also would it have been too difficult to upp it to 3/4 from the go? Seeing how that's the usual amount of different colors on an outfit.
    (2)

  3. #3
    Player
    AbrahmEden's Avatar
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    Jul 2024
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    Gridania
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    7
    Character
    Graff Ironchest
    World
    Zalera
    Main Class
    White Mage Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank View Post
    So many dye channel choices have been... questionable.

    Also would it have been too difficult to upp it to 3/4 from the go? Seeing how that's the usual amount of different colors on an outfit.
    From my experience in texturing, each dye channel map would essentially be an additional map the size of the texture, which could lead to a dramatic increase in the texture memory consumption. There are techniques to mitigate this using nested maps, (where each map uses a different R/G/B/Alpha channel), but whether or not FFXIV's existing code and shaders can be made to work with this specifically for dye channels without a large amount of additional effort, I don't know.

    I'd honestly be fine with two, especially if they reworked where the channels fall! It would be even nicer if gear with shared models had different dye channel arrangements (which is already present on some gear, like the Rainbow Shirts versus the Altered Woolen Shirt), but I know this is a big ask when the part of the team handling this already has an enormous amount of work ahead of them.
    (2)

  4. #4
    Player
    GrizzlyTank's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Posts
    1,696
    Character
    Livia Bloodletter
    World
    Phoenix
    Main Class
    Dancer Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by AbrahmEden View Post
    From my experience in texturing, each dye channel map would essentially be an additional map the size of the texture, which could lead to a dramatic increase in the texture memory consumption. There are techniques to mitigate this using nested maps, (where each map uses a different R/G/B/Alpha channel), but whether or not FFXIV's existing code and shaders can be made to work with this specifically for dye channels without a large amount of additional effort, I don't know.
    Though i recall stumbling once upon a topic that contained information that the gear we have already have multiple dye channels by default (about 4+). But only 1 were accessible to us. Which wouldn't be too surprising seeing how various armours clearly have had multiple fields that the devs themselves have been tweaking both for player gear and npcs.
    (1)

  5. #5
    Player
    AbrahmEden's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2024
    Location
    Gridania
    Posts
    7
    Character
    Graff Ironchest
    World
    Zalera
    Main Class
    White Mage Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank View Post
    Though i recall stumbling once upon a topic that contained information that the gear we have already have multiple dye channels by default (about 4+). But only 1 were accessible to us. Which wouldn't be too surprising seeing how various armours clearly have had multiple fields that the devs themselves have been tweaking both for player gear and npcs.
    If I'm being honest, there are elements from older 1.0 gear I like because the dye channels are so limited-- rather than dyeing the entire garment, it only dyes a small portion, which sometimes leads to greater diversity of color. Less can be more!

    I'm reminded of the Edengrace Mail of Maiming, which has a nice lavender accent on the interior of the tails... but when you dye it, the dye channel overwrites it entirely.
    https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...em/eeb12af0cd5

    I'd rather have less of the garment dye than have its unique accents completely overridden!
    (0)

  6. #6
    Player
    Daralii's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Posts
    2,596
    Character
    Endris Caemwynn
    World
    Coeurl
    Main Class
    Gunbreaker Lv 92
    I can only assume that what they did was enable dyes for whatever the second color channel is no matter what it's for. I never learned much about textures when I was learning 3D modeling, but I can't think of how else you'd end up with a piece of gear where the second channel is for the thread on buttons.


    https://reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/...s_of_a_button/
    (7)

  7. #7
    Player
    Cheapshot's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2019
    Posts
    255
    Character
    Cheap Shot
    World
    Balmung
    Main Class
    Summoner Lv 100
    It does feel to me like they took the path of least resistance for a lot of these items. I was pretty underwhelmed with most of them. I think they ran out of time and wanted to have at least some things with two dye channels on launch? Making a new map for some small detail is probably a lot faster and easier than precision cutting up the existing map to separate it into two parts.

    It really feels like they aren't being given the time / staff/ and budget they need to properly work on this game and a lot of things feel like they've been rushed or shortcut instead. So many things just aren't living up to the expectations they set for us.
    (3)
    Last edited by Cheapshot; 07-01-2024 at 06:18 AM.

  8. #8
    Player
    AbrahmEden's Avatar
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    Jul 2024
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    Gridania
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    7
    Character
    Graff Ironchest
    World
    Zalera
    Main Class
    White Mage Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by Cheapshot View Post
    It does feel to me like they took the path of least resistance for a lot of these items. I was pretty underwhelmed with most of them. I think they ran out of time and wanted to have at least some things with two dye channels on launch? Making a new map for some small detail is probably a lot faster and easier than precision cutting up the existing map to separate it into two parts.

    It really feels like they aren't being given the time / staff/ and budget they need to properly work on this game and a lot of things feel like they've been rushed or shortcut instead. So many things just aren't living up to the expectations they set for us.
    Regardless of whether this is the truth or not, various elements are certainly giving that impression, and in business, optics-- the way things look from the outside-- can be just as important as the truth.

    Overall, I think quality work is being done, and I can be patient (I was pretty patient for the three years it took to get hrothgar new hairstyles, and endured the whole ears issue). But like issue with hrothgar ears, I'd like to be reassured the team are on the right track with what the community would prefer, and I'm definitely concerned.

    The button threads image... that's very disheartening to me.
    (0)

  9. 07-01-2024 09:20 AM

  10. #9
    Player
    Alya_F4's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2024
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    3
    Character
    Kanna Tsukimisou
    World
    Midgardsormr
    Main Class
    Astrologian Lv 100


    I came across this issue with the Faire Kohakama piece where the ribbon around the ankle isn't dyeing like it did before. I'm hoping that this is an error that will eventually be corrected. Has anyone else found similar issues for other items? I'm curious to see what else was missed.
    (5)

  11. #10
    Player
    Vahlnir's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Location
    Tent In the Middle of Nowhere
    Posts
    9,647
    Character
    Elan Centauri
    World
    Diabolos
    Main Class
    Gunbreaker Lv 100
    Yeah, there was a lot of potential with this. Not only did they not really add a whole lot of pieces (all things considered) with the functionality, but the parts that can be changed are a mixed bag at best.
    (1)
    Quote Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida View Post
    Personal Housing
    While I cannot give a specific date on when personal housing will be implemented, I can say that prices will be completely separate from free company housing, and, naturally, far more affordable.

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