From what I can tell, that depends more on the style you’re applying the dye to. When I put voidstone violet on, say, a heavy DC style chest, it’s nice and dark blue and shiny. Put the same color on a heavy style chest that has more of a leathery look than a metallic look, and it ends being more matte than shiny.

It depends on the material. I find that rarer dyes are more likely to be shiny or if the base material is shiny, the dye is also likely to be shiny.

Even worse, materials that look the same will dye differently when combining some style, especially if you have newer and older motifs mixed together. I found the best may to check for compatible dyeing was to throw on random bright colors and check that those colors dye the same or close on the metal and leather parts of the different motifs. If the same green is much shinier on my boots than my chest, I know those two pieces won't dye well together and it will take a lot of fiddling with it to get the right colors.

You could try looking at characters made here and looking for dyes on materials that you like, though not everyone marks their dyes: https://eso.mmo-fashion.com/customized-sets/
Or here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/394909/outfits-megathread/p1

NeKryXe wrote: »

i don't mind the the shiny colors on metal materials. i find it easy to pick colors for heavy outfits. the problem is when i'm trying to dye a light or medium outfit. even in supposedly textile materials or leather, most colors add a metallic finish look. obviously i avoid using the rare colors, those are the worst by far ...but even on the normal ones it's hard to find matte colors.

Yeah, common dyes are usually the least, "shiny," though even then, sometimes, some combos are fairly bright. Also worth remembering that a lot of cloth has leather parts. Though, if you're talking about motifs like Glass or Ebony, those can be legitimately difficult to dye.

Actually, interesting thing with Ebony, some of the best matte dyes are rares, which will display in utterly bizarre, but very subdued, tones. For example, putting Nirncrux Red on Light Ebony will give you a nice warm brown. Motif Master Brown will give you a dark maroon/wine. It all depends on the dyes, and experimenting with the item you have.

I vastly prefer the matte colors, too.
There's pretty much one thing I like to use a shiny dye on, and that's belt buckles (and then only in a metallic gray).

And since we're discussing dyes ... we really need another pink in the game. It's definitely the rarest color.

The dyes themselves are actually fairly neutral, its mainly the specular map (the part of the texture that determines how shiny it is) on the armor pieces themselves that determine how shiny something will be.

Some dyes, as the aforementioned coldharbour ash black, actually succeed at negating the armors specular map, at least to some degree, but how most dyes display is, in fact, determined by the armor piece, not the dye itself.

For example: Take the Malacath Light Chest. Dye it with Eyevea Blue (an uncommon dye) and you get a gorgeous, almost suede looking dark dark teal.
Now take the Bloodroot Forge Medium Chest. Dye it with that same Eyevea dye. It is a dark neon aqua blue that is shiny as my favorite spandex shirt on a saturday night.

That is not the dye, that is the armor and the specular maps of the armors all being different.
Try dyeing different pieces with the same dye, you will see what I am talking about.

Ebony is a personal favorite of mine and I am so happy it got mentioned!
The specular map on the leather elements of Ebony armor is glorious, as the high points have a high specular (high gloss) and the low points have almost zero specular (totally matte)
The result of this is any of the rare or uncommon dyes with interesting shiny or gloss effects of their own show up as a kind of two tone effect, and it almost always looks amazing.
My favorite is Entoloma Blue on the leather elements of Ebony gear. It looks absolutely stunning.

anyway, experimentation with dyes is the key to a happy outfit!

I don't mind steel having a different specular map than cloth or leather. Seems fine to me. But the differences between one heavy set and another are frustrating. Additionally, while it's fine for the 'shiny' to change based on type of material, the COLOR should not. There should be consistency between the colors and I really wish the art team would take another look at the resources for the armor styles to provide a little better consistency between them.