Don't his eyes glow? by irish-brigid

The picture is pretty self-explanatory. I love Advent Children, but this bothers me every time I watch it. In the game a bit of a point is made out of how Cloud's eyes kinda glow. It's the main reason he's able to pass himself off as a former SOLDIER. (Well, that and being able to swing that ridiculously huge sword.)

I get the impression that someone in animation dropped the ball on this one. It can't be that hard to get eyes to glow if I was able to do it by messing with levels and color balance in a long obsolete version of PhotoShop on my laptop.

Texas-Momo Featured By Owner Jan 20, 2014 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Sure it's not that hard to do for one picture, but if FFAC was produced at 24 frames per second, and the original length of Advent Children is 101 minutes… would you be willing to put a glow in Cloud's eyes for 145,440 frames? On top of all the other detail you'd have to do with the hair and clothing and backgrounds and lighting and the thousand more details you'd have to do?

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Apr 6, 2014 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Don't they set the 3D models up and then 'film' the models moving? It's not like they did every frame by hand. I just don't see why they couldn't make Cloud's eyes glow as part of the character model.

DancingSpark Featured By Owner Jul 26, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Well said. That little missing detail really bugged me too. The glow sure showed up in Crisis Core when Aerith and Zack are talking about his SOLDIER eyes, but a PSP game and a high res movie are two very different things...

Even though the glow is missing, Cloud still has lovely eyes.

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Jul 31, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Yes. Yes he does. Pretty... 0.0

Dissidia012 Featured By Owner Aug 15, 2011 Student Writer

hey yeah, your photoshop looks great - even better. I wonder what happened if it was so easy to do... maybe they choose not to do it for some reason? I can't say really. It is an interesting point though, because it is so significant to Soldiers and Mako. Maybe they tried it and it looked weird ? they did try to tame his hair too... I remember reading somewhere...

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Aug 15, 2011 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Yeah. Maybe it's different for a moving image. lol I remember reading that about his hair. Actually, his whole face. From what I heard, they started out super-realistic and it looked wrong, so they started over by basically making a 3D model of his original character portrait and started dialing up the realism until it looked right.

ElvenWhiteMage Featured By Owner Oct 26, 2010 Hobbyist General Artist

You're right, his eyes are supposed to glow. Isn't there a scene in FFVII where they're all in a dark room and all you can see of Cloud is the glowing dots that pass for his eyes?

Though I have to say, it is kind of difficult to get things to glow, at least for a novice modeler like myself. The Squeenix guys can probably manage it, but to add in a glow to his eyes would probably have upped the file size and slowed it down a bit.

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Oct 26, 2010 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Yeah, and I don't expect much from the original game in that respect, but they could've done the eye glow with the movie, not to mention the FMVs for Crisis Core. It can't be that hard for the pros.

As for the scene you mentioned... I can't say I remember that. Now I'll have to play the game again!

ElvenWhiteMage Featured By Owner Oct 26, 2010 Hobbyist General Artist

Maybe I was just imagining things. Then again, it's been years since I've played the game all the way through. And Zack's eyes do glow in Crisis Core- it's just hard to tell during the FMVs. I just played through the scene where he first gets Aerith her ribbon, and then she says that SOLDIERs are scary, to which he replies that he's in SOLDIER. Then he shows her his eyes and says they're a SOLDIER trademark. They're really, really bright blue in that cutscene, which I assume is supposed to be them glowing. And then in the DMW Rush Assault sequence, you can see his eyes glowing, too, especially after he changes his hairdo.

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Oct 26, 2010 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Yeah. The cutscenes for Crisis Core are quite clear on the glowing. It's the FMVs that are a problem. His eyes are a lot darker there and you may note in the last scene where Cloud wakes up and leans over Zack there's a point where Cloud's eyes are in shadow. No glowing at all. If they glowed we'd be able to see his eyes.

I don't know, maybe the FMVs were done by different animators? Probably the same people who did Advent Children. It's kinda frustrating, because that way people don't really realize how unsettling glowing eyes are.

ElvenWhiteMage Featured By Owner Oct 27, 2010 Hobbyist General Artist

That's very true. I did notice that, too. Maybe they WERE done by the AC people, because in the FMVs in the original game, Cloud's eyes were a bright, MAKO green. Take, for example, the scene where they're escaping the Shinra building and Cloud comes screaming down the stairs on the motorcycle. You can see there that his eyes are bright, bright blue-green (very sexy!). And I agree about how "people don't realize how unsettling glowing eyes are". Weren't there several remarks in the game about how his eyes made people uneasy?

Then again, in AC, they gave Kadaj, Yazoo, Loz, and (on occasion) Cloud those bright MAKO-green eyes with the catlike pupils. Maybe that was supposed to be the "glowing eyes" bit? Though, that still doesn't explain Zack's lack of SOLDIER eyes in the CC FMVs... Certainly something to think about.

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Oct 27, 2010 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Well, the slit eyes was Sephiroth trying to exert control over Cloud. Actual SOLDIER eyes are glowing blue, as per dialog in the original FFVII and Crisis Core. (And, yes, it is very sexy! There just something about Cloud on a motorcycle.)

I've been going through the scenecaptures I've found online and editing them to add glow to Cloud's eyes. It's not easy with how low quality some of the pictures are. I have got to start getting some of my own from my copy of the movie.

The effect is rather... scary, actually.

ElvenWhiteMage Featured By Owner Oct 28, 2010 Hobbyist General Artist

Well, I did realize that, but my point is that they were also MAKO-green when Sephiroth/Jenova was trying to exert control over Cloud. In the original game, I don't remember them saying that the eyes glow blue, just that they glow. Then again, it's been years and years since I played it all the way through, and I've only recently begun to play it again. There's a very real possibility that I could be entirely wrong...

Sigh. And yes, Cloud is sexy on a motorcycle. Motorcycles are just hot in general.

Online screencaps are notorious for their low quality. I highly recommend taking them from your computer. If you have Windows Media Player (this is what I have) you can make it full-screen, and then press your "prnt scrn" button to take a screencap. Even if you only have the DVD, it's much better quality than most of the caps you'll find on the internet.

I find the effect interesting, personally.

Glowing eyes are really cool, perhaps because they ARE so unnerving.

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Oct 28, 2010 Hobbyist Digital Artist

The original game doesn't specify a color in dialog but the cutscenes and FMVs are pretty good at showing very clear blue. It's especially apparent in the scene where Tifa and Cloud fall into the lifestream.

And the hotness goes through the roof when you realize that no human would be strong enough to steer that motorcycle.

^_^ I have got to get up the nerve to put my blu-ray disk in my computer.

Glowing eyes are cool. Also kinda scary, but maybe that's because I've mostly seen them of SG-1.

(1 Reply)

loverofCloud Featured By Owner Jul 22, 2010

you're totally right, everyone in the games noticed that his eyes were glowing but one of the first thing i was wondering while watching ACwas "WHEN cloud's eyes are supposed to glow?? i don't see nothing "

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Jul 22, 2010 Hobbyist Digital Artist

I know! I kept waiting and watching. Oh! Was that a glow? No, that was reflection. Dang it, it should be obvious when he's squinting that there's light coming from his eyes. There's *nothing.* Sigh.

Tiggerola Featured By Owner Jul 22, 2010

yeah...bottom picture just overall looks better (I'm guessing that's thanks to your handiwork, the resolution/contrast is just more appealing in it X3)

irish-brigid Featured By Owner Jul 22, 2010 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Thank you. I did alter the levels with all the images (in exactly the same way for the two pictures of Cloud) because the source images were a bit washed out. The image that I did the most with was the bottom one, and that I just focused in on the eyes and messed with color balance and levels until I got a deep blue glow.

Seriously, it can't be that hard for the animators, can it?