Cultural Armour Glow Compendium - Completed!

#34 - Oct. 29, 2013, 2:18 p.m.

Hi everyone,

Well it looks like my release notes weren’t added to explain this, so I’ll try to allay the confusion. Yes, some of the cultural armor has gone through some major updates. Folks have been vehemently requesting that the cultural armors glow, and they have been confused at the old glows that were there. This confusion was because a lot of the dye-to-skin blends on stems would glow the skin color, but not their chosen glow color.

In updating the armors, this comes with particular considerations. The armor glows are not on the same system as the body glow, so they will only glow the color of the area dyed. Armor glow also does not play well with alpha, so I have to avoid any alpha edges. The problem with this is most of those areas that look good glowing are also some of the areas that blend to skin. Armor glow also negates specularity.

So. What this means for you is, to add your glow, I reworked the dye channels to give you the largest choice and control possible over the glow. The areas that glow are now selectable for you. Some of the textures are also better balanced to give you more consistent results… you won’t have to guess what color you need to find to make the red feel red, for example. It will just work.

This currently affects Medium Tier 2 (legs will be re-addressed for better glow and dye alignment, sorry about that, it got past me) and Tier 3, Light Tier 1 (female only), and Light Tier 3. The other weights and tiers will be assessed for a similar pass to give glow or upgrade glow results when possible.

I’ve been hearing your cries to get more glow on the sylvari and am doing my best to give you more control over your character customization.

#56 - Nov. 1, 2013, 2:12 a.m.

I originally started typing up a big post about explanations and reasons and theories, but I think that they’d get in the way of the point I’m trying to make, so I’ll keep it as concise as I can.

What is:
Glow mask areas remove the shiny effect beneath them in the current system.

The armor glow and skin glow are two different systems. The only control currently possible is through the armor dye of that area.

What will be:
Textures: I’ll get the textures to work like they used to. By this, I mean they can go back to darker and have their gradients as much as I can while keeping the glow.

Dye Masks: I will get them to behave more like the old shapes, but you’ll still see some tweaks because of the glow. I see a couple folks mentioning dye masks being removed. This was unintentional and I’ll look into it.

Glow Shape: I can minimize some of the glow layer shape in the texture so it doesn’t affect the broadness of specular as much. You’ll get most of your shiny leaves back.

What I’m working on:
The glow isn’t as rich and saturated as one would predict. This wasn’t touched and is not a part of the texture or dye files, even though the dye shape is now controllable. There may be a way to get this changed on the shader, but it would only affect cultural armor and nightmare court stuff, not any clothing.

The glow can get to be more aligned to the color. If you dye the shape blood red, it will glow like a traffic light. If you dye it dark red, it’ll glow dark red. If you dye it pink, it will glow pink. If you dye it white, it will blow out so bright. …if you dye it black or dark dark dark, it’ll barely glow if at all.

By dying it dark, you can effectively artificially “mostly turn off” the glow. This is the biggest middle ground while still giving the people who love the glow their choice as well.

Thanks everyone for your feedback on this change. I tried my best to explain this system and what I’m working on, but there are technical elements and nuances that are fairly complex to describe. Note that any changes I could make will not get into the game the next build release. But they may get into the build after that. Now back to work for me. :}