Source
r/ffxiv•
FFSnipe

"Googly eyes" explained. XIV and reflective surfaces

[Discussion]

Lets talk about reflections.

XIV does not use "real-time" accurate reflections on equipment. Or anything now that I think about it (shiny floors while using DX11 is a completely different thing, that has nothing to do with this.)

Instead, XIV uses point-based reflections for each area. Basically, no matter where you are standing in that area, you will always see the same reflection on your shiny equipment surfaces from the same directions. Kugane is like this, and this is where the googly eyes come from.

In this entire area of Kugane, no matter where you stand you will see the exact same reflections on your glasses or other reflective equipment. So those who are talking to the wandering minstrel and seeing googly eyes, go talk to another NPC anywhere else in this area and you will see them as well. NOTE: you HAVE to be facing south since that is where the "eye" reflection originates.

The point in this area of Kugane is somewhere in the center of that blue highlighted area from earlier. Which means you are getting a reflection of this image (just a bit higher off the ground).

And because XIV reflections are such shit quality, that umbrella gets scaled down into a pixelated mess. hence why it looks like an eyeball.

So there ya go. The googly eyes can be boiled down to an old reflective system that gets worse when an umbrella gets scaled down so much that it looks like a fucking eyeball......

nice SE...

edit: for those saying its the lantern, it is not. https://i.imgur.com/MjDCJ9t.png

the lantern has a design. the umbrella is just a black dot with a black ring around it. the reflection on the glasses matches the umbrella.

also, it cant be the lanterns due to the direction of the reflection. to see the "googly" eyes, you have to face south, which is the same direction as the umbrella. if it were the lanterns reflecting, you would have to face east and west.

edit 2:

MFW I notice all these updoots and page-views

Posted Aug 16, 2018, 3:19 PM UTC · edited

727102
[deleted]•

[deleted]

149
therealkamiPLD•

*nod nod*

49
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

*adjusts glasses*

42
kido_2525•

*punches open palm*

31
Mega-FinaMenphina•

taps chest

22
You_Better_SmileEnguerran Charlemend•

Goddammit, Luffy!

18
CaffeinatedScholar•

This is a legitimate quality post and deserves to be somewhere better than this reddit.

130
SuperArisheroSamurai•

What you don't like all the waifu character commissions and fanart?!

40
CaffeinatedScholar•

r/moremoneythansense

9
Nimara•

Honestly, it's such a simple and well articulated post. It gets right to the point with two relevant screencaps and a straight-forward explanation.

We don't deserve this. :|

18
Abomin•

mfw I find this out

51
Suruga_MonkeyMNK•

I'm so happy someone used my character as a reaction image Q_Q

7
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
RasterTragedy•

For anyone looking into researching this further, this technique for reflections is a "static environment map" iirc.

47
Fiddlefaddle01•

My favorite use of this was in DAoC, the bubble "reflection" when casting buffs was of a picture a real world street outside of their office I believe. It was stretched and manipulated but if you paid attention you'd notice it.

10
RasterTragedy•

DAoC?

1
Fiddlefaddle01•

Dark Age of Camelot.

2
RasterTragedy•

Thanks!

1
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

im never good with correct terminology of shit. i just know how "this thing" works lol

thanks for that bit of info.

9
redmercuryvendor•

"Cubemap" will also bring up a bunch of info on this technique.

6
logique_whm iz ded•

IIRC Smash Bros Melee had a lot of weird reflection maps for the trophies...

1
ceiimqSasaro Saro on Ragnarok•

You talk about this like it's bad, but tbh I'll be upset if they fix it.

40
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

its not bad at all, i think its hilarious. i would be pretty pissed as well if it was "fixed".

I wonder if there are any other areas in the game that have a similar effect with these event glasses...

17
syth3nWHM•

It's like working on the source engine again XD

27
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

jesus, i dont even want to think about that. please. its been many years since I had the displeasure of working with that engine.

16
HezkezlGamer Escape / Dataminer•

Some days I think Source Engine would be an improvement to XIV's...

11
syth3nWHM•

At least you didn't have to work on tabula rasa XD

6
Brasolis•

I really wanted that to be a half decent game.

3
LathaelBLM•

The irony is that it was a half-decent game. But the way it was handled especially considering it needed a complete engine and asset do-over after one of the devs left combined with the publisher hitting them hard because of the cost of doing over it led to a hostile situation between the devs/publishers leading to Richard being kicked out at a bad time in addition to the game being starved of resources post launch.

It was actually a fun game, but it had a bad end-game due to the lack of publisher support and with barely any patch support, people quickly ran out of things to do.

While the game certainly had issues, it was a decent game. I'd argue it was even a good game that needed some extra polish, but it was cut down before it even could catch its stride.

5
MrsKetchupArioche Astarael on Excalibur•

There's nothing wrong with reflection mapping techniques, but they should have picked a better texture than something with a discernible shape like this umbrella...

Very few games actually use realtime reflections, just some static environment pieces usually, windows, mirrors, etc. It's such a massive performance hit, especially in a multiplayer game (every player walking by with shiny gear would need a separate rendering camera). Even the dx11 floors are most likely a Screen Space Reflection technique, which is one of the "cheaper" options, but still heavy thus why not many areas have it.

22
tmntnyc•

You're assuming it was chosen deliberately. I am not an expert, but I imagine reflected textures are selected in some unbiased manner

2
MrsKetchupArioche Astarael on Excalibur•

This is related to my specific field in game dev (tech art), and while this likely wasn't intentional, it's definitely an oversight. Generally we're using blurred images of clouds, mountains, buildings, etc, rather than something containing small props in scene.

3
DarkMatterGoobbue•

I was thinking it was those hanging lanterns, but either way it’s right, it’s just a result of the crappy fake reflections in this game. Another example is inside a house, you can see the reflection image they use is just an empty default-design house. There’s some housing item (I forget which at the moment) that makes it really easy to see.

13
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

I was actually trying to find another example but for the life of me I couldnt remember where else I saw the terrible reflection system in use. I didnt even think to check housing items.

8
SchaeffaOliver Beelzie on Diabolos•

A lot of AST globes have a reflective center; that's where I usually see these static reflections. Also, weirdly enough, chocobo eyes are reflective.

4
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

take one of your AST globes to that area of Kugane, face your character south, and look at the globe from the front.

A googly Eye of Sauron

8
rocketsneaker•

So we can actually legit say "It's not a bug, it's a feature" this time?

10
GoltanaMonk•

The googly eyes can be boiled down to an old reflective system

Alright champ, first of all, nice and detailed post. Now that you threw it, care to explain if it's possible to change a whole graphic/engine/whatever structure that applies to the whole game, with another entirely new and updated graphic tool? No expert, but you know, for me, this is like at the same level of changing the whole graphics engine itself of the game... and we know where this is going to end don't we?

So, honest question, is it possible? If not, let's just talk about a lot of old graphic resources that this game uses because this game was made 7-8 years ago. I mean, if 5 years ago it got a major overhaul...then maybe it is possible to do a whole graphics rework? Maybe I'm just answering to myself?

WoW did something, NMS did something recently too...but aren't these stuff just texture level wise? This is something that yeah it should have been done already and it's more plausible / short term possible.

Edit: Genuinely grateful for the detailed thread. Then genuinely asking if it is possible to change, and then speculating that maybe it is but they won't because it takes too much time.... and I get downvoted. /shrug

9†
HezkezlGamer Escape / Dataminer•

If I had to guess, I'd say you were downvoted for saying "champ", which implies you're being hugely condescending to OP.

30
Hakul•

Tbh I saw "champ", "first of all" and "care to explain" and expected him to go on a r/iamverysmart type of rant, then read the entire thing with that tone set in my mind and was confused when I reached the end and saw no rant.

28
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

So, honest question, is it possible?

It might be possible. I am not completely familiar with the simplified/tweaked version of the Luminous Engine that XIV uses (with some left-over bits from the Crystal Engine). If it were possible though, it would be an insane amount of work and wouldnt be worth the time money and effort put into it.

7
GoltanaMonk•

So basically, what I was saying about what they did with 1.0 to 2.0, which took more than a whole year of engine overhaul work. Clearly they won't make this at this point because of the current team schedule. Thanks! Also maybe an apology from me because I may have took this thread with some kind of "game's engine is old and we're a bit tired of it" tone. Reading again, it wasnt, I think.

2
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

I didnt mean for it to come across that way. It just so happened that everything came together perfectly due to old system/engine that it produces hilarious results. I guess the "..." at the end of a couple sentences could make it seem like i was rolling my eyes, but in reality I was smirking and nodding my head.

4
oretoh•

Who cares about whether you're tired or not, the engine is old, incredibly old, and unlike GW2 which also uses an old engine, this one they don't want to update or improve and this is proof #1000. Posts like this simply need to exist so we know that our sub money is going everywhere else except FFXIV.

0
GoltanaMonk•

I totally get this, and thanks about the update on what WoW did graphic-wise for the new expa. I don't know what Blizzard did to achieve this, maybe a whole team dedicated in parallel to this... and maybe this is what XIV needs. Then again, this is a huge corporate decision involving game incomes and etcs. that Yoshida himself has to defend. I don't see him being interested in the least... so yup, we need more threads like this, of course.

1
PixelPharaohK'ahjei Alkhest on Coeurl•

It’s the way you worded it. Most people only bother with the first sentence of a post.

Not saying I agree with the downvotes but that’s likely why.

2
Elratauru•

It may be possible just to tweak out the reflection data or how do these work. Now, we are not talking of implementing raytracing or anything like that but probably we could have more accurate reflections if the texture map was updated more regularly depending on the area you are.

1
EdhelduiHealer•

You're asking to rebuild the whole game from the ground. The engine is the core, you can't change it easily. It can be done, but it's a monumental work. They would need to skip an expansions to do it.

That said, the game can definitely be updated with more modern textures and models, like WoW did with Warlords of Draenor a couple of years ago.

-2
GoltanaMonk•

Yeah, I think WoW went with textures only tho, not so much with the engine and modeling structure itself because that would've took ages.

2
Elratauru•

Wow went with both textures and models. It's far easier to improve them as it was a modular component of the game. Now, not all models and not all textures were remade, but most of the player characters and so on.

2
EdhelduiHealer•

They updated models as well.

1
SolinyaValette Renaux on Malboro•

They updated player character models, and it took them over two years to do it. All the emotes and animations had to be rebuilt. If you remember, when WoD launched they hadn't even finished all the races (like Blood Elves). And I don't know if they've ever gone back to redo the goblins/worgen, nor if they intend to.

1
ffxivthrowaway03•

And they didn't even do a great job of it. The more recent races still look leagues better than the originals even in the Battle for Azeroth closed beta. It's doubly noticeable with old item models too, the older stuff looks... really bad when it's juxtaposed with the later races/classes.

2
thebonermobileBlack Mage•

WoW has done far more than textures, or like others pointed out, models. They've slowly implemented new graphical features over the last ~14 years or improved the existing ones. Godrays, dynamic shadows, new water rendering, SSAO. They even switched to deferred rendering in Warlords of Draenor and changed their data file format.

1
TotesMessenger•

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

 ^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^(Info ^/ ^Contact)

7
etcNetcatCulinarian•

I don't spend time there, so I'd never even heard of this being an issue. But oh my gods that last image...

4
FFSnipeOP:snoo_scream: Hotbars from hell :snoo_scream:•

are you OK?

7
DisigEos, adjust!•

I find this friggen hilarious.

3
ghostgamer8DRK•

Literally unplayable. Unsubbed. /s

3
zories3•

Holy shit this is a great post. Thanks OP

2
ErianeWHM•

I was going to ask in the daily chat today about how to disable reflective surfaces because i honestly hate it especially in my low-lit house. Guess there's no way around it :( Good topic!

1
AmbientEch0BRD / Ragnarok•

Game also uses screen space reflections in many cases, not for gear though, would be cool if it did.

1
MaeArscelinMae Arscelin on Coeurl•

It's almost a shame that it wasn't focused on that lantern. Then, all the characters with Sasuke/Itachi/Madara Uchiha based characters could have had their Sharingan.

1
303RedirectWhite Mage•

This is actually brilliant. I'd never considered that a cubemap could have this sort of effect, and reading your post it makes perfect sense.

1
KiviarBLM•

So you're saying I don't have special eyes? What a letdown.

1