The curious case of Sylvari black eyes

[WolandPL.4280]

You know what I'm talking about - no matter how vibrant the color is, whatever you pick, no matter how many gems you spent on the total makeover kit - unless the light falls at just the right angle or it's currently night time, your favorite salad character will have completely black eyes. I just cannot be the only one person who's bothered by this, but I assume that it exists since the very beginning of the game and ANet has refused to fix this issue - so my question is: why?

[Zeefa.3915]

Don't know what you talk about. My main sylvari have gold eyes. Its also fairly clear that my newest sylvari have blue eyes. Its a bit less clear on my mesmer and in some light they might look more black. But definitely on my main there is no way at all you could look at her and see completely black eyes.

It might vary between what face you choose, eyesize, iris size and what not. I am not denying you can encounter this. But a general problem with all sylvari it is not.

[CJH.2879]

Yes I've noticed it to.... however its not just this that hasn't been (fixed).... there are still clipping issues which have been there since day 1 & were never looked at (and if they were, they r either hard coded or more trouble then they r worth to try and fix. << (of course these are my best guesses). But still myself & many others never got a straight forward answer as to why these things were never addressed or were simply overlooked. Only the company itself could truly answer that as I'm just guessing.

[derd.6413]

wouldn't know since it's intentional at my end

[Danikat.8537]

@"Zeefa.3915" said:Don't know what you talk about. My main sylvari have gold eyes. Its also fairly clear that my newest sylvari have blue eyes. Its a bit less clear on my mesmer and in some light they might look more black. But definitely on my main there is no way at all you could look at her and see completely black eyes.

It might vary between what face you choose, eyesize, iris size and what not. I am not denying you can encounter this. But a general problem with all sylvari it is not.

I think you're right that it depends on the face and the eye settings. My permanent sylvari have white, gold and light green eyes respectively and they definitely don't look black, but if I remember correctly some faces do have either very dark eyes or ones where the pupil covers almost all of the eye so the iris colour isn't noticeable (same for asura and possibly charr), but I can't get in game to check for at least 6 hours.

For example you can see in the Wiki's screenshot of the default faces the one in the middle of the bottom row has much darker eyes than any of the others:

But that would be my advice for the OP, and anyone else bothered by this. Go to one of the total makeover NPCs and play around with not just eye colour but face selection and the eye size and shape sliders to see if you can fix it. You might have to compromise - for example if it's because of the face you chose you might have to pick another one you don't like as much, so it will come down to which bothers you more. But it's definitely possible to have sylvari without black eyes.

[anninke.7469]

Some of my twigs do it too. I bet they think it makes them look mysterious.

[Ayakaru.6583]

Are.. we playing the same game?My sylvari eyes are pretty vibrant

[Witch of Doom.5739]

Wut? My Sylvari has large, bright light purple eyes. They never look all black.

[WolandPL.4280]

The fact that different faces have different eyes and that it can affect their brightness is something I noticed long time ago and it didn't bother me (as much), but it really depends on the lighting. I remember not being able to pick a violet color that was vibrant enough during daytime. Celestial eyes weren't that bad back when I had a completely white druid sylvari.

Look at that screenshot though. On "the most popular female sylvari" face the difference between different lighting is INSANE, with postprocessing actually making things even worse. The eyes are nearly black even though I think that Neon Blue is the most vibrant blue color available, and Desolation on default face is a bit better but it goes all over the place: from dark yellow to orange to very bright amber, it looks nothing like on the Makeover screen where under both lighting options it looks like a very bright yellow.

Compare that to any human eyes. Not sure about asura or charr, I don't have any characters from those races. But point is - most colors become way too dark under many circumstances.

[Danikat.8537]

Which of those screenshots do the eyes look black to you? They look darker when the face is in shadow of course, but they're still clearly blue to me, in all 5 images.

[Lexi.1398]

Never seen it myself.

What's the graphics card on peeps who see black eyes? Not sure if it is the factor affecting it, but i eyes going black at night time sounds weird to me because they're supposed to /glow/ at night.

[Batel.9206]

Perhaps it's affected by pupil size. Two of my sylvari - the more normal-looking ones - have fairly large pupils (though their irises are still clearly visible); their bright green and pinkish-red eyes can look almost entirely black in some bright/daytime lights. My third sylvari, with pinpoint pupils and bright red eyes, never has that problem: his eyes remain baleful red all the time. But all three sylvari's eyes glow brightly at night, like they're supposed to.

I always thought it was just the way the lighting interacts with their eyes. Matter of fact I rather like the phenomenon; it makes sylvari hit the intentional Uncanny Valley a little bit more.

[VDAC.2137]

@Batel.9206 said:Perhaps it's affected by pupil size. Two of my sylvari - the more normal-looking ones - have fairly large pupils (though their irises are still clearly visible); their bright green and pinkish-red eyes can look almost entirely black in some bright/daytime lights. My third sylvari, with pinpoint pupils and bright red eyes, never has that problem: his eyes remain baleful red all the time. But all three sylvari's eyes glow brightly at night, like they're supposed to.

I always thought it was just the way the lighting interacts with their eyes. Matter of fact I rather like the phenomenon; it makes sylvari hit the intentional Uncanny Valley a little bit more.

I like it as well! I purposely gave one of my sylvari nearly all black eyes to give her an uncanny fey look. None of my other sylvari ever appear to have all-black eyes — of course they look different under different lighting conditions (as does everything, naturally) but perhaps some people notice it more because sylvari eyes are relatively larger and more vivid than those of other races.

[Batel.9206]

As an illustration of black sylvari eyes...I mentioned in my previous post that one of my sylvari has bright green eyes? That's this guy. Though you'd never know it from this picture...

...the Dragon's Stand map is beautiful, and my graphics card decided to play nice for once, so I was able to sneak around before the meta started and get some really lovely screenshots. It's purely the lighting causing the strange eyes - notice how stark the lighting and shadows are elsewhere in the picture.