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Pride Backlighting Tutorial

A few people have shown interest in replicating the pride backlighting I did, so hey, here’s a quick tutorial below the cut.

Enjoy, and happy Pride Month. 🏳️‍🌈

STEP 1 — SETUP

First thing you’ll want to do is find a suitably dark background to bounce the light off of. I use the White Screen housing item dyed Soot Black, available from the Housing Merchant or Apartment Merchant in any of the housing zones for 3000 gil.

I line up 2-3 of them for coverage, but one will do if you're trying to be frugal.

If you don’t have an apartment or an FC room to use, try asking friends, FC mates, or even folks you share a Discord server with. You might even find someone who already has a studio space set up and is willing to let you use it!

Lighting in your studio space should be 0 (though you might have success at 1 as well), so make sure to adjust that or ask the studio owner if they can make that change before you start posing.

STEP 2 — GPOSE

Position your character(s) just a little ways back from the edge of the screen. You want some space between them and the screen so that the lighting can float there without casting a weird circle on the wall.

Hop into /gpose and bump up the “Manual brightness adjustment” to about 120 or whatever level allows you to see your character well enough to pose them. Pose to your heart's content.

STEP 3 — LIGHTS

Here’s the fun part. In the Light tab of the Gpose menu, switch all of your Light sources to Type 1, which has the shortest falloff radius (meaning it doesn't reach as far as Type 2 or 3). I also set all of my lights to one strong color to differentiate them while I worked on lighting—red, green, and blue, all maxed out at 255 (for now).

Swing your camera (still on all default settings) around to your character’s back and up above their head a little ways. This is where Light 1 (red) will go.

Now pan your camera down at about mid-back height and set Light 2 (green) there.

Pan your camera down one last time until you have a nice shot of your character’s butt and set Light 3 (blue).

If you have "circles" that appear on the background behind your character, your lights are little too close to the backdrop. Pull your camera in towards your character just a bit more to reposition your lights. I recommend doing this at a Camera Position setting of 100 so that your sense of "close" and "far" aren't skewed by extreme Field of View (FOV). You can adjust that once you're happy with light positions.

Spin your camera back around and enjoy this nice little macaw-colored gradient.

STEP 4 — CAMERA

Set your camera angle.

The way FFIXV’s lighting works is partially dependent on how much light is in a shot. It will adjust a lot like your eyes do when you’re entering a dark room from a bright room, or vice versa. Your zoom level and camera angle are going to directly affect the lighting, so set this before you start messing with light strength and color. Sometimes this means weaker lighting will actually light your character better.

I ended up bringing my lights down to around ~160 and boosted the "Manual brightness adjustment" up quite a bit to get lighting I was happier with.

For a straightforward vertical shot, I like to have my Camera Position/FOV at 200 and of course my rotation is set to 90. Zoom in or out as needed. Remember to save your camera angle if you plan to pan around and fix things!

STEP 5 — COLOR

Make it ~queer~.

Take your flag of choice and pick out 2-3 “main” hues. Generally these will be the strongest hues in the flag, if not the only ones. Some flags, like the Pride/Progress/Intersex-Inclusive flag itself, are difficult to replicate for the sheer number of colors that are in it. You can loosely represent a rainbow with some adjustment to the RGB colors, if you’re determined to have a whole rainbow in there.

Shader Note: I recommend picking a shader preset that doesn’t mess too much with color so that colors are represented correctly. You may need to adjust light strength and “Manual brightness adjustment” to be compatible with your preset of choice. Bloom will also heavily affect the way your colors are showing up, so you may need to tone down the bloom FX or toggle it off entirely. This all depends on your preset, however.

If you’re not into RGB math, here are some cheat sheets! Not every flag is represented here of course, but I tried to cover as many colors as I could so that you could grab a color from another flag as needed! Please note that colors will need some adjustment for your own screenshot, presets, and preferences.

And that’s it, y’all! 🏳️‍🌈

(Open this image up in a new tab for more detail.)

These were taken using a heavily customized shader for that nice glowy effect.

[im-thinking-arson]

I wash the dishes at least twice a day. By hand. The dishwasher (appliance) is not up to my standards of clean. To the dishes' horror, I am tenacious.

The agony of thinking you’re finished doing the dishes only to turn around and to your horror: the pot.

[im-thinking-arson]

If you are ever sad, remember that kiwi (fruit) skin is edible and you will probably feel some other strong emotion instead.

[im-thinking-arson]

"nothing is real atoms never touch each other youve never touched anything in your life" ok. well when i pet my dog he is soft and when he licks my hand it is wet and that is far more real to me than whatevers going on at an atomic level

[im-thinking-arson]

The stranger thing is that sometimes mirrors can ward off some spiritual entities in preference of others. I lived in a house that was very haunted. The only rooms that were "safe" aside from mine (which was heavily warded) ALL had gigantic mirrors in them. Spirits that inhabited the home would not cross line of sight of the mirrors. The mirror entities were like... slightly more benevolent predators. Lurking. Watching. Waiting.

It was especially jarring bc the entry way was a small tunnel that was very haunted, the hall beside the door on the inside was also very haunted... The tiny foyer between them with a 18-inch diameter round mirror? Second safest place in the house.

[im-thinking-arson]

If you like frogs. Or possums. Or cool builds. Or happiness. This is the video for you.

[im-thinking-arson]

Just... an FYI and also an open call and request.

No one, no matter how "POPular" in a community of any sort, has the right to make you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. And you ABSOLUTELY have the right to speak to anyone in authority of a space to have your feelings known.

I don't care if they get 5K likes/comments on the most half-assed posts or they know 10,000 people or they're always getting lauded as "lovely" or "delightful" by others.

If someone makes you uncomfortable, you have a right AND A RESPONSIBILITY to speak up.

Why a responsibility? Because if you don't speak up, how many other people are suffering in silence? You don't have to be public or loud about it, but you do have to Speak UP. If it's a Discord server, tell the mods. If it's a Bluesky thread, tell the OP or state it out loud that something is upsetting you.

You cannot be helped if you never say anything.

As for the open call and request...

If I make you uncomfortable or have said something that made you uncomfortable, if I have made a space feel uncomfortable or unwelcoming to you...

My inbox and DMs are open. You are 100% welcome to tell me where I fucked up.

This is not an open call for harassment to ANYONE nor is it a call for fucking drama. I just consistently see a pattern (over literal decades) of people being "POPular" in some RP/MMO/online community space and hurting/upsetting dozens of people.

And all those people slinking away and hiding in silence because they're convinced they'll be retaliated against for speaking up.

To everyone who feels this way or has?

I am so sorry, hon.

I am sorry that you've been made to feel marginalized and disposable and "less" than someone who just adds more pretty HTML coding to their forum posts or puts a :3 on every post they make to seem approachable. I am so fucking sorry that your hobby and enjoyment have been affected by someone thinking online POPularity is going to fill a gaping hole in their life.

Please, please speak up. Please do not suffer in silence. I promise you're not alone.

[im-thinking-arson]

Ides of March 2025 is going to be a fucking blast because it will have been 2069 years since Caesar's death day

[im-thinking-arson]

[im-thinking-arson]

Poison / flying, which looks like a youkai... I could jam with that!

pokèmonize yourself!!!!

spin this wheel to see your pokemon type

spin this one to see how you'll look like

[im-thinking-arson]

It still surprises me that people don't seem to have this. I have a whole diagnostic mode.

wish the human body had like a crash log or something so I could pin shit down. Why am I having a sudden spike of anxiety when I’m just sitting here? Well it looks like there’s a conflict here between my medication and the better foliage mod

[im-thinking-arson]

As a general tip, adding something spicy to a pizza with pineapple elevates the taste. Crushed red pepper, jalapenos, spicy sauce, Sriracha, etc., if you are on the fence or willing to try it you might be surprised at how good the combination is!

[im-thinking-arson]

I'm glad January is over. I spent most of the month consumed with illness (with no health insurance bc I can't afford coverage) while a demented fascist man-baby began working in earnest to dismantle my country.

One of those things is resolving. (the illness)

[im-thinking-arson]

how’s that house that raised you?

[im-thinking-arson]

very strange phenomenon now that many people have learned online not to pet service dogs is that they walk by little bird and me, wave their hands at little bird, and say in a baby voice "oooohh you're so cute! you're so cute! i'm not going to pet you because i know you're working! ooohhhh puppy puppy puppy, i want to pet you but i'm not allowed~" and i have to tell them what they're doing is literally as distracting as petting her. this happens almost every single time i'm out with her.