A few people have asked me how I did get that kind of glowy glitchy crystal effect on my hair so here’s a step-by-step guide!
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NOTE: results WILL vary depending on the hair you use and especially how the highlights are mapped.
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For this tutorial I will use the Pyxis hairstyle by Kydeimos because it works quite well for this.
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QUICK WARNING: What we’re going to do in step 1 will be saved directly in the mod files. I will put the usual, default values in the tutorial in case you want to rollback. If you feel unsure, just duplicate your hair mod and edit one of the copies!
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Don’t be scared! It will be fine I promise! Just follow the steps.
First of all, enable the mod and equip the hairstyle with Glamourer or by right clicking on the appropriate version in the Changed Items tab of the mod.
Now go to the Advanced Editing tab of the mod:
It will open a new window with a lot of information and tabs. Go to the Materials tab and in the first dropdown menu select the right material file. If you’re wearing the hairstyle, the material currently used will be highlighted in light green:
For this tutorial you can ignore the Shader, Textures and Samplers and Further Content parts.
We’re interested in the Material Constants part.
Don’t worry about the yellow warning.
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Basically a material file is just a big bunch of parameters telling FFXIV how to display the surface of a 3D model: which shader to use, which texture files should I slap on them, and other parameters like the gear colortable or what we’re going to see now.
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Double click if you want to set a specific value or drag the counter left/right if you want to increase/decrease the value.
In either case, the hair will be updated live and you’ll see the results.
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Open the Material Constants part. Whoah! Technical shenanigans!
Scroll down until you find the g_ShaderID parameter and set it to 14.000. Hair might be more blurry and shiny now.
Not far below you’ll find the g_SheenAperture, g_SheenRate and g_SheenTintRate parameters.
g_SheenAperture defines how wide the sheen is, with 0 being “please eat all the model” and the higher you set it, the smaller the sheen. Let’s try to set it to 7.
g_SheenRate defines the intensity/saturation of the sheen, the higher the “brighter”. Set it to 4 for example.
g_SheenTintRate defines how much the highlights color will influence said sheen. 0 is white, positive is your highlights color and negative is the reverse color. Set it to 5 for example.
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Your material constants don’t look like what’s listed in the picture? Maybe you installed Cordia Qoet’s material development kit! Don’t worry, just input the values in the same fields (g_ShaderID is just Shader ID, g_SheenRate is Sheen…) and you’re good. Nothing changes behind the scenes it’s only modifying your UI to show you the relevant values in a clean way and ditch the unused ones.
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Black and blue original hair
After setting ShaderID to 14
After toying with Sheen params
Now your hair should have a glowy, shiny, ethereal, I don’t know how to call it effect. Turn your camera around it’s fun!
Don’t close the window yet. If you’re satisfied with the Sheen values, use the Save to File button right below the dropdown material selector.
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Tip: some operations like saving or redrawing can break the live preview. If you’re changing shader values and nothing happens, click on the Reload live preview button below the Save one.
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You can stop here if you’re satisfied! Don’t hesitate to play with the colors in Glamourer and see what happens with brighter or darker colors.
Also the Sheen values were given as an example but you can tune them to your taste! Slide the values by dragging left and right and check the result. Don’t forget to save.
