devtrackers.gg
So first off - this outfit was meant to be a very dark grey rather than black.
That aside, you have to think what black looks like in the real world. English is not my first language so explaining very technical stuff is a bit difficult, but what it comes down to is even if an object is 'black' you have to think about the quality of the surface, whether light is shining on it, etc. I have a lot of objects that are black on my desk right now, but most of them look kind of dark grey more than anything, only the shiny objects look properly black. You have to imagine these outfits are made of a fabric similar to cotton, it's quite a rough fabric. I've got some darker fabrics in my wardrobe that are like this, and in comparison to something a little bit shinier, like silk, they look a lot lighter in the sun. The engine is trying to simulate all that, meaning that, realistically, you'll mostly see the type of black that you're looking for in the shadows. We actually have to be very careful that we don't make outfits even that have loads of different colours not too dark in shadowy areas because then you also get these strangely dark shadows there and everything ends up looking super unnatural. It's a real pain to balance everything but a fun challenge at the same time!
If you want to read more about the theory of some of this stuff with an explanation that's clearer than one I can ever give, check this out :) https://academy.substance3d.com/courses/the-pbr-guide-part-1 there's a part 2 as well.
This outfit was the one from the last Yak Track right? Where is the update to make it appear as advertised that was promised? (In regards to the hat)
It's done just waiting for some final checks.
so you basically end up with something that looks like ass because you're trying to force realistic lighting in the game? this dark grey isnt very dark. grey isnt generally a good looking colour to have as the central colour so its confusing why so much of the darker themed sets end up as grey.
why not just use the colours that the max and comp cape uses? the black looks fine there. im quite sick of everything thats supposed to be dark being grey. i believe the shadow k'ril and shadow ozan sets use a nice black colour too. why is that not more used in assets?
also its not just the grey/blacks that looked washed. im finding every piece of equipment looks either oily/shiny or washed out, why is that?
Hey, I am just doing my job and working to the best of my ability within a game engine, and game engines have limitations. That being said, I'm happy to work in this system, I love stylised PBR.
Using pure black in textures is generally considered a big no-no for many different reasons. With lighting you need to be able to tell where the shadows are or a 3d model will end up looking extremely flat, which a lot of the older assets unfortunately do. All of the assets you mentioned use a very old system that we no longer work with, it basically assigns vertex colours and a tiling texture is tiled on top, making it react waaayy differently with lighting. While it might produce some really pure and saturated colours, at the same time it severely restricts what we can do with armours, creatures, etc as we need our polycount to add to the model's silhouette rather than its interior. We'd end up sacrificing polygons that would otherwise help with animation as well, and it's pretty much impossible to have nice colour transitions.
As for the washed out look - every asset interacts with lighting so the same applies as it does with black :) It might not be as obvious, but in the real world, most colours you see every day also aren't quite that saturated. Another factor is the roughness value of an asset. This is something we're actively working to improve with every new release so hopefully we'll be able to hit a sweet spot again soon.
Do you know if all older materials been moved to the PBR workflow?Some outfits that have metallic components still look quite matte compared to the newer elven armors from runepass. Others like retro dragon armor look exessively shiny for a "retro" armor.
It was not quite clear from the livestream if all older outfits were converted to PBR or not.
Kinda depends on the age of the asset, I'd really need some examples to say whether they are PBR or not. We haven't 'converted' anything so to speak, it'd require for us to rework the entire outfit unfortunately. As for the retro dragon armour, it's probably using an old method where we'd assign tiling textures on top of polycolours. If it has a 'metal' material assigned, it might react a lil extremely with lighting.
Little off topic i spose so apologies, but is it possible for the white in game on recolourable clothing to be white rather than a beige kinda colour? Was kinda the one reason i got a pris dye to try and make the white be white but it kinda ends up grey-ivory-esque
Hard to say - could you show a screenshot? :) Does this happen on every piece of clothing?
Something like(a) that where the recolour isnt white (it is meant to be ivory white, just wondering the chances or getting a white white), but the top is
Then can change the pris wheel to a colour and pick the whitest of the selection there(b), but there is still no like pure white recolour. It does happen on all recolourable clothing, courier is just the easiest to see on as its a flat colour. I get its not a bug so much, just the inability to be able to pick a true white for recolours if that makes sense?
(a) https://imgur.com/a/zhT1nPw
(b) https://imgur.com/a/JdjUarB
(they didnt wana attach on inital message)
Ahhh gotcha! I know why this is happening and it's something we're watching more closely for newer outfits, if I'm not mistaken it isn't a problem on the recolourable outfit on the Marketplace. I'll raise this and see if it's something we can make changes to - that's the courier outfit right? :)
Awesome, thanks for the response and communication! :)
Anytime! :D
Appreciate all the hard work you mods put in!
Thank you! <3
Oh its all outfits that have a recolourable option. The white in the colour selection list you guys have is "ivory white" (which is meant to be an off white anyway) and the whites selectable from pris dyes always have that like little... tinge?
Unless its possible to maybe make a change to the pris dyes so you can select any colour, and have a grayscale, or HSL numbers like the max cape? might be asking for a little much but always wanted a pure white recolourable so it can match the outfits that are already white, ka know?
AHHH okay misunderstood that, thanks for clarifying. In that case I'm going to look into it a lil closer and raise it with the rest of the team. Honestly reminds me of the frustration of going shopping and trying to find a white rather than an off white shirt, no need for that in a game ahah
If you could that would be lovely, scrolling through clothes to find something with the same style onto to not match on different whites. Just brings me back to the pain of trying to paint the house and "no not that white, this white". Appreciate the time taken to reply, no matter what the outcome is :D
That's taking me back as well to trying to paint over a mark on the wall using a paint tester.... saaaasfdhjjf. And yeah I'll do my best! There might be a technical reason for why it is this way, but at least I'll be able to explain it then.
I hope this is the case that you can get this changed. White should be white not and off white. It’s been like this for many many years and refuse to color anything white in game due to not being correct.
Yeah I can't promise anything but I'll ask about it, there might be a technical reason why only off-white is possible (like what if the lighting in-game is slightly yellow? That'll automatically make something look less like a purer white). We'll see!
Hi Sel, will the heroic leap animation teleport be released to the oddment store from the kerapac batch? It seems to be missed out
Hi! I can ask about this :) not sure
Thanks for the insight Mod Cel ❤️ It’s super exciting to me that RS is now using PBR materials!
Anytime!! :D Also it's Sel, there's another mod named Cel actually ahaha
Found a can of paint at my old place labelled "eggshell" so presumed the white in the house was all that... but its never that easy, so I feel the tester pain trying to find the right one.
A reason is always going to be better than no reason personally, helps understand why it was never that way and/or if its ever possible.
Ahahaha just comes down to colours being the devil :(
Yeah absolutely! Understanding also helps with finding possible solutions if it is possible
First off: your English is extremely good, don't bash yourself for it being your second language, could've fooled me as your primary.
Secondly, I know the cubemaps are pretty finicky right now, some outfits still have the same sort of problem in places like prif, where the light there is pretty radiant. Is there any way for us to submit locational feedback to you guys? Seeing as some locations might have been missed in the process.
Third- and I know the answer is probably no but- do you, to your knowledge, know if players will have more freedoms with recolorable assets? I.e. ozan's armor can be recolored, but only a certain channel changes color, and kril's armor too. A good example of color channels is Warframe, where every part of them can be recolored, using 4-6 color channels that will change the specific parts on them.
Haha no worries I'm not bashing myself, I've got a proficiency certificate in English, I know it's good. Just dunno how to talk about physics.
Feel free to send em over to me, I'll see to it that it reaches the right person if there's something wrong. It could be down to some other factors in the specific environment as well though, I can imagine that happening in Priff.
That's what we want as well, working with channels in that way is a lot more artist friendly! Hopefully in the future.
My man, I didn't know you were the shit. This is awesome communication.
Thanks 😊
Pure black being a no go is fine and understandable for the reasons you gave here and above.
However - and sorry if this sounds weird - what we have for black now, is that as dark as you can go?
A good example was how people were unhappy with the changes that were made to 3A Sirenic and Tectonic. People loved the contrast between black and white and what we have now is a washed out grey color where black was.
I mean, the Archaeology cape (and master cape) were released last year and it looks f**king amazing. That's the white and black people are asking for.
I'd have to check the arch cape to be sure, but if I'm not mistaken it still uses a different system than we do now. That being said, we could probably go a lil darker here and there! Just not in recolourable assets as that's a set palette. I do understand that people love it, it's cool!
yeah the basic color theory makes sense, but this is seriously over done.
If your gonna go for that, at least put darker shading in the creases? or add some roughness to the texture?
Like you said: smooth surfaces usually refract and reflect differently that rough ones, so it is particularly off putting that this looks like dark grey silk rather than black cotton.
It being monotone kinda ruins the purpose of tying to make it react with light in any realistic-ish manner
Putting darker shading in the creases isn't the right way of working with an albedo map, and there is roughness variation in the textures but it's difficult to get right when your gloss curve in-engine is sensitive, shaders have a base roughness value, and you're working on a 256 map that then is further compressed into what you end up seeing, making it super difficult to get the variation to show properly. We're working with a lot of restrictions here and it's hard to appreciate that until you see your own work in engine :)