#ffxiv tutorial

[leonaquitaine]

Virtual Photography Guide: Composition (Part 2)

Let's continue exploring composition with a few more guidelines used in real-life photography, together with some FFXIV examples!

Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds involves dividing the viewport into a 3x3 grid by drawing two horizontal lines and two vertical lines, resulting in nine equally sized rectangles. According to the rule, placing key elements of interest along these gridlines or at their intersections create harmonious compositions and draws the viewer's eye in a visually pleasing and balanced way:

Rule of Odds

The Rule of Odds suggests that using an odd number of elements, such as three or five, tends to be more visually interesting and engaging compared to an even number. The Rule of Odds can be used to create a sense of asymmetry, tension, and visual flow:

Rule of Space

The Rule of Space emphasizes leaving empty space or room within the frame, specifically in the direction that the subject or elements are moving or looking towards. It adds a sense of direction or movement and allows the viewer to engage with the image more effectively:

Golden Ratio

The Golden Ratio, also known as the Divine Proportion or Phi (Φ), is a mathematical concept and compositional guideline used in various art forms. It is a ratio of approximately 1.618:1 and is considered aesthetically pleasing to the human eye. In photography, dividing the frame into sections based on the Golden Ratio and positioning important subjects or focal points along these divisions creates a visually appealing and balanced composition. That way, compositions that feel harmonious and naturally pleasing:

So there you have it! while not comprehensive, these guidelines may help create shots that are engaging and pleasing to the eye.

You can now find this and all the previous guides and reference materials in our Discord server, Sights of Eorzea. Come check it out!

[fleurarmor]

Raise and Other Job Action Macros for FFXIV

If you play FFXIV long enough you'll end up seeing a message in chat while running a duty letting folks know someone is getting raised. These are usually done via macro.

Why Do People Use Raise and Other Job Action Macros?

Raise messages basically boil down to "Other healers and raise capable members of the party, I am raising this person so don't waste your Swiftcast."

They can also communicate if this is a hard rez (no Swiftcast) and will therefore take time.

They tell you who scraped you off the floor so you have a suggestion of who to give your commendation. (This is why I appreciate others using them, personally).

They communicate part of a mechanic that another player might not know. The classic example was Paladin's Divine Veil, where they needed to be healed for the action to be completed. Although Divine Veil no longer requires it.

Creating and Editing Macros

Click the System button.

Click User Macros.

Select an empty macro or one you would like to overwrite.

In the opened macro, click the macro icon.

Select an icon to represent this macro. Or, use /micon in the macro itself to use the icon for the action.

Enter a descriptive name in the Name field, like Sage Hard Rez.

In the main body of the macro, you will enter the code of the macro, making sure each line is its own line.

Macro Components

/ac tells the system you are starting a command about an action.

"Action Name" says which action you want to use. This is job specific so you will need to make a rez macro for each job as it is Egeiro vs Raise vs Resurrection vs Ascend etc.

<wait.#> is telling the system to wait before executing the next line. The number tells the system how many seconds to wait. How long you need depends on your computer, internet connection and how congested the immediate area in game is. 2 seconds works for my current machine very well, 3 seconds worked better for my old laptop and if I'm at a world boss Fate or hunt train I don't even try to use the macro due to the long wait time needed.

/party tells the system to send the text that follows to the party chat.

<t> tells the system to substitute the name of who you are currently targeting in whatever message you are sending in chat.

<#> The number will tell the system who to target based on the position in the party list. So a 3 will target the 3rd person on the party list.

/micon "Action Name" will tell the system to give the macro the same icon as the named action.

Optimizing Rez Macro Placement on Your Hotbar

To get the most bang for your buck on your rez macro, I recommend the following order on your hotbar:

[Swiftcast] [Quick Raise Macro] [Raise] [Full Heal Action]

This set up will let you see if Swiftcast is still on cooldown. If it is you can skip your Quick Raise macro and either just click Raise directly or a Long Raise macro (which in that image is the X icon below my Quick Raise macro's icon).

Example Macros

These can all be directly copy and pasted into the body section of the macro editor.

Basic Rez Macro (RDM)

/ac "Swiftcast" <wait.2> /ac "Verraise" <wait.2> /party Raising <t>! Get back in the fight!

Hard (Long) Rez Macro (SGE)

/party Swiftcast is down! Hard rez-ing <t>! <wait.3> /ac "Egeiro"

Rez Macro with Swiftcast and Thin Air (WHM)

This is specific to WHM level 58+ and will allow you to instantly cast Raise with no MP cost to help make the most of your resources.

/ac "Swiftcast" <wait.2> /ac "Thin Air" <wait.2> /ac "Raise" <wait.2> /party Raising <t>! Get back in the fight!

Improvisation Macro (DNC)

Unless your team has played a lot of Dancer themselves they likely won't understand how Improv works. Macro messages are great for telling other people in your party what they need to do to benefit from things like DNC's Improvisation or PLD's Passage of Arms.

/micon "Improvisation" /ac "Improvisation" /party Stand near me until you hear the bongos for healing!

Aetherial Manipulation (for the BLM Who Can't Target Party Members to Literally Save Their Own Lives)

Its me, I'm that black mage. This automatically targets the third person in the party's list which will be the healer in a Light Party or the second tank in a Full Party. You will aether skate over to whoever that is.

/ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <3>

Living Dead Macro (DRK)

This is no longer required as Living Dead has been updated. But it is a good example of making a macro message fun while giving a needed instruction.

/micon "Living Dead" /ac "Living Dead" <wait.2> /party Whether by accident or purpose, I have used Living Dead. Please heal me to full or else I will soon be Dead Dead. :')

[ffxiv-resources]

Flash Tip!!

two things for accessibility:

while autoplaying cutscenes you can change the text advance speed! On the keyboard this is managed with either Tab to speed up or Shift + Tab to slow down and on the game pad you would use the D pad with the right (>) being for faster and left (<) being for slower

You can also change the size of just about any element in the game. for the sake of this flash tip I'm just gonna cover the very basics: quest and dialogue boxes

[Image ID: two pictures of a quest box in FFXIV. the user has right clicked at the very top and gotten a drop down. On the left the options read "Return to Default Position", "Scale Window >", and "Close". on the right the user has clicked scale window and gotten a descending list of percentages starting at 200% and ranging down to 60%. /end ID]

You have you right click at the very top, like, top half an inch. Where the cursor turns into a little hand so you can drag the box around? right in there. I don't have pictures of it on hand but it's exactly the same with dialogue boxes however you have to turn off the autoplay (keyboard: spacebar gamepad: triangle) and read the boxes first because I don't remember if the text advances when you do it.

This is also mouse only so console players, if your usb keyboard didn't come with a mouse, I'm sorry to report you need your controller's touchpad. if you right click on the speaker's name you'll almost certainly be in the right range. And you can also drag the text bubble to wherever on the screen in best for you by clicking and dragging the same area of the box.

[whitherwanderer]

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).

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 Field of View (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.

[sealrock]

the major arcana, shuffled: 4/??

THE HIGH PRIESTESS; ⤉ spirituality, higher power, mystery, subconscious ⤈ hidden motives, secrets, repressed intuition, cognitive dissonance THE EMPRESS; ⤉ motherhood, femininity, nurturing, harmony ⤈ smothering, negligence, lack of growth, insecurity THE EMPEROR; ⤉ fatherhood, structure, authority, control ⤈ tyranny, domination, recklessness, rigidity

[autumnslance]

New Game+ Tutorial

"I don't remember this part of the story." "It's been so long since I played X expansion." "What happened during that raid again?" "Who was this character?" "I story skipped the MSQ/job quests so I don't know what happened and who these people are!"

There's answers to this, friends. Not only is the game's own Unending Journey (in inn rooms, or as furnishing in your FC or private rooms/homes) able to replay many cutscenes, and there's the completed quest log, but there are places online, such as Garland Tools and the FFXIV Game Script, that keep most (not all) of the quest text handy.

But if you want to relive those quests, and/or get the side dialogues and replay (or first time play!) the experiences, as of Shadowbringers 5.1 there's a feature called New Game+ to allow that.

New Game+ (or NG+) will let you replay past questlines, at your current level (which makes it go pretty fast in a lot of cases). There is No experience or rewards to gain through this feature--no using it to level alt jobs. It purely exists to allow experiencing, or re-experiencing, completed content.

Once defeating the Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea at level 50 in ARR's finale of 2.0, you can go to Vesper Bay and find the Wistful Whitebeard.

More info and images below the Keep Reading cut...

(image taken from gamesconsolewiki and their article on this feature.)

Once you've unlocked the feature by talking to him, you get a new menu option in your Duty menu (the exclamation point icon), right between Duty Recorder and Hall of the Novice.

Once you select the feature it brings up a menu of options; it usually defaults to Main Story Quests, but I also have a paused replay under "Suspend" in progress. There are also options that match other quest interfaces, like your Journal or the Unending Journey; Chronicles of a New Era for raids and trials, Side Story for quests like Hildibrand, the Scholasticate, Role Master Quests, Void Quests, and Chronicles of Light (story important side quests, like Tales of the Dragonsong War, Tales from the Shadows, Tales of Newfound Adventure). Tank, Healer, DPS, Crafting, and Gathering quests also have their own categories.

Each Expansion MSQ is broken into parts; usually 2 parts for the x.0 main expansion, and then 2 parts for the patches. They're only available after x.0 or the patch stories are complete.

Also notice the "Help" icon in the top right of the NG+ overlay; it opens a pretty comprehensive guide, divided into menu sections, about how the feature works.

ARR is split into 6 parts, and I do think 2.0 could use a rework in how they're split but for now, I'm selecting Part 6 to look for specific side dialogues that only exist in this timeframe.

Selecting Part 6 opens the description; the Crystal Braves have just been formed, to help the Scions with the turmoil still facing the realm--from refugees, to Garlemald's continuing threat, to primals and Ascians.

Once you do, the NG+ quest info shows up, usually around where ever you keep your MSQ quest marker. I hide my MSQ tracker once it's done, so NG+ fits in that same spot in the upper left for me.

It tells me to "Relive Past Adventures!", which expac and part I'm in, and which quest is my starting point in this case, "Traitor in the Midst", the start of the Ivy spy plotline in Patch 2.4.

From here it progresses as if I am back in that patch and on those quests, but without any experience or rewards. Aeryn's in her current level 90 appearance and skills, making it easy to skip past and handle level 45-50 enemies in these zones.

So long as I am in NG+, I cannot do current quests, plots, or other content; I can't complete new current level duties (duties new in NG+ itself are fine), I can't access the MB, my retainers, or the Unending Journey. I can manually Suspend my current playthrough, or performing some of these actions (like duties) will automatically suspend my NG+ playthrough. You also cannot start NG+ while doing certain things (like some quests, such as leves).

This also will not let you play through the start of other city-states, only your original starter town. Solo duties will let you choose their difficulty immediately, without having to fail them first like in normal play.

If I want to drop my NG+ save before I've finished the replay--maybe I found the info and screenshots I wanted--I can delete the save.

This is an extremely helpful feature that can be used to replay events and quests, either for the fun of it, or because you want to find specific dialogue or lore information that only exists in a specific point in game. Maybe you want to visit old friends lost along the way, or take new screenshots of your WoL as they are post-fantasia.

Maybe it's just been a few years, and you've found you've forgotten some things and want to remember how the story actually went, especially knowing what you know now.

[evilpenguinrika]

Hope spending some time with her four children while her darling and beautiful and amazing wife Josie's back home looking after the house or something (and totally not because I ran out of characters to take this poorly positioned group photo rip)

[gragam]

started* playing finalfantasy with bf and i just made my dark souls guy again but with longer hair

[redhotarsenic]

[thefreelanceangel]

She, the Sun. He, the Moon. And it seemed that only at dawn or dusk could they tolerate each other.

{#AuRaAugust: 30 - Dawn & Dusk}

[lookbluesoup]

Beginners Guide to Red Mage

I've had a frankly alarming number of people comment to me on various platforms that Red Mage is too difficult and confusing. Which - I know different classes vibe with different people. Sometimes a class just doesn't click with you, and that's ok! But I actually find RDM to be one of the easiest classes in ffxiv to get the basics down on, so I thought I'd type up a little crash course!

This is a guide to a basic rotation, without any eye-glazing acronyms, and a few tips on how RDM evolves at higher levels, hopefully in easy to understand terms for someone just starting out. It is not a min/max guide. It's not designed to get you Super Rainbow Diamond Parse. It will show you how to play red mage competently in Duty Roulette and MSQ and get through whatever regular content you want. (As long as you don't forget to keep your gear levelled with you!)

If you want to go MAX ULTRA DAMAGE UNREAL TRIALS mode there's plenty of other guides out there for that, a google search away, who can help you with more complicated, number-crunchy type rotations! My hope is that if you are new to RDM and want to get into that content someday, this will at least give you a foundational understanding to build up to that from.

And if you're a casual player, this guide will see you through just fine. You're who this is made for!

Full guide below the cut!

Red Mage is about balance, which means it's basically a repeating pattern.

There is a magic rotation to build up black and white mana in equal amounts, and then a melee rotation to spend that collected mana on high-damage sword attacks. Later, you'll get a second magic combo to use after your sword combo.

Here's my hotbar setup synced down to level 50:

And here it is at level 90 with some upgraded skill icons:

Because I'm very visual, it's set up to keep related abilities close together so that I can quickly input combos.

If you take a look at your spells, you'll notice Veraero and Verthunder (the green and blue buttons) do high damage but take almost 5 seconds to cast. A really long time. They also only increase either white or black mana, though by a significant amount:

Jolt, the red one in the middle, only takes a remarkably short 2 seconds to cast and gives both black and white mana, but does much less damage and doesn't increase either color very much:

This might initially seem clunky and frustrating.

But here's why.

Every second spell a Red Mage casts is instant.

Jolt is your ticket to flinging spells around like a dog with a roman candle.

The goal is to start with a short-cast spell, and then follow up with a long-cast one, which will hit immediately instead of taking those agonizing 5 seconds.

So, if you are fighting a single target, that's Jolt, followed by Veraero or Verthunder. (Or, if like me your eyes want to glaze over with the fancy names for everything. Red, followed by Green or Blue.)

And how do you keep your black and white mana balanced? Easy. Each time you do your combo, switch up veraero and verthunder.

You basic magic combo is literally just Red, Green, Red, Blue, Red, Green, Red, Blue. If you set up your hotbar with these in convenient places, you can just get your fingers into a rhythm and eventually won't even have to think about it at all.

If you end up off balance with too much of one color, just repeat the other color a few times in between Jolts until its back close together.

The AoE Rotation, Though?

Since you know why the cast times vary so much between spells, you can probably already guess how this works! They're inverted! That's all! If you're fighting 3+ enemies at once, you should switch to your AoE set which damages all enemies around your target. Your basic magic combo is still just Red, Green, Red, Blue, Red, Green, Red, Blue. But you start with Green or Blue first!

--

When its time to stab things

While you can use your melee skills at any point, in any order - there's a pattern here, too. And its easy!

This is your mana bar when you enter a fight:

And this is your mana bar as you build up black and white mana through casting spells:

The white side, predictably, is white mana. The blue side is black mana. The gem on the top will light up in red when you have enough of both collected to perform a melee combo (which is 50 white and 50 black). It maxes out at 100 of each.

While your sword skills on your hotbar will color change from purple to red earlier than this, do not succumb to the allure. Wait until you get your magic red button. Every "Enchanted" sword strike you hit with will deplete your mana, so you need to make sure you have enough to do a full combo of all three attacks.

An Enchanted combo does MUCH more damage and it is absolutely worth waiting until you can combo them. Start with Riposte, the one that costs 20, and the others will light up in order afterwards to show you the correct steps.

Once you're too low on mana to run a full sword combo, go back to casting spells until your red gem lights up again!

AoE Rotation

It's not even a rotation, it's one attack - Moulinet. However, it should be noted that at later levels, when Mana Stacks are added, you'll need 60 black and white mana to get a full three mana stacks by using your AoE sword skill, instead of the 50 needed for single target sword skills.

--

Imbalanced Meters

If you cast too much of one color without the other, your gem will change to reflect the imbalance. You get a penalty to gaining mana if the bars are off balance, so make sure to give the other color some attention until your gem turns red or clear again.

--

Free Damage Buttons

Fleche, and its AoE version Contre Six, are free damage. They don't share any cooldowns with your regular spells/sword skills, and cast instantly. It's free damage.

Corps-a-corps is a gap closer, another attack that shares no cooldowns with any other skills. It's a great way to start out your sword-combo when you have enough mana collected, because it will put you in range of your target and deal damage in the process. A lot better than losing seconds to running up to them manually, during which time you can't attack.

It has two charges which refill over time, so in a short period you can use it twice if you need to. Like if you target the wrong enemy the first time. Whoops.

Engagement is another free stab button, but it shares charges with Displacement, which is your run away button, so make sure to save a charge if you're going to need that!

Displacement is a good way to end your sword combo (or, later, end your bonus spells combo.) It is also a good way to escape an enemy's attack if you stood in one place just a LITTLE too long and don't have time to run out of range. You will leap backwards immediately and quite far.

Once in the Crystal Tower raids I used this to evade an AoE and landed in one of those paralyzing electric traps on the corner of the arena, where I remained trapped, in shame, for the rest of the fight. Check behind you before you jump.

--

(Slightly) More Advanced Rotation

If everything above feels like a lot to absorb already, you can ignore this section for now. Get a handle on the basic basics, and then start weaving the rest of these in later once you're more used to your patterns.

Occasionally when casting a spell you will get "Verstone Ready" or "Verfire Ready" These can be woven in at your discretion, they have short cast times. But generally they should replace your short cast spell for one cycle. For example, use one of these instead of Jolt, and follow up with a Green or Blue spell after. They both give you a specific color of mana, but not quite as much as a regular long-cast spell, their benefit lies in how fast you can cast them and their high damage.

Acceleration can be used to quickly rebalance your mana if something goes awry, or to deal heavy damage quickly. It's another tool that allows you to cast any of your main long-cast damage spells instantly. As an added treat, it makes your next Red AoE do significantly more damage, or ensures that your next single-target Green and Blue spells will give you a Verstone/Verfire right after.

Manafication will instantly grant you 50 black and white mana both. It's best to use it between Enchanted sword combos! Once you hit 50 on your own, perform a sword rotation, hit Manafication, and do another sword rotation. Or, when Mana Stacks come in, use Manafication after completing your bonus spells to get another Sword-Spell rotation combo in right after.

Embolden is a damage buff for you and close-by party members. There's a lot of ways to use damage buffs, but if you time it right, you can get two buffed Enchanted sword combos in by pairing this with Manafication. Later, with Mana Stacks, you can get a sword and bonus-spell combo in, with a little extra room.

Mana Stacks

At higher levels, you'll get Mana Stacks. These basically add a third pattern after you use your spells to build mana, and your sword to spend it.

By completing an Enchanted Sword combo (the red ones, that cost 50 mana to complete) or casting 3 of the Enchanted AoE Moulinet in succession (which costs 60 mana), all your Blue and Green spells will transform into Verflare and Verholy:

You get to cast ONE of them. If you perform just about any other action, including manafication, you will lose these. Make sure to cast them when they appear. They do not, however, run on a short timer, so if the dungeon boss is at 0.1% hp you can hold your actions and just use these on your next ad pack.

If your black and white mana are not perfectly balanced when you get these spells, that's a good thing. Pick the spell that matches your lower color. If you have less black mana, cast Verflare. If you have less white mana, cast Verholy. This will guarantee that Verfire or Verstone, mentioned above, become available to you:

If you pick the "wrong" one, don't worry! You still have a chance at getting your stone/fire spell. And if not, you can use Acceleration to quickly cast for whichever color you need to rebalance your mana.

A little down the line, you'll get a third bonus spell. Scorch replaces your Red spells and appears after casting Verflare or Verholy. That's a lotta damage!

And again, further down, you'll get another red spell to follow on the heels of Scorch, Resolution. To really help you finish off nuking everything in front of you.

--

So in short - magic combo till you have 50 of both mana colors, sword combo, bonus spell combo, rinse and repeat.

And there you go! You can Red Mage!

--

But wait! There's more!

Saving the Party from a Wipe

At level 64 you get Verraise. And since you know all about dualcast now, you know that 10 second cast timer doesn't mean anything to you, a Red Mage.

While you should generally let your healer(s) handle raising so that they don't waste their swiftcast trying to get someone that you might reach first, if you notice multiple people go down close together, or the healer is low on spells/having to work really hard to keep the party alive, or the healer is dead... you can resurrect someone every 2 seconds. Do not be afraid to help save the party from a wipe. It feels very powerful.

Your healing spell, Vercure, also has a 2 second cast time, so you can give party members a little hp boost in between shoveling them off the floor.

[leonaquitaine]

Starter GPose: Lighting 102- Outdoors

Now that we know some basic lighting techniques, it's time to wander into the wild!

There's a lot that's out of your control, like weather and natural light. But let's use those to our advantage!

Supplemental Lighting

Remember: you can use the 3-point light sources and the Character lighting settings to bring attention to the subject, making it pop from the background.

In the example below, Freya is pretty dim against the background; so we position a yellow source to reinforce the torch light and a blue source to suggest moonlight.

Oh, one interesting thing about water surfaces: while point lights can't cast shadows...

...it can reflect over water surfaces!

The principle of using a point light to enhance, reinforce or suggest a source can be used anywhere: fixtures, skybox sources, armor, weapons... the sky (well, and the count of 3) is the limit.

Less is more

Simplify your shots. Visual elements draw attention away from the subject. By using Depth of Field (DoF) you can force background elements to lose focus.

Alternatively, you can look for parts of the background with fewer elements (like the sky, a cave wall, or a dark patch of a forest.)

Weather

Dungeons and open areas have wildly different lighting patterns. Don't fight it: instead, try to adjust your sources to enhance the feeling. Overcast weather gives less contrast, the same as night shots. On the other hand, Some instances can give very harsh light. Use it to your advantage.

Environment

Use it. The fact that you're not locked into place means that you can have better action shots, using the environment to help tell a story.

Also, the Golden Hour is real. Sunrises and sunsets give amazing opportunities for shots.

Night shots have their own characteristics, but they're basically similar to studio shots. So rim lights and key lights can bring subjects to the foreground, even if they're wearing dark clothing.

Sometimes the environment is the focus. Draw your character away, and let the beauty of Etheirys sink in.

Framing

Look out for structures that can help isolate your character from the background.

Now that I mentioned these points, let's see how (and why) some shots were taken!

Low contrast, DoF isolating from the noisy background, orange point light to Noemie's right, white-bluish point light to the top left.

High contrast, strong orange point light to the right of Louise, and a white point far to the left.

Here the scenario is totally irrelevant (apart from the general grey tone), So ADoF+Bubble, ADoF + Bokeh, a single white point from the sun's direction, and a high Character lighting.

This guide is way less technique-heavy than the previous one, but I hope it helped illustrate some ways to benefit from outdoor shots; please share your experiments, and let me know if you have any questions!

[fleurarmor]

Menu Buttons for a Clean FFXIV HUD Using Macros

I like to have a fairly empty display most of the time so I use macros to make custom "collapsing menu" hotbars. This lets me pull up what I need, like to change classes or teleport or have a short list of emotes without needing to look at them all the time. I'll go through them from simplest to most complex.

Initial Setup

You'll need to set up your always visible hotbars first.

Click the System button.

Click HUD Layout.

Set up the hotbars you are going to always have visible. I use Hotbar 1 and Hotbar 2 for my primary job actions and Hotbar 3 for menu buttons, nonbattle actions, and some niche use actions.

Hide/Show Duty List

Click the System button.

Click User Macros.

Select an empty macro or one you would like to overwrite.

In the opened macro, click the macro icon.

Select an icon to represent this macro. I use card suits for my menu button macros to easily group them together.

Enter a descriptive name in the Name field, like Hide Duty List.

In the main body of the macro, enter the following, making sure each line is its own line:

/hud "Duty List" /hud "Scenario Guide"

8. Finally, place the macro on one of your visible hotbars. When you click the macro button it will either hide or show both the Duty List and the Scenario Guide. This is nice for when you want to appreciate the scenery.

Situational Action Menu

I tried for many years to keep all my actions on two and a half bars to minimize how many bars I have but then I realized I can toggle those on and off! I personally like keeping my main two battle bars always up in case of accidental aggro, but you could have this toggle off all your job related bars, if you wanted. I toggle this on as soon as I enter a dungeon or raid but otherwise keep it hidden.

I keep my tank specific actions like those related to enmity as well as emergency actions like healing and partywide buffs on this bar.

For healers I keep my raise kit, Esuna, and shield type actions on there as I need to be able to find those quickly but they aren't part of a rotation.

Make the Macro

Click the System button.

Click User Macros.

Select an empty macro or one you would like to overwrite.

In the opened macro, click the macro icon.

Select an icon to represent this macro. I use card suits for my menu button macros to easily group them together.

Enter a descriptive name in the Name field, like Situational Actions.

In the main body of the macro, enter the following:

/hotbar display 6

Adjust the HUD

Place the macro on one of your visible hotbars.

Open the HUD Layout interface (System >> HUD Layout) and place Hotbar 6 where you want it. Also adjust the layout and size. I use the 4x3 option for my Situational Actions menu.

Click Save.

Drag actions from the Actions & Traits interface (Character >> Actions & Traits) or other hotbars onto your newly created menu hotbar.

You can also add macros, like a raise macro, from the User Macros interface (System >> User Macros).

You will need to add actions and macros to this menu for each job individually.

Emotes Menu

This makes an easy to access shortlist of emotes that is often faster than typing the emote in chat or using the Social >> Emotes menu path.

Make the Macro

Click the System button.

Click User Macros.

Select an empty macro or one you would like to overwrite.

In the opened macro, click the macro icon.

Select an icon to represent this macro. I use card suits for my menu button macros to easily group them together.

Enter a descriptive name in the Name field, like Emotes.

In the main body of the macro, enter the following, making sure each line is its own line:

/hotbar display 4 /hotbar display 5

Adjust the HUD

Place the macro on one of your visible hotbars.

Open the HUD Layout interface (System >> HUD Layout) and place the hotbars where you want them. Also adjust their layout and size. I use the 2x6 option for both hotbars of my Emotes menu.

Make sure that both hotbars, in this case Hotbar 4 and Hotbar 5, are either both visible or both not visible. If one is visible and one is not the macro button will only switch which is visible, it won't turn them both either on or off.

Click Save.

Drag emotes from the Emotes interface (Social >> Emotes) onto the menu hotbars.

If you use hotbars 4 and 5 you shouldn't need to do this for every job, just the once.

Change Job Menu

This is the same as the Emotes menu but is instead a menu for macros to change jobs. I also keep my return and teleport buttons here as well. Haven't made job change macros yet? Click this text to view my guide for making job change macros.

Make the Macro

Click the System button.

Click User Macros.

Select an empty macro or one you would like to overwrite.

In the opened macro, click the macro icon.

Select an icon to represent this macro. I use card suits for my menu button macros to easily group them together.

Enter a descriptive name in the Name field, like Job Change.

In the main body of the macro, enter the following, making sure each line is its own line:

/hotbar display 7 /hotbar display 8 /hotbar display 9

Adjust the HUD

Place the macro on one of your visible hotbars.

Open the HUD Layout interface (System >> HUD Layout) and place the hotbars where you want them. Also adjust their layout and size. I use the 1x12 option for the 3 hotbars of my Job Change menu.

Make sure that all hotbars, in this case Hotbar 7, Hotbar 8, and Hotbar 9 are either all visible or all not visible. If one is visible and one is not the macro button will only switch which is visible, it won't turn them all either on or off.

Drag your job change macros from the User Macros interface (System >> User Macros) onto the menu hotbars. You can group them together by job type (healer, gatherer, tank, etc.) or keep your main jobs all together.

If you use hotbars 7, 8, and 9 you shouldn't need to do this for every job, just the once.

[ffxiv-resources]

Glams and Dyes

If you love Cute Clothes as much as me, these are very much for you. But if you don't really care what your character wears (or the color it is), these are completely optional.

Unlocking

You may as well do them both at once as they unlock at the same time and are both given by the same person and neither takes you out of Vesper Bay

[Image ID: screencap of Swyrgeim in Vesper Bay, to the left of her is a selection box that lists the options of two quests; Color Your World and If I Had a Glamour, Small Talk, or Nothing /end ID]

These unlock in Vesper Bay out in Western Thanalan aaallllll the way to the west, past Horizon but before the sharp turn north. you'll be out here a lot for MSQ later so remember it's location. If you get here at or around level 15 she should be the only quest marker, if I recall correctly.

[Image ID: two more screenshots of Swyrgiem, these two with quest synopses next to her. On the left is Color Your World; "Swyrgiem wants to show you a whole new world of colors." and on the right is If I Only Had a Glamour; "Swyrgiem wishes to impart to you her knowledge of glamours." /end ID]

Like the queen she is she sends you to get her drinks. If I Only Had A Glamour marks on the map who to talk to, but for Color your world you need to go to the Merchant & Mender that you can see in my caps just above the quests and the orange juice will be under Purchase Items. don't worry! it's only 7 gil.

[the rest under cut because this is Long]

Use

my first note is that many dyes can be bought in the markets of every city. Some can be bought in the cash shop, some can only be crafted, and some are beast tribe locked (and some are locked in other ways). However, all dye can be found on the market board, just be willing to pay a small fortune for some colors if gotten that way. I would always either check the market or look the color up on gamerescape to see how to obtain it before going to the market board.

In the inn room look for these mfers:

[Image ID: The Glamour Dresser and Armoire in the Limsa Lominsa inn. /end ID]

Anything that can go in the armoire, I'd put in there because if you get really into glams the dresser can uuhh fill up quick, and you can access the armoire while making glams without any extra hassle. Plus in order to put things in the dresser you need glam prisms whereas you don't for the armoire. Prisms can be bought on the market board, from your Grand Company upon reaching Sergeant Third Class, or crafted. The unlock quest, should have given you 12 and that's plenty enough at this low a level.

At this point, unless veteran friends have given you clothes or gil and/or you've spent money in the cash shop, you shouldn't really have any of the gear meant for glam, except the little hat the quest gave you. You can put armor and starter clothes in but I would hold off on either (unless you really wanna glam to starter gear) because you might need them if you pick up an off class and it's a hassle to pick up a class and then remember you have to yank gear out of the glam dresser or buy a new set.

But, let's say you had gear and everything you wanna put in your dresser is there and you're ready to make your first glam.

[Image ID: The ffxiv glamour interface showing Aki, a Xalea girl, in her starter outfit and the dresser open to her shoes. /end ID]

The 20 tabs you see above the character display are the 20 glamour plates you get. You can have 20 unique and custom outfits pre-designed and waiting in here. Much like when equipping armor, as you select the spot for a piece of gear on the left the right will open to all the gear you have stored for that place. Select feet you get shoes, head you get hats, etc. **Note: wrists/gloves/shirt sleeves can and will cover bracelets. Accessories are the lowest level; any cloth that covers the same spot will be on top.**

but say maybe for parts of your glam you want something from the armoire. Then hit that long horizontal button under the display of gear in your dresser that says Open Armoire. You don't need to save the glam before hand or anything, it only refreshes that side of things.

If you do seasonal events you'll slowly start collecting up things to fill your armoire with (they do not always give gear but when they do it goes in the armoire.) Otherwise, it's a good place to dump artifact armor (from reaching level caps) if you don't want to get rid of it or want to use it for a glam.

Now! you've selected your outfit. Looks kinda cute, but the colors don't match your character? Well, that's what the dyes are for! Right click/press square on whichever piece of gear you wanna start with and you'll get this

[Image ID: the ffxiv dye selector. In the character box Aki stands wearing the gear she is outside of the dresser with the Ishgardian thighboots selected to dye. /end ID]

This is, as you can see, pretty cut and dry. It's separated by colors so if you click the red circle you see all the red dyes, blue you see the blues, etc. The notes I will give you are that 1) there are pinks under both red and purple, 2) Terebinth turns something back into it's default color, and 3) you can select colors you don't have at this step but you cannot save the plate with dyes you do not have on it.

What I generally do is go through and pick all the colors I want and then pick secondary colors in case the first is too expensive/not for sale/I'm to lazy to make/get, I note how many of which colors I need and then I remove all the dye and save the plate. Then I exit the dresser and go get what dyes I don't already have before returning. this way I'm not guessing that colors will look good together and potentially wasting gil. I also buy dyes in small bulks when I can afford it so I have some for next glam.

However you personally do it, once you apply your dyes and save the plate (again) you're done! All you need to do is hit Apply.

[Image ID: same as the first only now Aki is wearing a peach flower corsage, the hempen camise, summer sunset wrist torque, faire kohakama, and Ishgardian thighboots all dyed either regal or gloom purple. /end ID]

Congratulations! You have now made your first glam plate!

[Image ID: Aki, now out of the dresser, wearing her new glam and cheering. The camera is angled to fit her whole glam but also get a close up of her face. /end ID]

Note: you can apply/change what you're wearing in any sanctuary (denoted by a little crescent moon by the exp bar) but you can only change the plates themselves in the glam dresser in inn rooms. you can also mix and match so if one glam is missing pants and you want pants from another, apply the pants one first, and then the one you want the rest of, and the pantlessness won't overwrite while everything else will.

Also: because of that last point, if there is something that you want to never show up with this glam, you want to get the Emperor's New [gear type] for it and you only need one ring for both slots. (I have bought a second unnecessarily so many times.) I generally get all of the accessories on most of my alts because I just don't really like how most in game jewelry looks. There are plenty of people who use this to run around shirtless. Get creative. They're craftable and available on the market board. sometimes they're relatively cheap, sometimes they're not.

[azuredrg]

Taking good gposes without reshade or 3rd party tools

this post was made for like, 2 of my mutuals. full disclosure i dont entirely gaf if you do or do not use plugins or reshade- but a lot of tutorials i can find usually like to say "use shaders!" instead of showing how vanilla tools are good. this ones for you console players. It's a bit lengthy so I kept it under the cut for scrolling convenience.

My character only has cosmetic mods on for this tutorial. I did not use anything that I could not access using vanilla methods and menus, my shaders are off for this demonstration.

PART 1, some tricks in the gpose menu

a few that I personally have picked up from poking around in the menu this is one I like to use for decent angles, minions!

Any minion that could sit on your shoulder (head for lalas) is like a second camera. I use nanamo here as an example as she's relatively easy to get and Midgardsormr does not get on your shoulder with /beckon the way other minions do

left is nanamo targeted, and right is with my character targeted. See the difference? This could give you a different variety of angles that would be difficult to achieve otherwise

I also like using tools like the talking animations to get different types of expressions. you could achieve a D:< face like above, or a :D face if you use /smile

last trick and one I will be using for this tutorial is Explorer Mode accessed via duty finder, this allows you to use battle moves that could assist in a more dynamic shot, as well as letting you access cool dungeons to walk through

like this! though if the effects are bothering you you could turn it off with this button, please note that you cannot turn off battle effects for every move

Part 2, let's get gposing

Now that you have an idea and pose (I used whm lb3 to get this) when you enter the gpose menu, the first thing that you'd notice is that it is very dark. Manual light adjustment usually remedies that

a look at what i have used, and a walk through of what every button does. I forgot to mention screen effect, which again is pretty straightforward- in the past I've used the particle effect to be more "glittery." though do feel free to play with it.

You may notice in the back of the picture, there is a blue torch. I really want that blue light to hit my character, but it's not doing that now because ffxiv's lighting engine was nerfed tremendously to help load. All I have to do to give that light to my character is move the camera in the position I want it to (i put it as far back as possible so I am as close to the torch as I can be)

et voila, there is now blue light. The way lighting works is that you have 3 lights, and each with 3 "types" type 3 is most intense, while type 1 is the least. The sliders show which color is most intense, I just slid blue up all the way to have it be the brightest.

nearly forgotten about the pesky shortcut portal though. to hide this you can switch to the bottom most button in the lefthand column, and switch from "show all" to "self only" though if this is a group shot, change it to "PCs only" (i think thats the term)

you could also see in this shot my "character lighting" slider is up, this is how intensely light affects your character- mine is relatively low here because I do not want the light to be too intense.

and lastly, i used limb darkening (as well as using the cinematic frame in the 2nd button lefthand column. the one not affected by camera movement. I find the frames pretty straightforward but let me know if you'd like me to talk more about them) you could tell the difference in mood. left is without, and right is with. It depends on the vibe you want, but I personally always think a teensy vignette can do a lot for a picture

and with that, this is the final result, and the one I showed at the beginning! Though not necessary, you could always take it a step further and run it through an editing program (personal recommendation if you want something free is photopea, which is an in-browser photoshop replica) or even using photography knowledge like rule of thirds & color story. but this is still much, much better than what we have started with.

how far we've come....

[nocturnalsleuth]

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