Atmoran Bronze Dye is Dark Blue on New Costumes

Donari

I just got the Holiday in Balmora and Grazeland's Gentleman Farmer costumes. Atmoran Bronze in the brown hues comes out dark blue on all parts of the costumes. I spot checked on the Brilliance Brocade Robes and it works fine on them as a rich coppery brown.

Adventurer Brown does come out brown on the Balmora pants and boots (the difficulty of dyeing the top has been separately addressed on the forums), so it appears to be an issue specific to Atmoran Bronze.

VoodooPlatypus

Hey there, @Donari.

I suspect the issue (or one of the issues) is that it has more than a single color in its makeup. There are a number of different threads here in the forums in which people (with FAR greater expertise than I) have discussed the "specular" effects that different colors will display. A lot of this has to do with the texture of the piece being dyed, but some of it has to do with the color itself.

As I understand it, the "common" colors, while less vivid, are much more basic - they have just the one color in their individual design. The "uncommon" colors have a bit more to them - perhaps minor "specular" effect added or something. (Again, there are resident experts here in the forums who could elaborate this with far more technical detail than I can, but you get the idea I'm sure.) The "rare" colors have the most vivid base color assigned to them, but often have more than one color attached - the completion of Maelstrom Arena gives "Blademaster's Mauve," for example, and that color has some hot pink, purple, and blue that all show up, depending on lighting and the texture of the garment to which the color is applied. I experienced the same thing with the "Grazeland's Gentleman Farmer" costume and commented about it in another thread, but I suspect the "specular" thing going on with the "Atmoran Bronze" is that there's a blue undertone beneath the brown, so it shows up much differently than anticipated. The "Motif Master Brown" shows up as purple on the boots for that costume. Go figure.

Regardless, I think there are some programming issues that occurred with that outfit (as well as the "Holiday in Balmora" one that has everyone so up in arms right now). The colors simply do not look the way you think they will based on the swatches in the dye station.

Donari

Yes, I saw the "specular" thread(s). ESO dyes generally don't apply very well or intuitively thanks to whatever those technical underlying issues imply. Heck, even in GW2's far more robust dye system, there are sometimes problems with matching dye types to material types.

I'm not complaining about the dulled down nature of the ESO dyes, far from it. I even back in beta or early post launch provided feedback stating my opinion that there shouldn't necessarily be bright dyes (I've done a lot of historical costuming in my life and I understand the history of dyes) but that there should be -some- color beyond muddy grey and brown -- this was well before ESO introduced their dye system, so we were all stuck with the crude untanned hides and burlap of the garments available.

I just thought this particular case involved something so egregiously different from the dye's palette that it warranted a report in case something can be done, or at the very least, future costumes can take these problems into account in their design.

VoodooPlatypus

@Donari:

Yeah, I see what you are saying. I think the two newest additions to the costume line-up (Balmora and Farmer) do have something wrong going on with them. As evidenced from the overwhelmingly negative feedback in the forums regarding the Balmora costume's dye issues (or at least the lack of ability to effectively dye), the way these new costumes "take color" is unexpected. By now I would think many/most of us are used to the, um, let's call it persnickety nature the dye system in ESO has, but there is still something very strange about the way certain colors are rendered on these two new costumes. Perhaps the developers modified the way "leather" renders color for these new in-game assets.

I don't know for sure, but I think the top portion of the Balmora costume is supposed to be velvet, and up until now I'm not sure we've had anything that was in that texture. This could explain why the colors render with such a low level of saturation. With the Farmer costume, the seeming randomness of the colors applied is what gets me too. Bronze (of any tier, etc.) should not show up as blue. Brown should not show up as purple. I can't think of a texture they would be trying to emulate with those boots other than leather (or perhaps cloth), so why it would pull one of the under-tones from the color itself seems very, very unusual, so I think you're right - something is broken, but I don't think it's the dye so much as it is the outfit.

I hope they address it. If it goes too long without a revision and they address it later on, it will likely cause more of an uproar - changing items post-purchase seems to generate a loss of faith and an increase in resentment toward ZOS. (Think: Earthtear Cavern.)