#Gpose Tips & Guides

[leonaquitaine]

Post-Processing Guide: Image Quality

So you went and took that perfect screenshot! Now it's time to share it around, but you noticed a certain graininess, a certain fuzziness when posting it on Twitter or Eorzea Collection. So what's going on? Well, let's understand some concepts related to digital images: namely formats, how they influence images in simple operations like crop and resize, and how to prevent loss of quality.

Resolution

This is the easiest concept to explain; the higher the number of pixels, the more detail the image will have. For example, a screenshot taken at standard 2K resolution (2048 x 1090) will have 2,211,840 pixels, while a 4K (4096 x 2160) will pack more details at 8,847,360 pixels.

That also affects file sizes, if you ever hear me crying about the size of my screenshots folder.

There's a myriad of resolutions and formats out there; for more information, check out this Wikipedia entry about display resolutions.

Digital Image Formats

There are many different digital image formats, but the 2 most common for XIV photography are JPEG and PNG - each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

PNG is a lossless format, meaning no data is lost when the image is saved. This results in higher-quality images, but also files that are larger.

JPEG is a lossy format, meaning some data is lost when the image is saved. This data loss can result in artifacts, such as blockiness and color banding. However, JPEG files are smaller than other formats.

The issue with JPEG is that its data loss is cumulative: Each time that you edit and save the file, a little bit of information is lost. Also, depending on the chosen compression level, the loss is quite noticeable. The image below shows how much noise (wrong data) is actually introduced by each compression level:

Crop and Resize

When you crop an image, you are removing pixels from the edges, often to give focus to a specific subject. In this scenario, the loss of information is irrelevant.

But when resizing- often to decrease the size of the image to better adapt it to a target site- you're losing detail, and the chosen interpolation algorithm may influence how much of the original image is used to help determine the result. Here's an example with a 20% resize, using raw pixel mapping on the left and linear sampling on the right. Notice the antialiased result that creates a much better effect:

Keep in mind that different programs may present the interpolation options in different ways. For example, this is how GIMP displays its options when resizing:

So with all that said, how should we proceed to preserve as much as possible of the original data?

How to Prevent Loss of Quality

Use a high-resolution image. The higher the resolution, the more detail the image will have, and the less likely you are to lose considerable quality when cropping or resizing. Nya Nya has an excellent guide about resolution upscale (a method that allows you to take a 4K screenshot on a 2K native resolution, for example) here. I highly recommend a read!

Use a lossless image format. Lossless formats, such as PNG, do not lose any data when the image is saved. This will help to prevent loss of quality when cropping or resizing.

Keep resizing to a minimum. The more you resize an image, the more likely you are to introduce artifacts or jitter. If you need a close-up, for example, take a close-up screenshot and resize it a little bit instead of cropping around a small area in a larger full-body image.

When scaling down, use interpolation methods that take more data from the original image into consideration, like Linear or Cubic, instead of raw interpolation.

Resize and save images in the expected resolution of a target site. For example, Eorzea Collection uses 339x570 for its vertical shot; cropping and resizing your image to this resolution will prevent artifacts from being introduced by the site's own resizing algorithm.

TL;DR: Keep the resolution high, the changes to a minimum, and save as PNG.

Let me know if you have any questions!

[ahollowgrave]

Hey! I love your screenshots so much! Do you have a guide on how you take them? Which mods, if any, do you use? How do you get the camera parallel to the ground at different heights etc? Any help would be amazing. Thank you!

Hey! Thank you! I love them, as well, and it’s always lovely to hear when others do!

Unfortunately, I am not much of a technical writer so I don’t have any guides.The reality is I spend hours and hours taking screenshots and I often feel like I luck into things looking nice.

But I can give you the same tips I give to my friends who have said it’s helpful advice:

Vanilla gpose is very good! You can do a lot in it without the need for 3rd party tools and I’ve found having a good, solid understanding of how gpose works is what really rockets shots into ‘oh wow’ territory. You really just have to touch all the buttons and see what they do and how they interact with each other.

The main thing is, for re/g-shade users: If it doesn’t look good in vanilla lighting, the preset isn’t going to make it suddenly stunning.

The second thing, for everyone, is: Play. Play is very important. If you’re not having fun you’re probably not gonna love the final result. If it feels like a chore, come back to it later! Play a different game!

The third thing, for everyone, is: These are not rules, these are not laws. Just because I do something a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the ‘right’ way to do it. Your eye is what makes your art beautiful.

I'm putting the rest under a cut because this wound up being three pages without the pictures because I ramble.

The parts of vanilla gpose I touch with every shot:

Camera Position: The first slider is your field of view. For portraits I set it to 200, but I tend to fiddle with it in all other shots until I get something I like. The second slider is rotation, very helpful to get to exactly 45 degrees or 90 degrees for shots. But you should also be able to use Q and E to rotate and this is fun to get neat angles on shots! Play with it!!

Depth of Field: I’ll be honest, I turn this sucker off because Reshade has ADOF which I think is better! But, I still suggest playing with this a little bit.

Lighting settings: You have three lights, each with three levels and each able to be a unique color. USE THEM. Find lighting objects in your setting that you can use to base the colors and directions off of. Is the moon full and above? Use a pale blue light as a rim light. 3a. Also, highly recommend looking at RL photography lighting set ups. This has been the most helpful. You can do a lot with three lights!!!!! 3b. Typically, I am mostly using two lights at type 1 or type 2. Sometimes I’ll use a third light, or that type 3 lighting, but it depends heavily upon the vibes. 3c. On this page there is ‘Character Lighting’ this makes your character brighter. I don’t use this at all because it tends to wash out shadows and shadows are an important part of lighting. I DO suggest that YOU use this to see how it works! A little is a lot, you know? 3d. THE MAIN THING IS TO PLAY WITH IT. Get weird with the lighting. Do really intense close up lights! Do funky colors! Cover them in bi lighting!!!!

Lighting Round Two: The one thing that my friends have said is the most helpful is telling them to use the Manual Birghtness Adjustment. This is on the general tab, not with your other lighting settings (circled in red). This controls the light of the WHOLE setting, including the brightness of your three lights. This is what really makes me go OH WOW. Turn it on, wiggle it around, be amazed. (Say it with me: Play with it!)

ADJUST YOUR LIGHTING.

Vanilla Gpose has a Motion Settings tab. This is what I use for my expressions but also a lot of ‘poses’ are just well captured emotes. A lot of this tab should be self explanatory.

The Eyes: The first eye has your subject turn to face the camera. You can have them look in a direction, turn it off, and freely move your camera around. The second eye is eye tracking. This is your friend! The head will stay stationary and the eyes will follow the camera.

Movement: Walk, run, sprint. Forward, left, right, back. Pause, play, reset.

Lip Movements: This, in junction with expression emotes, is very handy! Type 1 is minimal, type 3 is a lot more head movement. Pause, play, reset buttons.

Emotes: You already know what I’m gonna say. PLAY WITH THIS. Almost every emote can have an expression emote overlaid it and have lip movement added.

A personal favorite is /aback, /beam, lip movement 2, eye tracking.

Now. When you enter Gpose your subject is gonna be doing the animation they were last doing. To stop this, ground sit and stand before you enter gpose to start with a clean slate. However, this is also how you can get cool action shots. Using a dummy you can use an attack, reset the dummy, and enter gpose and your subject will be flailing wildly.

Some of the emotes and actions can move very quickly! To move things frame by frame we’re going to use the Disable/Enable Motion buttons. You have two of these at the top of the gpose settings.

Disable/Enable All Motion - This will pause or start all the motion of all the targets in your gpose! My Keybinding for this is 1 and I think this is the default for PC users. Disable/Enable Target Motion - This will pause or start the motion of your current target. (Tab cycles through the characters caught in your gpose.) My Keybinding for this is 2 and I think this is the default for PC users.

To go frame by frame by frame through an emote or action you’re going to freeze the character (1) and then, rapidly, you’re going to hit 1 then 2. (1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2) this unfreezes your subject and then refreezes them. Be mindful of your eye tracking and camera! One last thing: Take a LOT of shots. From all sorts of angles, with all sorts of lighting, with different expression. For every 1 screenshot I post there are about a 100 others that I didn't like as much.

Whew, okay, I think that covers the stuff I tell my friends. Sorry this got kinda long and it might be confusing because, again, I am no technical writer!

Now, I do use 3rd party tools but I’m only comfortable talking about those off anon! Other than Reshade. I understand social anxiety might keep folks from asking directly but I am a nervous person myself and just do not feel comfy talking about that stuff so publicly. But I try to be helpful where and when I can!

Apologies, anon, if this isn’t what you were hoping for in a reply but if anyone else reads this maybe they’ll learn a new trick or idea of idk something!!!

If you read the all thing that's fucking WILD and the only reward I have for you is my love !!

[blackbirdffxiv]

So I got this ask in my inbox, and though I was going to answer it in my asks, I think a little, actual post-tutorial would be best. But first, a disclaimer, as I like to cover my bases:

By no means am I an artist; my process is very much a case-by-case basis, and I edit as I need to for each picture that I do end up editing. My method is far from perfect but it is one that works for me for -my character-, so you may have to experiment on your own using these tips to find a method that suits your wants.

This little guide is using ClipStudio Paint, but you can get the same/similar results with really any photo editing program you choose that has brushes (GIMP, PaintTool Sai, Photoshop, Photopea (which is free), etc)

I'm going to use a painted over face texture as an example (basically a face diffuse I just painted over with it's base skintone), versus a full-on gpose shot (this way I can get a good swatch/an approximate measure of what skintone I'm used to working on).

Big Tip: ALWAYS WORK IN LAYERS, this way you can adjust everything accordingly without going back a million steps.

Use a basic soft-spray brush for your base, and pick a color a few shades lighter than the skintone you're working on (use your color-picking tool, it is your best friend). Set your first work layer to "add (glow), and make a little splotch like this. You can either leave it as is or blur it out/adjust the layer opacity if you desire, but again, it all depends on the state of your gpose/where you're adding it. I often blur out the edges to help blend it into the skin more naturally, on a low setting as to not erase it completely.

Before & after adjusting blur/opacity:

Next, you'll want a basic shimmer brush; there are dozens of free ones out there, so look around and experiment! Just like before, you're gonna want to make another layer, but this time, set it to white (or gold/copper if your character has medium/darker skintones, as it flatters them more and doesn't wash them out where as white is more for fair skintones).

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the source of the shimmer brush I use, but what works for me may not work for you so it would be best to look at what's available and what suits your tastes more.

Now, working in layers using the "add (glow)" effect, slowly build up the shimmer, first, adding a quick couple swipes, then build it up. Once you're satisfied, focus more on the center

TIP: If you want to make it look more natural, when building your layers, blur out the edges a small bit to hide any possible lines and creases.

And that's pretty much it! Adding shimmer effects is all about trial and error, and just simply adding shimmer where your character catches the light.

I'd post examples but a lot of my shimmer examples are on very much lewd gposes and I'm not trying to get tumblr staff mad at me.

And again, another disclaimer: this is not a one-size-fits-all-guide, I seriously cannot emphasize enough that the best thing for you to do is just EXPERIMENT, this is merely a guideline to give you a lil push in the right direction. Editing gposes is supposed to be fun, and the best way to get experience is to simply practice and learn your tools with your own hands.

I hope this helps, and have fun gposing!

[gatheredfates]

SEA'S COMMUNITY COMPENDIUM UPDATE

We have a massive one today! Huge thanks to a close friend of mine who sent me every single bookmark of xiv resources she had. 💖

Additionally, a good handful of these resources were sourced from a list originally created by @rinhkitty, which you can find here. I have tried to include the more recent/active of the lot, so it's not a one-for-one. Thank them for a lot of the large scale resources you'll find below! ✨

As of 04/12, I have added the following resources (in no particular order) to Sea's Community Compendium for FFXIV Creatives:

LARGE SCALE

GARLAND TOOLS — Contains XIV resources such as Garland Data, everything database, crafting lists and equipment calculators; Garland Bell, gathering timers, collectable resources and hunt windows; and FFXIV Fisher, daily fishing windows, bait paths and catch checklist. Maintained by Clorifex Ezalor of Zalera.

TEAMCRAFT — Create crafting lists and collaborate with others, set gathering alarms, simulate crafting rotations, and more!

CAT BECAME HUNGRY - FFXIV ANGLER — Contains everything and anything to know about fishing including specific fish guides, location, baits, aquarium fish and more!

FFXIV - CRAFTING AS A SERVICE — Crafting information and planning for FFXIV!

FFXIV GARDENING — The FFXIV Gardening Database is a collection of everything related to gardening in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. It was created to organize and visualize the results obtained from crossbreeding.

SIGHTSEEING LOG HELPER — This tool will help those trying to complete their pesky Sightseeing Log by letting them know upcoming weather patterns for each zone!

EUREKA TRACKER — For everything and anything to do with Eureka mobs, tracking and weather patterns.

FFLOGOS — for tracking of items/actions related to Eureka.

FFXIVSQUADRON — A comprehensive tool that helps you assess the success rate of various squadron missions.

FFXIV CHOCOBO COLOUR CALCULATOR — Will calculate what chocobo feed you will need to get from your current colour to your desired colour. *rng not included.

FFXIV HOUSING — A site specialising in the documentation of all housing items available in game.

HOUSING SNAP — A compilation of player-made housing designs. Can be used for inspiration or places to visit!

MISC

NPC CHAT BUBBLES — Would you like more NPC chat bubbles for edits? Say no more! Created by @alexoisxiv.

OLD TUMBLR LAYOUT BY PIXIEL — While not XIV specific I know a lot of people aren't fans of the new Tumblr layout, so this is a fix that will revert it to an as close as possible approximation of the new one. I won't tag the creator as I don't think they're in the xiv community, but it's run by @/pixiel!

HOW TO CURSE LIKE AN ISHGARDIAN — Do you want to make the church blush? Do you want to incur the wrath of Halone? @stars-and-clouds has compiled a list of appropriate curses/swear words for you!

FINAL FANTASY XIV SIDEQUEST GUIDE - HEAVENSWARD EDITION — maintained by @chatty-moogle, this guide explores interesting sidequests in Heavensward that will give you more information about the lore, titbits about locals and other interesting information!

TRUST BANNERS FOR XIV — If you have ever wondered how people mimic the Trust banners used in XIV, look no further! @locke-rinannis has a template for you.

MAKING USE OF RECOMMENDATIONS — created by @autumnslance, this guide will help you make your recommendations tab useful rather than annoying.

BOTANICA EORZEA — A guide to the flora of Eitherys and her reflections, including fungi and seedkin. For reference in writing and roleplaying. Maintained by @tinolqa.

GPOSE TIPS — A tutorial on how to achieve clarity and detail in your XIV screenshots! Created by @aryalaenkha.

UI MACRO MENUS — A guide on how to use macros to create small UI menus for XIV. Written by @diskwrite-ffxiv.

TYPHON GATE RESEARCH — Created by @mcstronghuge, these are the statistically best places for your character to stand for the Typhon Gate!

CHANGELOG

HYDAELYN HEALTH HAVEN has been removed at the request of the owner.

Moved THE BALANCE higher on the list to reflect alphabetical sorting, excluding names that start with The.

Misc formatting as needed.

Added some additional clarification around large-scale discords/spaces; in particular: Large-scale community discords such as the XIV Reddit Discord, Hunts, GPOSE promotions and broad-space roleplay servers that harbour a large number of people and are publicly available to all. These may not have an RP focus but will assist in other aspects of the game. Also includes well-known tools/resources that are utilised by large groups of people and assist in gameplay elements.

Added a quick-jump menu to the bottom of each of the table of contents menus to assist in navigation.

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here, send me an ask with the relevant information contained on the Compendium, or join my Discord at SEAFLOOR (21+ only)!

I am sure there's probably a couple of things I have missed or links/formatting that might be broken. Please don't hesitate to let me know if anything is out of place. I'm going to take a break now. I'm pretty sure that's the biggest edit that's ever going to occur on this document!

[ooeygooeyghoul]

How to make a child model in Anam/Ktisis!

Disclaimer: I am NOT an expert in the use of these mods! I'm still very new and learning the ins and outs of them! This method worked for me, and maybe there are better ways to do it, but I'm just explaining how I created my baby Shiun. If you know of a better way, or have any tips and tricks, please feel free to comment or reblog with your advice for the sake of other gpose newbies! :D Link to Ktisis's download page | Link to Anam's download page Guide and Tips/Warnings below the cut! Hope this helps <3

Summon your partner in crime. So first off, I equipped my summoner job stone and summoned my trusty companion, Carbie.

2. Add your Carbie to your actors. Open up Anam and add your carbie to your list of actors, by clicking the plus sign at the top of the menu next to your character's name (remember that with Anam, you can only edit appearances OUTSIDE of gpose). Click on the little button labeled "Carbuncle" to add them.

3. Turn your Carbie into a person. With your Cabie selected, go to the "Import NPC" at the bottom right and pull up the list. Find an NPC that is the same race as your desired character and select it. In this example, I just chose the first au ra NPC I saw in the list. (You can also directly choose your desired race in the customize menu and start from scratch, but I just do it the Import way, lol) ⚠️As far as I've experienced, it's a 50/50 chance on whether or not you can alter the age of your character's actor directly. Every time I've tried this, it breaks the model and never works the way it should. For simplicity's sake, I've always just used my friend Carbie.

4. Change the age of your new actor. Now if you look at the top left of the Anam window, there's a series of dropdowns next to "Race."

What you want is the bottom right menu. Click it and you'll see "Old," "Normal," and "Young." Clicking "Young" will turn your carbie into the child version of the race it's currently disguised as!

5. Customize and boot up gpose! Now you can customize them to be the adorable mini version of your beloved WoL/OC!! The bones are compatible with Ktisis and should be as easy to manipulate and pose as adult models. If you use the Carbie method as I have in this explanation, you can simply hide your main model in the default Gpose menu for pictures.

Some things to keep in mind! ----

⚠️Not every race has a child model. The only races that have child models are:

au ra - male & female

hyur - male & female

elezen - male & female

miqo'te - female only

⚠️It is very likely that the models will break or look a little funky when you first spawn them. They have a very limited number of faces, and a limited number of available hairstyles. If you choose an option the game does not have, it will create some... interesting results. Most other customizations beyond skin color, hair color, and eye color will also likely not work (tail type/length, jaw type, etc.).

Left: invalid face selected --- Right: invalid hairstyle selected

Usually, faces 1 & 2 are the only viable options, and hairstyles 1-5 are okay. (Note: the pictures of the hairstyle icons will NOT match the hairstyle on the model.)

⚠️Clothing is also fairly limited! I'm not sure what dictates what child models can and cannot wear, so as far as I know, it's just a game of trial and error. You'll know immediately if an article of clothing isn't compatible lmaoo. Hats... rarely ever work...

✨Don't forget that you can save your model's data! When your model is customized to your liking, click "Export" at the bottom right of the menu to save the data to Anam. That way, you can load the appearance immediately without rebuilding it every time!

It's a mixed bag of what will and won't work on the model. My best advice is to experiment and play around with it! It took me a little bit to figure all of this out, so hopefully this silly little explanation helps out all the other new gposers out there :)

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out and ask! I'll do my best to help! I may edit this as I go to correct things and/or add onto it!

[necromeowncy]

About the expression tips - would you be able to explain how you're moving the features around? Cause when I try to move the eyebrows for example, the two bones I have to work with can't move in a way that looks natural with the movement options I'm given, if that makes sense? Like for a surprised or worried face, raising the eyebrow bones just makes the skin and textures stretch awkwardly, but that seems to be the only way to move them? How do you make your expressions not look weirdly exaggerated? ;w;

Ok, so I want to answer this question in two parts:

Something about certain faces/eyebrow options in the character creator are easier to move than others with Anamnesis for some reason. For example, Aedric's eyebrows are longer/have an arch and are therefore easier to move around without stretching oddly, while G'raha's eyebrows are shorter and sometimes look a little weird if I move them a certain way/angle. I have spent many a night attempting to wrangle that catboy's eyebrows, let me tell you. It honestly comes with practice, as I can attest my earlier gposes don't look as good as my current ones. lol

And here's the actually helpful answer! Something you can do that's great for Anamnesis beginners and masters alike is using the vanilla expressions from good ol' vanilla gpose, itself! There's a way to do this purely in Anamnesis to get the shape of the brows/face that you want, and then you can tweak with custom posing accordingly. You get to it by selecting the arrow that I've circled in red below after you are already in gpose and have frozen your state:

Then, select the option that says "Expression."

Next, choose this purple file:

Select the Expressions folder:

Select the race/gender of the character you are posing. In this example since I have my elezen guy I'm posing, I select Elezen M:

You now have access to every vanilla expression in game!

Choose whichever you like. This can be used as a base to get started on the custom expression you want to make, as a way to get started. For this example, I chose "Amazed." This will move the face "bones" so I can use this as a base if I wanted to.

Vanilla Amazed face:

Now, with just a little custom tweaking:

In the red circle are your main "eyebrow movement" bones. These will move the inner and outer halves of each eyebrow up and down in fine-tuned increments. I honestly don't even touch the Y axis and Z axis for eyebrows ever. I only ever use X axis for brows.

For the certain tricky eyebrows I mentioned in answer 1, this technique helps move the brows to a more natural-looking place before tweaking them, especially if you're just starting out on your custom posing journey.

I hope this was a helpful guide! Feel free to try it out and reblog with/comment with your gposes if you need any further help! Happy posing! :D

[tsunael]

hi hello there

I've been wondering if any of you would appreciate some sort of informal guide on some gpose tips?

I'm not tooting my own horn here, it's just I've gotten some comments/tags on asking how I do expressions and fabrics.

[angelinecarax]

Angeline's Closet -- 001 -- the Angeline

the Outfit. Perfect balance of relaxed and ready, soft and sturdy, for the white mage on the go. Key elements: floppy hat, comfortable boots, weathervane rod. Follow where it guides.

✦✧✩✫✧✩✫✧✩✫✧✩✫✧✩✫✧✩✫✧✩✫✧✩✫✧✩✫✦

Done using @leonaquitaine's Gpose tip guides, focusing primarily on the Facial expressions and Portrait photography ones. Next: actually learning lightning controls!!

I don't remember exactly when this outfit first really came together, but it happened largely all at once. The amaro-topped Crystarium rod cemented it. Nothing else could really be more her - though one day I hope I can secure a cool glowy version!

Taken in the courtyard outside of the house, indeed off camera right.

[irisopranta]

Hello There!

Character Carrd

"My name is Iris, Gridanian, lover of fashion, tea, and flowers. Come join me for tea sometime. I’m certain that we can talk about a lot of things."

Character Tags: oc: iris opranta: Anything that involves Iris Opranta Electric-Flowers: Iris/Stephanivien ship

Curated Items: gpose album: Gposes done by the Gpose Community that I find amazing. glamour dresser: Glamours done by the community that I find myself to be awestruck by. great art!: Art that is great (as someone that can't draw, all art is great!) great writing: Look at these writings that I got sucked into. reference: Guide and Tips on how to do things.

[oneiroy]

Some questions: can you teach me what you use to take your pics and how to use it?

Also is it worth doing this sort of thing if I dont actually want to mod how my character looks? I’ve grown rather fond of how she looks and I also like the idea that what I see on my screen is what other people see on theirs.

You mean what plugins I use to take gposes?

I couldn't give you a full guide on how to use these, there's a lot of ground to cover and it has been done already by people who are much better at this than me, but i wrote down the tools and a few pointers under the cut.

Also, why would it not be worth it to take gposes of vanilla characters? Mods are about expanding your options, but vanilla is just as good. I mean sure, some vanilla textures are a bit crunchy, but so what? I still use them. I guess it all depends on what you consider "worth it".

For posing, there's either ktisis or anamnesis - I've used both of these. Ktisis will require you install the dalamud plugin first (the github page details how to install them). Anamnesis doesn't, but from what I understand the future of this tool is uncertain? I'm not up to date on the question though. Both will allow you to do pretty much the same thing, but anamnesis is in a different window while ktisis shows you the posing controls within ffxiv.

Then there's reshade for shading, filters and such.

For both posing and reshade presets, if you're just getting started I'd recommand downloading some premade poses and presets you like. There's a lot available, and it's much easier to start that way if you're learning the tools. You can find some on sites like the glamour dresser or xivmodarchive (warning though if you don't turn off nsfw on xivmodarchive you're gonna get a lot of it in your searches).

Both tools can be a bit otherwhelming at first, but starting by importing some premades and see what you like is already a good start! You can learn and look up guides as you go and as you want to expand on how you use them, but you don't need a full understanding of every tool in ktsis / ananmnesis or every option in reshade to get started and have fun with it.

There's a lot of guides and tips on all sorts of things out there! Not only on these plugins, but also on how to fully use the vanilla gpose interface (lighting, angles, etc.), which is as much if not even more important.

Hope that helps!

[leonaquitaine]

Tips: Player Portraits

A limited number of backgrounds and emotes. Only two lighting controls - and only one is positional. Itsy bitsy viewport space.

It's time for /gpose(Extreme), AKA Player Portraits!

(This is a small collection of things that I learned while playing around with Portraits and Adventurer Plates, so please don't expect a full-fledged guide!) Ready? So let's do this!

1 - Expressions and Static poses

I often start a portrait with some adjustments from the default, lifeless pose. Static poses are great for this because you have precise control over positions and angles, and can get you going with minimal effort.

(Some) unlocked expressions and poses can be selected through the Pose and Expression dropdowns in the Character interface:

2 - Lighting

Things start to get tricky now. There are only two sets of light controls: Ambient, and Directional. Both allow for tone and intensity control, but they kind of interact in a funky way.

For example, if the Ambient light is set to minimum intensity, it affects the Directional source in a way that mutes its intensity, resulting in a cell shade-like pattern; so balancing both seems to yield better results.

The second-to-last slider on the Directional lighting controls the elevation of the source (the vertical axis), while the last controls the horizontal rotation around the character.

At zero, the vertical slider places the light on the horizon; top at 90, and bottom at -90.

3 - Camera

The controls for the camera are pretty straightforward, if a bit limited: you can zoom in and out with the mouse scroll, move the camera by dragging the character, and use the sliders to control camera distance and inclination.

I often use variants of the three types described below. At Max zoom and distance, the character elements are presented in a pretty good ratio. At Min, you get some forced perspective effect, where objects closer to the camera are considerably larger. Max distance and medium zoom result in a nice frame filling.

Forced perspective can also give you some neat poses if you play around with angles:

4 - Animated Emotes and Glowy Weapons

Animated emotes can be a treat since they hide some really nice keyframes. With a bit of luck, patience, and composition you can land really nice results:

And yes, glowy weapons do preserve their animations! That gives off a nice shiny collectible card effect. Keep that in mind when positioning your character!

So there you have it. Portraits can be tricky to set up, but the results can be very rewarding!

[elfyourmother]

hi there!!! reiterating i love your blog and i adore gisele; i really want to get into gposing my bunny with her boyfriends, but im struggling HARD with using anamesis. do you have any tips, as a fellow tall ffxiv girl? or any guides that got you started?

tbh there’s really no guides I can rec unfortunately, I learned p much by trial and error and got better with practice. my biggest anam specific tip for anyone is get used to the orb. the sliders are better for fine tuning and smaller adjustments

as far as taller fem and shorter masc posing goes 🤷🏾‍♀️ again it’s just trial and error, 99% of premades are not made for this and you have to get really good at making adjustments from other races unless you make your own from scratch. w a Viera it’s not as bad bc unlike Elezen you have a fair amount of poses being made for you. not as ubiquitous as the min height miqora industrial complex but you have a lot more options than femroes and elves. get used to only loading expressions to fix your face though.

use the environments to your advantage, leaning against surfaces, etc. but also: it doesn’t have to look perfect from every angle. that’s probably the biggest tip I can give for tall fem height diff posing, more than once I’ve had the shorter char literally floating bc I was focusing on portraiture, zooming in on faces.

[yloiseconeillants]

found out today while wrestling with vallerin’s eyebrows that not only can you use /doze to sleep on the bed in an inn BUT THERE ARE MULTIPLE POSES?

[aethernoise]

A while back @lunarosewood23 asked for gpose help so I thought I would put together a post with some general advice and links to tutorials in case it’s helpful to anybody else.

Basic tutorials & guides I had on hand... General & important screenshot lighting tips courtesy of @kukurubean​ My tutorial about taking commission reference screenshots 

*note that 5.1 gave us the character lighting slider which is at the bottom of the lighting menu. We now also have an overall brightness adjustment slider 

Some more tips... - put /gpose on a hotbar. Seriously. It sounds dumb but typing “/gpose” every time is obnoxious. You can find it under your Actions menu. - try creative compositions. Don’t always center your character/subject in the frame. Try taking several different shots with different framing and see how you like them. Move the camera around!!! - experiment with emote + expression combinations. You can do this VERY easily now that the entire emote selection menu exists under the button with the little running person in the gpose menu. - try battle skills & spells! Simply hit the ability, and go into gpose--it will save the last action you used. You can change the expression and also turn off effects to make things less flashy once you’re in gpose (you’ll find this button in the top of the menu). HINT: if the desired ability requires a target, make use of your local training dummies. Just don’t accidentally erase the action by using a mount to get to somewhere pretty first! - turn off your gpose icon for maximum plausible deniability! Go to System Configuration > Other Settings > Uncheck “switch online status to Camera Mode when active” and have fun taking sneaky screenshots of your friends or shamelessly gposing with NPCs in busy areas

All of this is good stuff to know, but really....the only reason I’ve gotten any better at taking screenshots is because I spend a lot of damn time taking screenshots. Have fun, experiment and practice. Try out the built-in color filters and effects. Find a location where the lighting just really slaps and take a ton of pics of your character to see how they turn out! And please, zoom in so we can see them too :)

[brattygrymblade]

Clean Reference Pics? No photobooth?

These tips have been posted in the past by other people, but with the amount of new players coming in I figure it might be a useful guide, especially if theyre on console. You'll wanna head over to this location in Coerthas Central Highlands:

Once you've positioned yourself how you like in the little snow hut, place 3 lights, 2 behind your character to wash out the background, and one in front of your character to give some light.

Use the game controls to zoom in and adjust the camera then rotate it 90°.

You can later use any image editor to rotate it as you like it.

HAPPY GPOSING!

[necromeowncy]

How To Load a Pre-Made Pose in Anamnesis

Hello! Here is another quick gpose guide from me! I've seen a couple people lately mention about not knowing the first step, so I'm here to help you learn how to apply a pre-made pose.

First step is always going into gpose by typing /gpose in the game's chat box and hitting enter. Make sure the Anamnesis program is running.

I know this looks messy (made this way too fast lol) but follow the steps labeled 1 through 4 in the image:

1. Freeze in vanilla gpose.

2. Go to the "Pose" tab in Anamnesis.

3. Freeze with the button circled.

4. Import a pose you saved from your files wherever you saved it.

And there you go! If the pose makes your character's face look a bit wonky, I have a guide for loading in fresh facial expressions here.

I hope this is helpful! Please reach out if you have any questions, and feel free to send an ask for any other gpose guides! I tag these as "#gpose tips" on my blog so search for that if you want to see my others.