Custom Deliveries Cutscene Bug

*This entry contains screenshots with NPC dialogue, which might be spoilers to the Custom Deliveries / Kurenai quest lines.*

Today I was doing Custom Deliveries with Kurenai and I think my internet crapped out and caused some buggy positioning on the NPC. When Sanana spoke, instead of appearing on the screen normally, she was invisible, and Kurenai weirdly looked above. I was like DAFUQ!?

Then, in the next sentence, when she talked to Sanana, I realized that she actually tried to look at Sanana… Sanana must have been floating in the air, beyond the camera frame.

The correct cutscene would look like below:

When Sanana speaks.

And then, when Kurenai talks to Sanana.

It was funny that even the cutscene could glitch like that lol!

Horrifying and Hilarious Weeping City

I MUST write about this because even Walter said after we won “I don’t know how we survived.” And yes it was weird!!!

Last night I went to Alliance Raid roulette with FC friends on Tonberry and we got Weeping City of Mhach. No, the Mhach didn’t weep. I did. And I bet my co-healer, a stranger SCH, also wept as much as I did. The start didn’t bode well. The tank seemed inexperience, and the whole party B seemed to struggle a lot.

First boss, the Arachne was….fine. We got by quite smoothly despite the fact that someone placed the web (safe spot) in the middle, and there were no less than 3 people who stayed on it and got squashed when the boss emerged from the sand vortex. I’m a bad person, so I snorted a laugh.

At Forgall, however, the errors were more fatal. See, Walter discussed with us and we agreed that we might wipe here. But the party B and the B tank never communicated with the alliance, and so we didn’t want to be rude and say “Let C tank for you.” Something weird about the Japanese Datacenter, I guess. I have hardly ever seen them communicating between parties in alliance raid. They usually keep talking to their own parties.

There was only once in my whole playtime on Tonberry that I saw someone from party B saying they’re new and need help tanking (and Mary assumed the position, reluctantly LOL). And that was after a very bad wipe, or two, I can’t really remember how bad we had it that time. So yeah, they’re drama-free. No angry messages between parties, but also no strategic planning.

Anyway, in Forgall last night, party B either 1) didn’t stun Beguiling Mist from the Summoned Succubus or 2) had been spamming Stun to the point of resist. So the Seduce fest was triggered. Haha!

Pic 1 : Before the epic death. I am not sure how and why the SCH, one of the bards, and I didn’t get charmed/seduced. Could be just lucky evade, or we were out of range (very less likely), or we were standing on the red holes and had bleeding that could prevent Seduce?

Pic 2 : I checked the battle chatlog and found that this was a cruel combo that was meant to wipe everyone.

  • Beguiling Mist (Succubus, B add) – raid-wide AoE that seduce everyone. Seduced people will walk to Succubus.
  • Rotten Breath (Dahak, A add) – close proximate (?) AoE poison breath. About 5000 – 10000 HP DMG, and Poison DoT.
  • Void Fire IV (Succubus) – ground AoE at Succubus’s position, where Seduced people walked to… About 3000 – 5000 HP DMG, and Burn DoT.
  • Voidblood (Haagenti, which was C add) – About 2000 HP DMG and perhaps also Poison?
  • Rotten Breath AGAIN (WTF, asshole!) Same deal.
  • And if you’re still alive, Haagenti uses Mortal Ray to try to get Doom on you, if you stare, you’re as good as dead.

3 of us didn’t even get Seduced, so we didn’t walk in, and didn’t get Void Fire IV, nor Voidblood, nor Rotten Breath, and survived. Walter got charmed, walked in, and walked out alive as well. Bravo to the SCH!

I used to wipe twice, back to back, on Ragnarok (Chaos Datacenter) because the party with Succubus didn’t stun it both times. It seemed like instant wipe to me, because everyone died in one hit. This is new. And my gear wasn’t that high. I was on AST 64. It was either the Bleeding (from standing on the red fiery hole) saved the few of us, or we just got a lucky evade.

Pic 3 : From there, with 8 survivors (2 in A, 2 in B, and 4 in C) we tried to recover. We raised and raised. People died, and died, because not enough heal power to keep the weakened alive…

We managed to win, eventually.

Hurray!!!!

The battle chatlog during the wipe has 13 pages, in case anyone is interested in reading for a case study, or just for fun.

And that’s it. Was tough, tiring, and funny. I won’t talk about Ozma because I am angry lol, especially in Atomos room. Last boss was a little mess, too, but we didn’t wipe. Meh. Although I’m not quite ranting, I will still put this in “My Rant” category because it was a catastrophic alliance raid. XD

NPC: Marcechamp

*Spoilers alert!*

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FFXIV 4.1 main quest spoilers below:

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Scroll down to read if you don’t mind 4.1 spoilers.

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There was an NPC in an echo we saw from the Sultana, Nanamo, whose name is  Marcechamp. The scene didn’t show his face close up, but I think we can be sure that he’s an Elezen.

Look at him.

Well, there is another Elezen guy whose name is also Marcechamp. He’s the chief hunter at Dravanian Forelands.

From what I observe from the interactions with this NPC, and the short glimpse we saw of the “other” Marcechamp in the echo scene, I would assume these two are different persons.

But I can’t be sure.

It’s either:
1) It is the same guy. He only changed so much during the years and after the change of occupation.

2) They are different Elezens, and SE only forgot they already have someone with this name.

3) Different persons, but SE did it on purpose for something.

4) Different persons, but there is nothing behind it, just coincidentally having the same name.

I am so curious and want an official answer lol. What to doooooooo!

Tiny Tatsunoko

Well, I wasn’t going to write about this, because everyone knows how to catch it already. But today I happened to have caught a Tiny Tatsunoko minion while using Normal Gig Head. Therefore, I decided I should write about it so people may find this piece of information useful.

*Flash News* While writing this entry, I have also confirmed that Small Gig Head can catch a Tiny Tatsunoko, too! :D I’ve been catching Horned Turbans at Swimming Shadows trying to confirm this. And yes, my theory turned out to be true!

What you need:

  • Unlock Spearfishing (FSH 61) through a quest.
  • Be on or have finished main scenario quest “Under the Sea” (lv 62) to access the quest NPC.
  • Be a fisher of at least level 66 and complete the level 66 class quest for a skill called “Truth of Oceans”.

What to do (short version):

  • Go to The Ruby Sea (X:38 , Y:6), near top right of the map.
  • Spearfish at Lv. 70 Teeming Waters (Kobayashi Maru).
  • Use Small Gig Head and try to catch Bashful Batfish.
  • Catch a lot of Bashful Batfish until the system mentions “Swimming Shadows” 4 times.
  • Activate your “Truth of Oceans” if you haven’t activated it yet.
  • Follow the detection and find Lv. 70 Swimming Shadows.
  • Change to either Normal Gig Head or Large Gig Head.
  • Spear.
  • Pray to Llymlaen for your luck to find a Tiny Tatsunoko.

By the way, I don’t think weather condition affects the catch. I’ve caught it in both Clear Skies and in Cloudy weathers.

Long explanation of how this thing works:

Usually it takes 2 – 4 catches of Bashful Batfish to make a message occur. The quantity and quality are irrelevant. What matters is how many times you’ve caught Bashful Batfish in your spearfish attempts. Er, I have just discovered that it is actually the quantity of Bashful Batfish, because I happened to find a +2 yields node and I got 4 messages in a row and managed to spawn the Shadows within one node. But since Sea Lamp is in the way, sometimes it is hard to get a Bashful Batfish to trigger the spawn. (I don’t mind them that much, though, because Sea Lamps are used in fishing Levequests, so they sell quite well, especially HQ.

  • When I catch a Sea Lamp in first try, I spend 200 GP on Veteran Trade to make it so I’ll only catch a Bashful Batfish until that node ends.
  • I especially like to use Veteran Trade while engaging a node that grants +2 attempts (or +2 yields, due to the discovery in the pic above).
  • The messages that notify you about Swimming Shadows are as follows:
    • With the bashful batfish caught, you sense further movement in the shadows.
    • With the bashful batfish caught, the swimming shadows intensify.
    • With the bashful batfish caught, the swimming shadows begin to take shape!
    • The shadow of an elusive sea creature lurks somewhere nearby!

I should take about 12, or 15 at most, catches of Bashful Batfish to trigger the spawn of a Lv.70 Swimming Shadows at Kobayashi Maru.

  • Optional things to do when you find a node of Swimming Shadows:
    • Eat a Gatherer’s food, like a Nomad Meat Pie (sold by NPC at Reunion, Azim Steppe) because the fish WILL escape A LOT. You want to decrease the escape chance as much as possible.
    • Before engaging the node, wait for your GP to regenerate to full.
    • Shoo the fish you don’t want, using Veteran Trade. Only once.
    • Use Calm Waters to increase available attempts. I usually use this twice.
    • When bubbles appear, wait for 1 or 2 ticks of GP generation before spearing, in order to allow enough time for GP to refresh, hoping for the 2nd Calm Waters.
  • The Swimming Shadow reacts like BTN and MIN Unspoiled Node. You can only engage it once. If you disengage before it is depleted, it will still disappear.

Funny thing about all of the Swimming Shadows is that the node will always be “Undiscovered fishing hole” and, unfortunately and irritably, they have no Fishing Log of their own.

Fish list at Lv.70 Swimming Shadows:

Small Gig Head
– Bashful Batfish (use Veteran Trade to shoo this!!!)
– Horned Turban (CUL ingredient)
– Tiny Tatsunoko

Normal Gig Head
– Spiny Lobster (crafting ingredient for cooking)
– Swordtip (crafting ingredient for cooking)
– Tiny Tatsunoko

Large Gig Head
– Thousandfang (Collectable fish for Yellow Gatherer’s Scrips at level 70, also great for level 280+ CUL Desynthesis skill up.)
– Mitsuriku Shark (Red Gatherer’s Scrips, if I remember correctly *but it doesn’t always appear on Rowena’s House of Splendor wanted list, you need some luck to get it on the list.*)
– Tiny Tatsunoko

So, you see, there are 3 types of things you can catch at this Lv 70 Swimming Shadows with each type of Gig Head. That’s why it’s difficult to reliably land a Tiny Tatsunoko. Because even if you shoo one type of unwanted fish away, the other one will still be in your way. XD But at least Veteran Trade can get rid of one of them.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Happy hunting!

P.S. Here’s my personal record of which gig head can spear which fish, it’s incomplete but it might become useful to some people. https://goo.gl/n9xbTq

 

DoL Yellow Scrips gear

Now I can say good-bye to Rowena’s House of Slavery Splendor for a while…

Just finished farming Yellow Scrips to trade for the new equipment, iLV 300. The main hands were 1300 scrips each, and the armors were 2700 per set. So, between 3 DoL classes, I had to farm 12,000 Yellow Scrips.

Suffice it to say I had a nightmare of repeatedly mining and missing the nodes the night after… The grind was so haunting. I am happy, though, that there is no weekly limit to the Yellow Scrips earning.

Fisher

Botanist

Miner

Miner has lit lamp at night lololol!!!

Goodbye Heavensward – En Taro Adun

Waiting for Stormblood now, I dug up some of my recent screenshots.

It’s hard to steal a group shot of our FC. :( Especially when /gpose kept making Dew turn away from the camera. This is weird. It sometimes happened with specific emotes, but I don’t know what caused it.

Kuji siting on the fire with his shield on fire. LOL

Before Kuji arrived, Dew, Corn and I went to Dun Scaith and had quite an ordeal with the party/alliance. People died a lot. They died way too much, including my healer buddy. ><;; Sad panda. It was extremely exhausting!

After whining about Kuji’s being late, I showed him my new hair from Gold Saucer event.

I actually changed to new hair since a few days ago, after I finished the event. And Corn happened to change to the new hair too. He saw mine when we got into Baelsar’s Wall for Bray’s Main Q and he laughed.


Good pic in front of the boss room, but Corn’s Garuda photobombed my face. T_T

Hotbars and Actions

*This guide is OBSOLETE as of Stormblood release, in June 2017, because there is no more “Cross Class Action” and they implemented a new system called Roles. So you select the skills/spells from role list in a similar way with this.*

Sorry, had to split this entry into a new one because it’s long and has so many screenshots.

Now let’s talk about Hotbars and Actions (Abilities/Skills/Spells).

You can put many things in your Hotbar for fast access or execution. Now, let’s see what you can do about your hotbar and skills and spells.

(See my messy Hotbars HAHAHAHA)

First, open your Actions & Traits menu by using shortcut button, P. Or open it manually from main menu => Character => Actions & Traits.

In the left pane, select “Actions” for active skills. It will list your currect class/job skills, arranged chronologically by level.

Usually, when you newly level up and learn/acquire a new spell or skill, the spell/skill will automatically appear on the next available slot on Hotbar 1. But if your Hotbar 1 is full, it may or may not show up on Hotbar 2. If it does not appear, you have to manually put it on the hot bar in order to able to use the spell/skill.

Also, if you don’t like where the skill was automatically assigned, you can “Unlock” your hotbar arrangement and rearrange the spells/skills as you like by dragging and dropping it. To unlock your Hotbar buttons, click on the lock (padlock) icon on the right of your Hotbar 1.

Next, let’s explore your additional abilities. These are sometimes called “Cross-class skills” and it can only be acquired by leveling up other class/job. Once you learn the skill or spell from other class, when you come back to play your main class, you can “steal” or “borrow” some spells/skills from other class.

Select “Additional” category on the left pane of your Actions & Traits menu. You will have to drag and drop the ability from this window onto your Hotbar.

For example, I have Swiftcast ability and have it selected in my Additional ability menu, but didn’t have it on my Hotbar. So I click on it and hold the mouse button…..and then drag it to the desired spot on my Hotbar.

To remove the spell/skill from your hotbar, to make an empty slot again, you can either drag the skill and throw it away outside of the hotbar area (make sure the Hotbar is unlocked) or you can right click on the spell/skill and choose “remove” on the menu that appears.

Oh, but if your “Additional” ability menu is empty, you have to select the class you want to borrow it from. Here, in the pic below, you can see that at level 20, we’re allowed to choose 4 cross-class abilities. To choose a skill/spell, you have to select the check box to make it appear below.

When you select other class in the menu on the left, it will show available abilities from the other class. Here, in the example, I select ACN (Arcanist) abilities and enabled Eye for an Eye skill.

I can now drag “Eye for am Eye” from Additional abilities window onto my Hotbar.

Oh, and after this, if I want to change to enable other spells/skills instead, I can uncheck the box of “Eye for an Eye” to make the slot empty again. The skill on my Hotbar will become dim (grey out) and can no longer be used, until I reselect it again.

One interesting thing about Cross-class skills is that when you’re under the effect of Level Sync (like, going into a dungeon that’s lower level than you, or participate in a FATE at lower level than you) the Additional Abilities available slots will be limited (capped down).

See that I had unlocked 4 slots for Additional Abilities, up to level 40. But now I am level 20, so the system only allowed me to use 2 cross-class skills, showing 4/2 beside the Level Sync status symbol. The ones in the slots of higher level are disabled (greyed out, or dimmed).

When inside the dungeon, if you have no enmity (no aggro, meaning not fighting or did not do anything to help the party member who’s fighting) you can rearrange (change order) of Additional Abilities to make you able to access the skills/spells that you need more than the others.

Please note, though, that swapping Cross-class skills inside a dungeon has the same effect as changing class/job outside of Sanctuary area, most of your abilities will become “used” and need to wait for the recast cooldown timer.

Here, for example, if you enter the dungeon with abilities arranged in this order, you cannot cast Protect for your party. You can rearrange the order by drag and drop, to exchange spots of the abilities.

EXTRA: if you’re a healer and you want to help the party DPS (shooting offensive spells at enemies) and you want to stay on Cleric Stance, you can use the Cross-Class skill swapping trick to enable Cleric Stance, use it, and stay in Cleric Stance, then swap other spells or skill to be enabled instead. Or if you know the party will finish the dungeon within 30 minutes (before Protect wears off), you can also use Protect on the party, and then swap Additional skills, putting Protect spell away and selecting other spells instead, too.

Hotbar : Customizing your Hotbars

As you can see, on your game screen, there are rows of skill bars with 10 buttons each, this is called Hotbar.

By default, when you newly start the game, it will show only 2 bars, but you can config your settings to make it show more. You can rearrange the buttons order, you can move your bars to specific part or corner of your screen. You can also set or assign (keybind) shortcut button for each of the hotbar button as well. (Like, ALT+1 or CTRL+5, or even SHIFT+CTRL+0 – but we will explain Keybind settings in depth later.)

To access your Horbar configuration, first hit K button to open your System menu and select Character Configuration.

Then among the red and gold buttons on the left pane, select “Hotbar Settings” category. You can see in the pic below that there are checkboxes. When you check it, the interface of you gameplay screen will show the hotbar you select.  The unchecked ones will be hidden, invisible.

On the right, you can also select the form of the specific hotbar. They can be vertical or horizontal, and can appear as 1 row, 2 rows, or 4 rows.

Look at my Hotbar 10, for example. Now it’s invisible because the box is not checked.

When you check or light up the checkbox of Hotbar 10, it will appear somewhere on your screen. You can drag it to reposition to anywhere you like.

See how when you change choice of form, it became 3×4 row instead of 1 long row.

Next, let’s explore one function of the Horbar Settings: Enable hotbar cycling button. This setting applies to your default Hotbar 1. When it is enabled (it’s enabled by default), you will see the arrow button above and below number 1 of Hotbar 1, on your screen. When you click the arrow, it will show other bar instead of Horbar 1.

This is good for when you want to quickly access other Hotbar that you didn’t set to show. For faster selection, you can also use Shift+1 or Shift+5, for example, to immediately jump to the hotbar number that you desire.

When you uncheck the box for “Enable hotbar cycling button” it will no longer let you use the arrow to change hotbar display. But you can still use the Shift+NUMBER command to jump between horbars.

NEXT: Hotbars and Actions (Abilities/Skills/Spells)
NEXT: Hotbars and putting things on your Hotbars.

HUD Layout

Alright, now let’s talk about HUD Layout. HUD means Head-Up Display, and it refers to all the menu and user interface you see on your screen.

Extra note: When you want to take a screenshot without seeing the interface, you can hit the button: Scroll Lock (ScrLk) on your keyboard once, and all HUD will be hidden. If you hit the same button again, they will come back. If you use Notebook computer and don’t have Scroll Lock button, you have to manually set a Keybind (assign shortcut keys to commands) in the Keybind menu.

To access HUD Layout menu, you must look at your main menu (the row of small buttons that are red and gold) and use the “System” button.

The “System” button will bring up a small list. There, you can see some menu have its own Shortcut Key already assigned. They will show the name of button as a reminder for you when you want to use shortcut key.  Now, select HUD Layout.

This will bring up a transparent overlay, telling you where things are. Usually, the default HUD setting is cumbersome…. Now you can rearrange everything to your liking. You can either use the mouse to grab and drag any window in HUD Layout setting, and move it to anywhere you want. But if some HUD frames are too close to each other or overlap, and you cannot grab the one you want, you can use this pulldown menu to make the wanted HUD frame become selected, then you can drag it to the spot you like.

There are 4 slots to save HUD Layouts, this is useful if you have different HUD Layouts specially designed for different situations or different dungeons. If you want to copy a HUD Layout from a slot you saved, to a new slot, you have to use the gear (cog) button here.

And select the original slot, and select the destination to copy. Now, from example screenshot below, your slot 4 will have same setting as slot 1.

If you select other unsaved slot, it will show default HUD Layout, like this.

Now, don’t forget to hit “Save” button before you exit the menu.

Some elements of the HUD can be dragged and dropped on play screen without having to go into HUD Layout menu. Hotbars, for example, can be grabbed with your mouse cursor (if you didn’t disable drag and drop for Hotbars.) You have to aim for the Hotbar’s number in front of the row, right click with your mouse, hold and move, then release the mouse button where you want it to stay.

Same for the Chat box. If you grab and hold the first tab, you can move the whole chat window and reposition it.

If you grab on other tab of chat, however, when you drag it, it will pop out and separate from the main chatlog window. You can float it anywhere, so now you can read 2 chat tabs at the same time. If you want to put it back together, you have to click on the X button to close the float window.

I think that’s it for HUD Layout guide.

Lord Hubby – Lavender Beds

Went out to the Lavender Beds with Raykit’s Lord Haurchefant for a session of photo shoot.

Yesterday, late night, Raykit told me she was going to play FE (something like that) and thus she would log into her Lord Haurchefant alt to let me take screenshots while she’s half AFK. So, here goes my spam. XD
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Lavender Beds has some wonderful spot for photo shooting.

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Even at night, with proper lighting from grouppose control, we can still take pictures with good exposure and colours. The photos below, however, were mostly adjusted outside of the game using PC program called PhotoScape and one of its presets of Film Effect.

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Night turned into morning, and I was still there spamming my screenshot button gleefully, LOL.

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I took about 200 screenshots in this session, and I’m posting 42 of them. Most of the pics were repeated shots of same thing, trying to achieve best lighting/position/direction/details.

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What’s a bummer was that while I was adjusting the camera angle and distance of the pic below, it became 8 o’clock and the weather changed, giving us Fog.

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//screams with frustration!

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At least the fog wasn’t too ugly and did not obstruct the photo that much (like, for example, Dust Storm is a hair-pulling kind of weather for any screenshot freak.)
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The new /gpose features are really, really great. SE did a wonderful job.

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The tree in the mist does look pretty, after all.

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Another extreme adjustment from Film Effect.

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The one below was natural lighting from in-game.

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Nice pose, nice angle, but that Botanist NPC…..

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I could even tilt the camera 90° and take portrait pics.

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Love it! Great job, SE.

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Teeheehee!

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Happy time.

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Then, we moved to other part of the Lavender Beds.

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This lotus pond is nice.

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Background…. foggy green sky. Cry.

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I adjusted color temperature in PhotoScape and turned it more blue.

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Self note: I have to go back there again and take this pic with bright blue sky.

It will be a nice wallpaper for my phone. XD
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After that, we moved to Dappled Stalls. It’s a nice small field of flowers, with chocobos in the background LOL!

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Sunset…

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And then night time came. I had to rely heavily on gpose lighting, otherwise the characters look too dark.

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The 2 pics below took 24 attempts, as it cannot be done smoothly in gpose. The hand position was achieved by having Lord-sama stand in a specific pose where he kind of runs his hand through front hair, or smooths it back, and I entered /gpose and quickly capture the photo in 1 second. Cannot adjust camera angle or lighting before taking pic, and if the timing failed, I had to exit /gpose and re-enter again. XD

What a fuss! But it’s totally worth it.

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Night sky.

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Embrace and salute.

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Really gotta love the stop/pause function in /gpose.

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Can pick the best frame of the emote to create desires positioning.

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:3 Same pause, different angle.

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Many different angles, actually.

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Cannot achieve this without stop/pause function. Bravo SE!

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Could even take a vertical pic.

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Huggle!

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Our old trick, using /bow to make Lord-sama lean closer into the hug.

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Last pic, it’s purely in-game lighting, without additional lighting from /gpose. Day time in the game really gives nice and vibrant colours. Really love it.

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