I was working on Gpose Tips, Tricks, and Resources before DT was released, but with DT came a lot of questions and little tutorials scattered around various social media sites. I've gathered what I can and put them into one spreadsheet! This resource has tutorials and tips on how to do various things in gpose (vanilla and modded), some general photography tutorials that can be applied to posing, and templates you've probably seen people use on social media :)
Of course, this list isn't all-inclusive, so if there is something you think needs to be added, feel free to message me here or on Bluesky. As a note, I try not to add Twitter links unless there's no other choice, because people are consistently taking their accounts down/making them private, making the tutorials unavailable.
Reshade shaders and mod links are very minimal on this, btw! Only because it's a slippery slope with keeping track and trying to figure out what to add. Searching the various mod sites will generally be more fruitful anyway :) (Reshade tips and tricks are not limited, just links to shaders themselves)
I will keep this updated as I see new stuff that will help!
for me and the type of gposing i do, less is more when it comes to expressions. still, i've tried to set myself up for success when adjusting them, so i'll share what i've got here.
quick preface: i use ktisis to pose. i've seen the layout for anam, but haven't used it, and i find brio's posing a bit too finicky for my liking. i use it for supplemental features, but not posing.
blue tips will be pretty accessible, and red tips are for those who don't mind fucking around and finding out, or putting in a bit more effort.
Filter the Visible Bones in Your List
No brainer, right? Looking at the left is a nightmare.
Do yourself a favor and only activate the group you’re working with, like the mouth group on the right.
Make an Expression Pack (or several!)
When it comes to expressions, the best advice I can give is: go through the vanilla expression emotes with your character and save them as .pose files. It’s a little time-consuming, but it WILL be worth it if you’re making enhanced poses often enough. And you don’t have to stop there–if there’s a full-on emote with an expression you adore, pause it during the expression and save it the same way. You can load that face onto other poses.
A note on pre-made expressions with the new face bones: Expressions will not carry across races, nor will they carry well across faces of the same race. This is particularly noticeable for the mouth. For that reason, you may want to label your expression folders like this:
Gender > Race > Face –or– Female > Viera > Face 4
Eye Movement with Sibling Linking
This has always been the go-to, but I think it’s good to share. There’s a button that lets you move one bone while also affecting its sibling bone (for example, you can move the left eye, and the right eye will move too).
“Link Rotation” will move the bones in the same direction. You will use this the most. “Mirror Rotation” will move them in opposite directions, but the amount of movement will be the same.
I use this for eyes and eyelids to ensure I’m getting even movements and looks across the board (like below), but it works for ears, limbs, hair, you name it! If there’s a left and a right version of the bone, they can be moved in tandem.
Mouth Movement with Position
With the new mouth bones, I’ve found position to be far more helpful than rotation. Switch your transform mode to position, zoom way in, and lift those lip corners, or shift them in or out.
Here's the expression we just made from a blank face!
Adjust Some Settings
Consider adjusting your settings so that the bones and their connecting lines fade or disappear while you’re mid-movement, so you can see things more clearly. Some folks don't want to dabble in settings at all, which is fine!! But if you have the time and inclination, try it out!
Try Bone Offsetting
This is a lifesaver. You can adjust the position of each dot, for a more clear view of them. This takes some time and patience, but I found it to be worth it because I'm always on that damn gpose.
ESPECIALLY useful for the eyes, where the bones’ default state is stacked on top of each other. I’ve also adjusted the abdomen/waist/lumbar area and viera ear bones to my taste.
Bone Offsets only affect the specific race and gender you adjust them on. Here you can see the pile of dots on the unadjusted fem miqo's eyes, and then the fem viera's bone dots spread out to more legible placements.
Hopefully this was somewhat helpful! Feel free to shoot questions my way anytime! 💗
Since I can't hope to GPOSE again until at least Friday I'm going to show everyone my "super top-secret really great lighting portraits" that take 10-20 minutes. (depends on the pose really)
This is made with the intent for you to try this with your own characters as many times as you want as often as you want.
DO IT!
Step 1 - Have a character that can access the Malestrom Barracks in Limsa Lominsa. If you are using CRIMES it can be any character then you may load in the one you need. I have Durafein enlisted in Malestrom for this reason!
Step 2 - stand here.
Note: If your squad is meandering around just make sure you hide them with the gpose character display settings. Sometimes one of them will take your precious real estate!
Step 3 - Ensure it's daytime so the light is shining through. The best light imho is around 6am Eorzean time. But any daytime works well for this. If you're not using CRIMES you may have to stand around and wait. It's worth it though!
Step 4 - When the light is right strike a pose and get into gpose!
Note: If you're in vanilla make SURE you have "stop time/weather" checked or you may have a bad time! You can do that by hitting the 5th icon on the right at the top of your gpose window. It should have an image of a clock and a sun with a lock beneath them.
Step 5 - Zoom in and rotate 90 degrees or so! Sometimes I do 120 but you get the idea. I usually refine this a bit with the CRIMES camera.
Ta-da! You have a super fast portrait!
Notes:
You can get your character to look at the camera by selecting the "Track Camera" (second eyeball icon) under "Motion Settings" (which is the walking icon just beneath lighting settings)
I literally don't touch the gpose lighting settings for these because they're meant to be fast.
I refine things in shaders but the above is just my usual "gameplay" shader so you can see what you get without drastic adjustments!
Here's the portrait I've done of Viedyn using this -
and Here's the portrait of Durafein!
I can't wait to see what you create!
Do you know about the "secret hair bones" in Anamnesis? Now you do!
I've been making some gpose guides lately, so here's one I feel like a lot of people don't know. Every in-game hairstyle has "bones" in the Matrix View option of the Pose tab. These are different from the main hair bones in the GUI view.
While frozen in gpose, go to the icon that looks like a box cut into 4 smaller boxes, which I've circled in red:
Under "Hair and Accessories", there will be a section that says "Unique." The number of bones (circles) will depend on the hairstyle you have. In my WoL's case, he has 4 unique hair bones with his style.
Play around with each one and see how it moves your character's hair! Wiggle them around with the XYZ axis orb and/or the scales with the plus and minus icons. You can use these bones to do things like giving your pose a "windswept" look:
I'm sure you've answered this before but I'm super curious if you might have a place you maybe share tips for post processing gposes?
Heya! Actually never recieved ny questions about it lol
I never really made a guide/tutorial of how I edit bcs I just use knowledge/process that I also apllied on digital illustration (it's been a year that i dont draw anymore but for around 6 years I made freelancer work and even more time just as a hobbie!) this also helps with compositions and colors sometimes!
Ok, so. My use of post process will depend on the pic mostly! Sometimes I'll do more and others i'll do less. I can show some pics with no post (gshade only) & with post, and explain a little.. dunno if it will be useful tho!
This one my main nitpick was with the polygons sticking out, as the 3D models are not 100% smooth, and with the way I pose they can get worse sometimesl ol take a look specially on the arms/forearms, blonde's dress on shoulders.. I also corrected the light and small bits of shadows on the bun's face with blend tool. Eyes highlights and little dot at the blonde's mouth corner
Here I too mostly worked on smoothing the face shadows as they had no transition and that bothered me. Also the top left lip corner had a weird shadow bcs of the weird posing that I fixed (sometimes if better to fix this kind o ting on post then fight with the model in game bcs that can become frustrating!) The smoke and pacticles effect was with StageDepth.fx on gshade!
This one was mostly face light reflections (specially blonde's face and eyes! And her glove too, forgot that) and miqo's mouth/cheeck corner was too harh so I smoothed a little! Obviusly the tube effect, and I think some more light reflections, like miqo's vest lapel and tie. The blu light effect was achieved with ktisis light actor and the red was from the in game cauldron. The light depth and contrast was achieved using RTGI.fx from MartysMods iMMERSE pack!
Here was more fx like the dus and movement blur. Ronka's face (eyes and inner of mouth that had shadows) And characters face shadows that were too light! In the first, the bike mount was with movement enabled so it already had a little ground dust!
This one had basically just the spell effects and better blur on bg. The face was only frown lines under the inner eye corner!
Some other pics I didn't use post at all, not even for color correction, like tose down here
This ^ one I only did color correction for the white sky light that was too f strong lol the leaves are stage depth too!
Hi! I saw your recent Solus post and was wondering how you gained access to the Garlean Throneroom? I assume it's a mod, but I'd be grateful if you could share how you did it :) thank you!
First off, credit where credit is due. This was shown to me by my friend @sirensongsea and I'm forever grateful since I'm not joking, that photoset is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time.
While you will need posing tools such as Ktisis, Brio or Anamnesis to manipulate the actors and camera to place in the correct room, actually getting INTO the instance where the throne room is located is actually vanilla!
The bad news? It's going to take a New Game+ slot and you're going to have to play through almost all of 5.1 again. The good news? Once you do, if you fail the instance and suspend your NG+, you can return at any time for your posing purposes.
First off, load NG+ at Shadowbringers Part 3 (patch 5.1). You're going to have to play through the majority of it, including doing Grand Cosmos again, but doing the dungeon unsync'd at level 100 and skipping all the cutscenes, it took me about a half hour-45 minutes. Near the end, when you talk to Tataru in the Rising Stones, you'll have the instance where you play as Estinien escaping the palace with Gaius.
When you load into the instance, clear out the first two waves of enemies, until Gaius runs ahead down the hall. NOW you are free to begin posing. Head back where you came from until you hit the barrier and enter gpose.
With your posing tool of choice, move the camera and actors to the following coordinates:
X: -0.085 Y: 0.014 Z: -10.590
(Your mileage may vary if it's exact, but this will at least get your camera close. You might have to do some adjusting. The important thing is, you're going to have to move your camera out of bounds to find the room.)
You will have to place any actors you spawn at, or near that location for the throne room.
Now, there is a timer for the instance, 30 minutes. That might SEEM like long time but it goes QUICK if you're doing a lot of posing. My suggestion is that before you even enter the instance, you save any actor appearances and plan and save your poses beforehand for quick posing. That photoset I did of Solus and Aulus nearly took all the time, even after saving appearances/poses.
Once you're done with your posing, fail or time out of the instance. Do NOT complete the instance if you intend on suspending your NG+ save so you can return for more posing.
Thank you for your message and anyone is free to send me questions about how I did something. I don't believe in gatekeeping tips like these and think everyone should have a shot at it!
