T w e n t y S i d e d

…depending on what calendar you use. Not to mention if you live on a different planet. This holiday season seems to be just a bit off-kilter, timing-wise. I mean, it’s still *days* until New Years. I’ve been using my time off (and difficulty adjusting to everyone having different schedules for a few weeks) collecting “Snow-Covered Parcels” in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I think I’m just about done. I did not notice that all purchasable Life Day rewards are “bind on pick-up,” which means you have to either carefully plan which character might actually use anything you buy, or buy everything useful for *each* character. Except stronghold decorations, which bind to legacy because that’s the only way decorations work. But that’s my fault; I didn’t read the label closely before starting the event.

I more-or-less teased in the last post that I will be diving into the Final Fantasy franchise in 2025. There might be a different project coming up soon, but the timing of that scenario is currently unknown. So, look forward to some upcoming posts on the beginning of Final Fantasy. I have as many as half-a-dozen versions of some of the early games, but the current plan is to use the Pixel Remaster versions of 1 – 6. For convenience, of course; but also because even though there are “improved” and “expanded” versions of the games available, the Pixel Remasters are mostly true to the original released version of the game. The core experience, if you will; with quality-of-life fixes. And of course updated pixel art that makes the game playable at HD resolutions. I *may* diverge for FF III and IV, as they both have 3D remakes that are both still included in the official Square Enix listing of the games. (As opposed to the original PC releases of Final Fantasy V and VI which have been deprecated in favor of the Pixel Remaster versions.) I still own these two games and haven’t picked up the newer versions. One tempting aspect of these “old versions” is the availability of mods. Arguably the *most* recommended version of Final Fantasy VI at this point is a modded PC version with HD art that matches the original manuals, tons of bug fixes, all additions ever made to the game, and who knows what else. Tempting, but I will likely stick with the more-basic version.

And I have to get through 1 – 5 first, anyway.

The constant griping about the graphics update in SWTOR, at least as it applies to some skins and faces, is finally fading away. I was going to document what I’ve seen that might match up with the complaints, but instead just learned something new about one of the commonly-used outfits. The Republic and Empire sides both have “slave/dancer” outfits that are pretty easy to acquire. Yes, based on the “Slave Leia” outfit for the Republic, with the Empire version taking cues from Oola, the Twi’lek dancer. Oola’s base outfit was nothing but a mesh-material slingshot bodysuit with some mesh strips forming sort-of pantaloons. It was, in fact, see-through. Very. The costume had to be modified with a less-transparent loin cloth, at least in front. I can’t speak for any later digital modifications, but the see-through top was *not* modified. The rationale was that the darkness of the scene, fast movement, and low-resolution would render any possible peek-a-boo moment meaningless. If you have one of several early home releases of Return of the Jedi, you can verify Femi Taylor, the dancer playing Oola, does in fact pop out of costume while struggling with Jabba. Although the other concerns regarding visible detail were absolutely true.

I have the aforementioned Imperial Dancer outfit for one companion; Khundast Zeele’s spouse Vette. You’ve seen them in several pictures I posted. In fact, I was so satisfied with Zeele reaching the culmination of that relationship I pretty-much stopped leveling him and only used his crew skills. Until recently, when I decided to finish out all my higher-leveled characters to 80, and it’s currently Lord Zeele’s turn. I bring all of that up to set the context for what I noticed on Nar Shaddaa while doing the Life Day activities. Nar Shaddaa, of course, has many female-presenting characters in dancer outfits. I think a couple of male-presenting characters, too; which is something you absolutely can do. The main areas of Nar Shaddaa comprise bars, clubs, casinos, etc.; so this all makes reasonable sense. While wandering around hugging Wookiees and throwing snowballs, and looking for good examples of skin textures to examine, I found this:

My first thought was “Oh, they added some kind of back tattoo.” It’s honestly something I never paid attention to, but I would *think* I would notice something that obvious. It caught my eye this time. You can see the increased skin texturing they added as well, with a lot of muscular definition on the back and shoulders and arms. I was able to verify that another dancer with the same outfit had the same “tattoo,” although a lot of the details only come through in the right lighting. Which, honestly, has been something a lot of people have pointed out with the texture upgrades: the things they have a problem with only show up in certain lighting. Seeing two identical tattoos though, did make me wonder; what if all that detail is in the OUTFIT? And, as I said, I do own the Imperial Dancer outfit, which is technically different from these. I think these are the “Elegant Dancer” outfit. So I loaded Lord Zeele with Vette.

You can see the same pattern on Vette, although it’s less clear because Vette’s lekku create shadow no matter how you manage to position her. Again, I hadn’t noticed before. But on Vette, it’s maybe a bit harder to see. I do think this indicates it’s part of the outfit, not some kind of universal back tattoo. Vette is a different species and body type from the dancers on Nar Shaddaa. I did some image searching to see if I could verify this detail was always part of at least some of the dancer outfits, but didn’t find anything conclusive. Most of the screenshots just weren’t high-enough detail. I did find some video stills that *seem* to indicate this pattern being present. Regardless, it does seem clear that something in how they updated the skin textures made it more apparent, anyway. In fact, there seems to be a “whole body” effect. Here’s Vette’s front:

The lines on the shoulders and chest are obvious against Vette’s red skin. You can also see a kind of paneling in the center of her chest. Less distinct are lines moving down her abdomen, *and* on her legs. I didn’t get a screenshot, but at one point I had Vette in different light and all these patterns were much more distinct. Similarly, another dancer displayed the lines down the legs and abdomen:

You can also see the lines on the shoulder are more pronounced. The quality and quantity of lighting really does matter. I really didn’t mean for this to be a cheesecake show, but the dancer outfits, frankly, show off the most skin. I actually really appreciate the much more detailed musculature. The old versions of the skin textures where very smooth and plastic-y.

Life Day reminded me once again you can’t actually create this in the character creator:

And finally, I did spend some of my small horde of Cartel Coins on a few sale items. New robes for Rix’larril’an’s cousin Master Ranos, along with Chrome, Black, and White armor dye that matches the Chiss Ascendancy aesthetics. Even a fallen Jedi Master needs to look right.

With all that, I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable end to 2024 and beginning to 2025. Remember, as much as it feels like today, 2525 is still 500 years away.

Paige Francis He/him