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Skin appears darker than inside of Photoshop

PostPosted: September 1st, 2013, 6:23 am
by Lance
Long and boring story short, it's come to my attention that a skin applied to Xion is overall slightly darker in tones than when the skin is open in Photoshop. It's very subtle but it's easy to see if you screenshot your skin in use and layer it over top of the PSD. It's even easier to tell with dark skins.

I'm sure nearly everyone will say "so what", but it's actually becoming a bit of a nuisance for me. I wouldn't know where to begin in explaining why it's happening, only thought I have would be a difference in bitdepth? Is that even a factor for Xion? I'm using the standard 8bit RGB in PS.

Anyways, I've tested this with a bunch of skins from different authors and used a color picker to be certain. And nope, my Xion transparency isn't set to 99%.

Sgoingon?

Re: Skin appears darker than inside of Photoshop

PostPosted: September 1st, 2013, 12:33 pm
by regener8ed
interesting.

out of curiosity, i made some reference patches and it's not just a simple matter of darkening -- while Xion seldom renders a value of 255, it also seems to never render a value of zero.

(PSD): Xion
(255,255,255): 255,254,254
(255,0,0): 255,1,1
(255,255,0): 254,254,1
(0,255,0): 2,255,2
(0,255,255): 1,254,254
(0,0,255): 2,1,254
(255,0,255): 255,2,255
(0,0,0): 2,1,2

Re: Skin appears darker than inside of Photoshop

PostPosted: September 1st, 2013, 6:33 pm
by SLoB
Are you using CC Lance? As they are now using the GPU direct for rendering, that could explain some other subtle differences? Whereas Xion is still using software rendering until Cliff adds in the hardware rendering. There was a quick demo (not public demo version) of the hardware rendering a fair while back.
IF the above is the case then it will be the gfx card settings either ATI/Nvidia differences, possibly most notable dithering and vibrance?

Re: Skin appears darker than inside of Photoshop

PostPosted: September 1st, 2013, 6:37 pm
by SLoB
Hmm, while I think of it, would be cool if Xion could make use of mapping images such as specular & bump maps to give some extra life to things ;)

Re: Skin appears darker than inside of Photoshop

PostPosted: September 1st, 2013, 8:51 pm
by Cliff Cawley
Hi all,

This will be due to the optimizations used for rendering in software mode. There are some inaccuracies introduced which allow for greater speed.

I'll add this to the Todo list to verify, but I'm fairly sure this is the case.

Cliff :)

Re: Skin appears darker than inside of Photoshop

PostPosted: September 1st, 2013, 10:49 pm
by Lance
Not using CC myself SLoB.

I toggled my Nvidia settings, namely the "let other other applications control color" but it makes no difference whether enabled or disabled.

Cliff seems to have explained it though so that's fine. Out of interest, how much of a speed difference is there without optimizing?

Re: Skin appears darker than inside of Photoshop

PostPosted: September 4th, 2013, 3:00 pm
by Cliff Cawley
A considerable different. It's the difference between float and int operations.

I'll take a look when a get a chance though, it's possible a bug has snuck in :)